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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Aunt Deborah, by Mary Russell Mitford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Aunt Deborah
+
+Author: Mary Russell Mitford
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22843]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUNT DEBORAH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+AUNT DEBORAH.
+
+By Mary Russell Mitford
+
+
+A crosser old woman than Mrs. Deborah Thornby was certainly not to be
+found in the whole village of Hilton. Worth, in country phrase, a power
+of money, and living (to borrow another rustic expression) upon her
+means, the exercise of her extraordinary faculty for grumbling and
+scolding seemed the sole occupation of her existence, her only pursuit,
+solace, and amusement; and really it would have been a great pity to
+have deprived the poor woman of a pastime so consolatory to herself, and
+which did harm to nobody: her family consisting only of an old labourer,
+to guard the house, take care of her horse, her cow, and her chaise and
+cart, and work in the garden, who was happily, for his comfort, stone
+deaf, and could not hear her vituperation, and of a parish girl of
+twelve, to do the indoor work, who had been so used to be scolded all
+her life, that she minded the noise no more than a miller minds the
+clack of his mill, or than people who live in a churchyard mind the
+sound of the church bells, and would probably, from long habit, have
+felt some miss of the sound had it ceased, of which, by the way, there
+was small danger, so long as Mrs. Deborah continued in this life. Her
+crossness was so far innocent that it hurt nobody except herself. But
+she was also cross-grained, and that evil quality is unluckily apt to
+injure other people; and did so very materially in the present instance.
+
+Mrs. Deborah was the only daughter of old Simon Thornby, of Chalcott
+great farm; she had had one brother, who having married the rosy-cheeked
+daughter of the parish clerk, a girl with no portion except her modesty,
+her good-nature, and her prettiness, had been discarded by his father,
+and after trying various ways to gain a living, and failing in all, had
+finally died broken-hearted, leaving the unfortunate clerk's daughter,
+rosy-cheeked no longer, and one little boy, to the tender mercy of his
+family. Old Simon showed none. He drove his son's widow from the door as
+he had before driven off his son; and when he also died, an event
+which occurred within a year or two, bequeathed all his property to his
+daughter Deborah.
+
+This bequest was exceedingly agreeable to Mrs. Deborah, (for she was
+already of an age to assume that title,) who valued money, not certainly
+for the comforts and luxuries which it may be the means of procuring,
+nor even for its own sake, as the phrase goes, but for that which, to
+a woman of her temper, was perhaps the highest that she was capable of
+enjoying, the power which wealth confers over all who are connected with
+or dependent on its possessor.
+
+The principal subjects of her despotic dominion were the young widow and
+her boy, whom she placed in a cottage near her own house, and with whose
+comfort and happiness she dallied pretty much as a cat plays with the
+mouse which she has got into her clutches, and lets go only to catch
+again, or an angler with the trout which he has fairly hooked, and
+merely suffers to struggle in the stream until it is sufficiently
+exhausted to bring to land. She did not mean to be cruel, but she could
+not help it; so her poor mice were mocked with the semblance of liberty,
+although surrounded by restraints; and the awful paw seemingly sheathed
+in velvet, whilst they were in reality never out of reach of the horrors
+of the pat.
+
+It sometimes, however, happens that the little mouse makes her escape
+from madam pussy at the very moment when she seems to have the unlucky
+trembler actually within her claws; and so it occurred in the present
+instance.
+
+The dwelling to which Mrs. Deborah retired after the death of her
+father, was exceedingly romantic and beautiful in point of situation. It
+was a small but picturesque farm-house, on the very banks of the Loddon,
+a small branch of which, diverging from the parent stream, and crossed
+by a pretty footbridge, swept round the homestead, the orchard
+and garden, and went winding along the water meadows in a thousand
+glittering meanders, until it was lost in the rich woodlands which
+formed the back-ground of the picture. In the month of May, when the
+orchard was full of its rosy and pearly blossoms, a forest of lovely
+bloom, the meadows yellow with cowslips, and the clear brimming river,
+bordered by the golden tufts of the water ranunculus, and garlanded by
+the snowy flowers of the hawthorn and the wild cherry, the thin wreath
+of smoke curling from the tall, old-fashioned chimneys of the pretty
+irregular building, with its porch, and its baywindows, and gable-ends
+full of light and shadow,--in that month of beauty it would be difficult
+to imagine a more beautiful or a more English landscape.
+
+On the other side of the narrow winding road, parted from Mrs. Deborah's
+demesne by a long low bridge of many arches, stood a little rustic mill,
+and its small low-browed cottage, with its own varied back-ground of
+garden and fruit trees and thickly wooded meadows, extending in long
+perspective, a smiling verdant valley of many miles.
+
+Now Chalcott mill, reckoned by everybody else the prettiest point in her
+prospect, was to Mrs. Deborah not merely an eye-sore, but a heart-sore,
+not on its own account; cantankerous as she was, she had no quarrel with
+the innocent buildings, but for the sake of its inhabitants.
+
+Honest John Stokes, the miller, was her cousin-german. People did say
+that some forty years before there had been question of a marriage
+between the parlies; and really they both denied the thing with so much
+vehemence and fury, that one should almost be tempted to believe there
+was some truth in the report. Certain it is, that if they had been that
+wretched thing a mismatched couple, and had gone on snarling together
+all their lives, they could not have hated each other more zealously.
+One shall not often meet with anything so perfect in its way as that
+aversion. It was none of your silent hatreds that never come to words;
+nor of your civil hatreds, that veil themselves under smooth phrases
+and smiling looks. Their ill-will was frank, open, and above-board. They
+could not afford to come to an absolute breach, because it would have
+deprived them of the pleasure of quarrelling; and in spite of the
+frequent complaints they were wont to make of their near neighbourhood,
+I am convinced that they derived no small gratification from the
+opportunities which it afforded them of saying disagreeable things to
+each other.
+
+And yet Mr. John Stokes was a well-meaning man, and Mrs. Deborah Thornby
+was not an ill-meaning woman. But she was, as I have said before, cross
+in the grain; and he--why he was one of those plain-dealing personages
+who will speak their whole mind, and who pique themselves upon that sort
+of sincerity which is comprised in telling to another all the ill
+that they have ever heard, or thought, or imagined concerning him,
+in repeating, as if it were a point of duty, all the harm that one
+neighbour says of another, and in denouncing, as if it were a sin,
+whatever the unlucky person whom they address may happen to do, or to
+leave undone.
+
+"I am none of your palavering chaps, to flummer over an old vixen for
+the sake of her strong-box. I hate such falseness. I speak the truth and
+care for no man," quoth John Stokes.
+
+And accordingly John Stokes never saw Mrs. Deborah Thornby but he
+saluted her, pretty much as his mastiff accosted her favourite cat;
+erected his bristles, looked at her with savage bloodshot eyes, showed
+his teeth, and vented a sound something between a snarl and a growl;
+whilst she, (like the fourfooted tabby,) set up her back and spit at him
+in return.
+
+They met often, as I have said, for the enjoyment of quarrelling; and as
+whatever he advised she was pretty sure _not_ to do, it is probable
+that his remonstrances in favour of her friendless relations served to
+confirm her in the small tyranny which she exercised towards them.
+
+Such being the state of feeling between these two jangling cousins, it
+may be imagined with what indignation Mrs. Deborah found John Stokes,
+upon the death of his wife, removing her widowed sister-in-law from the
+cottage in which she had placed her, and bringing her home to the mill,
+to officiate as his housekeeper, and take charge of a lovely little
+girl, his only child. She vowed one of those vows of anger which I fear
+are oftener kept than the vows of love, to strike both mother and son
+out of her will, (by the way, she had a superstitious horror of that
+disagreeable ceremony, and even the temptation of choosing new legatees
+whenever the old displeased her, had not been sufficient to induce her
+to make one,--the threat did as well,) and never to speak to either of
+them again as long as she lived.
+
+She proclaimed this resolution at the rate of twelve times an hour,
+(that is to say, once in five minutes,) every day for a fortnight; and
+in spite of her well-known caprice, there seemed for once in her life
+reason to believe that she would keep her word.
+
+Those prudent and sagacious persons who are so good as to take the
+superintendence of other people's affairs, and to tell by the look of
+the foot where the shoe pinches and where it does not, all united in
+blaming the poor widow for withdrawing herself and her son from Mrs.
+Deborah's protection. But besides that no human being can adequately
+estimate the misery of leading a life of dependence upon one to whom
+scolding was as the air she breathed, without it she must die, a
+penurious dependence too, which supplied grudgingly the humblest wants,
+and yet would not permit the exertions by which she would joyfully have
+endeavoured to support herself;--besides the temptation to exchange Mrs.
+Deborah's incessant maundering for the Miller's rough kindness, and her
+scanty fare for the coarse plenty of his board,--besides these homely
+but natural temptations--hardly to be adequately allowed for by those
+who have passed their lives amidst smiling kindness and luxurious
+abundance; besides these motives she had a stronger and dearer in her
+desire to rescue her boy from the dangers of an enforced and miserable
+idleness, and to put him in the way of earning his bread by honest
+industry.
+
+Through the interest of his grandfather the parish clerk, the little
+Edward had been early placed in the Hilton free school, where he had
+acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of the master, that
+at twelve years old he was the head boy on the foundation, and took
+precedence of the other nine-and-twenty wearers of the full-skirted
+blue coats, leathern belts, and tasseled caps, in the various arts of
+reading, writing, cyphering, and mensuration. He could flourish a swan
+without ever taking his pen from the paper. Nay, there is little doubt
+but from long habit he could have flourished it blindfold, like the
+man who had so often modelled the wit of Ferney in breadcrumbs, that he
+could produce little busts of Voltaire with his hands under the table;
+he had not his equal in Practice or the Rule of Three, and his piece,
+when sent round at Christmas, was the admiration of the whole parish.
+
+Unfortunately, his arrival at this pre-eminence was also the signal of
+his dismissal from the free school. He returned home to his mother,
+and as Mrs. Deborah, although hourly complaining of the expense of
+supporting a great lubberly boy in idleness, refused to appentice him to
+any trade, and even forbade his finding employment in helping her deaf
+man of all work to cultivate her garden, which the poor lad, naturally
+industrious and active, begged her permission to do, his mother,
+considering that no uncertain expectations of money at the death of his
+kinswoman could counterbalance the certain evil of dragging on his days
+in penury and indolence during her life, wisely determined to betake
+herself to the mill, and accept John Stokes's offer of sending Edward
+to a friend in town, for the purpose of being placed with a civil
+engineer:--a destination with which the boy himself--a fine intelligent
+youth, by the way, tall and manly, with black eyes that talked and
+laughed, and curling dark hair,--was delighted in every point of view.
+He longed for a profession for which he had a decided turn; he longed
+to see the world as personified by the city of cities, the unparagoned
+London; and he longed more than either to get away from Aunt Deborah,
+the storm of whose vituperation seemed ringing in his ears so long as he
+continued within sight of her dwelling. One would think the clack of the
+mill and the prattle of his pretty cousin Cicely might have drowned
+it, but it did not. Nothing short of leaving the spinster fifty miles
+behind, and setting the great city between him and her, could efface the
+impression.
+
+"I hope I am not ungrateful," thought Edward to himself, as he was
+trudging London-ward after taking a tender leave of all at the mill; "I
+hope I am not ungrateful. I do not think I am, for I would give my right
+arm, ay, or my life, if it would serve master John Stokes or please dear
+Cissy. But really I do hope never to come within hearing of Aunt Deborah
+again, she storms so. I wonder whether all old women are so cross. I
+don't think my mother will be, nor Cissy. I am sure Cissy won't. Poor
+Aunt Deborah! I suppose she can't help it." And with this indulgent
+conclusion, Edward wended on his way.
+
+Aunt Deborah's mood was by no means so pacific. She staid at home
+fretting, fuming, and chafing, and storming herself hoarse--which, as
+the people at the mill took care to keep out of earshot, was all so much
+good scolding thrown away. The state of things since Edward's departure
+had been so decisive, that even John Stokes thought it wiser to keep
+himself aloof for a time; and although they pretty well guessed that she
+would take measures to put in effect her threat of disinheritance, the
+first outward demonstration came in the shape of a young man (gentleman
+I suppose he called himself--ay, there is no doubt but he wrote himself
+Esquire) who attended her to church a few Sundays after, and was
+admitted to the honour of sitting in the same pew.
+
+Nothing could be more unlike our friend Edward than the stranger.
+Fair, freckled, light-haired, light-eyed, with invisible eye-brows and
+eye-lashes, insignificant in feature, pert and perking in expression,
+and in figure so dwarfed and stunted, that though in point of age he had
+evidently attained his full growth, (if one may use the expression to
+such a he-doll,) Robert at fifteen would have made two of him,--such was
+the new favourite. So far as appearance went, for certain Mrs. Deborah
+had not changed for the better.
+
+Gradually it oozed out, as, somehow or other, news, like water, will
+find a vent, however small the cranny,--by slow degrees it came to
+be understood that Mrs. Deborah's visiter was a certain Mr. Adolphus
+Lynfield, clerk to an attorney of no great note in the good town of
+Belford Regis, and nearly related, as he affirmed, to the Thornby
+family.
+
+Upon hearing these tidings, John Stokes, the son of old Simon Thornly's
+sister, marched across the road, and finding the door upon the latch,
+entered unannounced into the presence of his enemy.
