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diff --git a/4268-h/4268-h.htm b/4268-h/4268-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d3b5bf8 --- /dev/null +++ b/4268-h/4268-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5150 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cousin Phillis, by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cousin Phillis, by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Cousin Phillis</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 26, 2001 [eBook #4268]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 23, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Aldarondo</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COUSIN PHILLIS ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>Cousin Phillis</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Elizabeth Gaskell (1863)</h2> + +<h4>Philip Hermongenes Calderon (1833-98)<br/> +Broken Vows (1856)</h4> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part01">PART I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part02">PART II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part03">PART III</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part04">PART IV</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part01"></a>PART I</h2> + +<p> +It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of +lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, +at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook’s +shop in the county town of Eltham. My father had left me that afternoon, after +delivering himself of a few plain precepts, strongly expressed, for my guidance +in the new course of life on which I was entering. I was to be a clerk under +the engineer who had undertaken to make the little branch line from Eltham to +Hornby. My father had got me this situation, which was in a position rather +above his own in life; or perhaps I should say, above the station in which he +was born and bred; for he was raising himself every year in men’s consideration +and respect. He was a mechanic by trade, but he had some inventive genius, and +a great deal of perseverance, and had devised several valuable improvements in +railway machinery. He did not do this for profit, though, as was reasonable, +what came in the natural course of things was acceptable; he worked out his +ideas, because, as he said, “until he could put them into shape, they plagued +him by night and by day.” But this is enough about my dear father; it is a good +thing for a country where there are many like him. He was a sturdy Independent +by descent and conviction; and this it was, I believe, which made him place me +in the lodgings at the pastry-cook’s. The shop was kept by the two sisters of +our minister at home; and this was considered as a sort of safeguard to my +morals, when I was turned loose upon the temptations of the county town, with a +salary of thirty pounds a year. +</p> + +<p> +My father had given up two precious days, and put on his Sunday clothes, in +order to bring me to Eltham, and accompany me first to the office, to introduce +me to my new master (who was under some obligations to my father for a +suggestion), and next to take me to call on the Independent minister of the +little congregation at Eltham. And then he left me; and though sorry to part +with him, I now began to taste with relish the pleasure of being my own master. +I unpacked the hamper that my mother had provided me with, and smelt the pots +of preserve with all the delight of a possessor who might break into their +contents at any time he pleased. I handled and weighed in my fancy the +home-cured ham, which seemed to promise me interminable feasts; and, above all, +there was the fine savour of knowing that I might eat of these dainties when I +liked, at my sole will, not dependent on the pleasure of any one else, however +indulgent. I stowed my eatables away in the little corner cupboard—that +room was all corners, and everything was placed in a corner, the fire-place, +the window, the cupboard; I myself seemed to be the only thing in the middle, +and there was hardly room for me. The table was made of a folding leaf under +the window, and the window looked out upon the market-place; so the studies for +the prosecution of which my father had brought himself to pay extra for a +sitting-room for me, ran a considerable chance of being diverted from books to +men and women. I was to have my meals with the two elderly Miss Dawsons in the +little parlour behind the three-cornered shop downstairs; my breakfasts and +dinners at least, for, as my hours in an evening were likely to be uncertain, +my tea or supper was to be an independent meal. +</p> + +<p> +Then, after this pride and satisfaction, came a sense of desolation. I had +never been from home before, and I was an only child; and though my father’s +spoken maxim had been, “Spare the rod, and spoil the child”, yet, +unconsciously, his heart had yearned after me, and his ways towards me were +more tender than he knew, or would have approved of in himself could he have +known. My mother, who never professed sternness, was far more severe than my +father: perhaps my boyish faults annoyed her more; for I remember, now that I +have written the above words, how she pleaded for me once in my riper years, +when I had really offended against my father’s sense of right. +</p> + +<p> +But I have nothing to do with that now. It is about cousin Phillis that I am +going to write, and as yet I am far enough from even saying who cousin Phillis +was. +</p> + +<p> +For some months after I was settled in Eltham, the new employment in which I +was engaged—the new independence of my life—occupied all my +thoughts. I was at my desk by eight o“clock, home to dinner at one, back at the +office by two. The afternoon work was more uncertain than the morning’s; it +might be the same, or it might be that I had to accompany Mr Holdsworth, the +managing engineer, to some point on the line between Eltham and Hornby. This I +always enjoyed, because of the variety, and because of the country we traversed +(which was very wild and pretty), and because I was thrown into companionship +with Mr Holdsworth, who held the position of hero in my boyish mind. He was a +young man of five-and-twenty or so, and was in a station above mine, both by +birth and education; and he had travelled on the Continent, and wore mustachios +and whiskers of a somewhat foreign fashion. I was proud of being seen with him. +He was really a fine fellow in a good number of ways, and I might have fallen +into much worse hands. +</p> + +<p> +Every Saturday I wrote home, telling of my weekly doings—my father had +insisted upon this; but there was so little variety in my life that I often +found it hard work to fill a letter. On Sundays I went twice to chapel, up a +dark narrow entry, to hear droning hymns, and long prayers, and a still longer +sermon, preached to a small congregation, of which I was, by nearly a score of +years, the youngest member. Occasionally, Mr Peters, the minister, would ask me +home to tea after the second service. I dreaded the honour, for I usually sate +on the edge of my chair all the evening, and answered solemn questions, put in +a deep bass voice, until household prayer-time came, at eight o“clock, when Mrs +Peters came in, smoothing down her apron, and the maid-of-all-work followed, +and first a sermon, and then a chapter was read, and a long impromptu prayer +followed, till some instinct told Mr Peters that supper-time had come, and we +rose from our knees with hunger for our predominant feeling. Over supper the +minister did unbend a little into one or two ponderous jokes, as if to show me +that ministers were men, after all. And then at ten o“clock I went home, and +enjoyed my long-repressed yawns in the three-cornered room before going to bed. +Dinah and Hannah Dawson, so their names were put on the board above the +shop-door—I always called them Miss Dawson and Miss +Hannah—considered these visits of mine to Mr Peters as the greatest +honour a young man could have; and evidently thought that if after such +privileges, I did not work out my salvation, I was a sort of modern Judas +Iscariot. On the contrary, they shook their heads over my intercourse with Mr +Holdsworth. He had been so kind to me in many ways, that when I cut into my +ham, I hovered over the thought of asking him to tea in my room, more +especially as the annual fair was being held in Eltham market-place, and the +sight of the booths, the merry-go-rounds, the wild-beast shows, and such +country pomps, was (as I thought at seventeen) very attractive. But when I +ventured to allude to my wish in even distant terms, Miss Hannah caught me up, +and spoke of the sinfulness of such sights, and something about wallowing in +the mire, and then vaulted into France, and spoke evil of the nation, and all +who had ever set foot therein, till, seeing that her anger was concentrating +itself into a point, and that that point was Mr Holdsworth, I thought it would +be better to finish my breakfast, and make what haste I could out of the sound +of her voice. I rather wondered afterwards to hear her and Miss Dawson counting +up their weekly profits with glee, and saying that a pastry-cook’s shop in the +corner of the market-place, in Eltham fair week, was no such bad thing. +However, I never ventured to ask Mr Holdsworth to my lodgings. +</p> + +<p> +There is not much to tell about this first year of mine at Eltham. But when I +was nearly nineteen, and beginning to think of whiskers on my own account, I +came to know cousin Phillis, whose very existence had been unknown to me till +then. Mr Holdsworth and I had been out to Heathbridge for a day, working hard. +Heathbridge was near Hornby, for our line of railway was above half finished. +Of course, a day’s outing was a great thing to tell about in my weekly letters; +and I fell to describing the country—a fault I was not often guilty of. I +told my father of the bogs, all over wild myrtle and soft moss, and shaking +ground over which we had to carry our line; and how Mr Holdsworth and I had +gone for our mid-day meals—for we had to stay here for two days and a +night—to a pretty village hard by, Heathbridge proper; and how I hoped we +should often have to go there, for the shaking, uncertain ground was puzzling +our engineers—one end of the line going up as soon as the other was +weighted down. (I had no thought for the shareholders’ interests, as may be +seen; we had to make a new line on firmer ground before the junction railway +was completed.) I told all this at great length, thankful to fill up my paper. +By return letter, I heard that a second-cousin of my mother’s was married to +the Independent minister of Hornby, Ebenezer Holman by name, and lived at +Heathbridge proper; the very Heathbridge I had described, or so my mother +believed, for she had never seen her cousin Phillis Green, who was something of +an heiress (my father believed), being her father’s only child, and old Thomas +Green had owned an estate of near upon fifty acres, which must have come to his +daughter. My mother’s feeling of kinship seemed to have been strongly stirred +by the mention of Heathbridge; for my father said she desired me, if ever I +went thither again, to make inquiry for the Reverend Ebenezer Holman; and if +indeed he lived there, I was further to ask if he had not married one Phillis +Green; and if both these questions were answered in the affirmative, I was to +go and introduce myself as the only child of Margaret Manning, born Moneypenny. +I was enraged at myself for having named Heathbridge at all, when I found what +it was drawing down upon me. One Independent minister, as I said to myself, was +enough for any man; and here I knew (that is to say, I had been catechized on +Sabbath mornings by) Mr Dawson, our minister at home; and I had had to be civil +to old Peters at Eltham, and behave myself for five hours running whenever he +asked me to tea at his house; and now, just as I felt the free air blowing +about me up at Heathbridge, I was to ferret out another minister, and I should +perhaps have to be catechized by him, or else asked to tea at his house. +Besides, I did not like pushing myself upon strangers, who perhaps had never +heard of my mother’s name, and such an odd name as it was—Moneypenny; and +if they had, had never cared more for her than she had for them, apparently, +until this unlucky mention of Heathbridge. Still, I would not disobey my +parents in such a trifle, however irksome it might be. So the next time our +business took me to Heathbridge, and we were dining in the little sanded +inn-parlour, I took the opportunity of Mr Holdsworth’s being out of the room, +and asked the questions which I was bidden to ask of the rosy-cheeked maid. I +was either unintelligible or she was stupid; for she said she did not know, but +would ask master; and of course the landlord came in to understand what it was +I wanted to know; and I had to bring out all my stammering inquiries before Mr +Holdsworth, who would never have attended to them, I dare say, if I had not +blushed, and blundered, and made such a fool of myself. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” the landlord said, “the Hope Farm was in Heathbridge proper, and the +owner’s name was Holman, and he was an Independent minister, and, as far as the +landlord could tell, his wife’s Christian name was Phillis, anyhow her maiden +name was Green.” +</p> + +<p> +“Relations of yours?” asked Mr Holdsworth. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir—only my mother’s second-cousins. Yes, I suppose they are +relations. But I never saw them in my life.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Hope Farm is not a stone’s throw from here,” said the officious landlord, +going to the window. “If you carry your eye over yon bed of hollyhocks, over +the damson-trees in the orchard yonder, you may see a stack of queer-like stone +chimneys. Them is the Hope Farm chimneys; it’s an old place, though Holman +keeps it in good order.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Holdsworth had risen from the table with more promptitude than I had, and +was standing by the window, looking. At the landlord’s last words, he turned +round, smiling,—“It is not often that parsons know how to keep land in +order, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Beg pardon, sir, but I must speak as I find; and Minister Holman—we call +the Church clergyman here ‘parson,’ sir; he would be a bit jealous if he heard +a Dissenter called parson—Minister Holman knows what he’s about as well +as e’er a farmer in the neighbourhood. He gives up five days a week to his own +work, and two to the Lord’s; and it is difficult to say which he works hardest +at. He spends Saturday and Sunday a-writing sermons and a-visiting his flock at +Hornby; and at five o“clock on Monday morning he’ll be guiding his plough in +the Hope Farm yonder just as well as if he could neither read nor write. But +your dinner will be getting cold, gentlemen.” +</p> + +<p> +So we went back to table. After a while, Mr Holdsworth broke the +silence:—“If I were you, Manning, I’d look up these relations of yours. +You can go and see what they’re like while we’re waiting for Dobson’s +estimates, and I’ll smoke a cigar in the garden meanwhile.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir. But I don’t know them, and I don’t think I want to know them.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you ask all those questions for, then?” said he, looking quickly up +at me. He had no notion of doing or saying things without a purpose. I did not +answer, so he continued,—“Make up your mind, and go off and see what this +farmer-minister is like, and come back and tell me—I should like to +hear.” +</p> + +<p> +I was so in the habit of yielding to his authority, or influence, that I never +thought of resisting, but went on my errand, though I remember feeling as if I +would rather have had my head cut off. The landlord, who had evidently taken an +interest in the event of our discussion in a way that country landlords have, +accompanied me to the house-door, and gave me repeated directions, as if I was +likely to miss my way in two hundred yards. But I listened to him, for I was +glad of the delay, to screw up my courage for the effort of facing unknown +people and introducing myself. I went along the lane, I recollect, switching at +all the taller roadside weeds, till, after a turn or two, I found myself close +in front of the Hope Farm. There was a garden between the house and the shady, +grassy lane; I afterwards found that this garden was called the court; perhaps +because there was a low wall round it, with an iron railing on the top of the +wall, and two great gates between pillars crowned with stone balls for a state +entrance to the flagged path leading up to the front door. It was not the habit +of the place to go in either by these great gates or by the front door; the +gates, indeed, were locked, as I found, though the door stood wide open. I had +to go round by a side-path lightly worn on a broad grassy way, which led past +the court-wall, past a horse-mount, half covered with stone-crop and the little +wild yellow fumitory, to another door—“the curate”, as I found it was +termed by the master of the house, while the front door, “handsome and all for +show”, was termed the “rector”. I knocked with my hand upon the “curate” door; +a tall girl, about my own age, as I thought, came and opened it, and stood +there silent, waiting to know my errand. I see her now—cousin Phillis. +The westering sun shone full upon her, and made a slanting stream of light into +the room within. She was dressed in dark blue cotton of some kind; up to her +throat, down to her wrists, with a little frill of the same wherever it touched +her white skin. And such a white skin as it was! I have never seen the like. +She had light hair, nearer yellow than any other colour. She looked me steadily +in the face with large, quiet eyes, wondering, but untroubled by the sight of a +stranger. I thought it odd that so old, so full-grown as she was, she should +wear a pinafore over her gown. +</p> + +<p> +Before I had quite made up my mind what to say in reply to her mute inquiry of +what I wanted there, a woman’s voice called out, “Who is it, Phillis? If it is +any one for butter-milk send them round to the back door.” +</p> + +<p> +I thought I could rather speak to the owner of that voice than to the girl +before me; so I passed her, and stood at the entrance of a room hat in hand, +for this side-door opened straight into the hall or house-place where the +family sate when work was done. There was a brisk little woman of forty or so +ironing some huge muslin cravats under the light of a long vine-shaded casement +window. She looked at me distrustfully till I began to speak. “My name is Paul +Manning,” said I; but I saw she did not know the name. “My mother’s name was +Moneypenny,” said I,—“Margaret Moneypenny.” +</p> + +<p> +“And she married one John Manning, of Birmingham,” said Mrs Holman, eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ll be her son. Sit down! I am right glad to see you. To think of your +being Margaret’s son! Why, she was almost a child not so long ago. Well, to be +sure, it is five-and-twenty years ago. And what brings you into these parts?” +</p> + +<p> +She sate down herself, as if oppressed by her curiosity as to all the +five-and-twenty years that had passed by since she had seen my mother. Her +daughter Phillis took up her knitting—a long grey worsted man’s stocking, +I remember—and knitted away without looking at her work. I felt that the +steady gaze of those deep grey eyes was upon me, though once, when I stealthily +raised mine to hers, she was examining something on the wall above my head. +</p> + +<p> +When I had answered all my cousin Holman’s questions, she heaved a long breath, +and said, “To think of Margaret Moneypenny’s boy being in our house! I wish the +minister was here. Phillis, in what field is thy father to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the five-acre; they are beginning to cut the corn.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll not like being sent for, then, else I should have liked you to have seen +the minister. But the five-acre is a good step off. You shall have a glass of +wine and a bit of cake before you stir from this house, though. You’re bound to +go, you say, or else the minister comes in mostly when the men have their four +o“clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must go—I ought to have been off before now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here, then, Phillis, take the keys.” She gave her daughter some whispered +directions, and Phillis left the room. +</p> + +<p> +“She is my cousin, is she not?” I asked. I knew she was, but somehow I wanted +to talk of her, and did not know how to begin. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—Phillis Holman. She is our only child—now.” +</p> + +<p> +Either from that “now”, or from a strange momentary wistfulness in her eyes, I +knew that there had been more children, who were now dead. +</p> + +<p> +“How old is cousin Phillis?” said I, scarcely venturing on the new name, it +seemed too prettily familiar for me to call her by it; but cousin Holman took +no notice of it, answering straight to the purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“Seventeen last May-day; but the minister does not like to hear me calling it +May-day,” said she, checking herself with a little awe. “Phillis was seventeen +on the first day of May last,” she repeated in an emended edition. +</p> + +<p> +“And I am nineteen in another month,” thought I, to myself; I don’t know why. +Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with wine and cake upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“We keep a house-servant,” said cousin Holman, “but it is churning day, and she +is busy.” It was meant as a little proud apology for her daughter’s being the +handmaiden. +</p> + +<p> +“I like doing it, mother,” said Phillis, in her grave, full voice. +</p> + +<p> +I felt as if I were somebody in the Old Testament—who, I could not +recollect—being served and waited upon by the daughter of the host. Was I +like Abraham’s servant, when Rebekah gave him to drink at the well? I thought +Isaac had not gone the pleasantest way to work in winning him a wife. But +Phillis never thought about such things. She was a stately, gracious young +woman, in the dress and with the simplicity of a child. +</p> + +<p> +As I had been taught, I drank to the health of my newfound cousin and her +husband; and then I ventured to name my cousin Phillis with a little bow of my +head towards her; but I was too awkward to look and see how she took my +compliment. “I must go now,” said I, rising. +</p> + +<p> +Neither of the women had thought of sharing in the wine; cousin Holman had +broken a bit of cake for form’s sake. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish the minister had been within,” said his wife, rising too. Secretly I +was very glad he was not. I did not take kindly to ministers in those days, and +I thought he must be a particular kind of man, by his objecting to the term +May-day. But before I went, cousin Holman made me promise that I would come +back on the Saturday following and spend Sunday with them; when I should see +something of “the minister”. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on Friday, if you can,” were her last words as she stood at the +curate-door, shading her eyes from the sinking sun with her hand. Inside the +house sate cousin Phillis, her golden hair, her dazzling complexion, lighting +up the corner of the vine-shadowed room. She had not risen when I bade her +good-by; she had looked at me straight as she said her tranquil words of +farewell. +</p> + +<p> +I found Mr Holdsworth down at the line, hard at work superintending. As soon as +he had a pause, he said, “Well, Manning, what are the new cousins like? How do +preaching and farming seem to get on together? If the minister turns out to be +practical as well as reverend, I shall begin to respect him.” +</p> + +<p> +But he hardly attended to my answer, he was so much more occupied with +directing his work-people. Indeed, my answer did not come very readily; and the +most distinct part of it was the mention of the invitation that had been given +me. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, of course you can go—and on Friday, too, if you like; there is no +reason why not this week; and you’ve done a long spell of work this time, old +fellow.” I thought that I did not want to go on Friday; but when the day came, +I found that I should prefer going to staying away, so I availed myself of Mr +Holdsworth’s permission, and went over to Hope Farm some time in the afternoon, +a little later than my last visit. I found the “curate” open to admit the soft +September air, so tempered by the warmth of the sun, that it was warmer out of +doors than in, although the wooden log lay smouldering in front of a heap of +hot ashes on the hearth. The vine-leaves over the window had a tinge more +yellow, their edges were here and there scorched and browned; there was no +ironing about, and cousin Holman sate just outside the house, mending a shirt. +Phillis was at her knitting indoors: it seemed as if she had been at it all the +week. The manyspeckled fowls were pecking about in the farmyard beyond, and the +milk-cans glittered with brightness, hung out to sweeten. The court was so full +of flowers that they crept out upon the low-covered wall and horse-mount, and +were even to be found self-sown upon the turf that bordered the path to the +back of the house. I fancied that my Sunday coat was scented for days +afterwards by the bushes of sweetbriar and the fraxinella that perfumed the +air. From time to time cousin Holman put her hand into a covered basket at her +feet, and threw handsful of corn down for the pigeons that cooed and fluttered +in the air around, in expectation of this treat. +</p> + +<p> +I had a thorough welcome as soon as she saw me. “Now this is kind—this is +right down friendly,” shaking my hand warmly. “Phillis, your cousin Manning is +come!” +</p> + +<p> +“Call me Paul, will you?” said I; “they call me so at home, and Manning in the +office.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Paul, then. Your room is all ready for you, Paul, for, as I said to the +minister, ‘I’ll have it ready whether he comes on Friday or not.’ And the +minister said he must go up to the Ashfield whether you were to come or not; +but he would come home betimes to see if you were here. I’ll show you to your +room, and you can wash the dust off a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +After I came down, I think she did not quite know what to do with me; or she +might think that I was dull; or she might have work to do in which I hindered +her; for she called Phillis, and bade her put on her bonnet, and go with me to +the Ashfield, and find father. So we set off, I in a little flutter of a desire +to make myself agreeable, but wishing that my companion were not quite so tall; +for she was above me in height. While I was wondering how to begin our +conversation, she took up the words. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose, cousin Paul, you have to be very busy at your work all day long in +general.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we have to be in the office at half-past eight; and we have an hour for +dinner, and then we go at it again till eight or nine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you have not much time for reading.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said I, with a sudden consciousness that I did not make the most of what +leisure I had. +</p> + +<p> +“No more have I. Father always gets an hour before going a-field in the +mornings, but mother does not like me to get up so early.” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother is always wanting me to get up earlier when I am at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“What time do you get up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!—ah!—sometimes half-past six: not often though;” for I +remembered only twice that I had done so during the past summer. +</p> + +<p> +She turned her head and looked at me. +</p> + +<p> +“Father is up at three; and so was mother till she was ill. I should like to be +up at four.