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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78319-0.txt b/78319-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df6262a --- /dev/null +++ b/78319-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4117 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78319 *** + Italic represented by underscores surrounding the _italic text_. + Small capitals have been converted to ALL CAPS. + + + + + OLIVER CONSTABLE + + MILLER AND BAKER + + BY + + SARAH TYTLER + + AUTHOR OF ‘CITOYENNE JACQUELINE’ ‘SCOTCH FIRS’ ETC. + + _IN THREE VOLUMES_ + + VOL. III. + + LONDON + SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE + 1880 + + [_All rights reserved_] + + + + + CONTENTS + + OF + + THE THIRD VOLUME. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + XXIII. HARRY STANHOPE’S WANT 1 + + XXIV. FAN’S TRIUMPH 22 + + XXV. ‘THE DEVIL SHALL NOT HAVE HARRY’ 59 + + XXVI. THE PRICE AT WHICH HARRY STANHOPE + WAS RESCUED 96 + + XXVII. THE LAST PENNY PAID 126 + + XXVIII. OLIVER’S RETURN 140 + + XXIX. FRESH SERVICE 175 + + XXX. STUMBLED ACROSS, INTERVIEWED, TAKEN + AT HIS WORD 197 + + XXXI. LIFE—AND DEATH 214 + + XXXII. ‘DO THEY BELIEVE IN ME NOW?’ 240 + + + + + OLIVER CONSTABLE, + + _MILLER AND BAKER_. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + HARRY STANHOPE’S WANT. + + +Oliver had liberally allowed Harry Stanhope six months in which to ride +his hobby and grow sick beyond endurance of his _rôle_ of yeoman. + +But whereas Harry had entered on the character, on a fine summer +afternoon, in the attractive prospect of hay-making, corn-cutting, +and hop-picking, it was midwinter, with no more agreeable occupations +in view than thrashing corn, pulling turnips, turning over potatoes +in the pits, and ploughing a stiff clay soil under the murky sky of a +short day in muggy weather, still he showed no signs of throwing up the +part in satiety and disgust. + +True, he had sufficient leisure to join the other farmers in presenting +himself in the hunting field, and enjoying as good mounts and glorious +runs as the squires or the M.F.H. himself. + +It did not come under the head of sport. Harry was persuaded it lay at +the core of his business, that he should attend—not only the Friarton +Market, but every market within a day’s journey. He went to them no +longer in his shirt sleeves, or riding a bare-backed horse as it had +been taken to the watering, not even in the market cart in which he +had prefigured Harry and himself crossing country—out of sight, and +therefore out of danger of wounding the feelings of their aristocratic +relations. Harry had modified so far his Robinson Crusoe and Vicar of +Wakefield notions, as to have set up a trap handsome enough to have +been driven by any of his cousins. The trap was matched by an equally +well-bred, delicate, costly horse, which Harry candidly admitted was +not quite ‘the cheese’ for a yeoman. Yet why not, if he rented and +paid the rent of the paddock in which it ran, afforded the corn for +its feeds, and took care that it should do his work in running like +the wind with him and Horry to the innumerable markets and sales which +the brothers found themselves forced to attend. Harry’s pride ended +with his equipage. He was not to say guilty of affability; he was every +man’s man, in the streets, or corn exchanges, or commercial inns where +the farmers congregated. He was as ready to sit with the last man in +the bar-parlour, and try return races against his trap, as to compare +samples of grain in legitimate business. Harry was all things to all +men—not to gain some for what he fervently believed their good, but +in sheer sociality—with a vain, light-hearted, light-headed love of +popularity, which was at this time his ruling passion. Horace never +thwarted his brother in this or any other inclination. He remained the +abiding shadow inseparable from Harry’s sunshine, and in some respects +a relief from its glare. + +Harry was also able to derive no small amount of animation and +amusement from such windfalls in the day’s routine, as brisk bouts of +ratting when a stack was being pulled down, or in the granary after it +was left empty; and he waited religiously every evening on the feeding +of the cattle and horses in the sheds and stables. + +Harry was an extremely indulgent, if totally inconsiderate, and +occasionally capricious, master, whose lavish tolerance was only now +and then broken, like the abounding calm of tropical seas, by a storm +violent as it was brief. That Harry spoilt his retainers horribly was +not an objection which his servants were likely to take into account +in the first flush of ‘the young squire’s’ popularity. For in spite of +Harry Stanhope’s well-nigh nettled protests and vigorous acting of his +part, probably because of his over-acting, the would-be yeoman was the +young squire to his labourers, who in the middle of their stolidity +were not altogether without shrewd observation and sound deduction. + +Harry not only continued unexpectedly constant to his vocation as he +believed it, he remained faithful to the earliest friendship he had +claimed on his arrival at Copley Grange Farm. He went more frequently +to Friarton Mill than to any other house where he was made welcome, +which was saying a good deal, seeing that Harry’s life, whether in +the way of his business requirements, or when he might be supposed +clear of their urgent obligations, was a constant round of varied +visiting. Indeed, it struck Oliver that Harry grossly abused his +privilege, and came intolerably often, and at absurdly unconventional +seasons, from ‘early morn to dewy eve’—sometimes in the raw air before +breakfast, sometimes through a setting in snowstorm after supper—to the +mill-house, during this winter. + +But what could Oliver do? not turn out the thoughtless lad for whom +the elder man had a sneaking kindness, or close the doors against the +soullessly jolly young face, which, however provocative of censure, +always brought with it, when it flashed upon the man, a reflection of +unimpaired freshness, and unburdened lightness of heart. + +Since Fan allowed these intrusions, and even seemed to enjoy them, what +was left for Oliver save to shrug his shoulders, grumble to himself, or +deliver the silent hint of turning his back, after the first greeting, +on his visitors? For, of course, Harry dragged over Horry in his +train. And Oliver often left Fan to entertain the two in one, while he +read on unceremoniously at the newspaper or book with which he had been +engaged on their entrance. + +Alas! Harry only took the cavalier rudeness for friendliest +encouragement. ‘Don’t apologise to me, old fellow,’ he would enjoin the +master of the house, cheerfully. ‘It is not you I have come to see, it +is Miss Constable,’ Harry would say audaciously. ‘I have come to report +myself to Miss Constable. She has been so good as to take me in hand. +She is making a man—that is a veritable yeoman, of me.’ + +And Fan lent herself to this egregious fiction. Fan, who had never +interested herself in a single detail of her father and brother’s +trades, who had not so much as made an exception in favour of the +chicks, directed a charmed ear to all Harry Stanhope’s chatter of the +prices in the market, the field which was sown that day, the ox which +had choked itself and been brought round in its stall the night before, +the first long-legged, big-headed calf which he had bought for a song. + +Sally Pope grinned at Oliver behind the backs of this most practical +young couple. + +Horace Stanhope began to fidget and glance jealously at the master of +the house in his obliviousness. But not even the phenomena of Harry’s +coming at last, once or twice, without his brother, and showing some +slight self-consciousness when the unusual omission was remarked upon, +roused the suspicions of the too secure and single-minded host. + +One fine frosty night Harry had walked in alone, uninvited and +unannounced. For Fan’s carefully-trained housemaid had become weary +of announcing the perpetual visitor, and, without any rebuke from +her mistress, had proceeded to treat the special duty as a work of +supererogation where Mr. Harry Stanhope was concerned. + +Oliver had nodded and sat still in the shade at his father’s desk, +turning over some papers, keeping his post mainly to preserve the +liberty of pursuing his own train of reflections; while Harry Stanhope +and Fan had put their heads together over the lamp on Fan’s little +table in the chimney-corner, and were, according to Oliver’s conception +of the situation, going