+
+"I think it my duty to let you know, cousin Deborah, that this
+here chap's an impostor--a sham--and that you are a fool," was his
+conciliatory opening. "Search the register. The Thornlys have been
+yeomen of this parish ever since the time of Elizabeth--more shame to
+you for forcing the last of the race to seek his bread elsewhere; and if
+you can find such a name as Lynfield amongst 'em, I'll give you leave
+to turn me into a pettifogging lawyer--that's all. Saunderses, and
+Symondses, and Stokeses, and Mays, you'll find in plenty, but never
+a Lynfield. Lynfield, quotha! it sounds like a made-up name in a
+story-book! And as for 'Dolphus, why there never was anything like it in
+all the generation, except my good old great aunt Dolly, and that stood
+for Dorothy. All our names have been christian-like and English, Toms,
+and Jacks, and Jems, and Bills, and Sims, and Neds--poor fellow! None of
+your outlandish 'Dolphuses. Dang it, I believe the foolish woman likes
+the chap the better for having a name she can't speak! Remember, I warn
+you he's a sham!" And off strode the honest miller, leaving Mrs.
+Deborah too angry for reply, and confirmed both in her prejudice and
+prepossession by the natural effect of that spirit of contradiction
+which formed so large an ingredient in her composition, and was not
+wholly wanting in that of John Stokes.
+
+Years passed away, and in spite of frequent ebbs and flows, the tide of
+Mrs. Deborah's favour continued to set towards Mr. Adolphus Lynfield.
+Once or twice indeed, report had said that he was fairly discarded,
+but the very appearance of the good miller, anxious to improve the
+opportunity for his protégé, had been sufficient to determine his cousin
+to reinstate Mr. Adolphus in her good graces. Whether she really liked
+him is doubtful. He entertained too good an opinion of himself to be
+very successful in gaining that of other people.
+
+That the gentleman was not deficient in "left-handed wisdom," was
+proved pretty clearly by most of his actions; for instance, when routed
+by the downright miller from the position which he had taken up of a
+near kinsman by the father's side, he, like an able tactician, wheeled
+about and called cousins with Mrs. Deborah's mother; and as that good
+lady happened to have borne the very general, almost universal, name of
+Smith, which is next to anonymous, even John Stokes could not dislodge
+him from that entrenchment. But he was not always so dexterous. Cunning
+in him lacked the crowning perfection of hiding itself under the
+appearance of honesty. His art never looked like nature. It stared
+you in the face, and could not deceive the dullest observer. His very
+flattery had a tone of falseness that affronted the person flattered;
+and Mrs. Deborah, in particular, who did not want for shrewdness, found
+it so distasteful, that she would certainly have discarded him upon
+that one ground of offence, had not her love of power been unconsciously
+propitiated by the perception of the efforts which he made, and the
+degradation to which he submitted, in the vain attempt to please her.
+She liked the homage offered to "_les beaux yeux de sa cassette_" pretty
+much as a young beauty likes the devotion extorted by her charms, and
+for the sake of the incense tolerated the worshipper.
+
+Nevertheless there were moments when the conceit which I have mentioned
+as the leading characteristic of Mr. Adolphus Lynfield had well nigh
+banished him from Chalcott. Piquing himself on the variety and extent
+of his knowledge, the universality of his genius, he of course paid
+the penalty of other universal geniuses, by being in no small degree
+superficial. Not content with understanding every trade better than
+those who had followed it all their lives, he had a most unlucky
+propensity to put his devices into execution, and as his information
+was, for the most part, picked up from the column headed "varieties,"
+in the county newspaper, where of course there is some chaff mingled
+with the grain, and as the figments in question were generally ill
+understood and imperfectly recollected, it is really surprising that the
+young gentleman did not occasion more mischief than actually occurred by
+the quips and quiddities which he delighted to put in practice whenever
+he met with any one simple enough to permit the exercise of his talents.
+
+Some damage he did effect by his experiments, as Mrs. Deborah found to
+her cost. He killed a bed of old-fashioned spice cloves, the pride of
+her heart, by salting the ground to get rid of the worms. Her broods of
+geese also, and of turkeys, fell victims to a new and infallible mode of
+feeding, which was to make them twice as fat in half the time. Somehow
+or other, they all died under the operation. So did half a score of fine
+apple-trees, under an improved method of grafting; whilst a magnificent
+brown Bury pear, that covered one end of the house, perished of the
+grand discovery of severing the bark to increase the crop. He lamed Mrs.
+Deborah's old horse by doctoring him for a prick in shoeing, and ruined
+her favourite cow, the best milch cow in the county, by a most needless
+attempt to increase her milk.
+
+Now these mischances and misdemeanors, ay, or the half of them, would
+undoubtedly have occasioned Mr. Adolphus's dismission, and the recall of
+poor Edward, every account of whom was in the highest degree favourable,
+had the worthy miller been able to refrain from lecturing his cousin
+upon her neglect of the one, and her partiality for the other. It was
+really astonishing that John Stokes, a man of sagacity in all other
+respects, never could understand that scolding was of all devisable
+processes the least likely to succeed in carrying his point with one who
+was such a proficient in that accomplishment, that if the old penalty
+for female scolds, the ducking-stool, had continued in fashion, she
+would have stood an excellent chance of attaining to that distinction.
+But so it was. The same blood coursed through their veins, and his
+tempestuous good-will and her fiery anger took the same form of violence
+and passion.
+
+Nothing but these lectures _could_ have kept Mrs. Deborah constant in
+the train of such a trumpery, jiggetting, fidgetty little personage
+as Mr. Adolphus,--the more especially as her heart was assailed in its
+better and softer parts, by the quiet respectfulness of Mrs. Thornly's
+demeanour, who never forgot that she had experienced her protection
+in the hour of need, and by the irresistible good-nature of Cicely, a
+smiling, rosy, sunny-looking creature, whose only vocation in this world
+seemed to be the trying to make everybody as happy as herself.
+
+Mrs. Deborah (with such a humanising taste, she could not, in spite of
+her cantankerous temper, be all bad) loved flowers: and Cicely, a
+rover of the woods and fields from early childhood, and no despicable
+practical gardener, took care to keep her beaupots constantly supplied
+from the first snowdrop to the last china rose. Nothing was too large
+for Cicely's good-will, nothing too small. Huge chimney jars of lilacs,
+laburnums, horse-chestnuts, peonies, and the golden and gorgeous double
+furze; china jugs filled with magnificent double stocks, and rich
+wallflowers,* with their bitter-sweet odour, like the taste of orange
+marmalade, pinks, sweet-peas, and mignonette, from her own little
+garden, or woodland posies that might beseem the hand of the faerie
+queen, composed of those gems of flowers, the scarlet pimpernel, and the
+blue anagallis, the rosy star of the wild geranium, with its aromatic
+crimson-tipped leaves, the snowy star of the white ochil, and that third
+starry flower the yellow loose-strife, the milk vetch, purple, or pink,
+or cream coloured, backed by moss-like leaves and lilac blossoms of the
+lousewort, and overhung by the fragrant bells and cool green leaves of
+the lily of the valley.
+
+     * Few flowers, (and almost all look best when arranged each
+     sort in its separate vase,)--few look so well together as
+     the four sorts of double wallflowers. The common dark, (the
+     old bloody warrior)--I have a love for those graphic names--
+     words which paint the common dark, the common yellow, the
+     newer and more intensely coloured dark, and that new gold
+     colour still so rare, which is in tint, form, growth,
+     hardiness, and profusion, one of the most valuable
+     acquisitions to the flower garden. When placed together in
+     ajar, the brighter blossoms seem to stand out from those of
+     deeper hue, with exactly the sort of relief, the harmonious
+     combination of light and shade, that one sometimes sees in
+     the rich gilt carving of an old flower-wreathed picture-
+     frame, or, better still, it might seem a pot of flowers
+     chased in gold, by Benvenuto Cellini, in which the
+     workmanship outvalued the metal. Many beaupots are gayer,
+     many sweeter, but this is the richest, both for scent and
+     colour, that I have ever seen.
+
+It would puzzle a gardener to surpass the elegance and delicacy of such
+a nosegay.
+
+Offerings like these did our miller's maiden delight to bring at all
+seasons, and under all circumstances, whether of peace or war between
+the heads of the two opposite houses; and whenever there chanced to be a
+lull in the storm, she availed herself of the opportunity to add to her
+simple tribute a dish of eels from the mill-stream, or perch from the
+river. That the thought of Edward ("dear Edward," as she always called
+him,) might not add somewhat of alacrity to her attentions to his
+wayward aunt, I will not venture to deny, but she would have done the
+same if Edward had not been in existence, from the mere effect of her
+own peacemaking spirit, and a generosity of nature which found more
+pleasure in giving than in possessing. A sweet and happy creature was
+Cicely; it was difficult even for Mrs. Deborah to resist her gentle
+voice and artless smiles.
+
+Affairs were in this posture between the belligerents, sometimes war to
+the knife, sometimes a truce under favour of Cissy's white flag, when
+one October evening, John Stokes entered the dwelling of his kinswoman
+to inform her that Edward's apprenticeship had been some time at an end,
+that he had come of age about a month ago, and that his master, for whom
+he had continued to work, was so satisfied of his talents, industry, and
+integrity, that he had offered to take him into partnership for a sum
+incredibly moderate, considering the advantages which such a connexion
+would ensure.
+
+"You have more than the money wanted in the Belford Bank, money that
+ought to have been his," quoth John Stokes, "besides all your property
+in land and houses and the funds; and if you did advance this sum, which
+all the world knows is only a small part of what should have belonged to
+him in right of his father, it would be as safe as if it was in the Bank
+of England, and the interest paid half-yearly. You ought to give it
+him out and out; but of course you won't even lend it," pursued this
+judicious negotiator; "you keep all your money for that precious chap,
+Mr. 'Dolphus, to make ducks and drakes with after you are dead; a fine
+jig he'll dance over your grave. You know, I suppose, that we've got the
+fellow in a cleft stick about that petition the other day? He persuaded
+old Jacob, who's as deaf as a post, to put his mark to it, and when he
+was gone, Jacob came to me (I'm the only man in the parish who can make
+him hear) to ask what it was about. So upon my explaining the matter,
+Jacob found he had got into the wrong box. But as the chap had taken
+away his petition, and Jacob could not scratch out his name, what does
+he do but set his mark to ours o' t'other side; and we've wrote all
+about it to Sir Robert to explain to the Parliament, lest seeing Jacob's
+name both ways like, they should think 'twas he, poor fellow, that meant
+to humbug 'em. A pretty figure Mr. 'Dolphus 'll cut when the story comes
+to be told in the House of Commons! But that's not the worst. He took
+the petition to the workhouse, and meeting with little Fan Ropley, who
+had been taught to write at our charity-school, and is quick at her pen,
+he makes her sign her name at full length, and then strikes a dot over
+the _e_ to turn it into Francis, and persuade the great folk up at
+Lunnun, that little Fan's a grown-up man. If that chap won't come
+someday to be transported for forgery, my name's not John Stokes! Well,
+dame, will you let Ned have the money? Yes or no?"
+
+That Mrs. Deborah should have suffered the good miller to proceed with
+his harangue without interruption, can only be accounted for on the
+score of the loudness of tone on which he piqued himself with so much
+justice. When she did take up the word, her reply made up in volubility
+and virulence for any deficiency in sound, concluding by a formal
+renunciation of her nephew, and a command to his zealous advocate never
+again to appear within her doors. Upon which, honest John vowed he never
+would, and departed.
+
+Two or three days after this quarrel, Mr. Adolphus having arrived,
+as happened not un-frequently, to spend the afternoon at Chalcott,
+persuaded his hostess to accompany him to see a pond drawn at the Hall,
+to which, as the daughter of one of Sir Robert's old tenants, she would
+undoubtedly have the right of _entrée_; and Mrs. Deborah assented to his
+request, partly because the weather was fine, and the distance short,
+partly, it may be, from a lurking desire to take her chance as a
+bystander of a dish of fish; they who need such windfalls least, being
+commonly those who are most desirous to put themselves in their way.
+
+Mr. Adolphus Lynfield's reasons were obvious enough. Besides the _ennui_
+of a tête-a-tête, all flattery on one side and contradiction on the
+other, he was naturally of the fidgetty restless temperament which hates
+to be long confined to one place or one occupation, and can never
+hear of a gathering of people, whatever might be the occasion, without
+longing to find himself amongst them.
+
+Moreover, he had, or professed to have, a passion for field sports of
+every description; and having that very season contrived, with his usual
+curious infelicity, to get into as many scrapes in shooting as shall
+last most sportsmen their whole lives--having shot a spaniel instead of
+a hare, a keeper instead of a partridge, and his own foot instead of
+a pheasant, and finally, having been taken up for a poacher, although
+wholly innocent of the death of any bird that ever wore feathers,--after
+all these woeful experiences, (to say nothing of mischances in angling
+which might put to shame those of our friend Mr. Thompson,) he found
+himself particularly well disposed to a diversion which appeared to
+combine in most choice union the appearance of sporting, which he
+considered essential to his reputation, with a most happy exemption from
+the usual sporting requisites, exertion or skill. All that he would
+have to do would be to look on and talk,--to throw out a hint here and
+a suggestion there, and find fault with everything and everybody, like a
+man who understood what was going forward.