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your father up at three! Why, what has he to do at that hour?” +</p> + +<p> +“What has he not to do? He has his private exercise in his own room; he always +rings the great bell which calls the men to milking; he rouses up Betty, our +maid; as often as not he gives the horses their feed before the man is +up—for Jem, who takes care of the horses, is an old man; and father is +always loth to disturb him; he looks at the calves, and the shoulders, heels, +traces, chaff, and corn before the horses go a-field; he has often to whip-cord +the plough-whips; he sees the hogs fed; he looks into the swill-tubs, and +writes his orders for what is wanted for food for man and beast; yes, and for +fuel, too. And then, if he has a bit of time to spare, he comes in and reads +with me—but only English; we keep Latin for the evenings, that we may +have time to enjoy it; and then he calls in the men to breakfast, and cuts the +boys’ bread and cheese; and sees their wooden bottles filled, and sends them +off to their work;—and by this time it is half-past six, and we have our +breakfast. There is father,” she exclaimed, pointing out to me a man in his +shirt-sleeves, taller by the head than the other two with whom he was working. +We only saw him through the leaves of the ash-trees growing in the hedge, and I +thought I must be confusing the figures, or mistaken: that man still looked +like a very powerful labourer, and had none of the precise demureness of +appearance which I had always imagined was the characteristic of a minister. It +was the Reverend Ebenezer Holman, however. He gave us a nod as we entered the +stubble-field; and I think he would have come to meet us but that he was in the +middle of giving some directions to his men. I could see that Phillis was built +more after his type than her mother’s. He, like his daughter, was largely made, +and of a fair, ruddy complexion, whereas hers was brilliant and delicate. His +hair had been yellow or sandy, but now was grizzled. Yet his grey hairs +betokened no failure in strength. I never saw a more powerful man—deep +chest, lean flanks, well-planted head. By this time we were nearly up to him; +and he interrupted himself and stepped forwards; holding out his hand to me, +but addressing Phillis. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my lass, this is cousin Manning, I suppose. Wait a minute, young man, +and I’ll put on my coat, and give you a decorous and formal welcome. +But—Ned Hall, there ought to be a water-furrow across this land: it’s a +nasty, stiff, clayey, dauby bit of ground, and thou and I must fall to, come +next Monday—I beg your pardon, cousin Manning—and there’s old Jem’s +cottage wants a bit of thatch; you can do that job to-morrow while I am busy.” +Then, suddenly changing the tone of his deep bass voice to an odd suggestion of +chapels and preachers, he added. “Now, I will give out the psalm, ‘Come all +harmonious tongues’, to be sung to ‘Mount Ephraim’ tune.” +</p> + +<p> +He lifted his spade in his hand, and began to beat time with it; the two +labourers seemed to know both words and music, though I did not; and so did +Phillis: her rich voice followed her father’s as he set the tune; and the men +came in with more uncertainty, but still harmoniously. Phillis looked at me +once or twice with a little surprise at my silence; but I did not know the +words. There we five stood, bareheaded, excepting Phillis, in the tawny +stubble-field, from which all the shocks of corn had not yet been +carried—a dark wood on one side, where the woodpigeons were cooing; blue +distance seen through the ash-trees on the other. Somehow, I think that if I +had known the words, and could have sung, my throat would have been choked up +by the feeling of the unaccustomed scene. +</p> + +<p> +The hymn was ended, and the men had drawn off before I could stir. I saw the +minister beginning to put on his coat, and looking at me with friendly +inspection in his gaze, before I could rouse myself. +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say you railway gentlemen don’t wind up the day with singing a psalm +together,” said he; “but it is not a bad practice—not a bad practice. We +have had it a bit earlier to-day for hospitality’s sake—that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +I had nothing particular to say to this, though I was thinking a great deal. +From time to time I stole a look at my companion. His coat was black, and so +was his waistcoat; neckcloth he had none, his strong full throat being bare +above the snow-white shirt. He wore drab-coloured knee-breeches, grey worsted +stockings (I thought I knew the maker), and strong-nailed shoes. He carried his +hat in his hand, as if he liked to feel the coming breeze lifting his hair. +After a while, I saw that the father took hold of the daughter’s hand, and so, +they holding each other, went along towards home. We had to cross a lane. In it +were two little children, one lying prone on the grass in a passion of crying, +the other standing stock still, with its finger in its mouth, the large tears +slowly rolling down its cheeks for sympathy. The cause of their distress was +evident; there was a broken brown pitcher, and a little pool of spilt milk on +the road. +</p> + +<p> +“Hollo! Hollo! What’s all this?” said the minister. “Why, what have you been +about, Tommy,” lifting the little petticoated lad, who was lying sobbing, with +one vigorous arm. Tommy looked at him with surprise in his round eyes, but no +affright—they were evidently old acquaintances. +</p> + +<p> +“Mammy’s jug!” said he, at last, beginning to cry afresh. +</p> + +<p> +“Well! and will crying piece mammy’s jug, or pick up spilt milk? How did you +manage it, Tommy?” +</p> + +<p> +“He” (jerking his head at the other) “and me was running races.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tommy said he could beat me,” put in the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I wonder what will make you two silly lads mind, and not run races again +with a pitcher of milk between you,” said the minister, as if musing. “I might +flog you, and so save mammy the trouble; for I dare say she’ll do it if I +don’t.” The fresh burst of whimpering from both showed the probability of this. +</p> + +<p> +“Or I might take you to the Hope Farm, and give you some more milk; but then +you’d be running races again, and my milk would follow that to the ground, and +make another white pool. I think the flogging would be best—don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“We would never run races no more,” said the elder of the two. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’d not be boys; you’d be angels.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, we shouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +They looked into each other’s eyes for an answer to this puzzling question. At +length, one said, “Angels is dead folk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come; we’ll not get too deep into theology. What do you think of my lending +you a tin can with a lid to carry the milk home in? That would not break, at +any rate; though I would not answer for the milk not spilling if you ran races. +That’s it!” +</p> + +<p> +He had dropped his daughter’s hand, and now held out each of his to the little +fellows. Phillis and I followed, and listened to the prattle which the +minister’s companions now poured out to him, and which he was evidently +enjoying. At a certain point, there was a sudden burst of the tawny, +ruddy-evening landscape. The minister turned round and quoted a line or two of +Latin. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s wonderful,” said he, “how exactly Virgil has hit the enduring epithets, +nearly two thousand years ago, and in Italy; and yet how it describes to a T +what is now lying before us in the parish of Heathbridge, county +——, England.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say it does,” said I, all aglow with shame, for I had forgotten the +little Latin I ever knew. +</p> + +<p> +The minister shifted his eyes to Phillis’s face; it mutely gave him back the +sympathetic appreciation that I, in my ignorance, could not bestow. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! this is worse than the catechism,” thought I; “that was only remembering +words.” +</p> + +<p> +“Phillis, lass, thou must go home with these lads, and tell their mother all +about the race and the milk. Mammy must always know the truth,” now speaking to +the children. “And tell her, too, from me that I have got the best birch rod in +the parish; and that if she ever thinks her children want a flogging she must +bring them to me, and, if I think they deserve it, I’ll give it them better +than she can.” So Phillis led the children towards the dairy, somewhere in the +back yard, and I followed the minister in through the “curate” into the +house-place. “Their mother,” said he, “is a bit of a vixen, and apt to punish +her children without rhyme or reason. I try to keep the parish rod as well as +the parish bull.” +</p> + +<p> +He sate down in the three-cornered chair by the fire-side, and looked around +the empty room. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the missus?” said he to himself. But she was there in a minute; it was +her regular plan to give him his welcome home—by a look, by a touch, +nothing more—as soon as she could after his return, and he had missed her +now. Regardless of my presence, he went over the day’s doings to her; and then, +getting up, he said he must go and make himself “reverend”, and that then we +would have a cup of tea in the parlour. The parlour was a large room with two +casemented windows on the other side of the broad flagged passage leading from +the rector-door to the wide staircase, with its shallow, polished oaken steps, +on which no carpet was ever laid. The parlour-floor was covered in the middle +by a home-made carpeting of needlework and list. One or two quaint family +pictures of the Holman family hung round the walls; the fire-grate and irons +were much ornamented with brass; and on a table against the wall between the +windows, a great beau-pot of flowers was placed upon the folio volumes of +Matthew Henry’s Bible. It was a compliment to me to use this room, and I tried +to be grateful for it; but we never had our meals there after that first day, +and I was glad of it; for the large house-place, living room, dining-room, +whichever you might like to call it, was twice as comfortable and cheerful. +There was a rug in front of the great large fire-place, and an oven by the +grate, and a crook, with the kettle hanging from it, over the bright wood-fire; +everything that ought to be black and polished in that room was black and +polished; and the flags, and window-curtains, and such things as were to be +white and clean, were just spotless in their purity. Opposite to the +fire-place, extending the whole length of the room, was an oaken shovel-board, +with the right incline for a skilful player to send the weights into the +prescribed space. There were baskets of white work about, and a small shelf of +books hung against the wall, books used for reading, and not for propping up a +beau-pot of flowers. I took down one or two of those books once when I was left +alone in the house-place on the first evening—Virgil, Caesar, a Greek +grammar—oh, dear! ah, me! and Phillis Holman’s name in each of them! I +shut them up, and put them back in their places, and walked as far away from +the bookshelf as I could. Yes, and I gave my cousin Phillis a wide berth, as +though she was sitting at her work quietly enough, and her hair was looking +more golden, her dark eyelashes longer, her round pillar of a throat whiter +than ever. We had done tea, and we had returned into the house-place that the +minister might smoke his pipe without fear of contaminating the drab damask +window-curtains of the parlour. He had made himself “reverend” by putting on +one of the voluminous white muslin neckcloths that I had seen cousin Holman +ironing that first visit I had paid to the Hope Farm, and by making one or two +other unimportant changes in his dress. He sate looking steadily at me, but +whether he saw me or not I cannot tell. At the time I fancied that he did, and +was gauging me in some unknown fashion in his secret mind. Every now and then +he took his pipe out of his mouth, knocked out the ashes, and asked me some +fresh question. As long as these related to my acquirements or my reading, I +shuffled uneasily and did not know what to answer. By-and-by he got round to +the more practical subject of railroads, and on this I was more at home. I +really had taken an interest in my work; nor would Mr Holdsworth, indeed, have +kept me in his employment if I had not given my mind as well as my time to it; +and I was, besides, full of the difficulties which beset us just then, owing to +our not being able to find a steady bottom on the Heathbridge moss, over which +we wished to carry our line. In the midst of all my eagerness in speaking about +this, I could not help being struck with the extreme pertinence of his +questions. I do not mean that he did not show ignorance of many of the details +of engineering: that was to have been expected; but on the premises he had got +hold of; he thought clearly and reasoned logically. Phillis—so like him +as she was both in body and mind—kept stopping at her work and looking at +me, trying to fully understand all that I said. I felt she did; and perhaps it +made me take more pains in using clear expressions, and arranging my words, +than I otherwise should. +</p> + +<p> +“She shall see I know something worth knowing, though it mayn’t be her +dead-and-gone languages,” thought I. +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said the minister, at length. “I understand it all. You’ve a clear, +good head of your own, my lad,—choose how you came by it.” +</p> + +<p> +“From my father,” said I, proudly. “Have you not heard of his discovery of a +new method of shunting? It was in the Gazette. It was patented. I thought every +one had heard of Manning’s patent winch.” +</p> + +<p> +“We don’t know who invented the alphabet,” said he, half smiling, and taking up +his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I dare say not, sir,” replied I, half offended; “that’s so long ago.” +Puff—puff—puff. +</p> + +<p> +“But your father must be a notable man. I heard of him once before; and it is +not many a one fifty miles away whose fame reaches Heathbridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“My father is a notable man, sir. It is not me that says so; it is Mr +Holdsworth, and—and everybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is right to stand up for his father,” said cousin Holman, as if she were +pleading for me. +</p> + +<p> +I chafed inwardly, thinking that my father needed no one to stand up for him. +He was man sufficient for himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—he is right,” said the minister, placidly. “Right, because it comes +from his heart—right, too, as I believe, in point of fact. Else there is +many a young cockerel that will stand upon a dunghill and crow about his +father, by way of making his own plumage to shine. I should like to know thy +father,” he went on, turning straight to me, with a kindly, frank look in his +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +But I was vexed, and would take no notice. Presently, having finished his pipe, +he got up and left the room. Phillis put her work hastily down, and went after +him. In a minute or two she returned, and sate down again. Not long after, and +before I had quite recovered my good temper, he opened the door out of which he +had passed, and called to me to come to him. I went across a narrow stone +passage into a strange, many-cornered room, not ten feet in area, part study, +part counting house, looking into the farm-yard; with a desk to sit at, a desk +to stand at, a spittoon, a set of shelves with old divinity books upon them; +another, smaller, filled with books on farriery, farming, manures, and such +subjects, with pieces of paper containing memoranda stuck against the +whitewashed walls with wafers, nails, pins, anything that came readiest to +hand; a box of carpenter’s tools on the floor, and some manuscripts in +short-hand on the desk. +</p> + +<p> +He turned round, half laughing. “That foolish girl of mine thinks I have vexed +you”—putting his large, powerful hand on my shoulder. “‘Nay,’ says I, +‘kindly meant is kindly taken’—is it not so?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not quite, sir,” replied I, vanquished by his manner; “but it shall be +in future.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, that’s right. You and I shall be friends. Indeed, it’s not many a one I +would bring in here. But I was reading a book this morning, and I could not +make it out; it is a book that was left here by mistake one day; I had +subscribed to Brother Robinson’s sermons; and I was glad to see this instead of +them, for sermons though they be, they’re . . . well, never mind! I took “em +both, and made my old coat do a bit longer; but all’s fish that comes to my +net. I have fewer books than leisure to read them, and I have a prodigious big +appetite. Here it is.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a volume of stiff mechanics, involving many technical terms, and some +rather deep mathematics. These last, which would have puzzled me, seemed easy +enough to him; all that he wanted was the explanations of the technical words, +which I could easily give. +</p> + +<p> +While he was looking through the book to find the places where he had been +puzzled, my wandering eye caught on some of the papers on the wall, and I could +not help reading one, which has stuck by me ever since. At first, it seemed a +kind of weekly diary; but then I saw that the seven days were portioned out for +special prayers and intercessions: Monday for his family, Tuesday for enemies, +Wednesday for the Independent churches, Thursday for all other churches, Friday +for persons afflicted, Saturday for his own soul, Sunday for all wanderers and +sinners, that they might be brought home to the fold. +</p> + +<p> +We were called back into the house-place to have supper. A door opening into +the kitchen was opened; and all stood up in both rooms, while the minister, +tall, large, one hand resting on the spread table, the other lifted up, said, +in the deep voice that would have been loud had it not been so full and rich, +but without the peculiar accent or twang that I believe is considered devout by +some people, “Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, let us do all to +the glory of God.” +</p> + +<p> +The supper was an immense meat-pie. We of the house-place were helped first; +then the minister hit the handle of his buck-horn carving-knife on the table +once, and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Now or never,” which meant, did any of us want any more; and when we had all +declined, either by silence or by words, he knocked twice with his knife on the +table, and Betty came in through the open door, and carried off the great dish +to the kitchen, where an old man and a young one, and a help-girl, were +awaiting their meal. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut the door, if you will,” said the minister to Betty. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s in honour of you,” said cousin Holman, in a tone of satisfaction, as +the door was shut. “When we’ve no stranger with us, the minister is so fond of +keeping the door open, and talking to the men and maids, just as much as to +Phillis and me. +</p> + +<p> +“It brings us all together like a household just before we meet as a household +in prayer,” said he, in explanation. “But to go back to what we were talking +about—can you tell me of any simple book on dynamics that I could put in +my pocket, and study a little at leisure times in the day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Leisure times, father?” said Phillis, with a nearer approach to a smile than I +had yet seen on her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; leisure times, daughter. There is many an odd minute lost in waiting for +other folk; and now that railroads are coming so near us, it behoves us to know +something about them.” +</p> + +<p> +I thought of his own description of his “prodigious big appetite” for learning. +And he had a good appetite of his own for the more material victual before him. +But I saw, or fancied I saw, that he had some rule for himself in the matter +both of food and drink. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as supper was done the household assembled for prayer. It was a long +impromptu evening prayer; and it would have seemed desultory enough had I not +had a glimpse of the kind of day that preceded it, and so been able to find a +clue to the thoughts that preceded the disjointed utterances; for he kept there +kneeling down in the centre of a circle, his eyes shut, his outstretched hands +pressed palm to palm—sometimes with a long pause of silence was anything +else he wished to “lay before the Lord! (to use his own +expression)—before he concluded with the blessing. He prayed for the +cattle and live creatures, rather to my surprise; for my attention had begun to +wander, till it was recalled by the familiar words. +</p> + +<p> +And here I must not forget to name an odd incident at the conclusion of the +prayer, and before we had risen from our knees (indeed before Betty was well +awake, for she made a practice of having a sound nap, her weary head lying on +her stalwart arms); the minister, still kneeling in our midst, but with his +eyes wide open, and his arms dropped by his side, spoke to the elder man, who +turned round on his knees to attend. “John, didst see that Daisy had her warm +mash to-night; for we must not neglect the means, John—two quarts of +gruel, a spoonful of ginger, and a gill of beer—the poor beast needs it, +and I fear it slipped out of my mind to tell thee; and here was I asking a +blessing and neglecting the means, which is a mockery,” said he, dropping his +voice. +</p> + +<p> +Before we went to bed he told me he should see little or nothing more of me +during my visit, which was to end on Sunday evening, as he always gave up both +Saturday and Sabbath to his work in the ministry. I remembered that the +landlord at the inn had told me this on the day when I first inquired about +these new relations of mine; and I did not dislike the opportunity which I saw +would be afforded me of becoming more acquainted with cousin Holman and +Phillis, though I earnestly hoped that the latter would not attack me on the +subject of the dead languages. +</p> + +<p> +I went to bed, and dreamed that I was as tall as cousin Phillis, and had a +sudden and miraculous growth of whisker, and a still more miraculous +acquaintance with Latin and Greek. Alas! I wakened up still a short, beardless +lad, with “tempus fugit” for my sole remembrance of the little Latin I had once +learnt. While I was dressing, a bright thought came over me: I could question +cousin Phillis, instead of her questioning me, and so manage to keep the choice +of the subjects of conversation in my own power. +</p> + +<p> +Early as it was, every one had breakfasted, and my basin of bread and milk was +put on the oven-top to await my coming down. Every one was gone about their +work. The first to come into the house-place was Phillis with a basket of eggs. +Faithful to my resolution, I asked,— +</p> + +<p> +“What are those?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me for a moment, and then said gravely,— +</p> + +<p> +“Potatoes!” +</p> + +<p> +“No! they are not,” said I. “They are eggs. What do you mean by saying they are +potatoes?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by asking me what they were, when they were plain to be +seen?” retorted she. +</p> + +<p> +We were both getting a little angry with each other. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. I wanted to begin to talk to you; and I was afraid you would +talk to me about books as you did yesterday. I have not read much; and you and +the minister have read so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not,” said she. “But you are our guest; and mother says I must make it +pleasant to you. We won’t talk of books. What must we talk about?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. How old are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seventeen last May. How old are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am nineteen. Older than you by nearly two years,” said I, drawing myself up +to my full height. +</p> + +<p> +“I should not have thought you were above sixteen,” she replied, as quietly as +if she were not saying the most provoking thing she possibly could. Then came a +pause. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do now?” asked I. +</p> + +<p> +“I should be dusting the bed-chambers; but mother said I had better stay and +make it pleasant to you,” said she, a little plaintively, as if dusting rooms +was far the easiest task. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take me to see the live-stock? I like animals, though I don’t know +much about them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do you? I am so glad! I was afraid you would not like animals, as you did +not like books.” +</p> + +<p> +I wondered why she said this. I think it was because she had begun to fancy all +our tastes must be dissimilar. We went together all through the farm-yard; we +fed the poultry, she kneeling down with her pinafore full of corn and meal, and +tempting the little timid, downy chickens upon it, much to the anxiety of the +fussy ruffled hen, their mother. She called to the pigeons, who fluttered down +at the sound of her voice. She and I examined the great sleek cart-horses; +sympathized in our dislike of pigs; fed the calves; coaxed the sick cow, Daisy; +and admired the others out at pasture; and came back tired and hungry and dirty +at dinner-time, having quite forgotten that there were such things as dead +languages, and consequently capital friends. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part02"></a>PART II</h2> + +<p> +Cousin Holman gave me the weekly county newspaper to read aloud to her, while +she mended stockings out of a high piled-up basket, Phillis helping her mother. +I read and read, unregardful of the words I was uttering, thinking of all +manner of other things; of the bright colour of Phillis’s hair, as the +afternoon sun fell on her bending head; of the silence of the house, which +enabled me to hear the double tick of the old clock which stood half-way up the +stairs; of the variety of inarticulate noises which cousin Holman made while I +read, to show her sympathy, wonder, or horror at the newspaper intelligence. +The tranquil monotony of that hour made me feel as if I had lived for ever, and +should live for ever droning out paragraphs in that warm sunny room, with my +two quiet hearers, and the curled-up pussy cat sleeping on the hearth-rug, and +the clock on the house-stairs perpetually clicking out the passage of the +moments. By-and-by Betty the servant came to the door into the kitchen, and +made a sign to Phillis, who put her half-mended stocking down, and went away to +the kitchen without a word. Looking at cousin Holman a minute or two +afterwards, I saw that she had dropped her chin upon her breast, and had fallen +fast asleep. I put the newspaper down, and was nearly following her example, +when a waft of air from some unseen source, slightly opened the door of +communication with the kitchen, that Phillis must have left unfastened; and I +saw part of her figure as she sate by the dresser, peeling apples with quick +dexterity of finger, but with repeated turnings of her head towards some book +lying on the dresser by her. I softly rose, and as softly went into the +kitchen, and looked over her shoulder; before she was aware of my +neighbourhood, I had seen that the book was in a language unknown to me, and +the running title was L’Inferno. Just as I was making out the relationship of +this word to “infernal”, she started and turned round, and, as if continuing +her thought as she spoke, she sighed out,— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! it is so difficult! Can you help me?” putting her finger below a line. +</p> + +<p> +“Me! I! I don’t even know what language it is in!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you see it is Dante?” she replied, almost petulantly; she did so want +help. +</p> + +<p> +“Italian, then?” said I, dubiously; for I was not quite sure. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And I do so want to make it out. Father can help me a little, for he +knows Latin; but then he has so little time.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have not much, I should think, if you have often to try and do two things +at once, as you are doing now. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! that’s nothing! Father bought a heap of old books cheap. And I knew +something about Dante before; and I have always liked Virgil so much. Paring +apples is nothing, if I could only make out this old Italian. I wish you knew +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I did,” said I, moved by her impetuosity of tone. “If, now, only Mr +Holdsworth were here; he can speak Italian like anything, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Mr Holdsworth?” said Phillis, looking up. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s our head engineer. He’s a regular first-rate fellow! He can do +anything;” my hero-worship and my pride in my chief all coming into play. +Besides, if I was not clever and book-learned myself, it was something to +belong to some one who was. +</p> + +<p> +“How is it that he speaks Italian?” asked Phillis. +</p> + +<p> +“He had to make a railway through Piedmont, which is in Italy, I believe; and +he had to talk to all the workmen in Italian; and I have heard him say that for +nearly two years he had only Italian books to read in the queer outlandish +places he was in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear!” said Phillis; “I wish—” and then she stopped. I was not quite +sure whether to say the next thing that came into my mind; but I said it. +</p> + +<p> +“Could I ask him anything about your book, or your difficulties?” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent for a minute or so, and then she made reply,— +</p> + +<p> +“No! I think not. Thank you very much, though. I can generally puzzle a thing +out in time. And then, perhaps, I remember it better than if some one had +helped me. I’ll put it away now, and you must move off, for I’ve got to make +the paste for the pies; we always have a cold dinner on Sabbaths.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I may stay and help you, mayn’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes; not that you can help at all, but I like to have you with me.” I was +both flattered and annoyed at this straightforward avowal. I was pleased that +she liked me; but I was young coxcomb enough to have wished to play the lover, +and I was quite wise enough to perceive that if she had any idea of the kind in +her head she would never have spoken out so frankly. I comforted myself +immediately, however, by finding out that the grapes were sour. A great tall +girl in a pinafore, half a head taller than I was, reading books that I had +never heard of, and talking about them too, as of far more interest than any +mere personal subjects; that was the last day on which I ever thought of my +dear cousin Phillis as the possible mistress of my heart and life. But we were +all the greater friends for this idea being utterly put away and buried out of +sight. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the evening the minister came home from Hornby. He had been calling on +the different members of his flock; and unsatisfactory work it had proved to +him, it seemed from the fragments that dropped out of his thoughts into his +talk. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see the men; they are all at their business, their shops, or their +warehouses; they ought to be there. I have no fault to find with them; only if +a pastor’s teaching or words of admonition are good for anything, they are +needed by the men as much as by the women.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cannot you go and see them in their places of business, and remind them of +their Christian privileges and duties, minister?” asked cousin Holman, who +evidently thought that her husband’s words could never be out of place. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said he, shaking his head. “I judge them by myself. If there are clouds +in the sky, and I am getting in the hay just ready for loading, and rain sure +to come in the night, I should look ill upon brother Robinson if he came into +the field to speak about serious things.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, at any rate, father, you do good to the women, and perhaps they repeat +what you have said to them to their husbands and children?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is to be hoped they do, for I cannot reach the men directly; but the women +are apt to tarry before coming to me, to put on ribbons and gauds; as if they +could hear the message I bear to them best in their smart clothes. Mrs Dobson +to-day—Phillis, I am thankful thou dost not care for the vanities of +dress!” Phillis reddened a little as she said, in a low humble voice,— +</p> + +<p> +“But I do, father, I’m afraid. I often wish I could wear pretty-coloured +ribbons round my throat like the squire’s daughters.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s but natural, minister!” said his wife; “I’m not above liking a silk gown +better than a cotton one myself!” +</p> + +<p> +“The love of dress is a temptation and a snare,” said he, gravely. “The true +adornment is a meek and quiet spirit. And, wife,” said he, as a sudden thought +crossed his mind, “in that matter I, too, have sinned. I wanted to ask you, +could we not sleep in the grey room, instead of our own?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sleep in the grey room?—change our room at this time o’ day?” cousin +Holman asked, in dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said he. “It would save me from a daily temptation to anger. Look at my +chin!” he continued; “I cut it this morning—I cut it on Wednesday when I +was shaving; I do not know how many times I have cut it of late, and all from +impatience at seeing Timothy Cooper at his work in the yard.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a downright lazy tyke!” said cousin Holman. “He’s not worth his wage. +There’s but little he can do, and what he can do, he does badly.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said the minister. “He is but, so to speak, a half-wit; and yet he has +got a wife and children.” +</p> + +<p> +“More shame for him!” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is past change. And if I turn him off; no one else will take him on. +Yet I cannot help watching him of a morning as he goes sauntering about his +work in the yard; and I watch, and I watch, till the old Adam rises strong +within me at his lazy ways, and some day, I am afraid, I shall go down and send +him about his business—let alone the way in which he makes me cut myself +while I am shaving—and then his wife and children will starve. I wish we +could move to the grey room.” +</p> + +<p> +I do not remember much more of my first visit to the Hope Farm. We went to +chapel in Heathbridge, slowly and decorously walking along the lanes, ruddy and +tawny with the colouring of the coming autumn. The minister walked a little +before us, his hands behind his back, his head bent down, thinking about the +discourse to be delivered to his people, cousin Holman said; and we spoke low +and quietly, in order not to interrupt his thoughts. But I could not help +noticing the respectful greetings which he received from both rich and poor as +we went along; greetings which he acknowledged with a kindly wave of his hand, +but with no words of reply. As we drew near the town, I could see some of the +young fellows we met cast admiring looks on Phillis; and that made me look too. +She had on a white gown, and a short black silk cloak, according to the fashion +of the day. A straw bonnet with brown ribbon strings; that was all. But what +her dress wanted in colour, her sweet bonny face had. The walk made her cheeks +bloom like the rose; the very whites of her eyes had a blue tinge in them, and +her dark eyelashes brought out the depth of the blue eyes themselves. Her +yellow hair was put away as straight as its natural curliness would allow. If +she did not perceive the admiration she excited, I am sure cousin Holman did; +for she looked as fierce and as proud as ever her quiet face could look, +guarding her treasure, and yet glad to perceive that others could see that it +was a treasure. That afternoon I had to return to Eltham to be ready for the +next day’s work. I found out afterwards that the minister and his family were +all “exercised in spirit,” as to whether they did well in asking me to repeat +my visits at the Hope Farm, seeing that of necessity I must return to Eltham on +the Sabbath-day. However, they did go on asking me, and I went on visiting +them, whenever my other engagements permitted me, Mr Holdsworth being in this +case, as in all, a kind and indulgent friend. Nor did my new acquaintances oust +him from my strong regard and admiration. I had room in my heart for all, I am +happy to say, and as far as I can remember, I kept praising each to the other +in a manner which, if I had been an older man, living more amongst people of +the world, I should have thought unwise, as well as a little ridiculous. It was +unwise, certainly, as it was almost sure to cause disappointment if ever they +did become acquainted; and perhaps it was ridiculous, though I do not think we +any of us thought it so at the time. The minister used to listen to my accounts +of Mr Holdsworth’s many accomplishments and various adventures in travel with +the truest interest, and most kindly good faith; and Mr Holdsworth in return +liked to hear about my visits to the farm, and description of my cousin’s life +there—liked it, I mean, as much as he liked anything that was merely +narrative, without leading to action. +</p> + +<p> +So I went to the farm certainly, on an average, once a month during that +autumn; the course of life there was so peaceful and quiet, that I can only +remember one small event, and that was one that I think I took more notice of +than any one else: Phillis left off wearing the pinafores that had always been +so obnoxious to me; I do not know why they were banished, but on one of my +visits I found them replaced by pretty linen aprons in the morning, and a black +silk one in the afternoon. And the blue cotton gown became a brown stuff one as +winter drew on; this sounds like some book I once read, in which a migration +from the blue bed to the brown was spoken of as a great family event. +</p> + +<p> +Towards Christmas my dear father came to see me, and to consult Mr Holdsworth +about the improvement which has since been known as “Manning’s driving wheel”. +Mr Holdsworth, as I think I have before said, had a very great regard for my +father, who had been employed in the same great machine-shop in which Mr +Holdsworth had served his apprenticeship; and he and my father had many mutual +jokes about one of these gentlemen-apprentices who used to set about his +smith’s work in white wash-leather gloves, for fear of spoiling his hands. Mr +Holdsworth often spoke to me about my father as having the same kind of genius +for mechanical invention as that of George Stephenson, and my father had come +over now to consult him about several improvements, as well as an offer of +partnership. It was a great pleasure to me to see the mutual regard of these +two men. Mr Holdsworth, young, handsome, keen, well-dressed, an object of +admiration to all the youth of Eltham; my father, in his decent but +unfashionable Sunday clothes, his plain, sensible face full of hard lines, the +marks of toil and thought,—his hands, blackened beyond the power of soap +and water by years of labour in the foundry; speaking a strong Northern +dialect, while Mr Holdsworth had a long soft drawl in his voice, as many of the +Southerners have, and was reckoned in Eltham to give himself airs. +</p> + +<p> +Although most of my father’s leisure time was occupied with conversations about +the business I have mentioned, he felt that he ought not to leave Eltham +without going to pay his respects to the relations who had been so kind to his +son. So he and I ran up on an engine along the incomplete line as far as +Heathbridge, and went, by invitation, to spend a day at the farm. +</p> + +<p> +It was odd and yet pleasant to me to perceive how these two men, each having +led up to this point such totally dissimilar lives, seemed to come together by +instinct, after one quiet straight look into each other’s faces. My father was +a thin, wiry man of five foot seven; the minister was a broad-shouldered, +fresh-coloured man of six foot one; they were neither of them great talkers in +general—perhaps the minister the most so—but they spoke much to +each other. My father went into the fields with the minister; I think I see him +now, with his hands behind his back, listening intently to all explanations of +tillage, and the different processes of farming; occasionally taking up an +implement, as if unconsciously, and examining it with a critical eye, and now +and then asking a question, which I could see was considered as pertinent by +his companion. Then we returned to look at the cattle, housed and bedded in +expectation of the snow-storm hanging black on the western horizon, and my +father learned the points of a cow with as much attention as if he meant to +turn farmer. He had his little book that he used for mechanical memoranda and +measurements in his pocket, and he took it out to write down “straight back”, +small muzzle”, “deep barrel”, and I know not what else, under the head “cow”. +He was very critical on a turnip-cutting machine, the clumsiness of which first +incited him to talk; and when we went into the house he sate thinking and quiet +for a bit, while Phillis and her mother made the last preparations for tea, +with a little unheeded apology from cousin Holman, because we were not sitting +in the best parlour, which she thought might be chilly on so cold a night. I +wanted nothing better than the blazing, crackling fire that sent a glow over +all the house-place, and warmed the snowy flags under our feet till they seemed +to have more heat than the crimson rug right in front of the fire. After tea, +as Phillis and I were talking together very happily, I heard an irrepressible +exclamation from cousin Holman,— +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever is the man about!” +</p> + +<p> +And on looking round, I saw my father taking a straight burning stick out of +the fire, and, after waiting for a minute, and examining the charred end to see +if it was fitted for his purpose, he went to the hard-wood dresser, scoured to +the last pitch of whiteness and cleanliness, and began drawing with the stick; +the best substitute for chalk or charcoal within his reach, for his pocket-book +pencil was not strong or bold enough for his purpose. When he had done, he +began to explain his new model of a turnip-cutting machine to the minister, who +had been watching him in silence all the time. Cousin Holman had, in the +meantime, taken a duster out of a drawer, and, under pretence of being as much +interested as her husband in the drawing, was secretly trying on an outside +mark how easily it would come off, and whether it would leave her dresser as +white as before. Then Phillis was sent for the book on dynamics about which I +had been consulted during my first visit, and my father had to explain many +difficulties, which he did in language as clear as his mind, making drawings +with his stick wherever they were needed as illustrations, the minister sitting +with his massive head resting on his hands, his elbows on the table, almost +unconscious of Phillis, leaning over and listening greedily, with her hand on +his shoulder, sucking in information like her father’s own daughter. I was +rather sorry for cousin Holman; I had been so once or twice before; for do what +she would, she was completely unable even to understand the pleasure her +husband and daughter took in intellectual pursuits, much less to care in the +least herself for the pursuits themselves, and was thus unavoidably thrown out +of some of their interests. I had once or twice thought she was a little +jealous of her own child, as a fitter companion for her husband than she was +herself; and I fancied the minister himself was aware of this feeling, for I +had noticed an occasional sudden change of subject, and a tenderness of appeal +in his voice as he spoke to her, which always made her look contented and +peaceful again. I do not think that Phillis ever perceived these little +shadows; in the first place, she had such complete reverence for her parents +that she listened to them both as if they had been St Peter and St Paul; and +besides, she was always too much engrossed with any matter in hand to think +about other people’s manners and looks. +</p> + +<p> +This night I could see, though she did not, how much she was winning on my +father. She asked a few questions which showed that she had followed his +explanations up to that point; possibly, too, her unusual beauty might have +something to do with his favourable impression of her; but he made no scruple +of expressing his admiration of her to her father and mother in her absence +from the room; and from that evening I date a project of his which came out to +me a day or two afterwards, as we sate in my little three-cornered room in +Eltham. “Paul,” he began, “I never thought to be a rich man; but I think it’s +coming upon me. Some folk are making a deal of my new machine (calling it by +its technical name), and Ellison, of the Borough Green Works, has gone so far +as to ask me to be his partner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Ellison the Justice!—who lives in King Street? why, he drives his +carriage!” said I, doubting, yet exultant. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, lad, John Ellison. But that’s no sign that I shall drive my carriage. +Though I should like to save thy mother walking, for she’s not so young as she +was. But that’s a long way off; anyhow. I reckon I should start with a third +profit. It might be seven hundred, or it might be more. I should like to have +the power to work out some fancies o’ mine. I care for that much more than for +th’ brass. And Ellison has no lads; and by nature the business would come to +thee in course o’ time. Ellison’s lasses are but bits o’ things, and are not +like to come by husbands just yet; and when they do, maybe they’ll not be in +the mechanical line. It will be an opening for thee, lad, if thou art steady. +Thou’rt not great shakes, I know, in th’ inventing line; but many a one gets on +better without having fancies for something he does not see and never has seen. +I’m right down glad to see that mother’s cousins are such uncommon folk for +sense and goodness. I have taken the minister to my heart like a brother; and +she is a womanly quiet sort of a body. And I’ll tell you frank, Paul, it will +be a happy day for me if ever you can come and tell me that Phillis Holman is +like to be my daughter. I think if that lass had not a penny, she would be the +making of a man; and she’ll have yon house and lands, and you may be her match +yet in fortune if all goes well.” +</p> + +<p> +I was growing as red as fire; I did not know what to say, and yet I wanted to +say something; but the idea of having a wife of my own at some future day, +though it had often floated about in my own head, sounded so strange when it +was thus first spoken about by my father. He saw my confusion, and half smiling +said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, lad, what dost say to the old father’s plans? Thou art but young, to be +sure; but when I was thy age, I would ha’ given my right hand if I might ha’ +thought of the chance of wedding the lass I cared for—” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother?” asked I, a little struck by the change of his tone of voice. +</p> + +<p> +“No! not thy mother. Thy mother is a very good woman—none better. No! the +lass I cared for at nineteen ne’er knew how I loved her, and a year or two +after and she was dead, and ne’er knew. I think she would ha’ been glad to ha’ +known it, poor Molly; but I had to leave the place where we lived for to try to +earn my bread and I meant to come back but before ever I did, she was dead and +gone: I ha’ never gone there since. But if you fancy Phillis Holman, and can +get her to fancy you, my lad, it shall go different with you, Paul, to what it +did with your father.” +</p> + +<p> +I took counsel with myself very rapidly, and I came to a clear conclusion. +“Father,” said I, “if I fancied Phillis ever so much, she would never fancy me. +I like her as much as I could like a sister; and she likes me as if I were her +brother—her younger brother.” +</p> + +<p> +I could see my father’s countenance fall a little. +</p> + +<p> +“You see she’s so clever she’s more like a man than a woman—she knows +Latin and Greek.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’d forget “em, if she’d a houseful of children,” was my father’s comment on +this. +</p> + +<p> +“But she knows many a thing besides, and is wise as well as learned; she has +been so much with her father. She would never think much of me, and I should +like my wife to think a deal of her husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not just book-learning or the want of it as makes a wife think much or +little of her husband,” replied my father, evidently unwilling to give up a +project which had taken deep root in his mind. “It’s a something I don’t +rightly know how to call it—if he’s manly, and sensible, and +straightforward; and I reckon you’re that, my boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I should like to have a wife taller than I am, father,” said I, +smiling; he smiled too, but not heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said he, after a pause. “It’s but a few days I’ve been thinking of it, +but I’d got as fond of my notion as if it had been a new engine as I’d been +planning out. Here’s our Paul, thinks I to myself, a good sensible breed o’ +lad, as has never vexed or troubled his mother or me; with a good business +opening out before him, age nineteen, not so bad-looking, though perhaps not to +call handsome, and here’s his cousin, not too near cousin, but just nice, as +one may say; aged seventeen, good and true, and well brought up to work with +her hands as well as her head; a scholar—but that can’t be helped, and is +more her misfortune than her fault, seeing she is the only child of +scholar—and as I said afore, once she’s a wife and a she’ll forget it +all, I’ll be bound—with a good fortune in land and house when it shall +please the Lord to take her parents to himself; with eyes like poor Molly’s for +beauty, a colour that comes and goes on a milk-white skin, and as pretty a +mouth—, +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mr Manning, what fair lady are you describing?” asked Mr Holdsworth, who +had come quickly and suddenly upon our tete-a-tete, and had caught my father’s +last words as he entered the room. Both my father and I felt rather abashed; it +was such an odd subject for us to be talking about; but my father, like a +straightforward simple man as he was, spoke out the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been telling Paul of Ellison’s offer, and saying how good an opening it +made for him—” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I’d as good,” said Mr Holdsworth. “But has the business a ‘pretty +mouth’? +</p> + +<p> +“You’re always so full of your joking, Mr Holdsworth,” said my father. “I was +going to say that if he and his cousin Phillis Holman liked to make it up +between them, I would put no spoke in the wheel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Phillis Holman!” said Mr Holdsworth. “Is she the daughter of the +minister-farmer out at Heathbridge? Have I been helping on the course of true +love by letting you go there so often? I knew nothing of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing to know,” said I, more annoyed than I chose to show. “There +is no more true love in the case than may be between the first brother and +sister you may choose to meet. I have been telling father she would never think +of me; she’s a great deal taller and cleverer; and I’d rather be taller and +more learned than my wife when I have one.” +</p> + +<p> +“And it is she, then, that has the pretty mouth your father spoke about? I +should think that would be an antidote to the cleverness and learning. But I +ought to apologize for breaking in upon your last night; I came upon business +to your father.” +</p> + +<p> +And then he and my father began to talk about many things that had no interest +for me just then, and I began to go over again my conversation with my father. +The more I thought about it, the more I felt that I had spoken truly about my +feelings towards Phillis Holman. I loved her dearly as a sister, but I could +never fancy her as my wife. Still less could I think of her ever—yes, +condescending, that is the word—condescending to marry me. I was roused +from a reverie on what I should like my possible wife to be, by hearing my +father’s warm praise of the minister, as a most unusual character; how they had +got back from the diameter of driving-wheels to the subject of the Holmans I +could never tell; but I saw that my father’s weighty praises were exciting some +curiosity in Mr Holdsworth’s mind; indeed, he said, almost in a voice of +reproach,— +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Paul, you never told me what kind of a fellow this minister-cousin of +yours was!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that I found out, sir,” said I. “But if I had, I don’t think +you’d have listened to me, as you have done to my father.” +</p> + +<p> +“No! most likely not, old fellow,” replied Mr Holdsworth, laughing. And again +and afresh I saw what a handsome pleasant clear face his was; and though this +evening I had been a bit put out with him—through his sudden coming, and +his having heard my father’s open-hearted confidence—my hero resumed all +his empire over me by his bright merry laugh. +</p> + +<p> +And if he had not resumed his old place that night, he would have done so the +next day, when, after my father’s departure, Mr Holdsworth spoke about him with +such just respect for his character, such ungrudging admiration of his great +mechanical genius, that I was compelled to say, almost unawares,— +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir. I am very much obliged to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’re not at all. I am only speaking the truth. Here’s a Birmingham +workman, self-educated, one may say—having never associated with +stimulating minds, or had what advantages travel and contact with the world may +be supposed to afford—working out his own thoughts into steel and iron, +making a scientific name for himself—a fortune, if it pleases him to work +for money—and keeping his singleness of heart, his perfect simplicity of +manner; it puts me out of patience to think of my expensive schooling, my +travels hither and thither, my heaps of scientific books, and I have done +nothing to speak of. But it’s evidently good blood; there’s that Mr Holman, +that cousin of yours, made of the same stuff” +</p> + +<p> +“But he’s only cousin because he married my mother’s second cousin,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“That knocks a pretty theory on the head, and twice over, too. I should like to +make Holman’s acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure they would be so glad to see you at Hope Farm,” said I, eagerly. “In +fact, they’ve asked me to bring you several times: only I thought you would +find it dull.