over the best plans for growing corn and +rearing stock, and—what was adding insult to injury in reference to +Oliver’s pets, the ducks—the latest contrivances for a high development +of poultry. Not satisfied with the solution of these momentous problems +by lamp-light, when the pair went to the window to predict from the +purple-blue sky and the glitter of the stars hung like lamps of heaven +in the dark branches of the trees of Copley Grange Park, the weather +to-morrow—whether skating on the mill-pond would be the order of the +day, or whether the frost would give way and the scent hold, so that +Harry might join the hunt ten miles off—it seemed to Oliver as if they +must have started afresh to answer the whole code of agricultural +questions over again, by starlight, till his patience was reduced to a +shred. + +At last Harry took his departure somewhat abruptly in the end. + +Oliver stretched himself with vicious emphasis, and growled, this was +insufferable, he did not think he could stand it much longer. + +Fan, generally so quick in retort, said nothing, but she appeared to +have appropriated the observation and taken it to heart; for a moment +later, when she came to bid Oliver goodnight, she suddenly put her +hands upon his shoulders and looked wistfully in his face with tears in +her dark eyes, and her colour wavering—as he remarked with surprise. +‘You are not angry, Oliver, dear?’ she said, with one of her rare +caressing gestures and phrases, which coming as they did unlooked for, +from a high-spirited almost hard little woman like Fan, were apt to sap +a man’s defences, and melt his heart like wax on the spot. ‘You are +not angry, Oliver?’ repeated Fan with a slight quaver in the wistful +earnestness of her voice. + +‘Of course I am not angry with _you_, you goose of a Fanchen?’ said +Oliver with affectionate bluster. ‘How can you help Stanhope’s +unconscionable coolness, which begins to be rank impudence? But why +in the name of justice, should I blame you for his faults?’ enquired +Oliver in all simplicity. ‘You are compelled to listen to his rigmarole +in your own house, when I turn him over to you. I own I ought not to +do it, to such an extent,’ admitted Oliver, contritely; ‘but the young +wretch is so indefatigable in preying on our hospitality, and has +acquired such a fatal fluency in airing his farming bosh, that I must +have some relief, or knock him down. I often admire your powers of +endurance, but don’t give the beggar too much line, Fan, if you love +me. I am not sure, whether, after all, his class are the finest judges +of courtesy.’ + +Fan had flushed crimson at her brother’s words. She knitted her +delicate brows—black brows at the same time, and then as if she had +thought better of it, her lips parted in a half-smile. ‘No, no; don’t +speak treason either of me, or of another,’ she said; and then she +added, a little incoherently, ‘I believe there is nobody so good and +kind as you are, yourself, Oliver, in the whole world. Remember I have +said so, though we quarrelled some time ago, and may quarrel again. +Remember I have told you that you are always my own dear good boy, whom +I have loved all through our lives, whom I love with all my heart at +this moment, whom I could have served, if you would have let me,’ and +Fan fairly hugged Oliver, who resisted stoutly in his mystification, +with a dim apprehension that he might otherwise pledge himself to +something he did not in the least understand. + +‘What do you mean?’ cried Oliver. ‘Is Fan also among the wheedlers? For +what mighty boon can she deign to wheedle?’ + +‘Never mind, it is too late to ask me now—good night.’ + +Fan succeeded in making her retreat, and in the act of doing so, Oliver +might have seen, if he had been quick at reading women’s faces, that +all the soft relenting and indescribable yearning which had been in +hers a moment ago, had vanished and was replaced by such unmingled +exultation that the girl looked radiant. + +It was the last loving altercation which passed between the brother and +sister for many a day. + +The next morning, Harry Stanhope wound up his offences against +domestic privacy by re-appearing at Friarton Mill, as if he had +slept at the gate, seeking admission to Oliver before the latter had +completed his toilet. Only the most urgent business could warrant such +pressing attendance. Harry himself, in his superb self-complacency +and confidence, betrayed, nevertheless, a shadow of a doubt of his +reception. + +‘You will think I am always here, Constable?’ he said with a confused +laugh. + +‘Well, you are here pretty often,’ the aggrieved Oliver put it mildly. +‘I am afraid your other engagements must suffer from your paying us the +compliment of being so much at Friarton Mill; and your brother—he is +not with you this morning—will miss you.’ + +‘Oh! hang Horry!’ exclaimed Harry hastily; ‘no, I don’t mean that, of +course, and old Horry won’t stand in the way. He’s all right. Besides, +if one’s father and mother, when a fellow possesses them, an’t counted, +a brother can’t have much to say either way, can he?’ + +‘I don’t know what you’re after,’ said Oliver in perfect sincerity. ‘If +I were a supernumerary in an old play, I ought to exclaim, “Anan,” to +that last enigmatical sentence of yours.’ + +‘Well, it ain’t easy to come out with it,’ protested Harry, struggling +with what was, for him, the most extraordinary hesitation. ‘Your +sister, Constable—you must have seen she has been goodness itself to +me. I know she will have to furnish the brains and backbone, for my +head-piece ain’t worth much, and my pluck is of the rough and ready +sort, but since she graciously consents to do for me and Horry—to make +a true farmer’s wife, which will be an inestimable advantage to us—I +may take it that you will not have any great objection to accepting me +for a brother-in-law?’ + +‘Stanhope, have you lost your wits?’ burst out Oliver. ‘Come, there +must be no more of this absurd nonsense. I tell you I will have no such +foolish jesting where my sister is concerned.’ + +‘Never was farther from jesting in my life!’ declared poor Harry +indignantly. + +‘Then let me say, once for all, you must get rid of this idiotic +idea. It won’t do. My sister is not for a fellow like you. I don’t +want to hurt your feelings, but you have somehow tumbled into the +hugest blunder, and I must speak out. I can answer for Fan: she did +not dream of encouraging such a vain delusion, she will be terribly +vexed and annoyed. This comes of masquerading and making-believe. It +seems to me you don’t want a wife for twenty years to come: when you +do, take my advice—if you will excuse me for offering it, after what +I have said—marry strictly within your own class; you of all fellows +require such a safeguard, and the more influential your wife’s people, +the better both for her and you!’ muttered Oliver _sotto voce_. Then +he resumed aloud, ‘Wait till you can persuade a lady to share your +lot—if you will cultivate prudence, you may make it not a bad one—as a +gentleman-farmer.’ + +Harry was looking at Oliver with such a strong sense of superior +knowledge and wisdom that it disarmed any rising resentment on the +lad’s part, at the tone of provoked disdainful repudiation of the +proposal which Oliver could not help betraying. The contrast between +the truth as Harry realised it and Oliver’s undoubting convictions, +brought out the comic element in the affair so dear to Harry’s boyish +heart, even in the serious mood which had been on him, when he +‘declared his intentions.’ + +‘Make-believe, indeed!’ cried Harry, lightly; ‘who plays at being +miller and baker?’ + +‘Not I!’ denied Oliver hotly. ‘I have taken up my father’s business, +which is no unusual thing for a tradesman’s son to do, and I have not +adopted it as a mere makeshift, or as the last resource for a man who +would otherwise be idle; I desire to make it the object of my life; +I do not think any honest trade is unworthy of the dedication of the +trader’s talents to render it as good in every respect as possible. I +trust to do no discredit to my father’s business.’ + +‘At least you need not be so cocky over other people whose fathers had +not the luck to be in trade,’ remonstrated Harry. ‘As to not wanting +a wife—I being a farmer, and having no competent young woman with my +interest at heart,’ went on Harry, his blue eyes twinkling, ‘to look +after the butter and cheese, the feeding of the calves, the fattening +of the geese, and the multiplying of the eggs and chickens, when I +find I have quite enough to do, even with Horry for my _aide_, to +manage the labourer fellows in the fields and offices, and attend the +markets—if you think I don’t want a wife dreadfully, it is little +you know of a yeoman’s difficulties. As to consenting to try for an +imitation farmer’s wife, why you yourself politely hinted a minute ago +that there was quite enough of the mock article at Copley Grange Farm +already. No, thanks. I knew exactly what the position was when Aggie +spent her holiday weeks at the Farm. The babe could not have told +barley from oats if they had not been in the ear; and though that did +not matter much, I am morally certain she was shaky on the important +question of hens’ nests—whether they were not to be found in bushes, +if not on tree-tops. She spoilt all the dairy produce while she was +here, by insisting on dabbling in it in her ignorance, my housekeeper +complained. And the child was always begging to be amused, and seeking +to go and look at the horses and cattle when it was not convenient and +I ought to have been hard at work elsewhere. She would not be put off +with Horry’s escort; fact was, all my energies were employed in keeping +the peace between the little girl and the cantankerous old man.’ + +Oliver was forced to laugh, but he laughed harshly. ‘Stanhope, you’re a +donkey if you propose to marry my sister, that she may act as your head +dairymaid and principal hen-wife. That is not her _forte_,’ he said. + +‘Do you mean to insult me?’ cried Harry, firing up in spite of his easy +temper. ‘By Jove, you may thank Fan if I bear it. I may have cracked +an ill-timed joke, but it was you who tempted me to it. Fan believes +me; she understands how I love and honour her, and choose her before +all other women; and if she does me the honour to choose me in return, +I suppose she is at liberty to make her choice? Not even a Turk of a +brother, since he is not her father, and she is of age, can prevent +it,’ ended Harry defiantly. + +‘This preposterous stuff must be put an end to. I will see my sister.’ +Oliver flung out of his room, and encountered Fan hovering over the +breakfast-table, and looking fresh yet pale, like a solitary daisy +blooming in a sheltered corner. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + FAN’S TRIUMPH. + + +‘Come along, Fan, to the front door, where the fellow has retreated. +Here is a fluke, but the sooner you deal with it the better; you must +spoil your breakfast, and have done with it. Harry Stanhope is as mad +as a hatter this morning, and nothing will bring him back to soberness +of mind save your giving him his _congé_ in so many words. This is +speaking plainly. Are you not amazed? I imagine you never apprehended +such a desperately moonshiny business from Stanhope, who’s in a general +way commonplace and matter-of-fact in his greenness. But come along, it +will not do to keep the young idiot waiting.’ + +‘But what if there are two of us as mad as hatters?’ said Fan, blushing +and brightening up like the white daisy when the red tips of its petals +catch the beams of the sun. + +‘Fan, you cannot be so crazy, so weak to imbecility!’ cried Oliver, +incredulously; and then, as his unbelief began to be shaken by her +looks, still more than her words, he protested passionately on her +account: ‘A boy like Harry Stanhope! the merest boy in his fancies, as +you have had abundant proof; hardly responsible for his actions, not +fit to know his own mind, as sure to change as the wind.’ + +‘He is not so much younger a boy than you are, Oliver,’ said Fan, with +restrained spirit. ‘He is a little older than I am in years, and I +don’t feel so very youthful in spirit. I should be inclined to think I +was capable of knowing my own mind, and being held responsible for my +actions. But, no doubt, women are a great deal older, in proportion, +than men. You are all boys to us,’ said Fan, with demure motherliness. +‘I have even ventured to call a sage like you a boy.’ + +‘Fan,’ said Oliver, ‘don’t drive me beside myself. This is no occasion +for teasing, and I could not have believed you the woman to begin +to tease in such circumstances. I have been accustomed to think you +sensible, capable of self-respect, rather proud than meek. Have you +considered what sort of beggar Stanhope is, apart from his birth and +breeding, and the grace which they have given him. He is feather-headed +and an empty canister—if ever there were one. He has never thought +of anything save his own pleasure since he was born. He is incapable +of self-restraint, even if he knew the thing by name. He is the +incarnation of selfishness—genial and jolly now, I grant you, but +which will without fail grow coarser and harder with years. At forty +Harry Stanhope’s stupidity and self-indulgence will be palpable to the +shallowest intellect, and so may his grossness—even his brutality—if +his good angel do not interfere.’ + +‘His good angel will interfere. How dare you accuse and prophecy evil +of a better man than yourself—if humility and kindliness are better +than arrogance and harshness, as the Bible teaches?’ + +Fan stood at bay for her lover. ‘Harry is not a student or a scholar, +any more than I am by nature,’ she said more quietly; ‘but that +does not make him and me less of a man and a woman than if we were +a fantastic theorist and an abstracted visionary. If he thinks of +his pleasure, why not? when his pleasure has always been manly and +honest—and is not that to his credit, left to himself, to all intents +and purposes, as he has been? And it is not true that he cares only for +himself; he has been a good and true brother, as he will be good and +true in all the relations of life.’ + +Oliver groaned. ‘Do you know what the farmers, with whom he classes +himself, say of his conceited, childish enterprise? They lighten their +own troubles by guffawing over his muddles and messes. They say, “The +plough would need to turn up gold for Mr. Stanhope to reap a harvest, +even if times were as good as they are bad for agriculture.” They +calculate confidently he will have succeeded in making such a mull of +the business into which he has rushed, without a particle of knowledge +or experience, that he will be sold out and polished off in three or +four years at the farthest.’ + +‘The more need of the nearest and dearest of his friends to stand by +him,’ said Fan, with steadfast eyes. + +‘His best friend will not be able to stand by him and defend him from +the ruinous consequences of the new habits he is grafting on the +old,’ maintained Oliver doggedly. ‘Harry Stanhope was known at Oxford +as one of the most careless and reckless of the undergraduates who +were his contemporaries. He was so unboundedly social that he was +never missing where company of any kind congregated. If he could not +get good, he could put up with bad. He was a regular frequenter of +village alehouses, as well as a conspicuous figure at every “wine” +within his reach. Now—country-town markets and the farmers’ circles in +commercial inns are his great resorts. To a man of Harry Stanhope’s +accommodating temperament, every company in which swallowing strong +drink is inseparably associated with friendly intercourse, must prove +playing with fire. God forbid that I should say the lad is cursed by a +fatal taint, but it will be next to a miracle in his case if the demon +is disappointed in getting possession of his victim.’ + +‘Oliver,’ said Fan, with bated breath in her anger, as she stood on the +hearthrug, confronting him, ‘who is it that did not care though he were +mixed up with the low larks of the shop lads of Friarton, so that even +respectable people could grow common liars and slanderers, taking it +upon them to say that he was sentenced to carry about in his person, to +his dying day, the mark of his degrading excesses?’ + +‘Let them say it,’ retorted Oliver, raising his head, quickly, and +without flinching; ‘that is another affair. The end may justify the +means, if some small love of fair play and poor humanity keep a man +true to his colours, through evil as well as good report; if his +conscience clear him, and they who ought to know, are satisfied he +is falsely accused. But only charity on the brain can regard Harry +Stanhope as bitten by a rabid regard for his kind, or for anybody save +himself, and perhaps his second self Horry.’ + +He tried her on other grounds. ‘How can you take it upon you to be +a farmer’s wife, Fan? How can you pretend to acquirements which you +never possessed, which you have never so much as tried to gain? You +have always had the strongest prejudice against the position of a +tradesman, and I take it you cannot put a yeoman on a much higher +level. Your ambition, which you did not conceal, was to lead the life +of a conventional lady.’ + +‘I was silly,’ said Fan, composedly. ‘I did not know what a gentleman +could do, and yet retain his gentle bearing unimpaired. I never met a +true gentleman—forgive me, Oliver—till I saw Harry Stanhope. I will +learn all farmhouse work that a farmer’s wife can do, for the sake of +my farmer, to help him to conquer fortune, more quickly than I learned +lessons at school to fit me to be your companion. I am not afraid to +say that I will be a good farmer’s wife—behind none in the country.’ +Fan pledged herself proudly, and Oliver knew the pledge would be +redeemed, though Fan died for it. + +‘Are you willing to enter a family, every member of which will look +down on you, if one of them own you at all, which I very much doubt? +Can you not open your wilfully closed eyes enough to see that Horace +Stanhope has not come here of late with his brother?’ + +‘Oliver!’ said Fan with flashing eyes, ‘you are seeking to pique me +by an objection which you must know does not exist in connection with +Harry. He has no people with claims on him. He has no friends who +would consider his welfare before any good to themselves, save me and +his brother—who has not gone against him, and surely the more reason +we should not forsake him. Did not Harry break off from his uncles +and aunts when he became a farmer? They allowed him to follow his own +course, and they must accept the consequences. “If they cut it up +rough,” as he says, “they have themselves to blame for it,” when they +consented to what was likely to happen, if he and Horry became yeomen. +Poor Horry, he would be as jealous as a woman of any other woman’s +coming between him and Harry!’ said Fan, with a little laugh and blush; +‘but I will help him to get over it for Harry’s sake: he is waiving +his objections already. The worst of it is, I am not just such a girl +as Agneta, with whom the poor dear fellow was always sparring, so that +Harry had to come in with his sweet temper, and reconcile the two. But +do you imagine that I find fault with Horace Stanhope because he would +not count any woman beneath the rank of a duke’s daughter, who was not +beautiful as the day, and an angel of virtue, deserving of Harry? There +would have been the old search over again, if the devoted soul had been +consulted: + + ‘Where is the maiden of mortal strain + May match with the Baron of Triermain? + +‘It is little you know of things, Oliver, though you are a +philosopher, if you think that would have made me angry with Horry, +who will soon forgive me, because of the sympathy between us. Besides +Horry, there is only Agneta who is really interested,’ said Fan, after +an instant’s pause, ‘and she is my friend.’ + +‘It remains to be seen how far the friendship will stand this test!’ +said Oliver with gloomy scepticism. He was so exasperated as to add a +taunt, for which he was sorry the moment after he had uttered it. ‘Why +don’t you admit frankly that you are besotted enough to believe the +whole race of Vere de Vere will open their arms to receive you into +their castles? That must be the real inducement to form such an insane +connection—not the cheap merits of a lad like Harry Stanhope.’ + +‘If you think so badly of me, Oliver, even though I may have given you +some cause by being foolish and worldly-minded, I cannot help it!’ +said Fan, deeply wounded and offended. + +There was no more to be said. Harry Stanhope must not be kept kicking +his heels in the mill-house court a moment longer. As Harry had calmly +stated at an early stage of the contest, Oliver could not prevent his +sister from making her own choice of a husband: she was of age, she +was mistress of herself in every way, including the disposal of her +little fortune. With respect to that, Oliver had been more just to +Harry Stanhope than her brother had shown himself to Fan. Oliver had +not attributed mercenary motives to the lad, as the person who ought to +have known her best had fastened upon Fan the all-powerful promptings +of a vain and small ambition. Oliver was quite aware that men of the +class to which Harry belonged are often as good arithmeticians as the +huxterers whom the gentlemen despise. The sons of the most ancient +and noble families, having the bluest blood in their veins, will +look out for ‘tin’ with their wives, even though the suitors have to +descend into mercantile walks and put up with plebeian antecedents, +in order to secure the indispensable metal, as unblushingly as the +northern farmer sought ‘prupitty’ with his daughter-in-law. Perhaps the +young patricians may plead the obligation of necessity in the cases +of all save the heads of their houses. The eldest son has his future +secured; but if he has unfortunate younger brothers, it may reasonably +be said—in spite of the gentlemanly professions provided for them, +which, when it comes to that, for the most part imply the spending +rather than the earning of money—they cannot dig, and to beg they are +ashamed. But Harry was not of this stamp, though he may have used their +slang in conversation. His mortal enemy could not accuse him of being +calculating. His defects, however flagrant, were free from mercenary +meanness. + +Oliver looked upon himself as compelled to yield a formal outward +assent, in contradiction to the inward protest, to Fan’s right in the +selection of a mate. + +Therefore, there was no open rupture in the little family. Harry +Stanhope, after his momentary spurt of anger, only laughed at his +future brother-in-law’s manner of receiving his first overtures, and +at Oliver’s way of conducting himself in the later arrangements. In +Harry’s eyes, Oliver’s behaviour was in keeping with the grumpiness +which the young aristocrat had always imputed to his democratic senior. +It was part of the _rôle_ of a radical, which Harry conceived Oliver to +be. + +Harry could afford to treat the matter lightly; neither did Oliver, +after the first pang of painful surprise and bitter disappointment, +wish to quarrel outright with Fan’s bridegroom. Thus the two preserved +a truce; though they fell off, rather than drew closer, in whatever +friendship had hitherto existed between them, in the prospect of their +nearer alliance. Oliver turned over Harry entirely to Fan, as, no +doubt, he might have done in any circumstances, unless the young fellow +had been Oliver’s chosen chum and mate as well as Fan’s. + +Fan smothered the keen regret called forth by her brother’s unshaken, +inveterate hostility to the marriage he could not hinder, and to the +gulf deepening between them, as best she might. + +In every other light Fan’s lot was a triumph. For she had never +been mercenary, any more than Harry had been. She had been aspiring +in a sense, with a craving for superficial refinement, as somehow +representing to Fan the far deeper refinement and nobility of nature, +of which the surface polish—however becoming in itself and pleasant +to encounter—is by no means the inseparable accompaniment; and for +pure love of Harry Stanhope, Fan was prepared to crush her individual +tastes. She was willing to be a poor man’s partner, to drudge as a +practical housekeeper, to toil after another fashion as the notable +wife of a lucky farmer, to forget her girlish dreams of bountiful ease, +culture, and elegance. + +Fan had her bright, brief day both in a higher and a lower sense. She +enjoyed that short interval in which a woman is beside herself and +counts herself—not merely the happiest of women, but the only happy +woman in the world deserving of the name, because she has not only won +a heart in exchange for her own, but because this heart, subdued by +her power, is the heart of hearts to her, compared to which all other +hearts are little better than dross. + +Fan had also the lower, but what was to her the genuine and natural +gratification of being conscious that those of her neighbours on +whose opinions she had been wont to set store, having arrived at the +unanimous conclusion that Fan Constable had done well for herself, +became suddenly moved to change their chorus of condemnation to a +chant of glorification. The Fremantles and Wrights proved themselves +no more mercenary than Fan and Harry. The magnates of Friarton had not +worshipped in fear and trembling a big burly image of mammon, but a +shadowy fetish of gentility. Fan Constable, whom the ladies and the +professional set now acknowledged to be the most charming ladylike +girl in the neighbourhood, would not be a farmer’s wife to them. +She would—since the inferior distinction merged and was lost in the +superior—be the wife of Harry Stanhope, grandson of Lord St. Ives, +nephew by marriage of Lord Mount Mallow. Accordingly these authorities +renewed their withdrawn attentions with an eager lavishness, in +striking contrast to the donors’ former cautious, stinted dole of +recognition. They betrayed the knowledge, which Fan shared, that it +would soon be her turn to pay them attention. + +When Fan’s honours were fully fledged, she might have a share of the +liberty which was vouchsafed to her husband, granted to her. She might +skim the milk in her dairy, and gather the eggs in her poultry-yard, +even carry them in the skirt of her gown, as Agneta Stanhope had +carried them, without challenge. And if Harry had been the son and not +the grandson of a viscount, and thus only one degree instead of two +removed from a peerage, or if his father’s father had been a marquis or +a duke, who knows but that Fan might have been allowed to go on to milk +her cows and feed her calves—not in frolic? + +Mrs. Hilliard was impressed by Fan’s promotion. ‘That girl Fan +Constable has proved her mettle with perfectly lawful weapons, for she +is too true a little Philistine to stoop to employ any other.’ Mrs. +Hilliard ate her leek before her cousin, and it was no small comfort to +Louisa Hilliard, in her state of mind at the moment, that Catherine was +next to nobody when eating a leek was in question. + +‘Both of these Constables have used me ill, have got the better of +me—of us all.’ Mrs. Hilliard spoke ruefully for her. ‘Fan, with her +negative drawing-room and positive attitude, has been and gone and done +it under our very noses.’ + +‘Done what?’ enquired the only half-awake Catherine. + +‘Distanced her competitors—the Houghtons, the head-master’s nieces; how +do I know how many? all who had entered for the prize. She has overcome +and trampled upon her foes, and carried off the chance which might have +been yours, my dear, only you sat still and missed it.’ + +‘Was Harry Stanhope my chance in life?’ enquired Catherine, opening +her weary eyes. ‘Have I missed my all in losing him? Well, I did not +flatter myself there was any great thing to look forward to in my +career, if a woman can be said to have a career, but I have been guilty +of the presumption of dreading (and do you know the dread gave a kind +of trembling interest to life?) that there might be greater losses to +encounter than that of Harry Stanhope’s handkerchief—not that there was +ever the remotest prospect of its being thrown at me.’ + +‘Catherine!’ and with the exclamation Mrs. Hilliard looked at her +cousin gravely for once, though her lively mind soon reverted to its +ordinary track. ‘You frighten me, and that is treating me still worse +than the Constables have treated me. My cousins, whom I owned, have +eluded my grasp, and got beyond me, the one floored and the other +crowned—alike disqualified for serving as food for my entertainment. +But I never asked you to entertain me’—Mrs. Hilliard assailed +Catherine, growing serious again—‘only to entertain yourself. And if +you cannot do it in any other way, I am tempted to wish I could approve +of a Protestant sisterhood for you. It might afford you a refuge when +the world makes you so tired that you seem in danger of falling down +under the load. I can lift it off myself with my little finger, but I +cannot with my two hands, and all my might, remove the burden from you, +poor child.’ The clear ring of Mrs. Hilliard’s voice had softened, and +there was moisture in the eyes usually so dry in their sparkle. + +‘Never mind me, Louisa,’ said Catherine, roused to faint surprise and +reluctance to cause trouble. ‘I am only too well off, you know. I am +sickening—that is, if I am sickening—“of a vague disease;” I ought to +have to work for my bread—supposing bread is worth working for—yet +starvation must really be an unpleasant process to stimulate so +many people to frantic exertions in order to avert the catastrophe. +Protestant sisterhoods would not suit me, nor would Catholic nunneries, +though I think, of the two, I should prefer the last, as possessing a +respectable antiquity and consistency. But to enter either would be a +sham in me, since I really believe that the Son of God could help me +staying with you, as well as with any lady superior or abbess—that we +are as near heaven living in the world in which He lived, as when we +try in vain to get out of it. It would only be a change of yoke, and my +shoulders seem to be slimmer than other women’s,’ remarked Catherine +with a forlorn smile. ‘Besides, no sisterhood would receive a menagerie +with me—and whatever else I might be brought to resign, I do not see +how I could get on without a large small family of beasts and birds.’ + +‘Thank you for the implied compliment,’ said Mrs. Hilliard, recovering +herself with a laugh. ‘Catherine, you administer tonics, though you +won’t swallow them.’ + +When the time came for Mrs. Hilliard to offer the usual +congratulations, her hearty admiration of Fan’s prowess so influenced +the lady, that she presented the tribute cordially, and was entitled to +complain that Fan had no reason to receive it superciliously. + +But Catherine was not merely languid in her felicitations, she stopped +short in them, and substituted an uncalled-for piece of condolence: +‘How dull it will be for you with Mr. Stanhope and his brother at +Copley Grange Farm, when you have been accustomed to solitude with +your own brother!’ looking at amazed, indignant Fan, with great +uncomprehending, commiserating eyes. ‘I hope you will not die of +_ennui_ after the first week. No, I don’t forget that Mr. Stanhope is +very fond of visiting, and you will have to visit a great deal with +him, but won’t that also be dreadfully fatiguing?’ + +The Polleys and Dadds were not behind the others with their ovation; +but, to Fan’s immense relief, she found she had established by this +last step such a distance between herself and her early associates +that they no longer even attempted to bridge it over. Fan Constable +had succeeded in passing out of their sphere. They wished her joy as +it were through Harry Stanhope, and they were as respectful in the +expression of their good wishes, as if the rank which she was so soon +to borrow from him already belonged to her. + +Old Dadd refrained from a single joke, and was almost solemn in +alluding to the subject. + +Mrs. Polley only bristled up to Oliver, and represented to him that he +would no longer be content to sit down in her back parlour, since he +might be making the round of all the castles in the kingdom in company +with his brother-in-law. + +Jack Dadd actually called Fan ‘Miss Constable,’ unless in the strictest +privacy, among his most intimate cronies, or as a means of teasing the +Polley girls. + +’Mily Polley did not propose to call on Mrs. Stanhope. ‘She is a cut +above us, now, and no mistake, when she’ll be going among his grand +relations—generals and admirals, and Lady This and Lady That, every +time he takes her up to town. I dare say the fine people will snub +her, but Fan Constable won’t mind that, since they can’t close their +doors against her, and she married to their nephew and first cousin; +and she’ll give as good as she’ll take, I’ll say that for her. She’s +never behind. But I tell you what, ’Liza, we’ll put our pride in our +pockets—what’s the good of letting it stand in our way? and come round +mother, and go to church instead of to chapel, the first Sunday after +Mrs. Stanhope has returned from her wedding jaunt. We’ll try if we +can’t get a wrinkle—as Jack Dadd says—out of her new bonnet. Only Fan +Constable does not know how to dress herself. Yet she has caught a +duck of a real gentleman, like Mr. Stanhope is, with her dowdy clothes, +and her plain sewing, and her whity-brown face,’ cried ’Mily, in +exasperation at the contradiction. + +‘She had been his fate,’ said ’Liza, mysteriously. + +‘You shut up, ’Liza, and don’t talk as if you believed in +fortune-telling—not that I should mind a bit getting my fortune told +by a right old woman, in a red cloak, with a pack of cards. It would +be lovely. And, oh my! wouldn’t mother be down on me, if she found me +out!’ cried ’Mily, in high glee at the bare idea of the servant girl’s +escapade. + +‘It is an instinct of self-preservation on the fellow’s part, and on +Fan’s it is the old infatuation and the recent reaction working their +worst together. There is no help for it,’ said Oliver to himself, +slowly and sadly. + +Beyond the area of Copley