+
+The weather was most propitious; a bright breezy sunny October day, with
+light snowy clouds, chased by a keen crisp wind across the deep
+blue heavens,--and the beautiful park, the turf of an emerald green,
+contrasting with the brown fern and tawny woods, rivalling in richness
+and brightness the vivid hues of the autumnal sky. Nothing could
+exceed the gorgeous tinting of the magnificent trees, which, whether in
+detached clumps or forest-like masses, formed the pride and glory of
+the place. The oak still retaining its dark and heavy verdure; the elm
+letting fall a shower of yellow leaves, that tinged the ground beneath;
+the deep orange of the horse-chestnut, the beech varying from ruddy gold
+to greenish brown; and above all, the shining green of the holly, and
+the rich purplish red of the old thorns, those hoary thorns, the growth
+of centuries, gave to this old English gentleman's seat much of the
+variety and beauty of the American backwoods. The house, a stately
+ancient mansion, from the porch of which you might expect to see Sir
+Roger de Coverley issue, stood half-way up a gentle hill, finely backed
+by woods of great extent; and the pond, which was the object of the
+visit, was within sight of the windows, but so skilfully veiled by
+trees, as to appear of much greater extent than it really was. The
+master and mistress of the Hall, with their pretty daughters, were
+absent on a tour:--Is any English country family ever at home in the
+month of October in these days of fashionable enterprise? They were gone
+to visit the temples of Thebes, or the ruins of Carthage, the Fountains
+of the Nile or the Falls of Niagara, St. Sophia, or the Kremlin, or some
+such pretty little excursion, which ladies and gentlemen now talk of as
+familiarly "as maids of puppy dogs." They were away. But enough of
+the household remained at Chalcott, to compose, with a few visiters, a
+sufficiently numerous and animated group.
+
+The first person whom Mrs. Deborah espied, (and it is remarkable that we
+always see first those whom we had rather not see at all,) was her old
+enemy the miller,--a fisherman of so much experience and celebrity, that
+his presence might have been reckoned upon as certain--busily engaged,
+together with some half-dozen stout and active coadjutors, in dragging
+the net ashore, amidst a chorus of exclamations and cautions from the
+various assistants, and the breathless expectation of the spectators on
+the bank, amongst whom were Mrs. Thornly and Cicely, accompanied by a
+tall, athletic young man of dark complexion, with peculiarly bright eyes
+and curling hair, whom his aunt immediately recognised as Edward.
+
+"How improved he is!" was the thought that flashed across her mind, as
+with an air of respectful alacrity he stepped forward to meet her; but
+the miller, in tugging at his nets, happened to look towards them, and
+ashamed that he of all men should see her change of feeling, she turned
+away abruptly, without acknowledging his salutation, and walked off to
+the other side with her attendant, Mr. Adolphus.
+
+"Drat the perverse old jade!" exclaimed John Stokes, involuntarily, as
+he gave a mighty tug, which brought half the net ashore.
+
+"She's heavy, my good sir!" observed the pompous butler, conceiving that
+the honest miller's exclamation had reference to the sport; "only see
+how full she is! We shall have a magnificent hawl!"
+
+And the spectators, male and female, crowded round, and the fishermen
+exerted themselves so efficiently, that in two minutes the net was on
+dry land.
+
+"Nothing but weeds and rubbish!" ejaculated the disappointed butler, a
+peculiarly blank look taking the place of his usual self-importance.
+"What can have become of the fish?"
+
+"The net has been improperly drawn," observed Mr. Adolphus; "I myself
+saw four or five large carp just before it was dragged ashore!"
+
+"Better fling you in, master 'Dolphus, by way of bait!" ejaculated our
+friend the miller; "I've seen jacks in this pond that would make no
+more bones of swallowing a leg or an arm of such an atomy as you, if
+they did not have a try at the whole body, than a shark would of bolting
+down Punch in the show; as to carp, everybody that ever fished a pond
+knows their tricks. Catch them in a net if you can. They swim round and
+round, just to let you look at 'em, and then they drop plump into the
+mud, and lie as still and as close as so many stones. But come, Mr.
+Tomkins," continued honest John, addressing the butler, "we'll try
+again. I'm minded that we shall have better luck this time. Here are
+some brave large tench, which never move till the water is disturbed; we
+shall have a good chance for them as well as for the jacks. Now, steady
+there, you in the boat Throw her in, boys, and mind you don't draw too
+fast!" So to work they all went again.
+
+All was proceeding prosperously, and the net, evidently well filled with
+fish, was dragging slowly to land, when John Stokes shouted suddenly
+from the other side of the pond--"Dang it, if that unlucky chap, master
+'Dolphus there, has not got hold of the top of the net! He'll pull it
+over. See, that great jack has got out already. Take the net from him,
+Tom! He'll let all the fish loose, and tumble in himself, and the water
+at that part is deep enough to drown twenty such mannikins. Not that I
+think drowning likely to be his fate--witness that petition business,"
+muttered John to himself in a sort of parenthesis. "Let go, I say, or
+you will be in. Let go, can't ye?" added he, in his loudest tone.
+
+And with the word, Mr. Adolphus, still struggling to retain his hold of
+the net, lost his balance and fell in, and catching at the person next
+him, who happened to be Mrs. Deborah, with the hope of saving himself,
+dragged her in after him.
+
+Both sank, and amidst the confusion that ensued, the shrieks and sobs
+of the women, the oaths and exclamations of the men, the danger was
+so imminent that both might have been drowned, had not Edward Thornly,
+hastily flinging off his coat and hat, plunged in and rescued Mrs.
+Deborah, whilst good John Stokes, running round the head of the pond as
+nimbly as a boy, did the same kind office for his prime aversion, the
+attorney's clerk. What a sound kernel is sometimes hidden under a rough
+and rugged rind!
+
+Mr. Adolphus, more frightened than hurt, and with so much of the
+conceit washed out of him by his involuntary cold bath, that it might be
+accounted one of the most fortunate accidents in his life, was conveyed
+to the Hall; but her own house being almost equally near, Mrs. Deborah
+was at once taken home, and put comfortably to bed in her own chamber.
+
+About two hours afterwards, the whole of the miller's family, Mrs.
+Thornly still pallid and trembling, Cicely smiling through her tears,
+and her father as blunt and freespoken as ever, were assembled round the
+homely couch of their maiden cousin.
+
+"I tell you I must have the lawyer fetched directly. I can't sleep till
+I have made my will;" said Mrs. Deborah.
+
+"Better not," responded John Stokes; "you'll want it altered
+to-morrow."
+
+"What's that you say, cousin John?" inquired the spinster.
+
+"That if you make your will to night, you'll change your mind
+to-morrow," reiterated John Stokes. "Ned's going to be married to my
+Cicely," added he, "and that you mayn't like, or if you did like it
+this week, you might not like it next So you'd better let matters rest
+as they are."
+
+"You're a provoking man, John Stokes," said his cousin--"a very
+provoking, obstinate man. But I'll convince you for once. Take that key,
+Mrs. Thornly," quoth she, raising herself in bed, and fumbling in an
+immense pair of pockets for a small old-fashioned key, "and open the
+'scrutoire, and give me the pen and ink, and the old narrow brown book,
+that you'll find at the top. Not like his marrying Cicely! Why I always
+have loved that child--don't cry, Cissy!--and have always had cause, for
+she has been a kind little creature to me. Those dahlias came from her,
+and the sweet posy," pursued Mrs. Deborah, pointing to a nosegay of
+autumn flowers, the old fragrant monthly rose, mignionette, heliotrope,
+cloves, and jessamine, which stood by the bedside. "Ay, that's the book,
+Mrs. Thornly; and there, Cissy," continued Aunt Deborah, filling up the
+check, with a sum far larger than that required for the partnership--
+"there, Cissy, is your marriage portion. Don't cry so, child!" said she,
+as the affectionate girl hung round her neck in a passion of grateful
+tears--"don't cry, but find out Edward, and send for the lawyer, for I'm
+determined to settle my affairs to night And now, John Stokes, I know
+I've been a cross old woman, but...."
+
+"Cousin Deborah," interrupted John, seizing her withered hand with a
+gripe like a smith's vice,--"Cousin Deborah, thou hast acted nobly,
+and I beg thy pardon once for all. God bless thee!--Dang it," added the
+honest miller to himself, "I do verily believe that this squabbling has
+been mainly my fault, and that if I had not been so provoking she would
+not have been so contrary. Well, she has made us all happy, and we must
+try to make her happy in return. If we did not, we should deserve to be
+soused in the fish-pond along with that unhappy chap, Master 'Dolphus.
+For my part," continued the good yeoman, forming with great earnestness
+a solemn resolution--"for my part, I've fully made up my mind never
+to contradict her again, say what she will. No, not if she says black's
+white! It's contradiction that makes women contrary; it sets their backs
+up, like. I'll never contradict her again so long as my name's John
+Stokes."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Aunt Deborah, by Mary Russell Mitford
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+    <title>
+      Aunt Deborah, by Mary Russell Mitford
+    </title>
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Aunt Deborah, by Mary Russell Mitford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Aunt Deborah
+
+Author: Mary Russell Mitford
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22843]
+Last Updated: January 9, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUNT DEBORAH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      AUNT DEBORAH.
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Mary Russell Mitford
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A crosser old woman than Mrs. Deborah Thornby was certainly not to be
+      found in the whole village of Hilton. Worth, in country phrase, a power of
+      money, and living (to borrow another rustic expression) upon her means,
+      the exercise of her extraordinary faculty for grumbling and scolding
+      seemed the sole occupation of her existence, her only pursuit, solace, and
+      amusement; and really it would have been a great pity to have deprived the
+      poor woman of a pastime so consolatory to herself, and which did harm to
+      nobody: her family consisting only of an old labourer, to guard the house,
+      take care of her horse, her cow, and her chaise and cart, and work in the
+      garden, who was happily, for his comfort, stone deaf, and could not hear
+      her vituperation, and of a parish girl of twelve, to do the indoor work,
+      who had been so used to be scolded all her life, that she minded the noise
+      no more than a miller minds the clack of his mill, or than people who live
+      in a churchyard mind the sound of the church bells, and would probably,
+      from long habit, have felt some miss of the sound had it ceased, of which,
+      by the way, there was small danger, so long as Mrs. Deborah continued in
+      this life. Her crossness was so far innocent that it hurt nobody except
+      herself. But she was also cross-grained, and that evil quality is
+      unluckily apt to injure other people; and did so very materially in the
+      present instance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Deborah was the only daughter of old Simon Thornby, of Chalcott great
+      farm; she had had one brother, who having married the rosy-cheeked
+      daughter of the parish clerk, a girl with no portion except her modesty,
+      her good-nature, and her prettiness, had been discarded by his father, and
+      after trying various ways to gain a living, and failing in all, had
+      finally died broken-hearted, leaving the unfortunate clerk's daughter,
+      rosy-cheeked no longer, and one little boy, to the tender mercy of his
+      family. Old Simon showed none. He drove his son's widow from the door as
+      he had before driven off his son; and when he also died, an event which
+      occurred within a year or two, bequeathed all his property to his daughter
+      Deborah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This bequest was exceedingly agreeable to Mrs. Deborah, (for she was
+      already of an age to assume that title,) who valued money, not certainly
+      for the comforts and luxuries which it may be the means of procuring, nor
+      even for its own sake, as the phrase goes, but for that which, to a woman
+      of her temper, was perhaps the highest that she was capable of enjoying,
+      the power which wealth confers over all who are connected with or
+      dependent on its possessor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal subjects of her despotic dominion were the young widow and
+      her boy, whom she placed in a cottage near her own house, and with whose
+      comfort and happiness she dallied pretty much as a cat plays with the
+      mouse which she has got into her clutches, and lets go only to catch
+      again, or an angler with the trout which he has fairly hooked, and merely
+      suffers to struggle in the stream until it is sufficiently exhausted to
+      bring to land. She did not mean to be cruel, but she could not help it; so
+      her poor mice were mocked with the semblance of liberty, although
+      surrounded by restraints; and the awful paw seemingly sheathed in velvet,
+      whilst they were in reality never out of reach of the horrors of the pat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It sometimes, however, happens that the little mouse makes her escape from
+      madam pussy at the very moment when she seems to have the unlucky trembler
+      actually within her claws; and so it occurred in the present instance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwelling to which Mrs. Deborah retired after the death of her father,
+      was exceedingly romantic and beautiful in point of situation. It was a
+      small but picturesque farm-house, on the very banks of the Loddon, a small
+      branch of which, diverging from the parent stream, and crossed by a pretty
+      footbridge, swept round the homestead, the orchard and garden, and went
+      winding along the water meadows in a thousand glittering meanders, until
+      it was lost in the rich woodlands which formed the back-ground of the
+      picture. In the month of May, when the orchard was full of its rosy and
+      pearly blossoms, a forest of lovely bloom, the meadows yellow with
+      cowslips, and the clear brimming river, bordered by the golden tufts of
+      the water ranunculus, and garlanded by the snowy flowers of the hawthorn
+      and the wild cherry, the thin wreath of smoke curling from the tall,
+      old-fashioned chimneys of the pretty irregular building, with its porch,
+      and its baywindows, and gable-ends full of light and shadow,&mdash;in that
+      month of beauty it would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful or a
+      more English landscape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other side of the narrow winding road, parted from Mrs. Deborah's
+      demesne by a long low bridge of many arches, stood a little rustic mill,
+      and its small low-browed cottage, with its own varied back-ground of
+      garden and fruit trees and thickly wooded meadows, extending in long
+      perspective, a smiling verdant valley of many miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Chalcott mill, reckoned by everybody else the prettiest point in her
+      prospect, was to Mrs. Deborah not merely an eye-sore, but a heart-sore,
+      not on its own account; cantankerous as she was, she had no quarrel with
+      the innocent buildings, but for the sake of its inhabitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Honest John Stokes, the miller, was her cousin-german. People did say that
+      some forty years before there had been question of a marriage between the
+      parlies; and really they both denied the thing with so much vehemence and