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. I can’t go yet though, even if you do get me an invitation; for +the —— Company want me to go to the —— Valley, and look +over the ground a bit for them, to see if it would do for a branch line; it’s a +job which may take me away for some time; but I shall be backwards and +forwards, and you’re quite up to doing what is needed in my absence; the only +work that may be beyond you is keeping old Jevons from drinking.” He went on +giving me directions about the management of the men employed on the line, and +no more was said then, or for several months, about his going to Hope Farm. He +went off into —— Valley, a dark overshadowed dale, where the sun +seemed to set behind the hills before four o“clock on midsummer afternoon. +Perhaps it was this that brought on the attack of low fever which he had soon +after the beginning of the new year; he was very ill for many weeks, almost +many months; a married sister—his only relation, I think—came down +from London to nurse him, and I went over to him when I could, to see him, and +give him “masculine news,” as he called it; reports of the progress of the +line, which, I am glad to say, I was able to carry on in his absence, in the +slow gradual way which suited the company best, while trade was in a languid +state, and money dear in the market. Of course, with this occupation for my +scanty leisure, I did not often go over to Hope Farm. Whenever I did go, I met +with a thorough welcome; and many inquiries were made as to Holdsworth’s +illness, and the progress of his recovery. +</p> + +<p> +At length, in June I think it was, he was sufficiently recovered to come back +to his lodgings at Eltham, and resume part at least of his work. His sister, +Mrs Robinson, had been obliged to leave him some weeks before, owing to some +epidemic amongst her own children. As long as I had seen Mr Holdsworth in the +rooms at the little inn at Hensleydale, where I had been accustomed to look +upon him as an invalid, I had not been aware of the visible shake his fever had +given to his health. But, once back in the old lodgings, where I had always +seen him so buoyant, eloquent, decided, and vigorous in former days, my spirits +sank at the change in one whom I had always regarded with a strong feeling of +admiring affection. He sank into silence and despondency after the least +exertion; he seemed as if he could not make up his mind to any action, or else +that, when it was made up, he lacked strength to carry out his purpose. Of +course, it was but the natural state of slow convalescence, after so sharp an +illness; but, at the time, I did not know this, and perhaps I represented his +state as more serious than it was to my kind relations at Hope Farm; who, in +their grave, simple, eager way, immediately thought of the only help they could +give. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring him out here,” said the minister. “Our air here is good to a proverb; +the June days are fine; he may loiter away his time in the hay-field, and the +sweet smells will be a balm in themselves—better than physic.” +</p> + +<p> +“And,” said cousin Holman, scarcely waiting for her husband to finish his +sentence, “tell him there is new milk and fresh eggs to be had for the asking; +it’s lucky Daisy has just calved, for her milk is always as good as other cows’ +cream; and there is the plaid room with the morning sun all streaming in.” +Phillis said nothing, but looked as much interested in the project as any one. +I took it upon myself. I wanted them to see him; him to know them. I proposed +it to him when I got home. He was too languid after the day’s fatigue, to be +willing to make the little exertion of going amongst strangers; and +disappointed me by almost declining to accept the invitation I brought. The +next morning it was different; he apologized for his ungraciousness of the +night before; and told me that he would get all things in train, so as to be +ready to go out with me to Hope Farm on the following Saturday. +</p> + +<p> +“For you must go with me, Manning,” said he; “I used to be as impudent a fellow +as need be, and rather liked going amongst strangers, and making my way; but +since my illness I am almost like a girl, and turn hot and cold with shyness, +as they do, I fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +So it was fixed. We were to go out to Hope Farm on Saturday afternoon; and it +was also understood that if the air and the life suited Mr Holdsworth, he was +to remain there for a week or ten days, doing what work he could at that end of +the line, while I took his place at Eltham to the best of my ability. I grew a +little nervous, as the time drew near, and wondered how the brilliant +Holdsworth would agree with the quiet quaint family of the minister; how they +would like him, and many of his half-foreign ways. I tried to prepare him, by +telling him from time to time little things about the goings-on at Hope Farm. +</p> + +<p> +“Manning,” said he, “I see you don’t think I am half good enough for your +friends. Out with it, man.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I replied, boldly. “I think you are good; but I don’t know if you are +quite of their kind of goodness.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ve found out already that there is greater chance of disagreement +between two ‘kinds of goodness’, each having its own idea of right, than +between a given goodness and a moderate degree of naughtiness—which last +often arises from an indifference to right?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. I think you’re talking metaphysics, and I am sure that is bad +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘When a man talks to you in a way that you don’t understand about a thing +which he does not understand, them’s metaphysics.’ You remember the clown’s +definition, don’t you, Manning?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t,” said I. “But what I do understand is, that you must go to bed; +and tell me at what time we must start tomorrow, that I may go to Hepworth, and +get those letters written we were talking about this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till to-morrow, and let us see what the day is like,” he answered, with +such languid indecision as showed me he was over-fatigued. So I went my way. +The morrow was blue and sunny, and beautiful; the very perfection of an early +summer’s day. Mr Holdsworth was all impatience to be off into the country; +morning had brought back his freshness and strength, and consequent eagerness +to be doing. I was afraid we were going to my cousin’s farm rather too early, +before they would expect us; but what could I do with such a restless vehement +man as Holdsworth was that morning? We came down upon the Hope Farm before the +dew was off the grass on the shady side of the lane; the great house-dog was +loose, basking in the sun, near the closed side door. I was surprised at this +door being shut, for all summer long it was open from morning to night; but it +was only on latch. I opened it, Rover watching me with half-suspicious, +half-trustful eyes. The room was empty. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know where they can be,” said I. “But come in and sit down while I go +and look for them. You must be tired.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not I. This sweet balmy air is like a thousand tonics. Besides, this room is +hot, and smells of those pungent wood-ashes. What are we to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go round to the kitchen. Betty will tell us where they are.” So we went round +into the farmyard, Rover accompanying us out of a grave sense of duty. Betty +was washing out her milk-pans in the cold bubbling spring-water that constantly +trickled in and out of a stone trough. In such weather as this most of her +kitchen-work was done out of doors. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, dear!” said she, “the minister and missus is away at Hornby! They ne’er +thought of your coming so betimes! The missus had some errands to do, and she +thought as she’d walk with the minister and be back by dinner-time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did not they expect us to dinner?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, they did, and they did not, as I may say. Missus said to me the cold +lamb would do well enough if you did not come; and if you did I was to put on a +chicken and some bacon to boil; and I’ll go do it now, for it is hard to boil +bacon enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“And is Phillis gone, too?” Mr Holdsworth was making friends with Rover. +</p> + +<p> +“No! She’s just somewhere about. I reckon you’ll find her in the +kitchen-garden, getting peas. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go there,” said Holdsworth, suddenly leaving off his play with the dog. +So I led the way into the kitchen-garden. It was in the first promise of a +summer profuse in vegetables and fruits. Perhaps it was not so much cared for +as other parts of the property; but it was more attended to than most +kitchen-gardens belonging to farm-houses. There were borders of flowers along +each side of the gravel walks; and there was an old sheltering wall on the +north side covered with tolerably choice fruit-trees; there was a slope down to +the fish-pond at the end, where there were great strawberry-beds; and +raspberry-bushes and rose-bushes grew wherever there was a space; it seemed a +chance which had been planted. Long rows of peas stretched at right angles from +the main walk, and I saw Phillis stooping down among them, before she saw us. +As soon as she heard our cranching steps on the gravel, she stood up, and +shading her eyes from the sun, recognized us. She was quite still for a moment, +and then came slowly towards us, blushing a little from evident shyness. I had +never seen Phillis shy before. +</p> + +<p> +“This is Mr Holdsworth, Phillis,” said I, as soon as I had shaken hands with +her. She glanced up at him, and then looked down, more flushed than ever at his +grand formality of taking his hat off and bowing; such manners had never been +seen at Hope Farm before. +</p> + +<p> +“Father and mother are out. They will be so sorry; you did not write, Paul, as +you said you would.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was my fault,” said Holdsworth, understanding what she meant as well as if +she had put it more fully into words. “I have not yet given up all the +privileges of an invalid; one of which is indecision. Last night, when your +cousin asked me at what time we were to start, I really could not make up my +mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Phillis seemed as if she could not make up her mind as to what to do with us. I +tried to help her,— +</p> + +<p> +“Have you finished getting peas?” taking hold of the half-filled basket she was +unconsciously holding in her hand; “or may we stay and help you?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you would. But perhaps it will tire you, sir?” added she, speaking now to +Holdsworth. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit,” said he. “It will carry me back twenty years in my life, when I +used to gather peas in my grandfather’s garden. I suppose I may eat a few as I +go along?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, sir. But if you went to the strawberry-beds you would find some +strawberries ripe, and Paul can show you where they are.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid you distrust me. I can assure you I know the exact fulness at +which peas should be gathered. I take great care not to pluck them when they +are unripe. I will not be turned off, as unfit for my work.” This was a style +of half-joking talk that Phillis was not accustomed to. She looked for a moment +as if she would have liked to defend herself from the playful charge of +distrust made against her, but she ended by not saying a word. We all plucked +our peas in busy silence for the next five minutes. Then Holdsworth lifted +himself up from between the rows, and said, a little wearily, +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I must strike work. I am not as strong as I fancied myself.” +Phillis was full of penitence immediately. He did, indeed, look pale; and she +blamed herself for having allowed him to help her. +</p> + +<p> +“It was very thoughtless of me. I did not know—I thought, perhaps, you +really liked it. I ought to have offered you something to eat, sir! Oh, Paul, +we have gathered quite enough; how stupid I was to forget that Mr Holdsworth +had been ill!” And in a blushing hurry she led the way towards the house. We +went in, and she moved a heavy cushioned chair forwards, into which Holdsworth +was only too glad to sink. Then with deft and quiet speed she brought in a +little tray, wine, water, cake, home-made bread, and newly-churned butter. She +stood by in some anxiety till, after bite and sup, the colour returned to Mr +Holdsworth’s face, and he would fain have made us some laughing apologies for +the fright he had given us. But then Phillis drew back from her innocent show +of care and interest, and relapsed into the cold shyness habitual to her when +she was first thrown into the company of strangers. She brought out the last +week’s county paper (which Mr Holdsworth had read five days ago), and then +quietly withdrew; and then he subsided into languor, leaning back and shutting +his eyes as if he would go to sleep. I stole into the kitchen after Phillis; +but she had made the round of the corner of the house outside, and I found her +sitting on the horse-mount, with her basket of peas, and a basin into which she +was shelling them. Rover lay at her feet, snapping now and then at the flies. I +went to her, and tried to help her, but somehow the sweet crisp young peas +found their way more frequently into my mouth than into the basket, while we +talked together in a low tone, fearful of being overheard through the open +casements of the house-place in which Holdsworth was resting. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think him handsome?” asked I. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps—yes—I have hardly looked at him,” she replied “But is not +he very like a foreigner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he cuts his hair foreign fashion,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“I like an Englishman to look like an Englishman.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think he thinks about it. He says he began that way when he was in +Italy, because everybody wore it so, and it is natural to keep it on in +England.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if he began it in Italy because everybody there wore it so. Everybody here +wears it differently.” +</p> + +<p> +I was a little offended with Phillis’s logical fault-finding with my friend; +and I determined to change the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“When is your mother coming home?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think she might come any time now; but she had to go and see Mrs +Morton, who was ill, and she might be kept, and not be home till dinner. Don’t +you think you ought to go and see how Mr Holdsworth is going on, Paul? He may +be faint again.” +</p> + +<p> +I went at her bidding; but there was no need for it. Mr Holdsworth was up, +standing by the window, his hands in his pockets; he had evidently been +watching us. He turned away as I entered. +</p> + +<p> +“So that is the girl I found your good father planning for your wife, Paul, +that evening when I interrupted you! Are you of the same coy mind still? It did +not look like it a minute ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Phillis and I understand each other,” I replied, sturdily. “We are like +brother and sister. She would not have me as a husband if there was not another +man in the world; and it would take a deal to make me think of her—as my +father wishes” (somehow I did not like to say “as a wife”), “but we love each +other dearly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I am rather surprised at it—not at your loving each other in a +brother-and-sister kind of way—but at your finding it so impossible to +fall in love with such a beautiful woman.” Woman! beautiful woman! I had +thought of Phillis as a comely but awkward girl; and I could not banish the +pinafore from my mind’s eye when I tried to picture her to myself. Now I +turned, as Mr Holdsworth had done, to look at her again out of the window: she +had just finished her task, and was standing up, her back to us, holding the +basket, and the basin in it, high in air, out of Rover’s reach, who was giving +vent to his delight at the probability of a change of place by glad leaps and +barks, and snatches at what he imagined to be a withheld prize. At length she +grew tired of their mutual play, and with a feint of striking him, and a “Down, +Rover! do hush!” she looked towards the window where we were standing, as if to +reassure herself that no one had been disturbed by the noise, and seeing us, +she coloured all over, and hurried away, with Rover still curving in sinuous +lines about her as she walked. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to have sketched her,” said Mr Holdsworth, as he turned away. He +went back to his chair, and rested in silence for a minute or two. Then he was +up again. +</p> + +<p> +“I would give a good deal for a book,” he said. “It would keep me quiet.” He +began to look round; there were a few volumes at one end of the shovel-board. +“Fifth volume of Matthew Henry’s Commentary,” said he, reading their titles +aloud. “Housewife’s complete Manual; Berridge on Prayer; +L’Inferno—Dante!” in great surprise. “Why, who reads this?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you Phillis read it. Don’t you remember? She knows Latin and Greek, +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure! I remember! But somehow I never put two and two together. That +quiet girl, full of household work, is the wonderful scholar, then, that put +you to rout with her questions when you first began to come here. To be sure, +‘Cousin Phillis!’ What’s here: a paper with the hard, obsolete words written +out. I wonder what sort of a dictionary she has got. Baretti won’t tell her all +these words. Stay! I have got a pencil here. I’ll write down the most accepted +meanings, and save her a little trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +So he took her book and the paper back to the little round table, and employed +himself in writing explanations and definitions of the words which had troubled +her. I was not sure if he was not taking a liberty: it did not quite please me, +and yet I did not know why. He had only just done, and replaced the paper in +the book, and put the latter back in its place, when I heard the sound of +wheels stopping in the lane, and looking out, I saw cousin Holman getting out +of a neighbour’s gig, making her little curtsey of acknowledgment, and then +coming towards the house. I went to meet her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Paul!” said she, “I am so sorry I was kept; and then Thomas Dobson said if +I would wait a quarter of an hour he would—But where’s your friend Mr +Holdsworth? I hope he is come?” +</p> + +<p> +Just then he came out, and with his pleasant cordial manner took her hand, and +thanked her for asking him to come out here to get strong. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I am very glad to see you, sir. It was the minister’s thought. I took +it into my head you would be dull in our quiet house, for Paul says you’ve been +such a great traveller; but the minister said that dulness would perhaps suit +you while you were but ailing, and that I was to ask Paul to be here as much as +he could. I hope you’ll find yourself happy with us, I’m sure, sir. Has Phillis +given you something to eat and drink, I wonder? there’s a deal in eating a +little often, if one has to get strong after an illness.” And then she began to +question him as to the details of his indisposition in her simple, motherly +way. He seemed at once to understand her, and to enter into friendly relations +with her. It was not quite the same in the evening when the minister came home. +Men have always a little natural antipathy to get over when they first meet as +strangers. But in this case each was disposed to make an effort to like the +other; only each was to each a specimen of an unknown class. I had to leave the +Hope Farm on Sunday afternoon, as I had Mr Holdsworth’s work as well as my own +to look to in Eltham; and I was not at all sure how things would go on during +the week that Holdsworth was to remain on his visit; I had been once or twice +in hot water already at the near clash of opinions between the minister and my +much-vaunted friend. On the Wednesday I received a short note from Holdsworth; +he was going to stay on, and return with me on the following Sunday, and he +wanted me to send him a certain list of books, his theodolite, and other +surveying instruments, all of which could easily be conveyed down the line to +Heathbridge. I went to his lodgings and picked out the books. Italian, Latin, +trigonometry; a pretty considerable parcel they made, besides the implements. I +began to be curious as to the general progress of affairs at Hope Farm, but I +could not go over till the Saturday. At Heathbridge I found Holdsworth, come to +meet me. He was looking quite a different man to what I had left him; +embrowned, sparkles in his eyes, so languid before. I told him how much +stronger he looked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” said he. “I am fidging fain to be at work again. Last week I dreaded the +thoughts of my employment: now I am full of desire to begin. This week in the +country has done wonders for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have enjoyed yourself, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! it has been perfect in its way. Such a thorough country life! and yet +removed from the dulness which I always used to fancy accompanied country life, +by the extraordinary intelligence of the minister. I have fallen into calling +him ‘the minister’, like every one else.” +</p> + +<p> +“You get on with him, then?” said I. “I was a little afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was on the verge of displeasing him once or twice, I fear, with random +assertions and exaggerated expressions, such as one always uses with other +people, and thinks nothing of; but I tried to check myself when I saw how it +shocked the good man; and really it is very wholesome exercise, this trying to +make one’s words represent one’s thoughts, instead of merely looking to their +effect on others.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you are quite friends now?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, thoroughly; at any rate as far as I go. I never met with a man with such +a desire for knowledge. In information, as far as it can be gained from books, +he far exceeds me on most subjects; but then I have travelled and +seen—Were not you surprised at the list of things I sent for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I thought it did not promise much rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! some of the books were for the minister, and some for his daughter. (I +call her Phillis to myself, but I use euphuisms in speaking about her to +others. I don’t like to seem familiar, and yet Miss Holman is a term I have +never heard used.)” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought the Italian books were for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! Fancy her trying at Dante for her first book in Italian! I had a capital +novel by Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi, just the thing for a beginner; and if she +must still puzzle out Dante, my dictionary is far better than hers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then she found out you had written those definitions on her list of words?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! yes”—with a smile of amusement and pleasure. He was going to tell me +what had taken place, but checked himself. +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t think the minister will like your having given her a novel to +read?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh! What can be more harmless? Why make a bugbear of a word? It is as pretty +and innocent a tale as can be met with. You don’t suppose they take Virgil for +gospel?” +</p> + +<p> +By this time we were at the farm. I think Phillis gave me a warmer welcome than +usual, and cousin Holman was kindness itself. Yet somehow I felt as if I had +lost my place, and that Holdsworth had taken it. He knew all the ways of the +house; he was full of little filial attentions to cousin Holman; he treated +Phillis with the affectionate condescension of an elder brother; not a bit +more; not in any way different. He questioned me about the progress of affairs +in Eltham with eager interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said cousin Holman, “you’ll be spending a different kind of time next +week to what you have done this! I can see how busy you’ll make yourself! But +if you don’t take care you’ll be ill again, and have to come back to our quiet +ways of going on. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose I shall need to be ill to wish to come back here?” he answered, +warmly. “I am only afraid you have treated me so kindly that I shall always be +turning up on your hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” she replied. “Only don’t go and make yourself ill by over-work. +I hope you’ll go on with a cup of new milk every morning, for I am sure that is +the best medicine; and put a teaspoonful of rum in it, if you like; many a one +speaks highly of that, only we had no rum in the house.” I brought with me an +atmosphere of active life which I think he had begun to miss; and it was +natural that he should seek my company, after his week of retirement. Once I +saw Phillis looking at us as we talked together with a kind of wistful +curiosity; but as soon as she caught my eye, she turned away, blushing deeply. +</p> + +<p> +That evening I had a little talk with the minister. I strolled along the Hornby +road to meet him; for Holdsworth was giving Phillis an Italian lesson, and +cousin Holman had fallen asleep over her work. Somehow, and not unwillingly on +my part, our talk fell on the friend whom I had introduced to the Hope Farm. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! I like him!” said the minister, weighing his words a little as he spoke. +“I like him. I hope I am justified in doing it, but he takes hold of me, as it +were; and I have almost been afraid lest he carries me away, in spite of my +judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a good fellow; indeed he is,” said I. “My father thinks well of him; and +I have seen a deal of him. I would not have had him come here if I did not know +that you would approve of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” (once more hesitating,) “I like him, and I think he is an upright man; +there is a want of seriousness in his talk at times, but, at the same time, it +is wonderful to listen to him! He makes Horace and Virgil living, instead of +dead, by the stories he tells me of his sojourn in the very countries where +they lived, and where to this day, he says—But it is like dram-drinking. +I listen to him till I forget my duties, and am carried off my feet. Last +Sabbath evening he led us away into talk on profane subjects ill befitting the +day.” By this time we were at the house, and our conversation stopped. But +before the day was out, I saw the unconscious hold that my friend had got over +all the family. And no wonder: he had seen so much and done so much as compared +to them, and he told about it all so easily and naturally, and yet as I never +heard any one else do; and his ready pencil was out in an instant to draw on +scraps of paper all sorts of illustrations—modes of drawing up water in +Northern Italy, wine-carts, buffaloes, stone-pines, I know not what. After we +had all looked at these drawings, Phillis gathered them together, and took +them. It is many years since I have seen thee, Edward Holdsworth, but thou wast +a delightful fellow! Ay, and a good one too; though much sorrow was caused by +thee! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part03"></a>PART III</h2> + +<p> +Just after this I went home for a week’s holiday. Everything was prospering +there; my father’s new partnership gave evident satisfaction to both parties. +There was no display of increased wealth in our modest household; but my mother +had a few extra comforts provided for her by her husband. I made acquaintance +with Mr and Mrs Ellison, and first saw pretty Margaret Ellison, who is now my +wife. When I returned to Eltham, I found that a step was decided upon, which +had been in contemplation for some time; that Holdsworth and I should remove +our quarters to Hornby; our daily presence, and as much of our time as +possible, being required for the completion of the line at that end. +</p> + +<p> +Of course this led to greater facility of intercourse with the Hope Farm +people. We could easily walk out there after our day’s work was done, and spend +a balmy evening hour or two, and yet return before the summer’s twilight had +quite faded away. Many a time, indeed, we would fain have stayed +longer—the open air, the fresh and pleasant country, made so agreeable a +contrast to the close, hot town lodgings which I shared with Mr Holdsworth; but +early hours, both at eve and morn, were an imperative necessity with the +minister, and he made no scruple at turning either or both of us out of the +house directly after evening prayer, or “exercise”, as he called it. The +remembrance of many a happy day, and of several little scenes, comes back upon +me as I think of that summer. They rise like pictures to my memory, and in this +way I can date their succession; for I know that corn harvest must have come +after hay-making, apple-gathering after corn-harvest. +</p> + +<p> +The removal to Hornby took up some time, during which we had neither of us any +leisure to go out to the Hope Farm. Mr Holdsworth had been out there once +during my absence at home. One sultry evening, when work was done, he proposed +our walking out and paying the Holmans a visit. It so happened that I had +omitted to write my usual weekly letter home in our press of business, and I +wished to finish that before going out. Then he said that he would go, and that +I could follow him if I liked. This I did in about an hour; the weather was so +oppressive, I remember, that I took off my coat as I walked, and hung it over +my arm. All the doors and windows at the farm were open when I arrived there, +and every tiny leaf on the trees was still. The silence of the place was +profound; at first I thought that it was entirely deserted; but just as I drew +near the door I heard a weak sweet voice begin to sing; it was cousin Holman, +all by herself in the house-place, piping up a hymn, as she knitted away in the +clouded light. She gave me a kindly welcome, and poured out all the small +domestic news of the fortnight past upon me, and, in return, I told her about +my own people and my visit at home. +</p> + +<p> +“Where were the rest?” at length I asked. +</p> + +<p> +Betty and the men were in the field helping with the last load of hay, for the +minister said there would be rain before the morning. Yes, and the minister +himself, and Phillis, and Mr Holdsworth, were all there helping. She thought +that she herself could have done something; but perhaps she was the least fit +for hay-making of any one; and somebody must stay at home and take care of the +house, there were so many tramps about; if I had not had something to do with +the railroad she would have called them navvies. I asked her if she minded +being left alone, as I should like to go and help; and having her full and glad +permission to leave her alone, I went off, following her directions: through +the farmyard, past the cattle-pond, into the ashfield, beyond into the higher +field with two holly-bushes in the middle. I arrived there: there was Betty +with all the farming men, and a cleared field, and a heavily laden cart; one +man at the top of the great pile ready to catch the fragrant hay which the +others threw up to him with their pitchforks; a little heap of cast-off clothes +in a corner of the field (for the heat, even at seven o“clock, was +insufferable), a few cans and baskets, and Rover lying by them panting, and +keeping watch. Plenty of loud, hearty, cheerful talking; but no minister, no +Phillis, no Mr Holdsworth. Betty saw me first, and understanding who it was +that I was in search of, she came towards me. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re out yonder—agait wi’ them things o’ Measter Holdsworth’s.” So +“out yonder” I went; out on to a broad upland common, full of red sand-banks, +and sweeps and hollows; bordered by dark firs, purple in the coming shadows, +but near at hand all ablaze with flowering gorse, or, as we call it in the +south, furze-bushes, which, seen against the belt of distant trees, appeared +brilliantly golden. On this heath, a little way from the field-gate, I saw the +three. I counted their heads, joined together in an eager group over +Holdsworth’s theodolite. He was teaching the minister the practical art of +surveying and taking a level. I was wanted to assist, and was quickly set to +work to hold the chain. Phillis was as intent as her father; she had hardly +time to greet me, so desirous was she to hear some answer to her father’s +question. So we went on, the dark clouds still gathering, for perhaps five +minutes after my arrival. Then came the blinding lightning and the rumble and +quick-following rattling peal of thunder right over our heads. It came sooner +than I expected, sooner than they had looked for: the rain delayed not; it came +pouring down; and what were we to do for shelter? Phillis had nothing on but +her indoor things—no bonnet, no shawl. Quick as the darting lightning +around us, Holdsworth took off his coat and wrapped it round her neck and +shoulders, and, almost without a word, hurried us all into such poor shelter as +one of the overhanging sand-banks could give. There we were, cowered down, +close together, Phillis innermost, almost too tightly packed to free her arms +enough to divest herself of the coat, which she, in her turn, tried to put +lightly over Holdsworth’s shoulders. In doing so she touched his shirt. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how wet you are!” she cried, in pitying dismay; “and you’ve hardly got +over your fever! Oh, Mr Holdsworth, I am so sorry!” He turned his head a +little, smiling at her. +</p> + +<p> +“If I do catch cold, it is all my fault for having deluded you into staying out +here!” but she only murmured again, “I am so sorry.” The minister spoke now. +“It is a regular downpour. Please God that the hay is saved! But there is no +likelihood of its ceasing, and I had better go home at once, and send you all +some wraps; umbrellas will not be safe with yonder thunder and lightning.” +</p> + +<p> +Both Holdsworth and I offered to go instead of him; but he was resolved, +although perhaps it would have been wiser if Holdsworth, wet as he already was, +had kept himself in exercise. As he moved off, Phillis crept out, and could see +on to the storm-swept heath. Part of Holdsworth’s apparatus still remained +exposed to all the rain. Before we could have any warning, she had rushed out +of the shelter and collected the various things, and brought them back in +triumph to where we crouched. Holdsworth had stood up, uncertain whether to go +to her assistance or not. She came running back, her long lovely hair floating +and dripping, her eyes glad and bright, and her colour freshened to a glow of +health by the exercise and the rain. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Miss Holman, that’s what I call wilful,” said Holdsworth, as she gave +them to him. “No, I won’t thank you” (his looks were thanking her all the +time). “My little bit of dampness annoyed you, because you thought I had got +wet in your service; so you were determined to make me as uncomfortable as you +were yourself. It was an unchristian piece of revenge!” +</p> + +<p> +His tone of badinage (as the French call it) would have been palpable enough to +any one accustomed to the world; but Phillis was not, and it distressed or +rather bewildered her. “Unchristian” had to her a very serious meaning; it was +not a word to be used lightly; and though she did not exactly understand what +wrong it was that she was accused of doing, she was evidently desirous to throw +off the imputation. At first her earnestness to disclaim unkind motives amused +Holdsworth; while his light continuance of the joke perplexed her still more; +but at last he said something gravely, and in too low a tone for me to hear, +which made her all at once become silent, and called out her blushes. After a +while, the minister came back, a moving mass of shawls, cloaks, and umbrellas. +Phillis kept very close to her father’s side on our return to the farm. She +appeared to me to be shrinking away from Holdsworth, while he had not the +slightest variation in his manner from what it usually was in his graver moods; +kind, protecting, and thoughtful towards her. Of course, there was a great +commotion about our wet clothes; but I name the little events of that evening +now because I wondered at the time what he had said in that low voice to +silence Phillis so effectually, and because, in thinking of their intercourse +by the light of future events, that evening stands out with some prominence. I +have said that after our removal to Hornby our communications with the farm +became almost of daily occurrence. Cousin Holman and I were the two who had +least to do with this intimacy. After Mr Holdsworth regained his health, he too +often talked above her head in intellectual matters, and too often in his light +bantering tone for her to feel quite at her ease with him. I really believe +that he adopted this latter tone in speaking to her because he did not know +what to talk about to a purely motherly woman, whose intellect had never been +cultivated, and whose loving heart was entirely occupied with her husband, her +child, her household affairs and, perhaps, a little with the concerns of the +members of her husband’s congregation, because they, in a way, belonged to her +husband. I had noticed before that she had fleeting shadows of jealousy even of +Phillis, when her daughter and her husband appeared to have strong interests +and sympathies in things which were quite beyond her comprehension. I had +noticed it in my first acquaintance with them, I say, and had admired the +delicate tact which made the minister, on such occasions, bring the +conversation back to such subjects as those on which his wife, with her +practical experience of every-day life, was an authority; while Phillis, +devoted to her father, unconsciously followed his lead, totally unaware, in her +filial reverence, of his motive for doing so. +</p> + +<p> +To return to Holdsworth. The minister had at more than one time spoken of him +to me with slight distrust, principally occasioned by the suspicion that his +careless words were not always those of soberness and truth. But it was more as +a protest against the fascination which the younger man evidently exercised +over the elder one more as it were to strengthen himself against yielding to +this fascination—that the minister spoke out to me about this failing of +Holdsworth’s, as it appeared to him. In return Holdsworth was subdued by the +minister’s uprightness and goodness, and delighted with his clear +intellect—his strong healthy craving after further knowledge. I never met +two men who took more thorough pleasure and relish in each other’s society. To +Phillis his relation continued that of an elder brother: he directed her +studies into new paths, he patiently drew out the expression of many of her +thoughts, and perplexities, and unformed theories—scarcely ever now +falling into the vein of banter which she was so slow to understand. +</p> + +<p> +One day—harvest-time—he had been drawing on a loose piece of +paper-sketching ears of corn, sketching carts drawn by bullocks and laden with +grapes—all the time talking with Phillis and me, cousin Holman putting in +her not pertinent remarks, when suddenly he said to Phillis,— +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your head still; I see a sketch! I have often tried to draw your head +from memory, and failed; but I think I can do it now. If I succeed I will give +it to your mother. You would like a portrait of your daughter as Ceres, would +you not, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like a picture of her; yes, very much, thank you, Mr Holdsworth; but +if you put that straw in her hair,” (he was holding some wheat ears above her +passive head, looking at the effect with an artistic eye,) “you’ll ruffle her +hair. Phillis, my dear, if you’re to have your picture taken, go up-stairs, and +brush your hair smooth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not on any account. I beg your pardon, but I want hair loosely flowing.” He +began to draw, looking intently at Phillis; I could see this stare of his +discomposed her—her colour came and went, her breath quickened with the +consciousness of his regard; at last, when he said, “Please look at me for a +minute or two, I want to get in the eyes,” she looked up at him, quivered, and +suddenly got up and left the room. He did not say a word, but went on with some +other part of the drawing; his silence was unnatural, and his dark cheek +blanched a little. Cousin Holman looked up from her work, and put her +spectacles down. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter? Where is she gone?” +</p> + +<p> +Holdsworth never uttered a word, but went on drawing. I felt obliged to say +something; it was stupid enough, but stupidity was better than silence just +then. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go and call her,” said I. So I went into the hall, and to the bottom of +the stairs; but just as I was going to call Phillis, she came down swiftly with +her bonnet on, and saying, “I’m going to father in the five-acre,” passed out +by the open “rector,” right in front of the house-place windows, and out at the +little white side-gate. She had been seen by her mother and Holdsworth, as she +passed; so there was no need for explanation, only cousin Holman and I had a +long discussion as to whether she could have found the room too hot, or what +had occasioned her sudden departure. Holdsworth was very quiet during all the +rest of that day; nor did he resume the portrait-taking by his own desire, only +at my cousin Holman’s request the next time that he came; and then he said he +should not require any more formal sittings for only such a slight sketch as he +felt himself capable of making. Phillis was just the same as ever the next time +I saw her after her abrupt passing me in the hall. She never gave any +explanation of her rush out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +So all things went on, at least as far as my observation reached at the time, +or memory can recall now, till the great apple-gathering of the year. The +nights were frosty, the mornings and evenings were misty, but at mid-day all +was sunny and bright, and it was one mid-day that both of us being on the line +near Heathbridge, and knowing that they were gathering apples at the farm, we +resolved to spend the men’s dinner-hour in going over there. We found the great +clothes-baskets full of apples, scenting the house, and stopping up the way; +and an universal air of merry contentment with this the final produce of the +year. The yellow leaves hung on the trees ready to flutter down at the +slightest puff of air; the great bushes of Michaelmas daisies in the +kitchen-garden were making their last show of flowers. We must needs taste the +fruit off the different trees, and pass our judgment as to their flavour; and +we went away with our pockets stuffed with those that we liked best. As we had +passed to the orchard, Holdsworth had admired and spoken about some flower +which he saw; it so happened he had never seen this old-fashioned kind since +the days of his boyhood. I do not know whether he had thought anything more +about this chance speech of his, but I know I had not—when Phillis, who +had been missing just at the last moment of our hurried visit, re-appeared with +a little nosegay of this same flower, which she was tying up with a blade of +grass. She offered it to Holdsworth as he stood with her father on the point of +departure. I saw their faces. I saw for the first time an unmistakable look of +love in his black eyes; it was more than gratitude for the little attention; it +was tender and beseeching—passionate. She shrank from it in confusion, +her glance fell on me; and, partly to hide her emotion, partly out of real +kindness at what might appear ungracious neglect of an older friend, she flew +off to gather me a few late-blooming China roses. But it was the first time she +had ever done anything of the kind for me. +</p> + +<p> +We had to walk fast to be back on the line before the men’s return, so we spoke +but little to each other, and of course the afternoon was too much occupied for +us to have any talk. In the evening we went back to our joint lodgings in +Hornby. There, on the table, lay a letter for Holdsworth, which had been +forwarded to him from Eltham. As our tea was ready, and I had had nothing to +eat since morning, I fell to directly without paying much attention to my +companion as he opened and read his letter. He was very silent for a few +minutes; at length he said, +</p> + +<p> +“Old fellow! I’m going to leave you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave me!” said I. “How? When?” +</p> + +<p> +“This letter ought to have come to hand sooner. It is from Greathed the +engineer” (Greathed was well known in those days; he is dead now, and his name +half-forgotten); “he wants to see me about some business; in fact, I may as +well tell you, Paul, this letter contains a very advantageous proposal for me +to go out to Canada, and superintend the making of a line there.” +</p> + +<p> +I was in utter dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“But what will our company say to that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Greathed has the superintendence of this line, you know; and he is going +to be engineer in chief to this Canadian line; many of the shareholders in this +company are going in for the other, so I fancy they will make no difficulty in +following Greathed’s lead. He says he has a young man ready to put in my +place.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hate him,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Holdsworth, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“But you must not,” he resumed; “for this is a very good thing for me, and, of +course, if no one can be found to take my inferior work, I can’t be spared to +take the superior. I only wish I had received this letter a day sooner. Every +hour is of consequence, for Greathed says they are threatening a rival line. Do +you know, Paul, I almost fancy I must go up to-night? I can take an engine back +to Eltham, and catch the night train. I should not like Greathed to think me +luke-warm.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ll come back?” I asked, distressed at the thought of this sudden +parting. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes! At least I hope so. They may want me to go out by the next steamer, +that will be on Saturday.” He began to eat and drink standing, but I think he +was quite unconscious of the nature of either his food or his drink. +</p> + +<p> +“I will go to-night. Activity and readiness go a long way in our profession. +Remember that, my boy! I hope I shall come back, but if I don’t, be sure and +recollect all the words of wisdom that have fallen from my lips. Now where’s +the portmanteau? If I can gain half an hour for a gathering up of my things in +Eltham, so much the better. I’m clear of debt anyhow; and what I owe for my +lodgings you can pay for me out of my quarter’s salary, due November 4th.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t think you will come back?” I said, despondingly. +</p> + +<p> +“I will come back some time, never fear,” said he, kindly. “I may be back in a +couple of days, having been found in-competent for the Canadian work; or I may +not be wanted to go out so soon as I now anticipate. Anyhow you don’t suppose I +am going to forget you, Paul this work out there ought not to take me above two +years, and, perhaps, after that, we may be employed together again.” Perhaps! I +had very little hope. The same kind of happy days never returns. However, I did +all I could in helping him: clothes, papers, books, instruments; how we pushed +and struggled—how I stuffed. All was done in a much shorter time than we +had calculated upon, when I had run down to the sheds to order the engine. I +was going to drive him to Eltham. We sate ready for a summons. Holdsworth took +up the little nosegay that he had brought away from the Hope Farm, and had laid +on the mantel-piece on first coming into the room. He smelt at it, and caressed +it with his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“What grieves me is that I did not know—that I have not said good-bye +to—to them.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke in a grave tone, the shadow of the coming separation falling upon him +at last. +</p> + +<p> +“I will tell them,” said I. “I am sure they will be very sorry.” Then we were +silent. +</p> + +<p> +“I never liked any family so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew you would like them.” +</p> + +<p> +“How one’s thoughts change,—this morning I was full of a hope, Paul.” He +paused, and then he said,— +</p> + +<p> +“You put that sketch in carefully?” +</p> + +<p> +“That outline of a head?” asked I. But I knew he meant an abortive sketch of +Phillis, which had not been successful enough for him to complete it with +shading or colouring. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. What a sweet innocent face it is! and yet so—Oh, dear!” He sighed +and got up, his hands in his pockets, to walk up and down the room in evident +disturbance of mind. He suddenly stopped opposite to me. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll tell them how it all was. Be sure and tell the good minister that I was +so sorry not to wish him good-bye, and to thank him and his wife for all their +kindness. As for Phillis,—please God in two years I’ll be back and tell +her myself all in my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“You love Phillis, then?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Love her! Yes, that I do. Who could help it, seeing her as I have done? Her +character as unusual and rare as her beauty! God bless her! God keep her in her +high tranquillity, her pure innocence.—Two years! It is a long +time.—But she lives in such seclusion, almost like the sleeping beauty, +Paul,”—(he was smiling now, though a minute before I had thought him on +the verge of tears,)—“but I shall come back like a prince from Canada, +and waken her to my love. I can’t help hoping that it won’t be difficult, eh, +Paul?” +</p> + +<p> +This touch of coxcombry displeased me a little, and I made no answer. He went +on, half apologetically,— +</p> + +<p> +“You see, the salary they offer me is large; and beside that, this experience +will give me a name which will entitle me to expect a still larger in any +future undertaking.” +</p> + +<p> +“That won’t influence Phillis.” +</p> + +<p> +“No! but it will make me more eligible in the eyes of her father and mother.” I +made no answer. +</p> + +<p> +“You give me your best wishes, Paul,” said he, almost pleading. “You would like +me for a cousin?” +</p> + +<p> +I heard the scream and whistle of the engine ready down at the sheds. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that I should,” I replied, suddenly softened towards my friend now that he +was going away. “I wish you were to be married to-morrow, and I were to be best +man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, lad. Now for this cursed portmanteau (how the minister would be +shocked); but it is heavy!” and off we sped into the darkness. He only just +caught the night train at Eltham, and I slept, desolately enough, at my old +lodgings at Miss Dawsons’, for that night. Of course the next few days I was +busier than ever, doing both his work and my own. Then came a letter from him, +very short and affectionate. He was going out in the Saturday steamer, as he +had more than half expected; and by the following Monday the man who was to +succeed him would be down at Eltham. There was a P.S., with only these +words:—“My nosegay goes with me to Canada, but I do not need it to remind +me of Hope Farm.” +</p> + +<p> +Saturday came; but it was very late before I could go out to the farm. It was a +frosty night, the stars shone clear above me, and the road was crisping beneath +my feet. They must have heard my footsteps before I got up to the house. They +were sitting at their usual employments in the house-place when I went in. +Phillis’s eyes went beyond me in their look of welcome, and then fell in quiet +disappointment on her work. +</p> + +<p> +“And where’s Mr Holdsworth?” asked cousin Holman, in a minute or two. “I hope +his cold is not worse,—I did not like his short cough.” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed awkwardly; for I felt that I was the bearer of unpleasant news. +</p> + +<p> +“His cold had need be better—for he’s gone—gone away to Canada!” +</p> + +<p> +I purposely looked away from Phillis, as I thus abruptly told my news. +</p> + +<p> +“To Canada!” said the minister. +</p> + +<p> +“Gone away!” said his wife. But no word from Phillis. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” said I. “He found a letter at Hornby when we got home the other +night—when we got home from here; he ought to have got it sooner; he was +ordered to go up to London directly, and to see some people about a new line in +Canada, and he’s gone to lay it down; he has sailed to-day. He was sadly +grieved not to have time to come out and wish you all good-by; but he started +for London within two hours after he got that letter. He bade me thank you most +gratefully for all your kindnesses; he was very sorry not to come here once +again.” Phillis got up and left the room with noiseless steps. +</p> + +<p> +“I am very sorry,” said the minister. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure so am I!” said cousin Holman. “I was real fond of that lad ever +since I nursed him last June after that bad fever.” +</p> + +<p> +The minister went on asking me questions respecting Holdsworth’s future plans; +and brought out a large old-fashioned atlas, that he might find out the exact +places between which the new railroad was to run. Then supper was ready; it was +always on the table as soon as the clock on the stairs struck eight, and down +came Phillis—her face white and set, her dry eyes looking defiance to me, +for I am afraid I hurt her maidenly pride by my glance of sympathetic interest +as she entered the room. Never a word did she say—never a question did +she ask about the absent friend, yet she forced herself to talk. +</p> + +<p> +And so it was all the next day. She was as pale as could be, like one who has +received some shock; but she would not let me talk to her, and she tried hard +to behave as usual. Two or three times I repeated, in public, the various +affectionate messages to the family with which I was charged by Holdsworth; but +she took no more notice of them than if my words had been empty air. And in +this mood I left her on the Sabbath evening. +</p> + +<p> +My new master was not half so indulgent as my old one. He kept up strict +discipline as to hours, so that it was some time before I could again go out, +even to pay a call at the Hope Farm. +</p> + +<p> +It was a cold misty evening in November. The air, even indoors, seemed full of +haze; yet there was a great log burning on the hearth, which ought to have made +the room cheerful. Cousin Holman and Phillis were sitting at the little round +table before the fire, working away in silence. The minister had his books out +on the dresser, seemingly deep in study, by the light of his solitary candle; +perhaps the fear of disturbing him made the unusual stillness of the room. But +a welcome was ready for me from all; not noisy, not demonstrative—that it +never was; my damp wrappers were taken off; the next meal was hastened, and a +chair placed for me on one side of the fire, so that I pretty much commanded a +view of the room. My eye caught on Phillis, looking so pale and weary, and with +a sort of aching tone (if I may call it so) in her voice. She was doing all the +accustomed things—fulfilling small household duties, but somehow +differently—I can’t tell you how, for she was just as deft and quick in +her movements, only the light spring was gone out of them. Cousin Holman began +to question me; even the minister put aside his books, and came and stood on +the opposite side of the fire-place, to hear what waft of intelligence I +brought. I had first to tell them why I had not been to see them for so +long—more than five weeks. The answer was simple enough; business and the +necessity of attending strictly to the orders of a new superintendent, who had +not yet learned trust, much less indulgence. The minister nodded his approval +of my conduct, and said,—“Right, Paul! ‘Servants, obey in all things your +master according to the flesh.’ I have had my fears lest you had too much +licence under Edward Holdsworth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said cousin Holman, “poor Mr Holdsworth, he’ll be on the salt seas by +this time!