Grange Farm every voice of every Stanhope +was dumb on the announcement of Harry’s marriage. The members of the +Stanhope family certainly agreed with Oliver, that it was useless to +interpose from any hope of dealing effectually with the consummation +of Harry’s descent in life, to which his friends had formerly been +provoked into giving a reluctant consent. + +At last Agneta wrote to Fan, very prettily, within certain limits. +Agneta was glad that her dear old Harry should be happy. She thanked +Fan for making his happiness. She trusted that she and Fan would always +remain friends. But there was not a word of Agneta’s coming down to +Copley Grange Farm to grace the marriage; not a hint of any future +visit; not a syllable of meeting Fan again in the whole course of their +respective lives. + +Fan read the letter without any remark. As she read she grew still +more colourless in her olive paleness, which ’Mily Polley called +‘whity-brownness,’ but there was also a more steadfast set of her +well-cut mouth, a more indomitable expression in her brown eyes. + +She did not give Oliver the letter to read; indeed, the brother and +sister were no longer on such terms as to volunteer an exchange of +confidences. She only surrendered the dainty epistle to Harry at his +special request. + +Harry reddened and bit his lip as he took in, at a couple of glances, +the familiar writing on the page and a half of note-paper. ‘Dash it! +I did not think Aggie could have been such a cold-hearted chit,’ he +muttered; ‘I did think she was more of a lady than to be a stuck-up +snob.’ + +‘Never mind,’ said Fan, with determined magnanimity; ‘I dare say it is +hard for her to have you stoop for a wife.’ + +‘Stoop!’ protested Harry, who was loyal in his attachments, if he was +anything; ‘it is my first regular attempt at climbing since I got out +of the garret window at one of our tutors. I nearly broke my neck then, +but I have fallen on my feet this time. I have done the best stroke of +business I can ever hope to accomplish, though I should live to head +all the markets round with my heifers and south downs, and win the +prizes from the Prince and all the agricultural nobs in the country +at the show at Islington. Ask your brother who has the best of the +bargain in our blessed contract. It is all Aunt Julia’s doing. In her +aping of liberality and angling for popularity she is at heart the most +time-serving and intolerant old woman under the sun.’ + +‘Then it will be a victory indeed, if we can force her, and everybody +else with her, to come round to our side at last,’ said Fan, fired by +her dauntless courage. + +There was not more than a grain of truth in Oliver’s cruel +accusation of what had led Fan to listen to Harry Stanhope. But +that fructifying grain, together with the passion of her love for +Harry, helped the unimaginative, rational young woman to rear an airy +structure—representing her ultimate relations with the Stanhopes +and the great world. There was Harry encouraged, aided, ‘kept up to +the scratch,’ by his wife’s proud and loving support in all manly +energy and perseverance in his profession. There were his name, fame, +and fortune established, as the most enterprising and successful +gentleman-farmer in the country. (Fan paid no heed to the signs of the +times or to impending agricultural distress, in her dream). There was +the reappearance of the Hartleys on every rumour of a fresh election, +with John Hartley, thankful to accept Harry Stanhope as an ally on +equal terms, with Lady Cicely, who had once demurred at the possibility +of Fan’s accompanying her brother to dine at Copley Grange, pleased +to drive over with her husband, and dine herself at Copley Grange +Farm. Of course, that must be after the old farmhouse was added to and +improved, so as not to be altogether ill-matched with the manor-house. +If the _entrée_ to the manor-house were secured during the Hartleys’ +temporary occupation of Copley Grange, it would almost certainly remain +free to the Stanhopes when Mr. Amyott resumed his permanent reign. The +example of the Stanhopes’ landlord would be followed by other squires +whose houses were within visiting distance of the Farm. + +Fan, in her chrysalis state, had often looked from the mill side of +the Brook across to the park and great house, with its dignified blot +of an Italian façade. She had fancied how bountiful and gracious life +must be there, contrasted with life in the back shops and parlours +of the Polleys and Dadds. But she had felt then that if by virtue of +Oliver’s genius and scholarship she ever rose to cross the threshold +of such an Eden of refinement and culture, its roses would be full of +thorns for her, simply because she would not be, like the daughters +of that privileged region, to the manner born. Innately she was a +lady, but outwardly she would blunder and flounder in the labyrinths +of precedence and etiquette, or amidst the appalling topics of sport, +horses and wines, from all acquaintance with which her sex, alas! did +not exempt a woman of the higher orders. Fan would cause flippant +waiting-maids to titter, and staid butlers to frown, at her mistakes. + +Now all this was changed. When Fan should procure the ‘Open, Sesame!’ +to the charmed houses by so strange a process as that of becoming a +yeoman’s wife and doing a yeoman’s wife’s work, all her troubles would +be at an end. Harry had been born to the purple, and he would always be +at hand to give involuntarily the cue which she would take as quickly +as ever King Cophetua’s beggar-maid borrowed lustre from her royal +husband, and developed without loss of time into a right queenly lady. +Fan would not wear sparkling diamonds or sumptuous velvet, indeed, but +she had never cared for jewels or fine clothes or luxury. What she +had cared for she would attain, the simple elegance of bearing and +behaviour of a gentlewoman, by art as well as by nature. + +In the meantime, while these chickens were unhatched, Friarton took it +as a matter of course that Harry Stanhope’s kindred should begin by +looking coldly on the projected alliance between Copley Grange Farm and +Friarton Mill, and did not think of deposing Fan from her pedestal as a +bride because she was subjected to this ordeal. + +One relative came forward before the knot was tied, and accepted +Fan—not simply as an inevitable misfortune, but as a member of the +illustrious family of Stanhope. The next time Harry came to the Mill, +after Agneta’s note had been received there, he was not only attended +by his second shadow; a voice, which had been hitherto dumb, spoke. + +Horace managed, with his surly awkwardness—which was something +quite different from Oliver Constable’s awkwardness—and his bilious +ungraciousness, even in conferring a compliment, which made it seem as +if a good-natured impulse went entirely against the grain with him, to +propose himself as Harry’s groomsman. ‘If you don’t mind, if no other +body will serve Harry’s purpose, and help to turn him off,’ he said to +Fan in the voice, the tone of which was out of tune and grating, unless +sometimes when he addressed his brother. + +Fan had never smiled so sweetly on Harry in the whole course of his +wooing, as she now smiled on the grudging, unjoyous groomsman, who, +sure enough, was to be Harry’s servant, not hers. ‘Oh! I am glad and +grateful that Harry’s oldest and best friend is to stand by him on his +marriage day,’ she said audibly to the dull ears. ‘I know you are not +thinking of me, and I do not wish you to think of me—I only say this to +express, though you may not care to hear, what an obligation and honour +you are conferring on me by acting as Harry’s brother still. But it is +so, Mr. Horace’ (she had not begun to call him by his Christian name, +just as he had never called her anything save ‘Miss Constable.’ She was +in some apprehension that ‘Miss Constable’ would not even pass into +‘Mrs. Stanhope’ with Horace). ‘I will never forget your kindness to +Harry,’ she finished. + +He looked at her for a moment with an impulse of furious displeasure +added to his ordinary gruff, sardonic mood, as if he questioned her +right to thank him for Harry, and bade her be wary of taking so +much upon her. Then her tender tact penetrated the thick skin of his +jaundiced, warped nature. ‘All right, Fan,’ he said, touching her hand +and dropping it again, and giving what exacting, fastidious people +might have classed as a ghastly grin. But from that date Fan was +happily convinced that though she was a very small person compared to +Harry in his brother’s eyes, Horace had forgiven her on the spot, and +taken her, for all time to come, into a humble corner of the chamber of +his affections, since she had shown herself capable of comprehending, +in a degree, what the brothers were to each other, and would never seek +to separate them. Thus Harry Stanhope’s lovers and slaves became sworn +allies, and not vowed adversaries. + +The hard lines were for Oliver. It was all very well for Sally Pope +to cackle that now Miss Fan had got her will, and she wished the +young mistress well, neither was it any harm to speed her going, for +marriage was the best lot that could befall most young women, and she +would ‘fettle’ Master Oliver—see how comfortable she would make him, in +all the old homely ways, like a king with his faithful housekeeper. + +Oliver had no doubt Sally would make his body comfortable, but what of +the refreshment of his mind and heart now that his father was dead, +when his only sister—the little Fan of other days—alienated from him +already, should have left him in order to make a foolish _mésalliance_ +of which no good could come? Friarton Mill in its sweet domestic beauty +would be robbed of its chief attraction so soon as Fan was gone. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + + ‘THE DEVIL SHALL NOT HAVE HARRY.’ + + +The three years allotted by his brother-farmers for Harry Stanhope to +run through what small patrimony he had invested in Copley Grange Farm, +and what credit he had begun upon, did their work more effectually than +the months given by Oliver Constable for Harry to tire of his part as a +yeoman. + +Fan had held her husband back with a little hand which was like a +vice for staunchness, but which had, at last, loosened its grip under +overwhelming pressure. + +Horace had thrown his passive dead weight in the way, to impede Harry’s +swift progress to ruin. + +Oliver Constable had not stood aside in sulky neutrality, or hard +inflexibility flavoured with vindictiveness, to witness the fulfilment +of his predictions. He would have given much for them to prove false. +He did all he could to prevent their realisation. He had little in +common with his brother-in-law, and it was in the characters of the two +men to grow always more apart instead of nearer to each other. Still +Oliver, though he was not much in Harry Stanhope’s company, and though +Harry showed himself constantly more restive, under any influence which +Oliver had ever possessed over him, tried his best in the thankless +office of looking after Harry, when he was beyond his wife’s scope, and +of interposing to save him—not merely from the consequences of his own +folly, but from falling a victim to his neighbours’ weaknesses. As a +result of this knight-errantry on Oliver’s part, there was an entire +rupture between him and Jack Dadd on Harry’s account. + +Harry Stanhope’s incapacity for drawing distinctions—moral as well as +social—his vanity and passion for popularity, had all pointed with +tolerable clearness to one conclusion from the first. He had no notion +of what was expedient. He was not particular in his easygoing fashion. +He was bound to turn soon from his self-imposed obligations, selected +very much at haphazard, and sitting with the greatest lightness upon +him. He must have excitement of some kind, at any cost. + +The upper, and, to be fair, the more decorous, set in Friarton, +which had commenced by being delighted with their opposite in Harry +Stanhope’s _abandon_, matched as it was with his gentle birth and +breeding, ceased to prize his company when they found it was bestowed +on their social inferiors with a thousand times the lavishness +and indiscriminateness which they had severely censured in Oliver +Constable. And all the time Oliver had claimed a right to act as he +did, and asserted a principle in it, while he had shown a method in +his madness. In the course of the last three years, he had brought his +accusers to acknowledge that, though he had lost himself in the matter +of his money, talents, and education, with the desirable position which +they might have commanded, he was not a reprobate, and he had known +when to stop long before the climax of individual degradation. + +As Harry Stanhope ceased to be the idol of the gentlemen and ladies, +he became also less of the pet and more of the butt of the lower grade +into which he was increasingly thrown. The young farmers and tradesmen +with whom he fraternised, not only at market and in cricket-matches and +games of bowls, but on every occasion, public and private, still looked +up to him in many things, and copied him—not always to their benefit, +but a stronger tincture of contempt was getting infused into their +liking. + +This was especially true of Jack Dadd, who, while he continued proud +of being hand-in-glove with Harry Stanhope, did not scruple to make a +cat’s-paw of his friend, and rather enjoyed leading him into a scrape +and leaving him there. This disloyalty and shade of baseness did not +spring necessarily from Jack’s class or calling, and they had still +less to do with his natural good temper. They belonged to long-standing +class feuds and the lingering spite thus engendered. It was almost +inevitably wreaked on a person who, however ready to forget social +prejudices, sprang still from the privileged order. + +Oliver humbled himself in the room of Harry Stanhope, and through Harry +in the place of Fan, to remonstrate with Jack Dadd. + +‘You are older than Stanhope, Jack,’ Oliver reminded his quondam +friend, who had bragged earlier of their friendship, ‘and you were not +brought up in the very odour of thoughtlessness.’ + +‘So I suppose I ain’t fit to go about with your gentleman +brother-in-law, unless as his keeper. “Not if I know it;” “Not for +Joe,”’ interrupted Jack, rudely and flippantly. ‘I ain’t so fond of +being a fellow’s keeper, as you are, Constable, though you don’t seem +to like to try it on Harry Stanhope. I thought you had got a lesson and +rid yourself of such priggishness, long ago. It ain’t a compliment to +Stanhope to make out he’s not fit to take care of hisself, or to choose +his company and be on equal terms with them. Lord! it was a funny sort +of equality last night when I cut my stick, just as he was challenging +the stableman at the “Wheat Ears” to box with him, Dummy being to hold +their jackets, I take it. Stanhope ain’t proud; I’ll say that for him, +neither when he’s as tight as a lord, nor when he’s as sober as a +judge—which don’t often happen now-a-days. It comes to this, Constable, +I’ve had enough of your sauce of dictation. There was not so much +difference between that and your sister’s airs, and a fine pass they’ve +brought her to: got her a gentleman for a husband, no doubt—and, what +is more, he’s worth the two of you; but he’s made her work for him so +as keeping a shop would have been a joke by comparison, and he’ll kick +the causeway all the same.’ + +After that conversation there was an end to friendly intercourse +between Oliver and Jack, and to any fond hope which the former had once +been so conceited as to entertain, of swaying his brother-tradesman to +higher aims. + +Harry Stanhope’s deterioration in every respect included his inveterate +idleness in all pursuits which did not take the form of sport or +frolic, while ploughing, sowing, cattle-feeding, even hay-making +and reaping, when they ceased to be novelties, ceased also to be +sport or frolic, lost every element of interest and amusement, and +became positively repugnant to the man who remained always a boy. +He neglected his farming utterly, or made wild havoc with it in his +fitful, reckless operations, forced sales, and consequent desperate +losses. + +With all this wanton waste Fan had nothing to do. She had accomplished +wonders in the _rôle_ she had undertaken. Her dairy produce and poultry +were from the first among the best in the neighbourhood. She competed +successfully with those farmers’ wives who were either nothing save +dairymaids and henwives, or who employed experienced servants to +do their mistresses’ work by proxy. Any prizes which agricultural +societies awarded to the tenants of Copley Grange Farm were for its +mistress’s butter and cheese, goslings and turkey poults. + +And all the time Fan was not a dairymaid alone, she was a gentleman’s +wife deserving of the name. In order to unite the contrasting +attributes, she rose up early and lay down late, and ate the bread +of carefulness. She changed her dress as often as any fine lady who +has nothing to do, no occupation or pleasure in life save dressing +herself by the help of a maid. Fan