+      fury, that one should almost be tempted to believe there was some truth in
+      the report. Certain it is, that if they had been that wretched thing a
+      mismatched couple, and had gone on snarling together all their lives, they
+      could not have hated each other more zealously. One shall not often meet
+      with anything so perfect in its way as that aversion. It was none of your
+      silent hatreds that never come to words; nor of your civil hatreds, that
+      veil themselves under smooth phrases and smiling looks. Their ill-will was
+      frank, open, and above-board. They could not afford to come to an absolute
+      breach, because it would have deprived them of the pleasure of
+      quarrelling; and in spite of the frequent complaints they were wont to
+      make of their near neighbourhood, I am convinced that they derived no
+      small gratification from the opportunities which it afforded them of
+      saying disagreeable things to each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet Mr. John Stokes was a well-meaning man, and Mrs. Deborah Thornby
+      was not an ill-meaning woman. But she was, as I have said before, cross in
+      the grain; and he&mdash;why he was one of those plain-dealing personages
+      who will speak their whole mind, and who pique themselves upon that sort
+      of sincerity which is comprised in telling to another all the ill that
+      they have ever heard, or thought, or imagined concerning him, in
+      repeating, as if it were a point of duty, all the harm that one neighbour
+      says of another, and in denouncing, as if it were a sin, whatever the
+      unlucky person whom they address may happen to do, or to leave undone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am none of your palavering chaps, to flummer over an old vixen for the
+      sake of her strong-box. I hate such falseness. I speak the truth and care
+      for no man," quoth John Stokes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And accordingly John Stokes never saw Mrs. Deborah Thornby but he saluted
+      her, pretty much as his mastiff accosted her favourite cat; erected his
+      bristles, looked at her with savage bloodshot eyes, showed his teeth, and
+      vented a sound something between a snarl and a growl; whilst she, (like
+      the fourfooted tabby,) set up her back and spit at him in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They met often, as I have said, for the enjoyment of quarrelling; and as
+      whatever he advised she was pretty sure <i>not</i> to do, it is probable
+      that his remonstrances in favour of her friendless relations served to
+      confirm her in the small tyranny which she exercised towards them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such being the state of feeling between these two jangling cousins, it may
+      be imagined with what indignation Mrs. Deborah found John Stokes, upon the
+      death of his wife, removing her widowed sister-in-law from the cottage in
+      which she had placed her, and bringing her home to the mill, to officiate
+      as his housekeeper, and take charge of a lovely little girl, his only
+      child. She vowed one of those vows of anger which I fear are oftener kept
+      than the vows of love, to strike both mother and son out of her will, (by
+      the way, she had a superstitious horror of that disagreeable ceremony, and
+      even the temptation of choosing new legatees whenever the old displeased
+      her, had not been sufficient to induce her to make one,&mdash;the threat
+      did as well,) and never to speak to either of them again as long as she
+      lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She proclaimed this resolution at the rate of twelve times an hour, (that
+      is to say, once in five minutes,) every day for a fortnight; and in spite
+      of her well-known caprice, there seemed for once in her life reason to
+      believe that she would keep her word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those prudent and sagacious persons who are so good as to take the
+      superintendence of other people's affairs, and to tell by the look of the
+      foot where the shoe pinches and where it does not, all united in blaming
+      the poor widow for withdrawing herself and her son from Mrs. Deborah's
+      protection. But besides that no human being can adequately estimate the
+      misery of leading a life of dependence upon one to whom scolding was as
+      the air she breathed, without it she must die, a penurious dependence too,
+      which supplied grudgingly the humblest wants, and yet would not permit the
+      exertions by which she would joyfully have endeavoured to support herself;&mdash;besides
+      the temptation to exchange Mrs. Deborah's incessant maundering for the
+      Miller's rough kindness, and her scanty fare for the coarse plenty of his
+      board,&mdash;besides these homely but natural temptations&mdash;hardly to
+      be adequately allowed for by those who have passed their lives amidst
+      smiling kindness and luxurious abundance; besides these motives she had a
+      stronger and dearer in her desire to rescue her boy from the dangers of an
+      enforced and miserable idleness, and to put him in the way of earning his
+      bread by honest industry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the interest of his grandfather the parish clerk, the little
+      Edward had been early placed in the Hilton free school, where he had
+      acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of the master, that at
+      twelve years old he was the head boy on the foundation, and took
+      precedence of the other nine-and-twenty wearers of the full-skirted blue
+      coats, leathern belts, and tasseled caps, in the various arts of reading,
+      writing, cyphering, and mensuration. He could flourish a swan without ever
+      taking his pen from the paper. Nay, there is little doubt but from long
+      habit he could have flourished it blindfold, like the man who had so often
+      modelled the wit of Ferney in breadcrumbs, that he could produce little
+      busts of Voltaire with his hands under the table; he had not his equal in
+      Practice or the Rule of Three, and his piece, when sent round at
+      Christmas, was the admiration of the whole parish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunately, his arrival at this pre-eminence was also the signal of his
+      dismissal from the free school. He returned home to his mother, and as
+      Mrs. Deborah, although hourly complaining of the expense of supporting a
+      great lubberly boy in idleness, refused to appentice him to any trade, and
+      even forbade his finding employment in helping her deaf man of all work to
+      cultivate her garden, which the poor lad, naturally industrious and
+      active, begged her permission to do, his mother, considering that no
+      uncertain expectations of money at the death of his kinswoman could
+      counterbalance the certain evil of dragging on his days in penury and
+      indolence during her life, wisely determined to betake herself to the
+      mill, and accept John Stokes's offer of sending Edward to a friend in
+      town, for the purpose of being placed with a civil engineer:&mdash;a
+      destination with which the boy himself&mdash;a fine intelligent youth, by
+      the way, tall and manly, with black eyes that talked and laughed, and
+      curling dark hair,&mdash;was delighted in every point of view. He longed
+      for a profession for which he had a decided turn; he longed to see the
+      world as personified by the city of cities, the unparagoned London; and he
+      longed more than either to get away from Aunt Deborah, the storm of whose
+      vituperation seemed ringing in his ears so long as he continued within
+      sight of her dwelling. One would think the clack of the mill and the
+      prattle of his pretty cousin Cicely might have drowned it, but it did not.
+      Nothing short of leaving the spinster fifty miles behind, and setting the
+      great city between him and her, could efface the impression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope I am not ungrateful," thought Edward to himself, as he was
+      trudging London-ward after taking a tender leave of all at the mill; "I
+      hope I am not ungrateful. I do not think I am, for I would give my right
+      arm, ay, or my life, if it would serve master John Stokes or please dear
+      Cissy. But really I do hope never to come within hearing of Aunt Deborah
+      again, she storms so. I wonder whether all old women are so cross. I don't
+      think my mother will be, nor Cissy. I am sure Cissy won't. Poor Aunt
+      Deborah! I suppose she can't help it." And with this indulgent conclusion,
+      Edward wended on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aunt Deborah's mood was by no means so pacific. She staid at home
+      fretting, fuming, and chafing, and storming herself hoarse&mdash;which, as
+      the people at the mill took care to keep out of earshot, was all so much
+      good scolding thrown away. The state of things since Edward's departure
+      had been so decisive, that even John Stokes thought it wiser to keep
+      himself aloof for a time; and although they pretty well guessed that she
+      would take measures to put in effect her threat of disinheritance, the
+      first outward demonstration came in the shape of a young man (gentleman I
+      suppose he called himself&mdash;ay, there is no doubt but he wrote himself
+      Esquire) who attended her to church a few Sundays after, and was admitted
+      to the honour of sitting in the same pew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing could be more unlike our friend Edward than the stranger. Fair,
+      freckled, light-haired, light-eyed, with invisible eye-brows and
+      eye-lashes, insignificant in feature, pert and perking in expression, and
+      in figure so dwarfed and stunted, that though in point of age he had
+      evidently attained his full growth, (if one may use the expression to such
+      a he-doll,) Robert at fifteen would have made two of him,&mdash;such was
+      the new favourite. So far as appearance went, for certain Mrs. Deborah had
+      not changed for the better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually it oozed out, as, somehow or other, news, like water, will find
+      a vent, however small the cranny,&mdash;by slow degrees it came to be
+      understood that Mrs. Deborah's visiter was a certain Mr. Adolphus
+      Lynfield, clerk to an attorney of no great note in the good town of
+      Belford Regis, and nearly related, as he affirmed, to the Thornby family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon hearing these tidings, John Stokes, the son of old Simon Thornly's
+      sister, marched across the road, and finding the door upon the latch,
+      entered unannounced into the presence of his enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it my duty to let you know, cousin Deborah, that this here chap's
+      an impostor&mdash;a sham&mdash;and that you are a fool," was his
+      conciliatory opening. "Search the register. The Thornlys have been yeomen
+      of this parish ever since the time of Elizabeth&mdash;more shame to you
+      for forcing the last of the race to seek his bread elsewhere; and if you
+      can find such a name as Lynfield amongst 'em, I'll give you leave to turn
+      me into a pettifogging lawyer&mdash;that's all. Saunderses, and Symondses,
+      and Stokeses, and Mays, you'll find in plenty, but never a Lynfield.
+      Lynfield, quotha! it sounds like a made-up name in a story-book! And as
+      for 'Dolphus, why there never was anything like it in all the generation,
+      except my good old great aunt Dolly, and that stood for Dorothy. All our
+      names have been christian-like and English, Toms, and Jacks, and Jems, and
+      Bills, and Sims, and Neds&mdash;poor fellow! None of your outlandish
+      'Dolphuses. Dang it, I believe the foolish woman likes the chap the better
+      for having a name she can't speak! Remember, I warn you he's a sham!" And
+      off strode the honest miller, leaving Mrs. Deborah too angry for reply,
+      and confirmed both in her prejudice and prepossession by the natural
+      effect of that spirit of contradiction which formed so large an ingredient
+      in her composition, and was not wholly wanting in that of John Stokes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Years passed away, and in spite of frequent ebbs and flows, the tide of
+      Mrs. Deborah's favour continued to set towards Mr. Adolphus Lynfield. Once
+      or twice indeed, report had said that he was fairly discarded, but the
+      very appearance of the good miller, anxious to improve the opportunity for
+      his protégé, had been sufficient to determine his cousin to reinstate Mr.
+      Adolphus in her good graces. Whether she really liked him is doubtful. He
+      entertained too good an opinion of himself to be very successful in
+      gaining that of other people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the gentleman was not deficient in "left-handed wisdom," was proved
+      pretty clearly by most of his actions; for instance, when routed by the
+      downright miller from the position which he had taken up of a near kinsman
+      by the father's side, he, like an able tactician, wheeled about and called
+      cousins with Mrs. Deborah's mother; and as that good lady happened to have
+      borne the very general, almost universal, name of Smith, which is next to
+      anonymous, even John Stokes could not dislodge him from that entrenchment.
+      But he was not always so dexterous. Cunning in him lacked the crowning
+      perfection of hiding itself under the appearance of honesty. His art never
+      looked like nature. It stared you in the face, and could not deceive the
+      dullest observer. His very flattery had a tone of falseness that affronted
+      the person flattered; and Mrs. Deborah, in particular, who did not want
+      for shrewdness, found it so distasteful, that she would certainly have
+      discarded him upon that one ground of offence, had not her love of power
+      been unconsciously propitiated by the perception of the efforts which he
+      made, and the degradation to which he submitted, in the vain attempt to
+      please her. She liked the homage offered to "<i>les beaux yeux de sa
+      cassette</i>" pretty much as a young beauty likes the devotion extorted by
+      her charms, and for the sake of the incense tolerated the worshipper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless there were moments when the conceit which I have mentioned as
+      the leading characteristic of Mr. Adolphus Lynfield had well nigh banished
+      him from Chalcott. Piquing himself on the variety and extent of his
+      knowledge, the universality of his genius, he of course paid the penalty
+      of other universal geniuses, by being in no small degree superficial. Not
+      content with understanding every trade better than those who had followed
+      it all their lives, he had a most unlucky propensity to put his devices
+      into execution, and as his information was, for the most part, picked up
+      from the column headed "varieties," in the county newspaper, where of
+      course there is some chaff mingled with the grain, and as the figments in
+      question were generally ill understood and imperfectly recollected, it is
+      really surprising that the young gentleman did not occasion more mischief
+      than actually occurred by the quips and quiddities which he delighted to
+      put in practice whenever he met with any one simple enough to permit the
+      exercise of his talents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some damage he did effect by his experiments, as Mrs. Deborah found to her
+      cost. He killed a bed of old-fashioned spice cloves, the pride of her
+      heart, by salting the ground to get rid of the worms. Her broods of geese
+      also, and of turkeys, fell victims to a new and infallible mode of
+      feeding, which was to make them twice as fat in half the time. Somehow or
+      other, they all died under the operation. So did half a score of fine
+      apple-trees, under an improved method of grafting; whilst a magnificent
+      brown Bury pear, that covered one end of the house, perished of the grand
+      discovery of severing the bark to increase the crop. He lamed Mrs.