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed,” said I, “he’s landed. I have had a letter from him from Halifax.” +Immediately a shower of questions fell thick upon me. When? How? What was he +doing? How did he like it? What sort of a voyage? &c. +</p> + +<p> +“Many is the time we have thought of him when the wind was blowing so hard; the +old quince-tree is blown down, Paul, that on the right-hand of the great +pear-tree; it was blown down last Monday week, and it was that night that I +asked the minister to pray in an especial manner for all them that went down in +ships upon the great deep, and he said then, that Mr Holdsworth might be +already landed; but I said, even if the prayer did not fit him, it was sure to +be fitting somebody out at sea, who would need the Lord’s care. Both Phillis +and I thought he would be a month on the seas.” Phillis began to speak, but her +voice did not come rightly at first. It was a little higher pitched than usual, +when she said,— +</p> + +<p> +“We thought he would be a month if he went in a sailing-vessel, or perhaps +longer. I suppose he went in a steamer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Old Obadiah Grimshaw was more than six weeks in getting to America,” observed +cousin Holman. +</p> + +<p> +“I presume he cannot as yet tell how he likes his new work?” asked the +minister. +</p> + +<p> +“No! he is but just landed; it is but one page long. I’ll read it to you, shall +I?— +</p> + +<p> +“‘Dear Paul,—We are safe on shore, after a rough passage. Thought you +would like to hear this, but homeward-bound steamer is making signals for +letters. Will write again soon. It seems a year since I left Hornby. Longer +since I was at the farm. I have got my nosegay safe. Remember me to the +Holmans.—Yours, E. H.’” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not much, certainly,” said the minister. “But it’s a comfort to know +he’s on land these blowy nights.” +</p> + +<p> +Phillis said nothing. She kept her head bent down over her work; but I don’t +think she put a stitch in, while I was reading the letter. I wondered if she +understood what nosegay was meant; but I could not tell. When next she lifted +up her face, there were two spots of brilliant colour on the cheeks that had +been so pale before. After I had spent an hour or two there, I was bound to +return back to Hornby. I told them I did not know when I could come again, as +we—by which I mean the company—had undertaken the Hensleydale line; +that branch for which poor Holdsworth was surveying when he caught his fever. +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ll have a holiday at Christmas,” said my cousin. “Surely they’ll not +be such heathens as to work you then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps the lad will be going home,” said the minister, as if to mitigate his +wife’s urgency; but for all that, I believe he wanted me to come. Phillis fixed +her eyes on me with a wistful expression, hard to resist. But, indeed, I had no +thought of resisting. Under my new master I had no hope of a holiday long +enough to enable me to go to Birmingham and see my parents with any comfort; +and nothing could be pleasanter to me than to find myself at home at my +cousins’ for a day or two, then. So it was fixed that we were to meet in Hornby +Chapel on Christmas Day, and that I was to accompany them home after service, +and if possible to stay over the next day. +</p> + +<p> +I was not able to get to chapel till late on the appointed day, and so I took a +seat near the door in considerable shame, although it really was not my fault. +When the service was ended, I went and stood in the porch to await the coming +out of my cousins. Some worthy people belonging to the congregation clustered +into a group just where I stood, and exchanged the good wishes of the season. +It had just begun to snow, and this occasioned a little delay, and they fell +into further conversation. I was not attending to what was not meant for me to +hear, till I caught the name of Phillis Holman. And then I listened; where was +the harm? +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw any one so changed!” +</p> + +<p> +“I asked Mrs Holman,” quoth another, “‘Is Phillis well?’ and she just said she +had been having a cold which had pulled her down; she did not seem to think +anything of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“They had best take care of her,” said one of the oldest of the good ladies; +“Phillis comes of a family as is not long-lived. Her mother’s sister, Lydia +Green, her own aunt as was, died of a decline just when she was about this +lass’s age.” +</p> + +<p> +This ill-omened talk was broken in upon by the coming out of the minister, his +wife and daughter, and the consequent interchange of Christmas compliments. I +had had a shock, and felt heavy-hearted and anxious, and hardly up to making +the appropriate replies to the kind greetings of my relations. I looked askance +at Phillis. She had certainly grown taller and slighter, and was thinner; but +there was a flush of colour on her face which deceived me for a time, and made +me think she was looking as well as ever. I only saw her paleness after we had +returned to the farm, and she had subsided into silence and quiet. Her grey +eyes looked hollow and sad; her complexion was of a dead white. But she went +about just as usual; at least, just as she had done the last time I was there, +and seemed to have no ailment; and I was inclined to think that my cousin was +right when she had answered the inquiries of the good-natured gossips, and told +them that Phillis was suffering from the consequences of a bad cold, nothing +more. I have said that I was to stay over the next day; a great deal of snow +had come down, but not all, they said, though the ground was covered deep with +the white fall. The minister was anxiously housing his cattle, and preparing +all things for a long continuance of the same kind of weather. The men were +chopping wood, sending wheat to the mill to be ground before the road should +become impassable for a cart and horse. My cousin and Phillis had gone +up-stairs to the apple-room to cover up the fruit from the frost. I had been +out the greater part of the morning, and came in about an hour before dinner. +To my surprise, knowing how she had planned to be engaged, I found Phillis +sitting at the dresser, resting her head on her two hands and reading, or +seeming to read. She did not look up when I came in, but murmured something +about her mother having sent her down out of the cold. It flashed across me +that she was crying, but I put it down to some little spirt of temper; I might +have known better than to suspect the gentle, serene Phillis of crossness, poor +girl; I stooped down, and began to stir and build up the fire, which appeared +to have been neglected. While my head was down I heard a noise which made me +pause and listen—a sob, an unmistakable, irrepressible sob. I started up. +</p> + +<p> +“Phillis!” I cried, going towards her, with my hand out, to take hers for +sympathy with her sorrow, whatever it was. But she was too quick for me, she +held her hand out of my grasp, for fear of my detaining her; as she quickly +passed out of the house, she said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t, Paul! I cannot bear it!” and passed me, still sobbing, and went out +into the keen, open air. +</p> + +<p> +I stood still and wondered. What could have come to Phillis? The most perfect +harmony prevailed in the family, and Phillis especially, good and gentle as she +was, was so beloved that if they had found out that her finger ached, it would +have cast a shadow over their hearts. Had I done anything to vex her? No: she +was crying before I came in. I went to look at her book—one of those +unintelligible Italian books. I could make neither head nor tail of it. I saw +some pencil-notes on the margin, in Holdsworth’s handwriting. +</p> + +<p> +Could that be it? Could that be the cause of her white looks, her weary eyes, +her wasted figure, her struggling sobs? This idea came upon me like a flash of +lightning on a dark night, making all things so clear we cannot forget them +afterwards when the gloomy obscurity returns. I was still standing with the +book in my hand when I heard cousin Holman’s footsteps on the stairs, and as I +did not wish to speak to her just then, I followed Phillis’s example, and +rushed out of the house. The snow was lying on the ground; I could track her +feet by the marks they had made; I could see where Rover had joined her. I +followed on till I came to a great stack of wood in the orchard—it was +built up against the back wall of the outbuildings,—and I recollected +then how Phillis had told me, that first day when we strolled about together, +that underneath this stack had been her hermitage, her sanctuary, when she was +a child; how she used to bring her book to study there, or her work, when she +was not wanted in the house; and she had now evidently gone back to this quiet +retreat of her childhood, forgetful of the clue given me by her footmarks on +the new-fallen snow. The stack was built up very high; but through the +interstices of the sticks I could see her figure, although I did not all at +once perceive how I could get to her. She was sitting on a log of wood, Rover +by her. She had laid her cheek on Rover’s head, and had her arm round his neck, +partly for a pillow, partly from an instinctive craving for warmth on that +bitter cold day. She was making a low moan, like an animal in pain, or perhaps +more like the sobbing of the wind. Rover, highly flattered by her caress, and +also, perhaps, touched by sympathy, was flapping his heavy tail against the +ground, but not otherwise moving a hair, until he heard my approach with his +quick erected ears. Then, with a short, abrupt bark of distrust, he sprang up +as if to leave his mistress. Both he and I were immovably still for a moment. I +was not sure if what I longed to do was wise: and yet I could not bear to see +the sweet serenity of my dear cousin’s life so disturbed by a suffering which I +thought I could assuage. But Rover’s ears were sharper than my breathing was +noiseless: he heard me, and sprang out from under Phillis’s restraining hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Rover, don’t you leave me, too,” she plained out. +</p> + +<p> +“Phillis!” said I, seeing by Rover’s exit that the entrance to where she sate +was to be found on the other side of the stack. “Phillis, come out! You have +got a cold already; and it is not fit for you to sit there on such a day as +this. You know how displeased and anxious it would make them all.” +</p> + +<p> +She sighed, but obeyed; stooping a little, she came out, and stood upright, +opposite to me in the lonely, leafless orchard. Her face looked so meek and so +sad that I felt as if I ought to beg her pardon for my necessarily +authoritative words. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes I feel the house so close,” she said; “and I used to sit under the +wood-stack when I was a child. It was very kind of you, but there was no need +to come after me. I don’t catch cold easily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come with me into this cow-house, Phillis. I have got something to say to you; +and I can’t stand this cold, if you can.” +</p> + +<p> +I think she would have fain run away again; but her fit of energy was all +spent. She followed me unwillingly enough that I could see. The place to which +I took her was full of the fragrant breath of the cows, and was a little warmer +than the outer air. I put her inside, and stood myself in the doorway, thinking +how I could best begin. At last I plunged into it. +</p> + +<p> +“I must see that you don’t get cold for more reasons than one; if you are ill, +Holdsworth will be so anxious and miserable out there” (by which I meant +Canada)— +</p> + +<p> +She shot one penetrating look at me, and then turned her face away with a +slightly impatient movement. If she could have run away then she would, but I +held the means of exit in my own power. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” +thought I, and I went on rapidly, anyhow. +</p> + +<p> +“He talked so much about you, just before he left—that night after he had +been here, you know—and you had given him those flowers.” She put her +hands up to hide her face, but she was listening now—listening with all +her ears. “He had never spoken much about you before, but the sudden going away +unlocked his heart, and he told me how he loved you, and how he hoped on his +return that you might be his wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t,” said she, almost gasping out the word, which she had tried once or +twice before to speak; but her voice had been choked. Now she put her hand +backwards; she had quite turned away from me, and felt for mine. She gave it a +soft lingering pressure; and then she put her arms down on the wooden division, +and laid her head on it, and cried quiet tears. I did not understand her at +once, and feared lest I had mistaken the whole case, and only annoyed her. I +went up to her. “Oh, Phillis! I am so sorry—I thought you would, perhaps, +have cared to hear it; he did talk so feelingly, as if he did love you so much, +and somehow I thought it would give you pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +She lifted up her head and looked at me. Such a look! Her eyes, glittering with +tears as they were, expressed an almost heavenly happiness; her tender mouth +was curved with rapture—her colour vivid and blushing; but as if she was +afraid her face expressed too much, more than the thankfulness to me she was +essaying to speak, she hid it again almost immediately. So it was all right +then, and my conjecture was well-founded! I tried to remember something more to +tell her of what he had said, but again she stopped me. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t,” she said. She still kept her face covered and hidden. In half a minute +she added, in a very low voice, “Please, Paul, I think I would rather not hear +any more I don’t mean but what I have—but what I am very much +obliged—Only—only, I think I would rather hear the rest from +himself when he comes back.” +</p> + +<p> +And then she cried a little more, in quite a different way. I did not say any +more, I waited for her. By-and-by she turned towards me—not meeting my +eyes, however; and putting her hand in mine just as if we were two children, +she said,— +</p> + +<p> +“We had best go back now—I don’t look as if I had been crying, do I?” +</p> + +<p> +“You look as if you had a bad cold,” was all the answer I made. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! but I am quite well, only cold; and a good run will warm me. Come along, +Paul.” +</p> + +<p> +So we ran, hand in hand, till, just as we were on the threshold of the house, +she stopped,— +</p> + +<p> +“Paul, please, we won’t speak about that again.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part04"></a>PART IV</h2> + +<p> +When I went over on Easter Day I heard the chapel-gossips complimenting cousin +Holman on her daughter’s blooming looks, quite forgetful of their sinister +prophecies three months before. And I looked at Phillis, and did not wonder at +their words. I had not seen her since the day after Christmas Day. I had left +the Hope Farm only a few hours after I had told her the news which had +quickened her heart into renewed life and vigour. The remembrance of our +conversation in the cow-house was vividly in my mind as I looked at her when +her bright healthy appearance was remarked upon. As her eyes met mine our +mutual recollections flashed intelligence from one to the other. She turned +away, her colour heightening as she did so. She seemed to be shy of me for the +first few hours after our meeting, and I felt rather vexed with her for her +conscious avoidance of me after my long absence. I had stepped a little out of +my usual line in telling her what I did; not that I had received any charge of +secrecy, or given even the slightest promise to Holdsworth that I would not +repeat his words. But I had an uneasy feeling sometimes when I thought of what +I had done in the excitement of seeing Phillis so ill and in so much trouble. I +meant to have told Holdsworth when I wrote next to him; but when I had my +half-finished letter before me I sate with my pen in my hand hesitating. I had +more scruple in revealing what I had found out or guessed at of Phillis’s +secret than in repeating to her his spoken words. I did not think I had any +right to say out to him what I believed—namely, that she loved him +dearly, and had felt his absence even to the injury of her health. Yet to +explain what I had done in telling her how he had spoken about her that last +night, it would be necessary to give my reasons, so I had settled within myself +to leave it alone. As she had told me she should like to hear all the details +and fuller particulars and more explicit declarations first from him, so he +should have the pleasure of extracting the delicious tender secret from her +maidenly lips. I would not betray my guesses, my surmises, my all but certain +knowledge of the state of her heart. I had received two letters from him after +he had settled to his business; they were full of life and energy; but in each +there had been a message to the family at the Hope Farm of more than common +regard; and a slight but distinct mention of Phillis herself, showing that she +stood single and alone in his memory. These letters I had sent on to the +minister, for he was sure to care for them, even supposing he had been +unacquainted with their writer, because they were so clever and so +picturesquely worded that they brought, as it were, a whiff of foreign +atmosphere into his circumscribed life. I used to wonder what was the trade or +business in which the minister would not have thriven, mentally I mean, if it +had so happened that he had been called into that state. He would have made a +capital engineer, that I know; and he had a fancy for the sea, like many other +land-locked men to whom the great deep is a mystery and a fascination. He read +law-books with relish; and, once happening to borrow De Lolme on the British +Constitution (or some such title), he talked about jurisprudence till he was +far beyond my depth. But to return to Holdsworth’s letters. When the minister +sent them back he also wrote out a list of questions suggested by their +perusal, which I was to pass on in my answers to Holdsworth, until I thought of +suggesting direct correspondence between the two. That was the state of things +as regarded the absent one when I went to the farm for my Easter visit, and +when I found Phillis in that state of shy reserve towards me which I have named +before. I thought she was ungrateful; for I was not quite sure if I had done +wisely in having told her what I did. I had committed a fault, or a folly, +perhaps, and all for her sake; and here was she, less friends with me than she +had even been before. This little estrangement only lasted a few hours. I think +that as soon as she felt pretty sure of there being no recurrence, either by +word, look, or allusion, to the one subject that was predominant in her mind, +she came back to her old sisterly ways with me. She had much to tell me of her +own familiar interests; how Rover had been ill, and how anxious they had all of +them been, and how, after some little discussion between her father and her, +both equally grieved by the sufferings of the old dog, he had been remembered +in the household prayers’, and how he had begun to get better only the very +next day, and then she would have led me into a conversation on the right ends +of prayer, and on special providences, and I know not what; only I “jibbed” +like their old cart-horse, and refused to stir a step in that direction. Then +we talked about the different broods of chickens, and she showed me the hens +that were good mothers, and told me the characters of all the poultry with the +utmost good faith; and in all good faith I listened, for I believe there was a +good deal of truth in all she said. And then we strolled on into the wood +beyond the ash-meadow, and both of us sought for early primroses, and the fresh +green crinkled leaves. She was not afraid of being alone with me after the +first day. I never saw her so lovely, or so happy. I think she hardly knew why +she was so happy all the time. I can see her now, standing under the budding +branches of the grey trees, over which a tinge of green seemed to be deepening +day after day, her sun-bonnet fallen back on her neck, her hands full of +delicate wood-flowers, quite unconscious of my gaze, but intent on sweet +mockery of some bird in neighbouring bush or tree. She had the art of warbling, +and replying to the notes of different birds, and knew their song, their habits +and ways, more accurately than any one else I ever knew. She had often done it +at my request the spring before; but this year she really gurgled, and +whistled, and warbled just as they did, out of the very fulness and joy of her +heart. She was more than ever the very apple of her father’s eye; her mother +gave her both her own share of love, and that of the dead child who had died in +infancy. I have heard cousin Holman murmur, after a long dreamy look at +Phillis, and tell herself how like she was growing to Johnnie, and soothe +herself with plaintive inarticulate sounds, and many gentle shakes of the head, +for the aching sense of loss she would never get over in this world. The old +servants about the place had the dumb loyal attachment to the child of the +land, common to most agricultural labourers; not often stirred into activity or +expression. My cousin Phillis was like a rose that had come to full bloom on +the sunny side of a lonely house, sheltered from storms. I have read in some +book of poetry,— +</p> + +<p> +A maid whom there were none to praise, And very few to love. +</p> + +<p> +And somehow those lines always reminded me of Phillis; yet they were not true +of her either. I never heard her praised; and out of her own household there +were very few to love her; but though no one spoke out their approbation, she +always did right in her parents’ eyes out of her natural simple goodness and +wisdom. Holdsworth’s name was never mentioned between us when we were alone; +but I had sent on his letters to the minister, as I have said; and more than +once he began to talk about our absent friend, when he was smoking his pipe +after the day’s work was done. Then Phillis hung her head a little over her +work, and listened in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I miss him more than I thought for; no offence to you, Paul. I said once his +company was like dram-drinking; that was before I knew him; and perhaps I spoke +in a spirit of judgment. To some men’s minds everything presents itself +strongly, and they speak accordingly; and so did he. And I thought in my vanity +of censorship that his were not true and sober words; they would not have been +if I had used them, but they were so to a man of his class of perceptions. I +thought of the measure with which I had been meting to him when Brother +Robinson was here last Thursday, and told me that a poor little quotation I was +making from the Georgics savoured of vain babbling and profane heathenism. He +went so far as to say that by learning other languages than our own, we were +flying in the face of the Lord’s purpose when He had said, at the building of +the Tower of Babel, that He would confound their languages so that they should +not understand each other’s speech. As Brother Robinson was to me, so was I to +the quick wits, bright senses, and ready words of Holdsworth.” +</p> + +<p> +The first little cloud upon my peace came in the shape of a letter from Canada, +in which there were two or three sentences that troubled me more than they +ought to have done, to judge merely from the words employed. It was +this:—“I should feel dreary enough in this out-of-the-way place if it +were not for a friendship I have formed with a French Canadian of the name of +Ventadour. He and his family are a great resource to me in the long evenings. I +never heard such delicious vocal music as the voices of these Ventadour boys +and girls in their part songs; and the foreign element retained in their +characters and manner of living reminds me of some of the happiest days of my +life. Lucille, the second daughter, is curiously like Phillis Holman.” In vain +I said to myself that it was probably this likeness that made him take pleasure +in the society of the Ventadour family. In vain I told my anxious fancy that +nothing could be more natural than this intimacy, and that there was no sign of +its leading to any consequence that ought to disturb me. I had a presentiment, +and I was disturbed; and I could not reason it away. I dare say my presentiment +was rendered more persistent and keen by the doubts which would force +themselves into my mind, as to whether I had done well in repeating +Holdsworth’s words to Phillis. Her state of vivid happiness this summer was +markedly different to the peaceful serenity of former days. If in my +thoughtfulness at noticing this I caught her eye, she blushed and sparkled all +over, guessing that I was remembering our joint secret. Her eyes fell before +mine, as if she could hardly bear me to see the revelation of their bright +glances. And yet I considered again, and comforted myself by the reflection +that, if this change had been anything more than my silly fancy, her father or +her mother would have perceived it. But they went on in tranquil +unconsciousness and undisturbed peace. +</p> + +<p> +A change in my own life was quickly approaching. In the July of this year my +occupation on the —— railway and its branches came to an end. The +lines were completed, and I was to leave ——shire, to return to +Birmingham, where there was a niche already provided for me in my father’s +prosperous business. But before I left the north it was an understood thing +amongst us all that I was to go and pay a visit of some weeks at the Hope Farm. +My father was as much pleased at this plan as I was; and the dear family of +cousins often spoke of things to be done, and sights to be shown me, during +this visit. My want of wisdom in having told “that thing” (under such ambiguous +words I concealed the injudicious confidence I had made to Phillis) was the +only drawback to my anticipations of pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +The ways of life were too simple at the Hope Farm for my coming to them to make +the slightest disturbance. I knew my room, like a son of the house. I knew the +regular course of their days, and that I was expected to fall into it, like one +of the family. Deep summer peace brooded over the place; the warm golden air +was filled with the murmur of insects near at hand, the more distant sound of +voices out in the fields, the clear faraway rumble of carts over the +stone-paved lanes miles away. The heat was too great for the birds to be +singing; only now and then one might hear the wood-pigeons in the trees beyond +the Ashfield. The cattle stood knee-deep in the pond, flicking their tails +about to keep off the flies. The minister stood in the hay-field, without hat +or cravat, coat or waistcoat, panting and smiling. Phillis had been leading the +row of farm-servants, turning the swathes of fragrant hay with measured +movement. She went to the end—to the hedge, and then, throwing down her +rake, she came to me with her free sisterly welcome. “Go, Paul!” said the +minister. “We need all hands to make use of the sunshine to-day. ‘Whatsoever +thine hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.’ It will be a healthy +change of work for thee, lad; and I find best rest in change of work.” So off I +went, a willing labourer, following Phillis’s lead; it was the primitive +distinction of rank; the boy who frightened the sparrows off the fruit was the +last in our rear. We did not leave off till the red sun was gone down behind +the fir-trees bordering the common. Then we went home to +supper—prayers—to bed; some bird singing far into the night, as I +heard it through my open window, and the poultry beginning their clatter and +cackle in the earliest morning. I had carried what luggage I immediately needed +with me from my lodgings and the rest was to be sent by the carrier. He brought +it to the farm betimes that morning, and along with it he brought a letter or +two that had arrived since I had left. I was talking to cousin +Holman—about my mother’s ways of making bread, I remember; cousin Holman +was questioning me, and had got me far beyond my depth—in the +house-place, when the letters were brought in by one of the men, and I had to +pay the carrier for his trouble before I could look at them. A bill—a +Canadian letter! What instinct made me so thankful that I was alone with my +dear unobservant cousin? What made me hurry them away into my coat-pocket? I do +not know. I felt strange and sick, and made irrelevant answers, I am afraid. +Then I went to my room, ostensibly to carry up my boxes. I sate on the side of +my bed and opened my letter from Holdsworth. It seemed to me as if I had read +its contents before, and knew exactly what he had got to say. I knew he was +going to be married to Lucille Ventadour; nay, that he was married; for this +was the 5th of July, and he wrote word that his marriage was fixed to take +place on the 29th of June. I knew all the reasons he gave, all the raptures he +went into. I held the letter loosely in my hands, and looked into vacancy, yet +I saw the chaffinch’s nest on the lichen-covered trunk of an old apple-tree +opposite my window, and saw the mother-bird come fluttering in to feed her +brood,—and yet I did not see it, although it seemed to me afterwards as +if I could have drawn every fibre, every feather. I was stirred up to action by +the merry sound of voices and the clamp of rustic feet coming home for the +mid-day meal. I knew I must go down to dinner; I knew, too, I must tell +Phillis; for in his happy egotism, his new-fangled foppery, Holdsworth had put +in a P.S., saying that he should send wedding-cards to me and some other Hornby +and Eltham acquaintances, and “to his kind friends at Hope Farm”. Phillis had +faded away to one among several “kind friends”. I don’t know how I got through +dinner that day. I remember forcing myself to eat, and talking hard; but I also +recollect the wondering look in the minister’s eyes. He was not one to think +evil without cause; but many a one would have taken me for drunk. As soon as I +decently could I left the table, saying I would go out for a walk. At first I +must have tried to stun reflection by rapid walking, for I had lost myself on +the high moorlands far beyond the familiar gorse-covered common, before I was +obliged for very weariness to slacken my pace. I kept wishing—oh! how +fervently wishing I had never committed that blunder; that the one little +half-hour’s indiscretion could be blotted out. Alternating with this was anger +against Holdsworth; unjust enough, I dare say. I suppose I stayed in that +solitary place for a good hour or more, and then I turned homewards, resolving +to get over the telling Phillis at the first opportunity, but shrinking from +the fulfilment of my resolution so much that when I came into the house and saw +Phillis (doors and windows open wide in the sultry weather) alone in the +kitchen, I became quite sick with apprehension. She was standing by the +dresser, cutting up a great household loaf into hunches of bread for the hungry +labourers who might come in any minute, for the heavy thunder-clouds were +overspreading the sky. She looked round as she heard my step. +</p> + +<p> +“You should have been in the field, helping with the hay,” said she, in her +calm, pleasant voice. I had heard her as I came near the house softly chanting +some hymn-tune, and the peacefulness of that seemed to be brooding over her +now. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I should. It looks as if it was going to rain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; there is thunder about. Mother has had to go to bed with one of her bad +headaches. Now you are come in— +</p> + +<p> +“Phillis,” said I, rushing at my subject and interrupting her, “I went a long +walk to think over a letter I had this morning—a letter from Canada. You +don’t know how it has grieved me.” I held it out to her as I spoke. Her colour +changed a little, but it was more the reflection of my face, I think, than +because she formed any definite idea from my words. Still she did not take the +letter. I had to bid her to read it, before she quite understood what I wished. +She sate down rather suddenly as she received it into her hands; and, spreading +it on the dresser before her, she rested her forehead on the palms of her +hands, her arms supported on the table, her figure a little averted, and her +countenance thus shaded. I looked out of the open window; my heart was very +heavy. How peaceful it all seemed in the farmyard! Peace and plenty. How still +and deep was the silence of the house! Tick-tick went the unseen clock on the +wide staircase. I had heard the rustle once, when she turned over the page of +thin paper. She must have read to the end. Yet she did not move, or say a word, +or even sigh. I kept on looking out of the window, my hands in my pockets. I +wonder how long that time really was? It seemed to me +interminable—unbearable. At length I looked round at her. She must have +felt my look, for she changed her attitude with a quick sharp movement, and +caught my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t look so sorry, Paul,” she said. “Don’t, please. I can’t bear it. There +is nothing to be sorry for. I think not, at least. You have not done wrong, at +any rate.” I felt that I groaned, but I don’t think she heard me. “And +he,—there’s no wrong in his marrying, is there? I’m sure I hope he’ll be +happy. Oh! how I hope it!” These last words were like a wail; but I believe she +was afraid of breaking down, for she changed the key in which she spoke, and +hurried on. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucille—that’s our English Lucy, I suppose? Lucille Holdsworth! It’s a +pretty name; and I hope—I forget what I was going to say. Oh! it was +this. Paul, I think we need never speak about this again; only remember you are +not to be sorry. You have not done wrong; you have been very, very kind; and if +I see you looking grieved I don’t know what I might do;—I might +breakdown, you know.” I think she was on the point of doing so then, but the +dark storm came dashing down, and the thunder-cloud broke right above the +house, as it seemed. Her mother, roused from sleep, called out for Phillis; the +men and women from the hay-field came running into shelter, drenched through. +The minister followed, smiling, and not unpleasantly excited by the war of +elements; for, by dint of hard work through the long summer’s day, the greater +part of the hay was safely housed in the barn in the field. Once or twice in +the succeeding bustle I came across Phillis, always busy, and, as it seemed to +me, always doing the right thing. When I was alone in my own room at night I +allowed myself to feel relieved; and to believe that the worst was over, and +was not so very bad after all. But the succeeding days were very miserable. +Sometimes I thought it must be my fancy that falsely represented Phillis to me +as strangely changed, for surely, if this idea of mine was well-founded, her +parents—her father and mother—her own flesh and blood—would +have been the first to perceive it. Yet they went on in their household peace +and content; if anything, a little more cheerfully than usual, for the “harvest +of the first-fruits”, as the minister called it, had been more bounteous than +usual, and there was plenty all around in which the humblest labourer was made +to share. After the one thunderstorm, came one or two lovely serene summer +days, during which the hay was all carried; and then succeeded long soft rains +filling the ears of corn, and causing the mown grass to spring afresh. The +minister allowed himself a few more hours of relaxation and home enjoyment than +usual during this wet spell: hard earth-bound frost was his winter holiday; +these wet days, after the hay harvest, his summer holiday. We sate with open +windows, the fragrance and the freshness called out by the soft-falling rain +filling the house-place; while the quiet ceaseless patter among the leaves +outside ought to have had the same lulling effect as all other gentle perpetual +sounds, such as mill-wheels and bubbling springs, have on the nerves of happy +people. But two of us were not happy. I was sure enough of myself, for one. I +was worse than sure,—I was wretchedly anxious about Phillis. Ever since +that day of the thunderstorm there had been a new, sharp, discordant sound to +me in her voice, a sort of jangle in her tone; and her restless eyes had no +quietness in them; and her colour came and went without a cause that I could +find out. The minister, happy in ignorance of what most concerned him, brought +out his books; his learned volumes and classics. Whether he read and talked to +Phillis, or to me, I do not know; but feeling by instinct that she was not, +could not be, attending to the peaceful details, so strange and foreign to the +turmoil in her heart, I forced myself to listen, and if possible to understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here!” said the minister, tapping the old vellum-bound book he held; “in +the first Georgic he speaks of rolling and irrigation, a little further on he +insists on choice of the best seed, and advises us to keep the drains clear. +Again, no Scotch farmer could give shrewder advice than to cut light meadows +while the dew is on, even though it involve night-work. It is all living truth +in these days.” He began beating time with a ruler upon his knee, to some Latin +lines he read aloud just then. I suppose the monotonous chant irritated Phillis +to some irregular energy, for I remember the quick knotting and breaking of the +thread with which she was sewing. I never hear that snap repeated now, without +suspecting some sting or stab troubling the heart of the worker. Cousin Holman, +at her peaceful knitting, noticed the reason why Phillis had so constantly to +interrupt the progress of her seam. +</p> + +<p> +“It is bad thread, I’m afraid,” she said, in a gentle sympathetic voice. But it +was too much for Phillis. +</p> + +<p> +“The thread is bad—everything is bad—I am so tired of it all!” And +she put down her work, and hastily left the room. I do not suppose that in all +her life Phillis had ever shown so much temper before. In many a family the +tone, the manner, would not have been noticed; but here it fell with a sharp +surprise upon the sweet, calm atmosphere of home. The minister put down ruler +and book, and pushed his spectacles up to his forehead. The mother looked +distressed for a moment, and then smoothed her features and said in an +explanatory tone,—“It’s the weather, I think. Some people feel it +different to others. It always brings on a headache with me.” She got up to +follow her daughter, but half-way to the door she thought better of it, and +came back to her seat. Good mother! she hoped the better to conceal the unusual +spirt of temper, by pretending not to take much notice of it. “Go on, +minister,” she said; “it is very interesting what you are reading about, and +when I don’t quite understand it, I like the sound of your voice.” So he went +on, but languidly and irregularly, and beat no more time with his ruler to any +Latin lines. When the dusk came on, early that July night because of the cloudy +sky, Phillis came softly back, making as though nothing had happened. She took +up her work, but it was too dark to do many stitches; and she dropped it soon. +Then I saw how her hand stole into her mother’s, and how this latter fondled it +with quiet little caresses, while the minister, as fully aware as I was of this +tender pantomime, went on talking in a happier tone of voice about things as +uninteresting to him, at the time, I very believe, as they were to me; and that +is saying a good deal, and shows how much more real what was passing before him +was, even to a farmer, than the agricultural customs of the ancients. +</p> + +<p> +I remember one thing more,—an attack which Betty the servant made upon me +one day as I came in through the kitchen where she was churning, and stopped to +ask her for a drink of buttermilk. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, cousin Paul,” (she had adopted the family habit of addressing me +generally as cousin Paul, and always speaking of me in that form,) ‘something’s +amiss with our Phillis, and I reckon you’ve a good guess what it is. She’s not +one to take up wi’ such as you,” (not complimentary, but that Betty never was, +even to those for whom she felt the highest respect,) “but I’d as lief yon +Holdsworth had never come near us. So there you’ve a bit o’ my mind.” And a +very unsatisfactory bit it was. I did not know what to answer to the glimpse at +the real state of the case implied in the shrewd woman’s speech; so I tried to +put her off by assuming surprise at her first assertion. +</p> + +<p> +“Amiss with Phillis! I should like to know why you think anything is wrong with +her. She looks as blooming as any one can do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor lad! you’re but a big child after all; and you’ve likely never heared of +a fever-flush. But you know better nor that, my fine fellow! so don’t think for +to put me off wi’ blooms and blossoms and such-like talk. What makes her walk +about for hours and hours o’ nights when she used to be abed and asleep? I +sleep next room to her, and hear her plain as can be. What makes her come in +panting and ready to drop into that chair,”—nodding to one close to the +door,—“and it’s ‘Oh! Betty, some water, please’? That’s the way she comes +in now, when she used to come back as fresh and bright as she went out. If yon +friend o’ yours has played her false, he’s a deal for t’ answer for; she’s a +lass who’s as sweet and as sound as a nut, and the very apple of her father’s +eye, and of her mother’s too’ only wi’ her she ranks second to th’ minister. +You’ll have to look after yon chap, for I, for one, will stand no wrong to our +Phillis.” +</p> + +<p> +What was I to do, or to say? I wanted to justify Holdsworth, to keep Phillis’s +secret, and to pacify the woman all in the same breath. I did not take the best +course, I’m afraid. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe Holdsworth ever spoke a word of—of love to her in all +his life. I’m sure he didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay. Ay! but there’s eyes, and there’s hands, as well as tongues; and a man has +two o’ th’ one and but one o’ t’other.” +</p> + +<p> +“And she’s so young; do you suppose her parents would not have seen it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well! if you axe me that, I’ll say out boldly, ‘No’. They’ve called her ‘the +child’ so long—‘the child’ is always their name for her when they talk on +her between themselves, as if never anybody else had a ewe-lamb before +them—that she’s grown up to be a woman under their very eyes, and they +look on her still as if she were in her long clothes. And you ne’er heard on a +man falling in love wi’ a babby in long clothes!” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said I, half laughing. But she went on as grave as a judge. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! you see you’ll laugh at the bare thought on it—and I’ll be bound th’ +minister, though he’s not a laughing man, would ha’ sniggled at th’ notion of +falling in love wi’ the child. Where’s Holdsworth off to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Canada,” said I, shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Canada here, Canada there,” she replied, testily. “Tell me how far he’s off, +instead of giving me your gibberish. Is he a two days’ journey away? or a +three? or a week?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s ever so far off—three weeks at the least,” cried I in despair. “And +he’s either married, or just going to be. So there.” I expected a fresh burst +of anger. But no; the matter was too serious. Betty sate down, and kept silence +for a minute or two. She looked so miserable and downcast, that I could not +help going on, and taking her a little into my confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite true what I said. I know he never spoke a word to her. I think he +liked her, but it’s all over now. The best thing we can do—the best and +kindest for her—and I know you love her, Betty—” +</p> + +<p> +“I nursed her in my arms; I gave her little brother his last taste o’ earthly +food,” said Betty, putting her apron up to her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Well! don’t let us show her we guess that she is grieving; she’ll get over it +the sooner. Her father and mother don’t even guess at it, and we must make as +if we didn’t. It’s too late now to do anything else.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll never let on; I know nought. I’ve known true love mysel’, in my day. But +I wish he’d been farred before he ever came near this house, with his ‘Please +Betty’ this, and ‘Please Betty’ that, and drinking up our new milk as if he’d +been a cat. I hate such beguiling ways.” +</p> + +<p> +I thought it was as well to let her exhaust herself in abusing the absent +Holdsworth; if it was shabby and treacherous in me, I came in for my punishment +directly. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a caution to a man how he goes about beguiling. Some men do it as easy +and innocent as cooing doves. Don’t you be none of “em, my lad. Not that you’ve +got the gifts to do it, either; you’re no great shakes to look at, neither for +figure, nor yet for face, and it would need be a deaf adder to be taken in wi’ +your words, though there may be no great harm in em.” A lad of nineteen or +twenty is not flattered by such an out-spoken opinion even from the oldest and +ugliest of her sex; and I was only too glad to change the subject by my +repeated injunctions to keep Phillis’s secret. The end of our conversation was +this speech of hers,— +</p> + +<p> +“You great gaupus, for all you’re called cousin o’ th’ minister—many a +one is cursed wi’ fools for cousins—d’ye think I can’t see sense except +through your spectacles? I give you leave to cut out my tongue, and nail it up +on th’ barn-door for a caution to magpies, if I let out on that poor wench, +either to herself, or any one that is hers, as the Bible says. Now you’ve heard +me speak Scripture language, perhaps you’ll be content, and leave me my kitchen +to myself.” +</p> + +<p> +During all these days, from the 5th of July to the 17th, I must have forgotten +what Holdsworth had said about cards. And yet I think I could not have quite +forgotten; but, once having told Phillis about his marriage, I must have looked +upon the after consequence of cards as of no importance. At any rate they came +upon me as a surprise at last. The penny-post reform, as people call it, had +come into operation a short time before; but the never-ending stream of notes +and letters which seem now to flow in upon most households had not yet begun +its course; at least in those remote parts. There was a post-office at Hornby; +and an old fellow, who stowed away the few letters in any or all his pockets, +as it best suited him, was the letter-carrier to Heathbridge and the +neighbourhood. I have often met him in the lanes thereabouts, and asked him for +letters. Sometimes I have come upon him, sitting on the hedge-bank resting; and +he has begged me to read him an address, too illegible for his spectacled eyes +to decipher. When I used to inquire if he had anything for me, or for +Holdsworth (he was not particular to whom he gave up the letters, so that he +got rid of them somehow, and could set off homewards), he would say he thought +that he had, for such was his invariable safe form of answer; and would fumble +in breast-pockets, waistcoat-pockets, breeches-pockets, and, as a last +resource, in coat-tail pockets; and at length try to comfort me, if I looked +disappointed, by telling me, “Hoo had missed this toime, but was sure to write +to-morrow;” “Hoo” representing an imaginary sweetheart. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes I had seen the minister bring home a letter which he had found lying +for him at the little shop that was the post-office at Heathbridge, or from the +grander establishment at Hornby. Once or twice Josiah, the carter, remembered +that the old letter-carrier had trusted him with an epistle to “Measter”, as +they had met in the lanes. I think it must have been about ten days after my +arrival at the farm, and my talk to Phillis cutting bread-and-butter at the +kitchen dresser, before the day on which the minister suddenly spoke at the +dinner-table, and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“By-the-by, I’ve got a letter in my pocket. Reach me my coat here, Phillis.” +The weather was still sultry, and for coolness and ease the minister was +sitting in his shirt-sleeves. “I went to Heathbridge about the paper they had +sent me, which spoils all the pens—and I called at the post-office, and +found a letter for me, unpaid,—and they did not like to trust it to old +Zekiel. Ay! here it is! Now we shall hear news of Holdsworth,—I thought +I’d keep it till we were all together.” My heart seemed to stop beating, and I +hung my head over my plate, not daring to look up. What would come of it now? +What was Phillis doing? How was she looking? A moment of suspense,—and +then he spoke again. “Why! what’s this? Here are two visiting tickets with his +name on, no writing at all. No! it’s not his name on both. MRS Holdsworth! The +young man has gone and got married.” I lifted my head at these words; I could +not help looking just for one instant at Phillis. It seemed to me as if she had +been keeping watch over my face and ways. Her face was brilliantly flushed; her +eyes were dry and glittering; but she did not speak; her lips were set together +almost as if she was pinching them tight to prevent words or sounds coming out. +Cousin Holman’s face expressed surprise and interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said she, “who’d ha’ thought it! He’s made quick work of his wooing and +wedding. I’m sure I wish him happy. Let me see”—counting on her +fingers,—“October, November, December, January, February, March, April, +May, June, July,—at least we’re at the 28th,—it is nearly ten +months after all, and reckon a month each way off—” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you know of this news before?” said the minister, turning sharp round on +me, surprised, I suppose, at my silence,—hardly suspicious, as yet. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew—I had heard—something. It is to a French Canadian young +lady,” I went on, forcing myself to talk. “Her name is Ventadour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucille Ventadour!” said Phillis, in a sharp voice, out of tune. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you knew too!” exclaimed the minister. We both spoke at once. I said, “I +heard of the probability of—and told Phillis.” She said, “He is married +to Lucille Ventadour, of French descent; one of a large family near St. +Meurice; am not I right?” I nodded “Paul told me,—that is all we know, is +not it? Did you see the Howsons, father, in Heathbridge?” and she forced +herself to talk more than she had done for several days, asking many questions, +trying, as I could see, to keep the conversation off the one raw surface, on +which to touch was agony. I had less self-command; but I followed her lead. I +was not so much absorbed in the conversation but what I could see that the +minister was puzzled and uneasy; though he seconded Phillis’s efforts to +prevent her mother from recurring to the great piece of news, and uttering +continual exclamations of wonder and surprise. But with that one exception we +were all disturbed out of our natural equanimity, more or less. Every day, +every hour, I was reproaching myself more and more for my blundering +officiousness. If only I had held my foolish tongue for that one half-hour; if +only I had not been in such impatient haste to do something to relieve pain! I +could have knocked my stupid head against the wall in my remorse. Yet all I +could do now was to second the brave girl in her efforts to conceal her +disappointment and keep her maidenly secret. But I thought that dinner would +never, never come to an end. I suffered for her, even more than for myself. +Until now everything which I had heard spoken in that happy household were +simple words of true meaning. If we had aught to say, we said it; and if any +one preferred silence, nay if all did so, there would have been no spasmodic, +forced efforts to talk for the sake of talking, or to keep off intrusive +thoughts or suspicions. +</p> + +<p> +At length we got up from our places, and prepared to disperse; but two or three +of us had lost our zest and interest in the daily labour. The minister stood +looking out of the window in silence, and when he roused himself to go out to +the fields where his labourers were working, it was with a sigh; and he tried +to avert his troubled face as he passed us on his way to the door. When he had +left us, I caught sight of Phillis’s face, as, thinking herself unobserved, her +countenance relaxed for a moment or two into sad, woeful weariness. She started +into briskness again when her mother spoke, and hurried away to do some little +errand at her bidding. When we two were alone, cousin Holman recurred to +Holdsworth’s marriage. She was one of those people who like to view an event +from every side of probability, or even possibility; and she had been cut short +from indulging herself in this way during dinner. +</p> + +<p> +“To think of Mr Holdsworth’s being married! I can’t get over it, Paul. Not but +what he was a very nice young man! I don’t like her name, though; it sounds +foreign. Say it again, my dear. I hope she’ll know how to take care of him, +English fashion. He is not strong, and if she does not see that his things are +well aired, I should be afraid of the old cough.” +</p> + +<p> +“He always said he was stronger than he had ever been before, after that +fever.” “He might think so, but I have my doubts. He was a very pleasant young +man, but he did not stand nursing very well. He got tired of being coddled, as +he called it. I hope they’ll soon come back to England, and then he’ll have a +chance for his health. I wonder now, if she speaks English; but, to be sure, he +can speak foreign tongues like anything, as I’ve heard the minister say.” And +so we went on for some time, till she became drowsy over her knitting, on the +sultry summer afternoon; and I stole away for a walk, for I wanted some +solitude in which to think over things, and, alas! to blame myself with +poignant stabs of remorse. +</p> + +<p> +I lounged lazily as soon as I got to the wood. Here and there the bubbling, +brawling brook circled round a great stone, or a root of an old tree, and made +a pool; otherwise it coursed brightly over the gravel and stones. I stood by +one of these for more than half an hour, or, indeed, longer, throwing bits of +wood or pebbles into the water, and wondering what I could do to remedy the +present state of things. Of course all my meditation was of no use; and at +length the distant sound of the horn employed to tell the men far afield to +leave off work, warned me that it was six o“clock, and time for me to go home. +Then I caught wafts of the loud-voiced singing of the evening psalm. As I was +crossing the Ashfield, I saw the minister at some distance talking to a man. I +could not hear what they were saying, but I saw an impatient or dissentient (I +could not tell which) gesture on the part of the former, who walked quickly +away, and was apparently absorbed in his thoughts, for though he passed within +twenty yards of me, as both our paths converged towards home, he took no notice +of me. We passed the evening in a way which was even worse than dinner-time. +The minister was silent, depressed, even irritable. Poor cousin Holman was +utterly perplexed by this unusual frame of mind and temper in her husband; she +was not well herself, and was suffering from the extreme and sultry heat, which +made her less talkative than usual. Phillis, usually so reverently tender to +her parents, so soft, so gentle, seemed now to take no notice of the unusual +state of things, but talked to me—to any one, on indifferent subjects, +regardless of her father’s gravity, of her mother’s piteous looks of +bewilderment. But once my eyes fell upon her hands, concealed under the table, +and I could see the passionate, convulsive manner in which she laced and +interlaced her fingers perpetually, wringing them together from time to time, +wringing till the compressed flesh became perfectly white. What could I do? I +talked with her, as I saw she wished; her grey eyes had dark circles round them +and a strange kind of dark light in them; her cheeks were flushed, but her lips +were white and wan. I wondered that others did not read these signs as clearly +as I did. But perhaps they did; I think, from what came afterwards, the +minister did. Poor cousin Holman! she worshipped her husband; and the outward +signs of his uneasiness were more patent to her simple heart than were her +daughter’s. After a while she could bear it no longer. She got up, and, softly +laying her hand on his broad stooping shoulder, she said,— +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter, minister? Has anything gone wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +He started as if from a dream. Phillis hung her head, and caught her breath in +terror at the answer she feared. But he, looking round with a sweeping glance, +turned his broad, wise face up to his anxious wife, and forced a smile, and +took her hand in a reassuring manner. +</p> + +<p> +“I am blaming myself, dear. I have been overcome with anger this afternoon. I +scarcely knew what I was doing, but I turned away Timothy Cooper. He has killed +the Ribstone pippin at the corner of the orchard; gone and piled the quicklime +for the mortar for the new stable wall against the trunk of the +tree—stupid fellow! killed the tree outright—and it loaded with +apples!” +</p> + +<p> +“And Ribstone pippins are so scarce,” said sympathetic cousin Holman. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! But Timothy is but a half-wit; and he has a wife and children. He had +often put me to it sore, with his slothful ways, but I had laid it before the +Lord, and striven to bear with him. But I will not stand it any longer, it’s +past my patience. And he has notice to find another place. Wife, we won’t talk +more about it.” He took her hand gently off his shoulder, touched it with his +lips; but relapsed into a silence as profound, if not quite so morose in +appearance, as before. I could not tell why, but this bit of talk between her +father and mother seemed to take all the factitious spirits out of Phillis. She +did not speak now, but looked out of the open casement at the calm large moon, +slowly moving through the twilight sky. Once I thought her eyes were filling +with tears; but, if so, she shook them off, and arose with alacrity when her +mother, tired and dispirited, proposed to go to bed immediately after prayers. +We all said good-night in our separate ways to the minister, who still sate at +the table with the great Bible open before him, not much looking up at any of +our salutations, but returning them kindly. But when I, last of all, was on the +point of leaving the room, he said, still scarcely looking up,— +</p> + +<p> +“Paul, you will oblige me by staying here a few minutes. I would fain have some +talk with you.” +</p> + +<p> +I knew what was coming, all in a moment. I carefully shut-to the door, put out +my candle, and sate down to my fate. He seemed to find some difficulty in +beginning, for, if I had not heard that he wanted to speak to me, I should +never have guessed it, he seemed so much absorbed in reading a chapter to the +end. Suddenly he lifted his head up and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“It is about that friend of yours, Holdsworth! Paul, have you any reason for +thinking he has played tricks upon Phillis?” I saw that his eyes were blazing +with such a fire of anger at the bare idea, that I lost all my presence of +mind, and only repeated,— +</p> + +<p> +“Played tricks on Phillis!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! you know what I mean: made love to her, courted her, made her think that +he loved her, and then gone away and left her. Put it as you will, only give me +an answer of some kind or another—a true answer, I mean—and don’t +repeat my words, Paul.” +</p> + +<p> +He was shaking all over as he said this. I did not delay a moment in answering +him,— +</p> + +<p> +“I do not believe that Edward Holdsworth ever played tricks on Phillis, ever +made love to her; he never, to my knowledge, made her believe that he loved +her.” +</p> + +<p> +I stopped; I wanted to nerve up my courage for a confession, yet I wished to +save the secret of Phillis’s love for Holdsworth as much as I could; that +secret which she had so striven to keep sacred and safe; and I had need of some +reflection before I went on with what I had to say. +</p> + +<p> +He began again before I had quite arranged my manner of speech. It was almost +as if to himself,—“She is my only child; my little daughter! She is +hardly out of childhood; I have thought to gather her under my wings for years +to come her mother and I would lay down our lives to keep her from harm and +grief.” Then, raising his voice, and looking at me, he said, “Something has +gone wrong with the child; and it seemed to me to date from the time she heard +of that marriage. It is hard to think that you may know more of her secret +cares and sorrows than I do,—but perhaps you do, Paul, perhaps you +do,—only, if it be not a sin, tell me what I can do to make her happy +again; tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will not do much good, I am afraid,” said I, “but I will own how wrong I +did; I don’t mean wrong in the way of sin, but in the way of judgment. +Holdsworth told me just before he went that he loved Phillis, and hoped to make +her his wife, and I told her.” +</p> + +<p> +There! it was out; all my part in it, at least; and I set my lips tight +together, and waited for the words to come. I did not see his face; I looked +straight at the wall opposite; but I heard him once begin to speak, and then +turn over the leaves in the book before him. How awfully still that room was! +The air outside, how still it was! The open windows let in no rustle of leaves, +no twitter or movement of birds—no sound whatever. The clock on the +stairs—the minister’s hard breathing—was it to go on for ever? +Impatient beyond bearing at the deep quiet, I spoke again,— +</p> + +<p> +“I did it for the best, as I thought.” +</p> + +<p> +The minister shut the book to hastily, and stood up. Then I saw how angry he +was. +</p> + +<p> +“For the best, do you say? It was best, was it, to go and tell a young girl +what you never told a word of to her parents, who trusted you like a son of +their own?” +</p> + +<p> +He began walking about, up and down the room close under the open windows, +churning up his bitter thoughts of me. +</p> + +<p> +“To put such thoughts into the child’s head,” continued he; “to spoil her +peaceful maidenhood with talk about another man’s love; and such love, too,” he +spoke scornfully now—“a love that is ready for any young woman. Oh, the +misery in my poor little daughter’s face to-day at dinner—the misery, +Paul! I thought you were one to be trusted—your father’s son too, to go +and put such thoughts into the child’s mind; you two talking together about +that man wishing to marry her.” +</p> + +<p> +I could not help remembering the pinafore, the childish garment which Phillis +wore so long, as if her parents were unaware of her progress towards womanhood. +Just in the same way the minister spoke and thought of her now, as a child, +whose innocent peace I had spoiled by vain and foolish talk. I knew that the +truth was different, though I could hardly have told it now; but, indeed, I +never thought of trying to tell; it was far from my mind to add one iota to the +sorrow which I had caused. The minister went on walking, occasionally stopping +to move things on the table, or articles of furniture, in a sharp, impatient, +meaningless way, then he began again,— +</p> + +<p> +“So young, so pure from the world! how could you go and talk to such a child, +raising hopes, exciting feelings—all to end thus; and best so, even +though I saw her poor piteous face look as it did. I can’t forgive you, Paul; +it was more than wrong—it was wicked—to go and repeat that man’s +words.” +</p> + +<p> +His back was now to the door, and, in listening to his low angry tones, he did +not hear it slowly open, nor did he see Phillis, standing just within the room, +until he turned round; then he stood still. She must have been half undressed; +but she had covered herself with a dark winter cloak, which fell in long folds +to her white, naked, noiseless feet. Her face was strangely pale: her eyes +heavy in the black circles round them. She came up to the table very slowly, +and leant her hand upon it, saying mournfully,— +</p> + +<p> +“Father, you must not blame Paul. I could not help hearing a great deal of what +you were saying. He did tell me, and perhaps it would have been wiser not, dear +Paul! But—oh, dear! oh, dear! I am so sick with shame! He told me out of +his kind heart, because he saw—that I was so very unhappy at his going +away.” She hung her head, and leant more heavily than before on her supporting +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” said her father; but he was beginning to understand. +Phillis did not answer till he asked her again. I could have struck him now for +his cruelty; but then I knew all. +</p> + +<p> +“I loved him, father!” she said at length, raising her eyes to the minister’s +face. “Had he ever spoken of love to you? Paul says not!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never.” She let fall her eyes, and drooped more than ever. I almost thought +she would fall. +</p> + +<p> +“I could not have believed it,” said he, in a hard voice, yet sighing the +moment he had spoken. A dead silence for a moment. “Paul! I was unjust to you. +You deserved blame, but not all that I said.” Then again a silence. I thought I +saw Phillis’s white lips moving, but it might have been the flickering of the +candlelight—a moth had flown in through the open casement, and was +fluttering round the flame; I might have saved it, but I did not care to do so, +my heart was too full of other things. At any rate, no sound was heard for long +endless minutes. Then he said,—“Phillis! did we not make you happy here? +Have we not loved you enough?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not seem to understand the drift of this question; she looked up as if +bewildered, and her beautiful eyes dilated with a painful, tortured expression. +He went on, without noticing the look on her face; he did not see it, I am +sure. +</p> + +<p> +“And yet you would have left us, left your home, left your father and your +mother, and gone away with this stranger, wandering over the world.” He +suffered, too; there were tones of pain in the voice in which he uttered this +reproach. Probably the father and daughter were never so far apart in their +lives, so unsympathetic. Yet some new terror came over her, and it was to him +she turned for help. A shadow came over her face, and she tottered towards her +father; falling down, her arms across his knees, and moaning out,— +</p> + +<p> +“Father, my head! my head!” and then slipped through his quick-enfolding arms, +and lay on the ground at his feet. +</p> + +<p> +I shall never forget his sudden look of agony while I live; never! We raised +her up; her colour had strangely darkened; she was insensible. I ran through +the back-kitchen to the yard pump, and brought back water. The minister had her +on his knees, her head against his breast, almost as though she were a sleeping +child. He was trying to rise up with his poor precious burden, but the +momentary terror had robbed the strong man of his strength, and he sank back in +his chair with sobbing breath. +</p> + +<p> +“She is not dead, Paul! is she?” he whispered, hoarse, as I came near him. I, +too, could not speak, but I pointed to the quivering of the muscles round her +mouth. Just then cousin Holman, attracted by some unwonted sound, came down. I +remember I was surprised at the time at her presence of mind, she seemed to +know so much better what to do than the minister, in the midst of the sick +affright which blanched her countenance, and made her tremble all over. I think +now that it was the recollection of what had gone before; the miserable thought +that possibly his words had brought on this attack, whatever it might be, that +so unmanned the minister. We carried her upstairs, and while the women were +putting her to bed, still unconscious, still slightly convulsed, I slipped out, +and saddled one of the horses, and rode as fast as the heavy-trotting beast +could go, to Hornby, to find the doctor there, and bring him back. He was out, +might be detained the whole night. I remember saying, “God help us all!” as I +sate on my horse, under the window, through which the apprentice’s head had +appeared to answer my furious tugs at the night-bell. He was a good-natured +fellow. He said,— +</p> + +<p> +“He may be home in half an hour, there’s no knowing; but I daresay he will. +I’ll send him out to the Hope Farm directly he comes in. It’s that good-looking +young woman, Holman’s daughter, that’s ill, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be a pity if she was to go. She’s an only child, isn’t she? I’ll get +up, and smoke a pipe in the surgery, ready for the governor’s coming home. I +might go to sleep if I went to bed again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, you’re a good fellow!” and I rode back almost as quickly as I came. +It was a brain fever. The doctor said so, when he came in the early summer +morning. I believe we had come to know the nature of the illness in the +night-watches that had gone before. As to hope of ultimate recovery, or even +evil prophecy of the probable end, the cautious doctor would be entrapped into +neither. He gave his directions, and promised to come again; so soon, that this +one thing showed his opinion of the gravity of the case. +</p> + +<p> +By God’s mercy she recovered, but it was a long, weary time first. According to +previously made plans, I was to have gone home at the beginning of August. But +all such ideas were put aside now, without a word being spoken. I really think +that I was necessary in the house, and especially necessary to the minister at +this time; my father was the last man in the world, under such circumstances, +to expect me home. +</p> + +<p> +I say, I think I was necessary in the house. Every person (1 had almost said +every creature, for all the dumb beasts seemed to know and love Phillis) about +the place went grieving and sad, as though a cloud was over the sun. They did +their work, each striving to steer clear of the temptation to eye-service, in +fulfilment of the trust reposed in them by the minister. For the day after +Phillis had been taken ill, he had called all the men employed on the farm into +the empty barn; and there he had entreated their prayers for his only child; +and then and there he had told them of his present incapacity for thought about +any other thing in this world but his little daughter, lying nigh unto death, +and he had asked them to go on with their daily labours as best they could, +without his direction. So, as I say, these honest men did their work to the +best of their ability, but they slouched along with sad and careful faces, +coming one by one in the dim mornings to ask news of the sorrow that +overshadowed the house; and receiving Betty’s intelligence, always rather +darkened by passing through her mind, with slow shakes of the head, and a dull +wistfulness of sympathy. But, poor fellows, they were hardly fit to be trusted +with hasty messages, and here my poor services came in. One time I was to ride +hard to Sir William Bentinck’s, and petition for ice out of his ice-house, to +put on Phillis’s head. Another it was to Eltham I must go, by train, horse, +anyhow, and bid the doctor there come for a consultation, for fresh symptoms +had appeared, which Mr Brown, of Hornby, considered unfavourable. Many an hour +have I sate on the window-seat, half-way up the stairs, close by the old clock, +listening in the hot stillness of the house for the sounds in the sick-room. +The minister and I met often, but spoke together seldom. He looked so +old—so old! He shared the nursing with his wife; the strength that was +needed seemed to be given to them both in that day. They required no one else +about their child. Every office about her was sacred to them; even Betty only +went into the room for the most necessary purposes. Once I saw Phillis through +the open door; her pretty golden hair had been cut off long before; her head +was covered with wet cloths, and she was moving it backwards and forwards on +the pillow, with weary, never-ending motion, her poor eyes shut, trying in the +old accustomed way to croon out a hymn tune, but perpetually breaking it up +into moans of pain. Her mother sate by her, tearless, changing the cloths upon +her head with patient solicitude. I did not see the minister at first, but +there he was in a dark corner, down upon his knees, his hands clasped together +in passionate prayer. Then the door shut, and I saw no more. One day he was +wanted; and I had to summon him. Brother Robinson and another minister, hearing +of his “trial”, had come to see him. I told him this upon the stair-landing in +a whisper. He was strangely troubled. +</p> + +<p> +“They will want me to lay bare my heart. I cannot do it. Paul, stay with me. +They mean well; but as for spiritual help at such a time—it is God only, +God only, who can give it. +</p> + +<p> +So I went in with him. They were two ministers from the neighbourhood; both +older than Ebenezer Holman; but evidently inferior to him in education and +worldly position. I thought they looked at me as if I were an intruder, but +remembering the minister’s words I held my ground, and took up one of poor +Phillis’s books (of which I could not read a word) to have an ostensible +occupation. Presently I was asked to “engage in prayer”, and we all knelt down; +Brother Robinson “leading”, and quoting largely as I remember from the Book of +Job. He seemed to take for his text, if texts are ever taken for prayers, +</p> + +<p> +“Behold thou hast instructed many; but now it is come upon thee, and thou +faintest, it toucheth thee and thou art troubled.” When we others rose up, the +minister continued for some minutes on his knees. Then he too got up, and stood +facing us, for a moment, before we all sate down in conclave. After a pause +Robinson began,— +</p> + +<p> +“We grieve for you, Brother Holman, for your trouble is great. But we would +fain have you remember you are as a light set on a hill; and the congregations +are looking at you with watchful eyes. We have been talking as we came along on +the two duties required of you in this strait; Brother Hodgson and me. And we +have resolved to exhort you on these two points. First, God has given you the +opportunity of showing forth an example of resignation.” Poor Mr Holman visibly +winced at this word. I could fancy how he had tossed aside such brotherly +preachings in his happier moments; but now his whole system was unstrung, and +“resignation” seemed a term which presupposed that the dreaded misery of losing +Phillis was inevitable. But good stupid Mr Robinson went on. “We hear on all +sides that there are scarce any hopes of your child’s recovery; and it may be +well to bring you to mind of Abraham; and how he was willing to kill his only +child when the Lord commanded. Take example by him, Brother Holman. Let us hear +you say, ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the +Lord!’” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause of expectancy. I verily believe the minister tried to feel +it; but he could not. Heart of flesh was too strong. Heart of stone he had not. +</p> + +<p> +“I will say it to my God, when He gives me strength,—when the day comes,” +he spoke at last. +</p> + +<p> +The other two looked at each other, and shook their heads. I think the +reluctance to answer as they wished was not quite unexpected. The minister went +on “There are yet” he said, as if to himself. “God has given me a great heart +for hoping, and I will not look forward beyond the hour.” Then turning more to +them,—and speaking louder, he added: “Brethren, God will strengthen me +when the time comes, when such resignation as you speak of is needed. Till then +I cannot feel it; and what I do not feel I will not express; using words as if +they were a charm.” He was getting chafed, I could see. He had rather put them +out by these speeches of his; but after a short time and some more shakes of +the head, Robinson began again,— +</p> + +<p> +“Secondly, we would have you listen to the voice of the rod, and ask yourself +for what sins this trial has been laid upon you; whether you may not have been +too much given up to your farm and your cattle; whether this world’s learning +has not puffed you up to vain conceit and neglect of the things of God; whether +you have not made an idol of your daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot answer—I will not answer.” exclaimed the minister. “My sins I +confess to God. But if they were scarlet (and they are so in His sight),” he +added, humbly, “I hold with Christ that afflictions are not sent by God in +wrath as penalties for sin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that orthodox, Brother Robinson?” asked the third minister, in a +deferential tone of inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +Despite the minister’s injunction not to leave him, I thought matters were +getting so serious that a little homely interruption would be more to the +purpose than my continued presence, and I went round to the kitchen to ask for +Betty’s help. +</p> + +<p> +“’Od rot “em!” said she; “they’re always a-coming at ill-convenient times; and +they have such hearty appetites, they’ll make nothing of what would have served +master and you since our poor lass has been ill. I’ve but a bit of cold beef in +th’ house; but I’ll do some ham and eggs, and that “ll rout “em from worrying +the minister. They’re a deal quieter after they’ve had their victual. Last time +as old Robinson came, he was very reprehensible upon master’s learning, which +he couldn’t compass to save his life, so he needn’t have been afeard of that +temptation, and used words long enough to have knocked a body down; but after +me and missus had given him his fill of victual, and he’d had some good ale and +a pipe, he spoke just like any other man, and could crack a joke with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Their visit was the only break in the long weary days and nights. I do not mean +that no other inquiries were made. I believe that all the neighbours hung about +the place daily till they could learn from some out-comer how Phillis Holman +was. But they knew better than to come up to the house, for the August weather +was so hot that every door and window was kept constantly open, and the least +sound outside penetrated all through. I am sure the cocks and hens had a sad +time of it; for Betty drove them all into an empty barn, and kept them fastened +up in the dark for several days, with very little effect as regarded their +crowing and clacking. At length came a sleep which was the crisis, and from +which she wakened up with a new faint life. Her slumber had lasted many, many +hours. We scarcely dared to breathe or move during the time; we had striven to +hope so long, that we were sick at heart, and durst not trust in the favourable +signs: the even breathing, the moistened skin, the slight return of delicate +colour into the pale, wan lips. I recollect stealing out that evening in the +dusk, and wandering down the grassy lane, under the shadow of the over-arching +elms to the little bridge at the foot of the hill, where the lane to the Hope +Farm joined another road to Hornby. On the low parapet of that bridge I found +Timothy Cooper, the stupid, half-witted labourer, sitting, idly throwing bits +of mortar into the brook below. He just looked up at me as I came near, but +gave me no greeting either by word or gesture. He had generally made some sign +of recognition to me, but this time I thought he was sullen at being dismissed. +Nevertheless I felt as if it would be a relief to talk a little to some one, +and I sate down by him. While I was thinking how to begin, he yawned weariedly. +</p> + +<p> +“You are tired, Tim?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” said he. “But I reckon I may go home now.” “Have you been sitting here +long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Welly all day long. Leastways sin’ seven i’ th’ morning.” “Why, what in the +world have you been doing?” “Nought.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why have you been sitting here, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“T’ keep carts off.” He was up now, stretching himself, and shaking his +lubberly limbs. +</p> + +<p> +“Carts! what carts?” +</p> + +<p> +“Carts as might ha’ wakened yon wench! It’s Hornby market day. I reckon yo’re +no better nor a half-wit yoursel’.” He cocked his eye at me as if he were +gauging my intellect. +</p> + +<p> +“And have you been sitting here all day to keep the lane quiet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay. I’ve nought else to do. Th’ minister has turned me adrift. Have yo’ heard +how thv lass is faring to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“They hope she’ll waken better for this long sleep. Good night to you, and God +bless you, Timothy,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +He scarcely took any notice of my words, as he lumbered across a Stile that led +to his cottage. Presently I went home to the farm. Phillis had stirred, had +spoken two or three faint words. Her mother was with her, dropping nourishment +into her scarce conscious mouth. The rest of the household were summoned to +evening prayer for the first time for many days. It was a return to the daily +habits of happiness and health. But in these silent days our very lives had +been an unspoken prayer. Now we met in the house-place, and looked at each +other with strange recognition of the thankfulness on all our faces. We knelt +down; we waited for the minister’s voice. He did not begin as usual. He could +not; he was choking. Presently we heard the strong man’s sob. Then old John +turned round on his knees, and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Minister, I reckon we have blessed the Lord wi’ all our souls, though we’ve +ne’er talked about it; and maybe He’ll not need spoken words this night. God +bless us all, and keep our Phillis safe from harm! Amen.” Old John’s impromptu +prayer was all we had that night. +</p> + +<p> +“Our Phillis,” as he called her, grew better day by day from that time. Not +quickly; I sometimes grew desponding, and feared that she would never be what +she had been before; no more she has, in some ways. +</p> + +<p> +I seized an early opportunity to tell the minister about Timothy Cooper’s +unsolicited watch on the bridge during the long summer’s day. +</p> + +<p> +“God forgive me!” said the minister. “I have been too proud in my own conceit. +The first steps I take out of this house shall be to Cooper’s cottage.” +</p> + +<p> +I need hardly say Timothy was reinstated in his place on the farm; and I have +often since admired the patience with which his master tried to teach him how +to do the easy work which was henceforward carefully adjusted to his capacity. +Phillis was carried down-stairs, and lay for hour after hour quite silent on +the great sofa, drawn up under the windows of the house-place. She seemed +always the same, gentle, quiet, and sad. Her energy did not return with her +bodily strength. It was sometimes pitiful to see her parents’ vain endeavours +to rouse her to interest. One day the minister brought her a set of blue +ribbons, reminding her with a tender smile of a former conversation in which +she had owned to a love of such feminine vanities. She spoke gratefully to him, +but when he was gone she laid them on one side, and languidly shut her eyes. +Another time I saw her mother bring her the Latin and Italian books that she +had been so fond of before her illness—or, rather, before Holdsworth had +gone away. That was worst of all. She turned her face to the wall, and cried as +soon as her mother’s back was turned. Betty was laying the cloth for the early +dinner. Her sharp eyes saw the state of the case. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Phillis!” said she, coming up to the sofa; “we ha’ done a’ we can for +you, and th’ doctors has done a’ they can for you, and I think the Lord has +done a’ He can for you, and more than you deserve, too, if you don’t do +something for yourself. If I were you, I’d rise up and snuff the moon, sooner +than break your father’s and your mother’s hearts wi’ watching and waiting till +it pleases you to fight your own way back to cheerfulness. There, I never +favoured long preachings, and I’ve said my say.” +</p> + +<p> +A day or two after Phillis asked me, when we were alone, if I thought my father +and mother would allow her to go and stay with them for a couple of months. She +blushed a little as she faltered out her wish for change of thought and scene. +</p> + +<p> +“Only for a short time, Paul. Then—we will go back to the peace of the +old days. I know we shall; I can, and I will!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COUSIN PHILLIS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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