+      Deborah's old horse by doctoring him for a prick in shoeing, and ruined
+      her favourite cow, the best milch cow in the county, by a most needless
+      attempt to increase her milk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now these mischances and misdemeanors, ay, or the half of them, would
+      undoubtedly have occasioned Mr. Adolphus's dismission, and the recall of
+      poor Edward, every account of whom was in the highest degree favourable,
+      had the worthy miller been able to refrain from lecturing his cousin upon
+      her neglect of the one, and her partiality for the other. It was really
+      astonishing that John Stokes, a man of sagacity in all other respects,
+      never could understand that scolding was of all devisable processes the
+      least likely to succeed in carrying his point with one who was such a
+      proficient in that accomplishment, that if the old penalty for female
+      scolds, the ducking-stool, had continued in fashion, she would have stood
+      an excellent chance of attaining to that distinction. But so it was. The
+      same blood coursed through their veins, and his tempestuous good-will and
+      her fiery anger took the same form of violence and passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing but these lectures <i>could</i> have kept Mrs. Deborah constant in
+      the train of such a trumpery, jiggetting, fidgetty little personage as Mr.
+      Adolphus,&mdash;the more especially as her heart was assailed in its
+      better and softer parts, by the quiet respectfulness of Mrs. Thornly's
+      demeanour, who never forgot that she had experienced her protection in the
+      hour of need, and by the irresistible good-nature of Cicely, a smiling,
+      rosy, sunny-looking creature, whose only vocation in this world seemed to
+      be the trying to make everybody as happy as herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Deborah (with such a humanising taste, she could not, in spite of her
+      cantankerous temper, be all bad) loved flowers: and Cicely, a rover of the
+      woods and fields from early childhood, and no despicable practical
+      gardener, took care to keep her beaupots constantly supplied from the
+      first snowdrop to the last china rose. Nothing was too large for Cicely's
+      good-will, nothing too small. Huge chimney jars of lilacs, laburnums,
+      horse-chestnuts, peonies, and the golden and gorgeous double furze; china
+      jugs filled with magnificent double stocks, and rich wallflowers,* with
+      their bitter-sweet odour, like the taste of orange marmalade, pinks,
+      sweet-peas, and mignonette, from her own little garden, or woodland posies
+      that might beseem the hand of the faerie queen, composed of those gems of
+      flowers, the scarlet pimpernel, and the blue anagallis, the rosy star of
+      the wild geranium, with its aromatic crimson-tipped leaves, the snowy star
+      of the white ochil, and that third starry flower the yellow loose-strife,
+      the milk vetch, purple, or pink, or cream coloured, backed by moss-like
+      leaves and lilac blossoms of the lousewort, and overhung by the fragrant
+      bells and cool green leaves of the lily of the valley.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Few flowers, (and almost all look best when arranged each
+     sort in its separate vase,)&mdash;few look so well together as
+     the four sorts of double wallflowers. The common dark, (the
+     old bloody warrior)&mdash;I have a love for those graphic names&mdash;
+     words which paint the common dark, the common yellow, the
+     newer and more intensely coloured dark, and that new gold
+     colour still so rare, which is in tint, form, growth,
+     hardiness, and profusion, one of the most valuable
+     acquisitions to the flower garden. When placed together in
+     ajar, the brighter blossoms seem to stand out from those of
+     deeper hue, with exactly the sort of relief, the harmonious
+     combination of light and shade, that one sometimes sees in
+     the rich gilt carving of an old flower-wreathed picture-
+     frame, or, better still, it might seem a pot of flowers
+     chased in gold, by Benvenuto Cellini, in which the
+     workmanship outvalued the metal. Many beaupots are gayer,
+     many sweeter, but this is the richest, both for scent and
+     colour, that I have ever seen.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It would puzzle a gardener to surpass the elegance and delicacy of such a
+      nosegay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Offerings like these did our miller's maiden delight to bring at all
+      seasons, and under all circumstances, whether of peace or war between the
+      heads of the two opposite houses; and whenever there chanced to be a lull
+      in the storm, she availed herself of the opportunity to add to her simple
+      tribute a dish of eels from the mill-stream, or perch from the river. That
+      the thought of Edward ("dear Edward," as she always called him,) might not
+      add somewhat of alacrity to her attentions to his wayward aunt, I will not
+      venture to deny, but she would have done the same if Edward had not been
+      in existence, from the mere effect of her own peacemaking spirit, and a
+      generosity of nature which found more pleasure in giving than in
+      possessing. A sweet and happy creature was Cicely; it was difficult even
+      for Mrs. Deborah to resist her gentle voice and artless smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Affairs were in this posture between the belligerents, sometimes war to
+      the knife, sometimes a truce under favour of Cissy's white flag, when one
+      October evening, John Stokes entered the dwelling of his kinswoman to
+      inform her that Edward's apprenticeship had been some time at an end, that
+      he had come of age about a month ago, and that his master, for whom he had
+      continued to work, was so satisfied of his talents, industry, and
+      integrity, that he had offered to take him into partnership for a sum
+      incredibly moderate, considering the advantages which such a connexion
+      would ensure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have more than the money wanted in the Belford Bank, money that ought
+      to have been his," quoth John Stokes, "besides all your property in land
+      and houses and the funds; and if you did advance this sum, which all the
+      world knows is only a small part of what should have belonged to him in
+      right of his father, it would be as safe as if it was in the Bank of
+      England, and the interest paid half-yearly. You ought to give it him out
+      and out; but of course you won't even lend it," pursued this judicious
+      negotiator; "you keep all your money for that precious chap, Mr. 'Dolphus,
+      to make ducks and drakes with after you are dead; a fine jig he'll dance
+      over your grave. You know, I suppose, that we've got the fellow in a cleft
+      stick about that petition the other day? He persuaded old Jacob, who's as
+      deaf as a post, to put his mark to it, and when he was gone, Jacob came to
+      me (I'm the only man in the parish who can make him hear) to ask what it
+      was about. So upon my explaining the matter, Jacob found he had got into
+      the wrong box. But as the chap had taken away his petition, and Jacob
+      could not scratch out his name, what does he do but set his mark to ours
+      o' t'other side; and we've wrote all about it to Sir Robert to explain to
+      the Parliament, lest seeing Jacob's name both ways like, they should think
+      'twas he, poor fellow, that meant to humbug 'em. A pretty figure Mr.
+      'Dolphus 'll cut when the story comes to be told in the House of Commons!
+      But that's not the worst. He took the petition to the workhouse, and
+      meeting with little Fan Ropley, who had been taught to write at our
+      charity-school, and is quick at her pen, he makes her sign her name at
+      full length, and then strikes a dot over the <i>e</i> to turn it into
+      Francis, and persuade the great folk up at Lunnun, that little Fan's a
+      grown-up man. If that chap won't come someday to be transported for
+      forgery, my name's not John Stokes! Well, dame, will you let Ned have the
+      money? Yes or no?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That Mrs. Deborah should have suffered the good miller to proceed with his
+      harangue without interruption, can only be accounted for on the score of
+      the loudness of tone on which he piqued himself with so much justice. When
+      she did take up the word, her reply made up in volubility and virulence
+      for any deficiency in sound, concluding by a formal renunciation of her
+      nephew, and a command to his zealous advocate never again to appear within
+      her doors. Upon which, honest John vowed he never would, and departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two or three days after this quarrel, Mr. Adolphus having arrived, as
+      happened not un-frequently, to spend the afternoon at Chalcott, persuaded
+      his hostess to accompany him to see a pond drawn at the Hall, to which, as
+      the daughter of one of Sir Robert's old tenants, she would undoubtedly
+      have the right of <i>entrée</i>; and Mrs. Deborah assented to his request,
+      partly because the weather was fine, and the distance short, partly, it
+      may be, from a lurking desire to take her chance as a bystander of a dish
+      of fish; they who need such windfalls least, being commonly those who are
+      most desirous to put themselves in their way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Adolphus Lynfield's reasons were obvious enough. Besides the <i>ennui</i>
+      of a tête-a-tête, all flattery on one side and contradiction on the other,
+      he was naturally of the fidgetty restless temperament which hates to be
+      long confined to one place or one occupation, and can never hear of a
+      gathering of people, whatever might be the occasion, without longing to
+      find himself amongst them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, he had, or professed to have, a passion for field sports of
+      every description; and having that very season contrived, with his usual
+      curious infelicity, to get into as many scrapes in shooting as shall last
+      most sportsmen their whole lives&mdash;having shot a spaniel instead of a
+      hare, a keeper instead of a partridge, and his own foot instead of a
+      pheasant, and finally, having been taken up for a poacher, although wholly
+      innocent of the death of any bird that ever wore feathers,&mdash;after all
+      these woeful experiences, (to say nothing of mischances in angling which
+      might put to shame those of our friend Mr. Thompson,) he found himself
+      particularly well disposed to a diversion which appeared to combine in
+      most choice union the appearance of sporting, which he considered
+      essential to his reputation, with a most happy exemption from the usual
+      sporting requisites, exertion or skill. All that he would have to do would
+      be to look on and talk,&mdash;to throw out a hint here and a suggestion
+      there, and find fault with everything and everybody, like a man who
+      understood what was going forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather was most propitious; a bright breezy sunny October day, with
+      light snowy clouds, chased by a keen crisp wind across the deep blue
+      heavens,&mdash;and the beautiful park, the turf of an emerald green,
+      contrasting with the brown fern and tawny woods, rivalling in richness and
+      brightness the vivid hues of the autumnal sky. Nothing could exceed the
+      gorgeous tinting of the magnificent trees, which, whether in detached
+      clumps or forest-like masses, formed the pride and glory of the place. The
+      oak still retaining its dark and heavy verdure; the elm letting fall a
+      shower of yellow leaves, that tinged the ground beneath; the deep orange
+      of the horse-chestnut, the beech varying from ruddy gold to greenish
+      brown; and above all, the shining green of the holly, and the rich
+      purplish red of the old thorns, those hoary thorns, the growth of
+      centuries, gave to this old English gentleman's seat much of the variety
+      and beauty of the American backwoods. The house, a stately ancient
+      mansion, from the porch of which you might expect to see Sir Roger de
+      Coverley issue, stood half-way up a gentle hill, finely backed by woods of
+      great extent; and the pond, which was the object of the visit, was within
+      sight of the windows, but so skilfully veiled by trees, as to appear of
+      much greater extent than it really was. The master and mistress of the
+      Hall, with their pretty daughters, were absent on a tour:&mdash;Is any
+      English country family ever at home in the month of October in these days
+      of fashionable enterprise? They were gone to visit the temples of Thebes,
+      or the ruins of Carthage, the Fountains of the Nile or the Falls of
+      Niagara, St. Sophia, or the Kremlin, or some such pretty little excursion,
+      which ladies and gentlemen now talk of as familiarly "as maids of puppy
+      dogs." They were away. But enough of the household remained at Chalcott,
+      to compose, with a few visiters, a sufficiently numerous and animated
+      group.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first person whom Mrs. Deborah espied, (and it is remarkable that we
+      always see first those whom we had rather not see at all,) was her old
+      enemy the miller,&mdash;a fisherman of so much experience and celebrity,
+      that his presence might have been reckoned upon as certain&mdash;busily
+      engaged, together with some half-dozen stout and active coadjutors, in
+      dragging the net ashore, amidst a chorus of exclamations and cautions from
+      the various assistants, and the breathless expectation of the spectators
+      on the bank, amongst whom were Mrs. Thornly and Cicely, accompanied by a
+      tall, athletic young man of dark complexion, with peculiarly bright eyes
+      and curling hair, whom his aunt immediately recognised as Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How improved he is!" was the thought that flashed across her mind, as
+      with an air of respectful alacrity he stepped forward to meet her; but the
+      miller, in tugging at his nets, happened to look towards them, and ashamed
+      that he of all men should see her change of feeling, she turned away
+      abruptly, without acknowledging his salutation, and walked off to the
+      other side with her attendant, Mr. Adolphus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Drat the perverse old jade!" exclaimed John Stokes, involuntarily, as he
+      gave a mighty tug, which brought half the net ashore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "She's heavy, my good sir!" observed the pompous butler, conceiving that
+      the honest miller's exclamation had reference to the sport; "only see how
+      full she is! We shall have a magnificent hawl!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the spectators, male and female, crowded round, and the fishermen
+      exerted themselves so efficiently, that in two minutes the net was on dry
+      land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing but weeds and rubbish!" ejaculated the disappointed butler, a
+      peculiarly blank look taking the place of his usual self-importance. "What
+      can have become of the fish?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The net has been improperly drawn," observed Mr. Adolphus; "I myself saw
+      four or five large carp just before it was dragged ashore!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Better fling you in, master 'Dolphus, by way of bait!" ejaculated our
+      friend the miller; "I've seen jacks in this pond that would make no more
+      bones of swallowing a leg or an arm of such an atomy as you, if they did
+      not have a try at the whole body, than a shark would of bolting down Punch
+      in the show; as to carp, everybody that ever fished a pond knows their
+      tricks. Catch them in a net if you can. They swim round and round, just to
+      let you look at 'em, and then they drop plump into the mud, and lie as
+      still and as close as so many stones. But come, Mr. Tomkins," continued
+      honest John, addressing the butler, "we'll try again. I'm minded that we
+      shall have better luck this time. Here are some brave large tench, which
+      never move till the water is disturbed; we shall have a good chance for
+      them as well as for the jacks. Now, steady there, you in the boat Throw
+      her in, boys, and mind you don't draw too fast!" So to work they all went
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All was proceeding prosperously, and the net, evidently well filled with
+      fish, was dragging slowly to land, when John Stokes shouted suddenly from
+      the other side of the pond&mdash;"Dang it, if that unlucky chap, master
+      'Dolphus there, has not got hold of the top of the net! He'll pull it
+      over. See, that great jack has got out already. Take the net from him,
+      Tom! He'll let all the fish loose, and tumble in himself, and the water at
+      that part is deep enough to drown twenty such mannikins. Not that I think
+      drowning likely to be his fate&mdash;witness that petition business,"
+      muttered John to himself in a sort of parenthesis. "Let go, I say, or you
+      will be in. Let go, can't ye?" added he, in his loudest tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with the word, Mr. Adolphus, still struggling to retain his hold of
+      the net, lost his balance and fell in, and catching at the person next
+      him, who happened to be Mrs. Deborah, with the hope of saving himself,
+      dragged her in after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both sank, and amidst the confusion that ensued, the shrieks and sobs of
+      the women, the oaths and exclamations of the men, the danger was so
+      imminent that both might have been drowned, had not Edward Thornly,
+      hastily flinging off his coat and hat, plunged in and rescued Mrs.
+      Deborah, whilst good John Stokes, running round the head of the pond as
+      nimbly as a boy, did the same kind office for his prime aversion, the
+      attorney's clerk. What a sound kernel is sometimes hidden under a rough
+      and rugged rind!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Adolphus, more frightened than hurt, and with so much of the conceit
+      washed out of him by his involuntary cold bath, that it might be accounted
+      one of the most fortunate accidents in his life, was conveyed to the Hall;
+      but her own house being almost equally near, Mrs. Deborah was at once
+      taken home, and put comfortably to bed in her own chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About two hours afterwards, the whole of the miller's family, Mrs. Thornly
+      still pallid and trembling, Cicely smiling through her tears, and her
+      father as blunt and freespoken as ever, were assembled round the homely
+      couch of their maiden cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tell you I must have the lawyer fetched directly. I can't sleep till I
+      have made my will;" said Mrs. Deborah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Better not," responded John Stokes; "you'll want it altered to-morrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that you say, cousin John?" inquired the spinster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That if you make your will to night, you'll change your mind to-morrow,"
+      reiterated John Stokes. "Ned's going to be married to my Cicely," added
+      he, "and that you mayn't like, or if you did like it this week, you might
+      not like it next So you'd better let matters rest as they are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're a provoking man, John Stokes," said his cousin&mdash;"a very
+      provoking, obstinate man. But I'll convince you for once. Take that key,
+      Mrs. Thornly," quoth she, raising herself in bed, and fumbling in an
+      immense pair of pockets for a small old-fashioned key, "and open the
+      'scrutoire, and give me the pen and ink, and the old narrow brown book,
+      that you'll find at the top. Not like his marrying Cicely! Why I always
+      have loved that child&mdash;don't cry, Cissy!&mdash;and have always had
+      cause, for she has been a kind little creature to me. Those dahlias came
+      from her, and the sweet posy," pursued Mrs. Deborah, pointing to a nosegay
+      of autumn flowers, the old fragrant monthly rose, mignionette, heliotrope,
+      cloves, and jessamine, which stood by the bedside. "Ay, that's the book,
+      Mrs. Thornly; and there, Cissy," continued Aunt Deborah, filling up the
+      check, with a sum far larger than that required for the partnership&mdash;
+      "there, Cissy, is your marriage portion. Don't cry so, child!" said she,
+      as the affectionate girl hung round her neck in a passion of grateful
+      tears&mdash;"don't cry, but find out Edward, and send for the lawyer, for
+      I'm determined to settle my affairs to night And now, John Stokes, I know
+      I've been a cross old woman, but...."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Cousin Deborah," interrupted John, seizing her withered hand with a gripe
+      like a smith's vice,&mdash;"Cousin Deborah, thou hast acted nobly, and I
+      beg thy pardon once for all. God bless thee!&mdash;Dang it," added the
+      honest miller to himself, "I do verily believe that this squabbling has
+      been mainly my fault, and that if I had not been so provoking she would
+      not have been so contrary. Well, she has made us all happy, and we must
+      try to make her happy in return. If we did not, we should deserve to be
+      soused in the fish-pond along with that unhappy chap, Master 'Dolphus. For
+      my part," continued the good yeoman, forming with great earnestness a
+      solemn resolution&mdash;"for my part, I've fully made up my mind never to
+      contradict her again, say what she will. No, not if she says black's
+      white! It's contradiction that makes women contrary; it sets their backs
+      up, like. I'll never contradict her again so long as my name's John
+      Stokes."
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Aunt Deborah, by Mary Russell Mitford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Aunt Deborah
+
+Author: Mary Russell Mitford
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22843]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUNT DEBORAH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+AUNT DEBORAH.
+
+By Mary Russell Mitford
+
+
+A crosser old woman than Mrs. Deborah Thornby was certainly not to be
+found in the whole village of Hilton. Worth, in country phrase, a power
+of money, and living (to borrow another rustic expression) upon her
+means, the exercise of her extraordinary faculty for grumbling and
+scolding seemed the sole occupation of her existence, her only pursuit,
+solace, and amusement; and really it would have been a great pity to
+have deprived the poor woman of a pastime so consolatory to herself, and
+which did harm to nobody: her family consisting only of an old labourer,
+to guard the house, take care of her horse, her cow, and her chaise and
+cart, and work in the garden, who was happily, for his comfort, stone
+deaf, and could not hear her vituperation, and of a parish girl of
+twelve, to do the indoor work, who had been so used to be scolded all
+her life, that she minded the noise no more than a miller minds the
+clack of his mill, or than people who live in a churchyard mind the
+sound of the church bells, and would probably, from long habit, have
+felt some miss of the sound had it ceased, of which, by the way, there
+was small danger, so long as Mrs. Deborah continued in this life. Her
+crossness was so far innocent that it hurt nobody except herself. But
+she was also cross-grained, and that evil quality is unluckily apt to
+injure other people; and did so very materially in the present instance.
+
+Mrs. Deborah was the only daughter of old Simon Thornby, of Chalcott
+great farm; she had had one brother, who having married the rosy-cheeked
+daughter of the parish clerk, a girl with no portion except her modesty,
+her good-nature, and her prettiness, had been discarded by his father,
+and after trying various ways to gain a living, and failing in all, had
+finally died broken-hearted, leaving the unfortunate clerk's daughter,
+rosy-cheeked no longer, and one little boy, to the tender mercy of his
+family. Old Simon showed none. He drove his son's widow from the door as
+he had before driven off his son; and when he also died, an event
+which occurred within a year or two, bequeathed all his property to his
+daughter Deborah.
+
+This bequest was exceedingly agreeable to Mrs. Deborah, (for she was
+already of an age to assume that title,) who valued money, not certainly
+for the comforts and luxuries which it may be the means of procuring,
+nor even for its own sake, as the phrase goes, but for that which, to
+a woman of her temper, was perhaps the highest that she was capable of
+enjoying, the power which wealth confers over all who are connected with
+or dependent on its possessor.
+
+The principal subjects of her despotic dominion were the young widow and
+her boy, whom she placed in a cottage near her own house, and with whose
+comfort and happiness she dallied pretty much as a cat plays with the
+mouse which she has got into her clutches, and lets go only to catch
+again, or an angler with the trout which he has fairly hooked, and
+merely suffers to struggle in the stream until it is sufficiently
+exhausted to bring to land. She did not mean to be cruel, but she could
+not help it; so her poor mice were mocked with the semblance of liberty,
+although surrounded by restraints; and the awful paw seemingly sheathed
+in velvet, whilst they were in reality never out of reach of the horrors
+of the pat.
+
+It sometimes, however, happens that the little mouse makes her escape
+from madam pussy at the very moment when she seems to have the unlucky
+trembler actually within her claws; and so it occurred in the present
+instance.
+
+The dwelling to which Mrs. Deborah retired after the death of her
+father, was exceedingly romantic and beautiful in point of situation. It
+was a small but picturesque farm-house, on the very banks of the Loddon,
+a small branch of which, diverging from the parent stream, and crossed
+by a pretty footbridge, swept round the homestead, the orchard
+and garden, and went winding along the water meadows in a thousand
+glittering meanders, until it was lost in the rich woodlands which
+formed the back-ground of the picture. In the month of May, when the
+orchard was full of its rosy and pearly blossoms, a forest of lovely
+bloom, the meadows yellow with cowslips, and the clear brimming river,
+bordered by the golden tufts of the water ranunculus, and garlanded by
+the snowy flowers of the hawthorn and the wild cherry, the thin wreath
+of smoke curling from the tall, old-fashioned chimneys of the pretty
+irregular building, with its porch, and its baywindows, and gable-ends
+full of light and shadow,--in that month of beauty it would be difficult
+to imagine a more beautiful or a more English landscape.
+
+On the other side of the narrow winding road, parted from Mrs. Deborah's
+demesne by a long low bridge of many arches, stood a little rustic mill,
+and its small low-browed cottage, with its own varied back-ground of
+garden and fruit trees and thickly wooded meadows, extending in long
+perspective, a smiling verdant valley of many miles.
+
+Now Chalcott mill, reckoned by everybody else the prettiest point in her
+prospect, was to Mrs. Deborah not merely an eye-sore, but a heart-sore,
+not on its own account; cantankerous as she was, she had no quarrel with
+the innocent buildings, but for the sake of its inhabitants.
+
+Honest John Stokes, the miller, was her cousin-german. People did say
+that some forty years before there had been question of a marriage
+between the parlies; and really they both denied the thing with so much
+vehemence and fury, that one should almost be tempted to believe there
+was some truth in the report. Certain it is, that if they had been that
+wretched thing a mismatched couple, and had gone on snarling together
+all their lives, they could not have hated each other more zealously.
+One shall not often meet with anything so perfect in its way as that
+aversion. It was none of your silent hatreds that never come to words;
+nor of your civil hatreds, that veil themselves under smooth phrases
+and smiling looks. Their ill-will was frank, open, and above-board. They
+could not afford to come to an absolute breach, because it would have
+deprived them of the pleasure of quarrelling; and in spite of the
+frequent complaints they were wont to make of their near neighbourhood,
+I am convinced that they derived no small gratification from the
+opportunities which it afforded them of saying disagreeable things to
+each other.
+
+And yet Mr. John Stokes was a well-meaning man, and Mrs. Deborah Thornby
+was not an ill-meaning woman. But she was, as I have said before, cross
+in the grain; and he--why he was one of those plain-dealing personages
+who will speak their whole mind, and who pique themselves upon that sort
+of sincerity which is comprised in telling to another all the ill
+that they have ever heard, or thought, or imagined concerning him,
+in repeating, as if it were a point of duty, all the harm that one
+neighbour says of another, and in denouncing, as if it were a sin,
+whatever the unlucky person whom they address may happen to do, or to
+leave undone.
+
+"I am none of your palavering chaps, to flummer over an old vixen for
+the sake of her strong-box. I hate such falseness. I speak the truth and
+care for no man," quoth John Stokes.
+
+And accordingly John Stokes never saw Mrs. Deborah Thornby but he
+saluted her, pretty much as his mastiff accosted her favourite cat;
+erected his bristles, looked at her with savage bloodshot eyes, showed
+his teeth, and vented a sound something between a snarl and a growl;
+whilst she, (like the fourfooted tabby,) set up her back and spit at him
+in return.
+
+They met often, as I have said, for the enjoyment of quarrelling; and as
+whatever he advised she was pretty sure _not_ to do, it is probable
+that his remonstrances in favour of her friendless relations served to
+confirm her in the small tyranny which she exercised towards them.
+
+Such being the state of feeling between these two jangling cousins, it
+may be imagined with what indignation Mrs. Deborah found John Stokes,
+upon the death of his wife, removing her widowed sister-in-law from the
+cottage in which she had placed her, and bringing her home to the mill,
+to officiate as his housekeeper, and take charge of a lovely little
+girl, his only child. She vowed one of those vows of anger which I fear
+are oftener kept than the vows of love, to strike both mother and son
+out of her will, (by the way, she had a superstitious horror of that
+disagreeable ceremony, and even the temptation of choosing new legatees
+whenever the old displeased her, had not been sufficient to induce her
+to make one,--the threat did as well,) and never to speak to either of
+them again as long as she lived.
+
+She proclaimed this resolution at the rate of twelve times an hour,
+(that is to say, once in five minutes,) every day for a fortnight; and
+in spite of her well-known caprice, there seemed for once in her life
+reason to believe that she would keep her word.
+
+Those prudent and sagacious persons who are so good as to take the
+superintendence of other people's affairs, and to tell by the look of
+the foot where the shoe pinches and where it does not, all united in
+blaming the poor widow for withdrawing herself and her son from Mrs.
+Deborah's protection. But besides that no human being can adequately
+estimate the misery of leading a life of dependence upon one to whom
+scolding was as the air she breathed, without it she must die, a
+penurious dependence too, which supplied grudgingly the humblest wants,
+and yet would not permit the exertions by which she would joyfully have
+endeavoured to support herself;--besides the temptation to exchange Mrs.
+Deborah's incessant maundering for the Miller's rough kindness, and her
+scanty fare for the coarse plenty of his board,--besides these homely
+but natural temptations--hardly to be adequately allowed for by those
+who have passed their lives amidst smiling kindness and luxurious
+abundance; besides these motives she had a stronger and dearer in her
+desire to rescue her boy from the dangers of an enforced and miserable
+idleness, and to put him in the way of earning his bread by honest
+industry.
+
+Through the interest of his grandfather the parish clerk, the little
+Edward had been early placed in the Hilton free school, where he had
+acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of the master, that
+at twelve years old he was the head boy on the foundation, and took
+precedence of the other nine-and-twenty wearers of the full-skirted
+blue coats, leathern belts, and tasseled caps, in the various arts of
+reading, writing, cyphering, and mensuration. He could flourish a swan
+without ever taking his pen from the paper. Nay, there is little doubt
+but from long habit he could have flourished it blindfold, like the
+man who had so often modelled the wit of Ferney in breadcrumbs, that he
+could produce little busts of Voltaire with his hands under the table;
+he had not his equal in Practice or the Rule of Three, and his piece,
+when sent round at Christmas, was the admiration of the whole parish.
+
+Unfortunately, his arrival at this pre-eminence was also the signal of
+his dismissal from the free school. He returned home to his mother,
+and as Mrs. Deborah, although hourly complaining of the expense of
+supporting a great lubberly boy in idleness, refused to appentice him to
+any trade, and even forbade his finding employment in helping her deaf
+man of all work to cultivate her garden, which the poor lad, naturally
+industrious and active, begged her permission to do, his mother,
+considering that no uncertain expectations of money at the death of his
+kinswoman could counterbalance the certain evil of dragging on his days
+in penury and indolence during her life, wisely determined to betake
+herself to the mill, and accept John Stokes's offer of sending Edward
+to a friend in town, for the purpose of being placed with a civil
+engineer:--a destination with which the boy himself--a fine intelligent
+youth, by the way, tall and manly, with black eyes that talked and
+laughed, and curling dark hair,--was delighted in every point of view.
+He longed for a profession for which he had a decided turn; he longed
+to see the world as personified by the city of cities, the unparagoned
+London; and he longed more than either to get away from Aunt Deborah,
+the storm of whose vituperation seemed ringing in his ears so long as he
+continued within sight of her dwelling. One would think the clack of the
+mill and the prattle of his pretty cousin Cicely might have drowned
+it, but it did not. Nothing short of leaving the spinster fifty miles
+behind, and setting the great city between him and her, could efface the
+impression.
+
+"I hope I am not ungrateful," thought Edward to himself, as he was
+trudging London-ward after taking a tender leave of all at the mill; "I
+hope I am not ungrateful. I do not think I am, for I would give my right
+arm, ay, or my life, if it would serve master John Stokes or please dear
+Cissy. But really I do hope never to come within hearing of Aunt Deborah
+again, she storms so. I wonder whether all old women are so cross. I
+don't think my mother will be, nor Cissy. I am sure Cissy won't. Poor
+Aunt Deborah! I suppose she can't help it." And with this indulgent
+conclusion, Edward wended on his way.
+
+Aunt Deborah's mood was by no means so pacific. She staid at home
+fretting, fuming, and chafing, and storming herself hoarse--which, as
+the people at the mill took care to keep out of earshot, was all so much
+good scolding thrown away. The state of things since Edward's departure
+had been so decisive, that even John Stokes thought it wiser to keep
+himself aloof for a time; and although they pretty well guessed that she
+would take measures to put in effect her threat of disinheritance, the
+first outward demonstration came in the shape of a young man (gentleman
+I suppose he called himself--ay, there is no doubt but he wrote himself
+Esquire) who attended her to church a few Sundays after, and was
+admitted to the honour of sitting in the same pew.
+
+Nothing could be more unlike our friend Edward than the stranger.
+Fair, freckled, light-haired, light-eyed, with invisible eye-brows and
+eye-lashes, insignificant in feature, pert and perking in expression,
+and in figure so dwarfed and stunted, that though in point of age he had
+evidently attained his full growth, (if one may use the expression to
+such a he-doll,) Robert at fifteen would have made two of him,--such was
+the new favourite. So far as appearance went, for certain Mrs. Deborah
+had not changed for the better.
+
+Gradually it oozed out, as, somehow or other, news, like water, will
+find a vent, however small the cranny,--by slow degrees it came to
+be understood that Mrs. Deborah's visiter was a certain Mr. Adolphus
+Lynfield, clerk to an attorney of no great note in the good town of
+Belford Regis, and nearly related, as he affirmed, to the Thornby
+family.
+
+Upon hearing these tidings, John Stokes, the son of old Simon Thornly's
+sister, marched across the road, and finding the door upon the latch,
+entered unannounced into the presence of his enemy.
+
+"I think it my duty to let you know, cousin Deborah, that this
+here chap's an impostor--a sham--and that you are a fool," was his
+conciliatory opening. "Search the register. The Thornlys have been
+yeomen of this parish ever since the time of Elizabeth--more shame to
+you for forcing the last of the race to seek his bread elsewhere; and if
+you can find such a name as Lynfield amongst 'em, I'll give you leave
+to turn me into a pettifogging lawyer--that's all. Saunderses, and
+Symondses, and Stokeses, and Mays, you'll find in plenty, but never
+a Lynfield. Lynfield, quotha! it sounds like a made-up name in a
+story-book! And as for 'Dolphus, why there never was anything like it in
+all the generation, except my good old great aunt Dolly, and that stood
+for Dorothy. All our names have been christian-like and English, Toms,
+and Jacks, and Jems, and Bills, and Sims, and Neds--poor fellow! None of
+your outlandish 'Dolphuses. Dang it, I believe the foolish woman likes
+the chap the better for having a name she can't speak! Remember, I warn
+you he's a sham!" And off strode the honest miller, leaving Mrs.
+Deborah too angry for reply, and confirmed both in her prejudice and
+prepossession by the natural effect of that spirit of contradiction
+which formed so large an ingredient in her composition, and was not
+wholly wanting in that of John Stokes.
+
+Years passed away, and in spite of frequent ebbs and flows, the tide of
+Mrs. Deborah's favour continued to set towards Mr. Adolphus Lynfield.
+Once or twice indeed, report had said that he was fairly discarded,
+but the very appearance of the good miller, anxious to improve the
+opportunity for his protege, had been sufficient to determine his cousin
+to reinstate Mr. Adolphus in her good graces. Whether she really liked
+him is doubtful. He entertained too good an opinion of himself to be
+very successful in gaining that of other people.
+
+That the gentleman was not deficient in "left-handed wisdom," was
+proved pretty clearly by most of his actions; for instance, when routed
+by the downright miller from the position which he had taken up of a
+near kinsman by the father's side, he, like an able tactician, wheeled
+about and called cousins with Mrs. Deborah's mother; and as that good
+lady happened to have borne the very general, almost universal, name of
+Smith, which is next to anonymous, even John Stokes could not dislodge
+him from that entrenchment. But he was not always so dexterous. Cunning
+in him lacked the crowning perfection of hiding itself under the
+appearance of honesty. His art never looked like nature. It stared
+you in the face, and could not deceive the dullest observer. His very
+flattery had a tone of falseness that affronted the person flattered;
+and Mrs. Deborah, in particular, who did not want for shrewdness, found
+it so distasteful, that she would certainly have discarded him upon
+that one ground of offence, had not her love of power been unconsciously
+propitiated by the perception of the efforts which he made, and the
+degradation to which he submitted, in the vain attempt to please her.
+She liked the homage offered to "_les beaux yeux de sa cassette_" pretty
+much as a young beauty likes the devotion extorted by her charms, and
+for the sake of the incense tolerated the worshipper.
+
+Nevertheless there were moments when the conceit which I have mentioned
+as the leading characteristic of Mr. Adolphus Lynfield had well nigh
+banished him from Chalcott. Piquing himself on the variety and extent
+of his knowledge, the universality of his genius, he of course paid
+the penalty of other universal geniuses, by being in no small degree
+superficial. Not content with understanding every trade better than
+those who had followed it all their lives, he had a most unlucky
+propensity to put his devices into execution, and as his information
+was, for the most part, picked up from the column headed "varieties,"
+in the county newspaper, where of course there is some chaff mingled
+with the grain, and as the figments in question were generally ill
+understood and imperfectly recollected, it is really surprising that the
+young gentleman did not occasion more mischief than actually occurred by
+the quips and quiddities which he delighted to put in practice whenever
+he met with any one simple enough to permit the exercise of his talents.
+
+Some damage he did effect by his experiments, as Mrs. Deborah found to
+her cost. He killed a bed of old-fashioned spice cloves, the pride of
+her heart, by salting the ground to get rid of the worms. Her broods of
+geese also, and of turkeys, fell victims to a new and infallible mode of
+feeding, which was to make them twice as fat in half the time. Somehow
+or other, they all died under the operation. So did half a score of fine
+apple-trees, under an improved method of grafting; whilst a magnificent
+brown Bury pear, that covered one end of the house, perished of the
+grand discovery of severing the bark to increase the crop. He lamed Mrs.
+Deborah's old horse by doctoring him for a prick in shoeing, and ruined
+her favourite cow, the best milch cow in the county, by a most needless
+attempt to increase her milk.
+
+Now these mischances and misdemeanors, ay, or the half of them, would
+undoubtedly have occasioned Mr. Adolphus's dismission, and the recall of
+poor Edward, every account of whom was in the highest degree favourable,
+had the worthy miller been able to refrain from lecturing his cousin
+upon her neglect of the one, and her partiality for the other. It was
+really astonishing that John Stokes, a man of sagacity in all other
+respects, never could understand that scolding was of all devisable
+processes the least likely to succeed in carrying his point with one who
+was such a proficient in that accomplishment, that if the old penalty
+for female scolds, the ducking-stool, had continued in fashion, she
+would have stood an excellent chance of attaining to that distinction.
+But so it was. The same blood coursed through their veins, and his
+tempestuous good-will and her fiery anger took the same form of violence
+and passion.
+
+Nothing but these lectures _could_ have kept Mrs. Deborah constant in
+the train of such a trumpery, jiggetting, fidgetty little personage
+as Mr. Adolphus,--the more especially as her heart was assailed in its
+better and softer parts, by the quiet respectfulness of Mrs. Thornly's
+demeanour, who never forgot that she had experienced her protection
+in the hour of need, and by the irresistible good-nature of Cicely, a
+smiling, rosy, sunny-looking creature, whose only vocation in this world
+seemed to be the trying to make everybody as happy as herself.
+
+Mrs. Deborah (with such a humanising taste, she could not, in spite of
+her cantankerous temper, be all bad) loved flowers: and Cicely, a
+rover of the woods and fields from early childhood, and no despicable
+practical gardener, took care to keep her beaupots constantly supplied
+from the first snowdrop to the last china rose. Nothing was too large
+for Cicely's good-will, nothing too small. Huge chimney jars of lilacs,
+laburnums, horse-chestnuts, peonies, and the golden and gorgeous double
+furze; china jugs filled with magnificent double stocks, and rich
+wallflowers,* with their bitter-sweet odour, like the taste of orange
+marmalade, pinks, sweet-peas, and mignonette, from her own little
+garden, or woodland posies that might beseem the hand of the faerie
+queen, composed of those gems of flowers, the scarlet pimpernel, and the
+blue anagallis, the rosy star of the wild geranium, with its aromatic
+crimson-tipped leaves, the snowy star of the white ochil, and that third
+starry flower the yellow loose-strife, the milk vetch, purple, or pink,
+or cream coloured, backed by moss-like leaves and lilac blossoms of the
+lousewort, and overhung by the fragrant bells and cool green leaves of
+the lily of the valley.
+
+     * Few flowers, (and almost all look best when arranged each
+     sort in its separate vase,)--few look so well together as
+     the four sorts of double wallflowers. The common dark, (the
+     old bloody warrior)--I have a love for those graphic names--
+     words which paint the common dark, the common yellow, the
+     newer and more intensely coloured dark, and that new gold
+     colour still so rare, which is in tint, form, growth,
+     hardiness, and profusion, one of the most valuable
+     acquisitions to the flower garden. When placed together in
+     ajar, the brighter blossoms seem to stand out from those of
+     deeper hue, with exactly the sort of relief, the harmonious
+     combination of light and shade, that one sometimes sees in
+     the rich gilt carving of an old flower-wreathed picture-
+     frame, or, better still, it might seem a pot of flowers
+     chased in gold, by Benvenuto Cellini, in which the
+     workmanship outvalued the metal. Many beaupots are gayer,
+     many sweeter, but this is the richest, both for scent and
+     colour, that I have ever seen.
+
+It would puzzle a gardener to surpass the elegance and delicacy of such
+a nosegay.
+
+Offerings like these did our miller's maiden delight to bring at all
+seasons, and under all circumstances, whether of peace or war between
+the heads of the two opposite houses; and whenever there chanced to be a
+lull in the storm, she availed herself of the opportunity to add to her
+simple tribute a dish of eels from the mill-stream, or perch from the
+river. That the thought of Edward ("dear Edward," as she always called
+him,) might not add somewhat of alacrity to her attentions to his
+wayward aunt, I will not venture to deny, but she would have done the
+same if Edward had not been in existence, from the mere effect of her
+own peacemaking spirit, and a generosity of nature which found more
+pleasure in giving than in possessing. A sweet and happy creature was
+Cicely; it was difficult even for Mrs. Deborah to resist her gentle
+voice and artless smiles.
+
+Affairs were in this posture between the belligerents, sometimes war to
+the knife, sometimes a truce under favour of Cissy's white flag, when
+one October evening, John Stokes entered the dwelling of his kinswoman
+to inform her that Edward's apprenticeship had been some time at an end,
+that he had come of age about a month ago, and that his master, for whom
+he had continued to work, was so satisfied of his talents, industry, and
+integrity, that he had offered to take him into partnership for a sum
+incredibly moderate, considering the advantages which such a connexion
+would ensure.
+
+"You have more than the money wanted in the Belford Bank, money that
+ought to have been his," quoth John Stokes, "besides all your property
+in land and houses and the funds; and if you did advance this sum, which
+all the world knows is only a small part of what should have belonged to
+him in right of his father, it would be as safe as if it was in the Bank
+of England, and the interest paid half-yearly. You ought to give it
+him out and out; but of course you won't even lend it," pursued this
+judicious negotiator; "you keep all your money for that precious chap,
+Mr. 'Dolphus, to make ducks and drakes with after you are dead; a fine
+jig he'll dance over your grave. You know, I suppose, that we've got the
+fellow in a cleft stick about that petition the other day? He persuaded
+old Jacob, who's as deaf as a post, to put his mark to it, and when he
+was gone, Jacob came to me (I'm the only man in the parish who can make
+him hear) to ask what it was about. So upon my explaining the matter,
+Jacob found he had got into the wrong box. But as the chap had taken
+away his petition, and Jacob could not scratch out his name, what does
+he do but set his mark to ours o' t'other side; and we've wrote all
+about it to Sir Robert to explain to the Parliament, lest seeing Jacob's
+name both ways like, they should think 'twas he, poor fellow, that meant
+to humbug 'em. A pretty figure Mr. 'Dolphus 'll cut when the story comes
+to be told in the House of Commons! But that's not the worst. He took
+the petition to the workhouse, and meeting with little Fan Ropley, who
+had been taught to write at our charity-school, and is quick at her pen,
+he makes her sign her name at full length, and then strikes a dot over
+the _e_ to turn it into Francis, and persuade the great folk up at
+Lunnun, that little Fan's a grown-up man. If that chap won't come
+someday to be transported for forgery, my name's not John Stokes! Well,
+dame, will you let Ned have the money? Yes or no?"
+
+That Mrs. Deborah should have suffered the good miller to proceed with
+his harangue without interruption, can only be accounted for on the
+score of the loudness of tone on which he piqued himself with so much
+justice. When she did take up the word, her reply made up in volubility
+and virulence for any deficiency in sound, concluding by a formal
+renunciation of her nephew, and a command to his zealous advocate never
+again to appear within her doors. Upon which, honest John vowed he never
+would, and departed.
+
+Two or three days after this quarrel, Mr. Adolphus having arrived,
+as happened not un-frequently, to spend the afternoon at Chalcott,
+persuaded his hostess to accompany him to see a pond drawn at the Hall,
+to which, as the daughter of one of Sir Robert's old tenants, she would
+undoubtedly have the right of _entree_; and Mrs. Deborah assented to his
+request, partly because the weather was fine, and the distance short,
+partly, it may be, from a lurking desire to take her chance as a
+bystander of a dish of fish; they who need such windfalls least, being
+commonly those who are most desirous to put themselves in their way.
+
+Mr. Adolphus Lynfield's reasons were obvious enough. Besides the _ennui_
+of a tete-a-tete, all flattery on one side and contradiction on the
+other, he was naturally of the fidgetty restless temperament which hates
+to be long confined to one place or one occupation, and can never
+hear of a gathering of people, whatever might be the occasion, without
+longing to find himself amongst them.
+
+Moreover, he had, or professed to have, a passion for field sports of
+every description; and having that very season contrived, with his usual
+curious infelicity, to get into as many scrapes in shooting as shall
+last most sportsmen their whole lives--having shot a spaniel instead of
+a hare, a keeper instead of a partridge, and his own foot instead of
+a pheasant, and finally, having been taken up for a poacher, although
+wholly innocent of the death of any bird that ever wore feathers,--after
+all these woeful experiences, (to say nothing of mischances in angling
+which might put to shame those of our friend Mr. Thompson,) he found
+himself particularly well disposed to a diversion which appeared to
+combine in most choice union the appearance of sporting, which he
+considered essential to his reputation, with a most happy exemption from
+the usual sporting requisites, exertion or skill. All that he would
+have to do would be to look on and talk,--to throw out a hint here and
+a suggestion there, and find fault with everything and everybody, like a
+man who understood what was going forward.
+
+The weather was most propitious; a bright breezy sunny October day, with
+light snowy clouds, chased by a keen crisp wind across the deep
+blue heavens,--and the beautiful park, the turf of an emerald green,
+contrasting with the brown fern and tawny woods, rivalling in richness
+and brightness the vivid hues of the autumnal sky. Nothing could
+exceed the gorgeous tinting of the magnificent trees, which, whether in
+detached clumps or forest-like masses, formed the pride and glory of
+the place. The oak still retaining its dark and heavy verdure; the elm
+letting fall a shower of yellow leaves, that tinged the ground beneath;
+the deep orange of the horse-chestnut, the beech varying from ruddy gold
+to greenish brown; and above all, the shining green of the holly, and
+the rich purplish red of the old thorns, those hoary thorns, the growth
+of centuries, gave to this old English gentleman's seat much of the
+variety and beauty of the American backwoods. The house, a stately
+ancient mansion, from the porch of which you might expect to see Sir
+Roger de Coverley issue, stood half-way up a gentle hill, finely backed
+by woods of great extent; and the pond, which was the object of the
+visit, was within sight of the windows, but so skilfully veiled by
+trees, as to appear of much greater extent than it really was. The
+master and mistress of the Hall, with their pretty daughters, were
+absent on a tour:--Is any English country family ever at home in the
+month of October in these days of fashionable enterprise? They were gone
+to visit the temples of Thebes, or the ruins of Carthage, the Fountains
+of the Nile or the Falls of Niagara, St. Sophia, or the Kremlin, or some
+such pretty little excursion, which ladies and gentlemen now talk of as
+familiarly "as maids of puppy dogs." They were away. But enough of
+the household remained at Chalcott, to compose, with a few visiters, a
+sufficiently numerous and animated group.
+
+The first person whom Mrs. Deborah espied, (and it is remarkable that we
+always see first those whom we had rather not see at all,) was her old
+enemy the miller,--a fisherman of so much experience and celebrity, that
+his presence might have been reckoned upon as certain--busily engaged,
+together with some half-dozen stout and active coadjutors, in dragging
+the net ashore, amidst a chorus of exclamations and cautions from the
+various assistants, and the breathless expectation of the spectators on
+the bank, amongst whom were Mrs. Thornly and Cicely, accompanied by a
+tall, athletic young man of dark complexion, with peculiarly bright eyes
+and curling hair, whom his aunt immediately recognised as Edward.
+
+"How improved he is!" was the thought that flashed across her mind, as
+with an air of respectful alacrity he stepped forward to meet her; but
+the miller, in tugging at his nets, happened to look towards them, and
+ashamed that he of all men should see her change of feeling, she turned
+away abruptly, without acknowledging his salutation, and walked off to
+the other side with her attendant, Mr. Adolphus.
+
+"Drat the perverse old jade!" exclaimed John Stokes, involuntarily, as
+he gave a mighty tug, which brought half the net ashore.
+
+"She's heavy, my good sir!" observed the pompous butler, conceiving that
+the honest miller's exclamation had reference to the sport; "only see
+how full she is! We shall have a magnificent hawl!"
+
+And the spectators, male and female, crowded round, and the fishermen
+exerted themselves so efficiently, that in two minutes the net was on
+dry land.
+
+"Nothing but weeds and rubbish!" ejaculated the disappointed butler, a
+peculiarly blank look taking the place of his usual self-importance.
+"What can have become of the fish?"
+
+"The net has been improperly drawn," observed Mr. Adolphus; "I myself
+saw four or five large carp just before it was dragged ashore!"
+
+"Better fling you in, master 'Dolphus, by way of bait!" ejaculated our
+friend the miller; "I've seen jacks in this pond that would make no
+more bones of swallowing a leg or an arm of such an atomy as you, if
+they did not have a try at the whole body, than a shark would of bolting
+down Punch in the show; as to carp, everybody that ever fished a pond
+knows their tricks. Catch them in a net if you can. They swim round and
+round, just to let you look at 'em, and then they drop plump into the
+mud, and lie as still and as close as so many stones. But come, Mr.
+Tomkins," continued honest John, addressing the butler, "we'll try
+again. I'm minded that we shall have better luck this time. Here are
+some brave large tench, which never move till the water is disturbed; we
+shall have a good chance for them as well as for the jacks. Now, steady
+there, you in the boat Throw her in, boys, and mind you don't draw too
+fast!" So to work they all went again.
+
+All was proceeding prosperously, and the net, evidently well filled with
+fish, was dragging slowly to land, when John Stokes shouted suddenly
+from the other side of the pond--"Dang it, if that unlucky chap, master
+'Dolphus there, has not got hold of the top of the net! He'll pull it
+over. See, that great jack has got out already. Take the net from him,
+Tom! He'll let all the fish loose, and tumble in himself, and the water
+at that part is deep enough to drown twenty such mannikins. Not that I
+think drowning likely to be his fate--witness that petition business,"
+muttered John to himself in a sort of parenthesis. "Let go, I say, or
+you will be in. Let go, can't ye?" added he, in his loudest tone.
+
+And with the word, Mr. Adolphus, still struggling to retain his hold of
+the net, lost his balance and fell in, and catching at the person next
+him, who happened to be Mrs. Deborah, with the hope of saving himself,
+dragged her in after him.
+
+Both sank, and amidst the confusion that ensued, the shrieks and sobs
+of the women, the oaths and exclamations of the men, the danger was
+so imminent that both might have been drowned, had not Edward Thornly,
+hastily flinging off his coat and hat, plunged in and rescued Mrs.
+Deborah, whilst good John Stokes, running round the head of the pond as
+nimbly as a boy, did the same kind office for his prime aversion, the
+attorney's clerk. What a sound kernel is sometimes hidden under a rough
+and rugged rind!
+
+Mr. Adolphus, more frightened than hurt, and with so much of the
+conceit washed out of him by his involuntary cold bath, that it might be
+accounted one of the most fortunate accidents in his life, was conveyed
+to the Hall; but her own house being almost equally near, Mrs. Deborah
+was at once taken home, and put comfortably to bed in her own chamber.
+
+About two hours afterwards, the whole of the miller's family, Mrs.
+Thornly still pallid and trembling, Cicely smiling through her tears,
+and her father as blunt and freespoken as ever, were assembled round the
+homely couch of their maiden cousin.
+
+"I tell you I must have the lawyer fetched directly. I can't sleep till
+I have made my will;" said Mrs. Deborah.
+
+"Better not," responded John Stokes; "you'll want it altered
+to-morrow."
+
+"What's that you say, cousin John?" inquired the spinster.
+
+"That if you make your will to night, you'll change your mind
+to-morrow," reiterated John Stokes. "Ned's going to be married to my
+Cicely," added he, "and that you mayn't like, or if you did like it
+this week, you might not like it next So you'd better let matters rest
+as they are."
+
+"You're a provoking man, John Stokes," said his cousin--"a very
+provoking, obstinate man. But I'll convince you for once. Take that key,
+Mrs. Thornly," quoth she, raising herself in bed, and fumbling in an
+immense pair of pockets for a small old-fashioned key, "and open the
+'scrutoire, and give me the pen and ink, and the old narrow brown book,
+that you'll find at the top. Not like his marrying Cicely! Why I always
+have loved that child--don't cry, Cissy!--and have always had cause, for
+she has been a kind little creature to me. Those dahlias came from her,
+and the sweet posy," pursued Mrs. Deborah, pointing to a nosegay of
+autumn flowers, the old fragrant monthly rose, mignionette, heliotrope,
+cloves, and jessamine, which stood by the bedside. "Ay, that's the book,
+Mrs. Thornly; and there, Cissy," continued Aunt Deborah, filling up the
+check, with a sum far larger than that required for the partnership--
+"there, Cissy, is your marriage portion. Don't cry so, child!" said she,
+as the affectionate girl hung round her neck in a passion of grateful
+tears--"don't cry, but find out Edward, and send for the lawyer, for I'm
+determined to settle my affairs to night And now, John Stokes, I know
+I've been a cross old woman, but...."
+
+"Cousin Deborah," interrupted John, seizing her withered hand with a
+gripe like a smith's vice,--"Cousin Deborah, thou hast acted nobly,
+and I beg thy pardon once for all. God bless thee!--Dang it," added the
+honest miller to himself, "I do verily believe that this squabbling has
+been mainly my fault, and that if I had not been so provoking she would
+not have been so contrary. Well, she has made us all happy, and we must
+try to make her happy in return. If we did not, we should deserve to be
+soused in the fish-pond along with that unhappy chap, Master 'Dolphus.
+For my part," continued the good yeoman, forming with great earnestness
+a solemn resolution--"for my part, I've fully made up my mind never
+to contradict her again, say what she will. No, not if she says black's
+white! It's contradiction that makes women contrary; it sets their backs
+up, like. I'll never contradict her again so long as my name's John
+Stokes."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Aunt Deborah, by Mary Russell Mitford
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