was rewarded when Harry noticed the +freshness of her calicot morning gown, the daintiness of her afternoon +piqué, the good taste of her evening grenadine. + +Neither Harry nor Horace had an idea of gardening beyond sticking a +spade into the ground once in the course of the spring and leaving it +there after a quarter of an hour, or gathering an occasional handful of +strawberries, while the cook demanded a regular supply of vegetables, +and the masters missed seasonable fruit when it was not forthcoming, +appearing to expect cherries, peaches, and pears to drop from the skies +like manna. Fan read garden chronicles alternately with dairy manuals, +and spent many a fatiguing hour of her early married life striving to +direct the labours of an improvised gardener drawn from the ranks of +the field workers. It was as much out of the question for Harry to keep +a skilled gardener as it was for Fan to set up a qualified housekeeper +and an experienced dairymaid, though Harry would have attempted it +without a doubt if he had been suffered. But Fan stinted herself +of all other worthy assistants, because a good cook and a trained +table-boy who could cater for the two young men and wait upon them as +they had been used to be waited upon, became absolutely necessary to +the Stanhopes, as soon as their establishment at Copley Grange Farm +acquired a settled character, and ceased to partake of the nature of +living for a time _al fresco_, or _in villeggiatura_. + +When Fan became painfully conscious that she had not only her own +arduous double and treble duties to attend to, she must also supply +deficiencies on Harry’s part, she rose to the occasion gallantly. +She added agricultural journals, treatises on husbandry, essays on +farm stock, to her other diligent studies. She crammed herself; she +sought to coach Harry. She tired herself to death and exposed herself +to innumerable catarrhs and coughs wandering over the fields in all +kinds of weather, to win him, by her close sympathetic companionship, +to go among his men, or else to show them, in his interest, that there +was the eye of a mistress, if not a master, on their work. She drove +with Harry and Horace to the markets, and if it had not been to spare +Harry’s dignity as a yeoman and his credit as a man—since poor Fan had +a double object and a double terror in accompanying her husband to the +towns—she would willingly have stood with him in the streets and the +corn exchanges and sat with him at the inn tables. And if Fan could +have been ten women instead of one, she might have saved Harry Stanhope +from worldly destruction, as Mrs. Polley had rescued her husband and +children. The two women did not resemble each other much in other +respects, and there was little love lost between them. But they shared +at least the helpfulness, command of resources, and capacity for brave +effort and endurance, of the women of the trading classes—the women who +have not been spoilt, and have not lost the instincts of energy and +enterprise, and with it the most distant resemblance to the virtuous +woman in Proverbs. This was part of Fan’s inheritance as a tradesman’s +daughter, which she had neither guessed nor valued as it deserved. + +It is a fact established by experience that many women, both widows +and spinsters, have made, when the opportunities offered themselves, +good and successful farmers. Fan was a clever woman apart from +book-learning; she was a woman of strong resolution, and she was +stimulated and braced by every motive which she held dear. If a single +mortal woman could have redeemed Harry Stanhope’s fortunes, she would +have redeemed them. + +But the one woman must certainly have been ten, and Fan could +not multiply her identity or render herself ubiquitous. She was +tremendously overweighted—not only by the whole burden and anxiety of +the farm’s being cast upon her, who ought to have been treated as the +weaker vessel, but by the unnerving, despairing suspicion—deepening +every day into hopeless conviction, that an impending wreck of other +than worldly goods was to be faced and wrestled with. Harry was—in what +became always more imminent and hideous danger—of being as speedily and +utterly swamped in tastes, opinions, habits—all that constitute moral +character, as in income and capital. In the dread and horror of that +final downfall, all other falls began to look light. + +Fan ceased to pay the smallest heed to the fact that still there came +no recognition of her entrance into the Stanhope family save from +pretty, temporising, meaningless letters written by Agneta. The other +members coolly ignored the intruder. Mrs. Harry Stanhope had no concern +to spare for the consciousness that the little household at Copley +Grange Farm were not keeping their first footing, which had seemed to +be their birthright, among the upper ten of Friarton. + +She did not even mind that the Polleys and Dadds grew loud in amazed +pity—in which, at the same time, she believed they revelled, over +her altered circumstances. Mrs. Harry Stanhope was not only reduced +to sending butter, cheese and eggs into the town for sale, she came +herself to the Polleys’ shop and the cheese shop, to square the +accounts which no one else at the farm could make out. Everybody knew +Harry Stanhope had turned out a gentle beggar and purely ornamental. He +could not afford to keep a bailiff to give the orders for which he was +so little prepared that his men continually laughed in their sleeves +at the instructions they received. The mistress of Copley Grange Farm +commanded no more help than she could get from a girl under twenty +in addition to the dairyman to manage the dairy and poultry-yard, on +which it was evident the principal dependence of the farmer must rest. +And did not the old Fan Constable look worn and pulled down, though +she might be proud and ‘game’ to the last, as Mrs. Harry Stanhope? The +truth was that when Fan was from home or in society without Harry, her +eyes had already acquired the fixed, abstracted look of eyes which are +looking beyond their present surroundings, and seeing in the distance +things invisible to her companions. Her ears were constantly on the +alert, strained to catch sounds inaudible to the rest of the party. +While she was taking her share in the conversation or the business +going on about her, there was a perpetual undercurrent of thought +and care in her mind which had no reference to the topics discussed. +She had great self-command, so that she could preserve a double +consciousness, but she was never at ease, never without trouble; and +the unresting worry beneath the calm and smiling surface, showed itself +in a haggard, aging look which was rapidly robbing Fan of all traces of +her youth. + +One evening in spring, when the thrushes and blackbirds were +anticipating the nightingales and tuning their ’prentice notes in the +hedges—which had gained the purplish-red bloom, the herald of a flush +of green—over the primroses looking pale and cold in the raw wind of +the March twilight, after the golden shields of the celandines, which +had kept their neighbours company with quite an exuberance of jollity +in the morning sunshine, had collapsed, as early as the afternoon, into +small tightly wrapped-up balls, encased in dim green envelopes, Oliver +was startled by Fan’s walking like a ghost unexpected, unannounced, +and all alone, into the mill-house parlour. + +It was too early in the season for evening strolls, and lately Fan +had never been seen abroad without her husband. The same could not be +said of Harry, who was often enough from home without his wife, and +not quite so frequently, but still with tolerably constant recurrence +during the winter, without his brother, whom he had learnt at last +to shake off imperiously. There had come to be an unnatural divorce +between light and shade, and day and night, neither faring well in the +separation. For Harry, all by himself, drove his chariot of the sun, +like another Phaëton, madly, and if he did not set the world on fire, +his own eyes grew scorched and bloodshot, his lips parched, his hands +palsied; the whole goodly springs of his manliness and kindliness were +dried up and polluted with ashes, because of the burden of consuming +fire he had laid hold of and would thenceforth try in vain to guide and +control. + +As for Horace, he would slink away like a dog summarily dismissed by +his master, withdraw into his corner to sit moodily there, and only +start up on the distant sound of Harry’s clogged instead of winged +footsteps. Oliver had seen Horace and Fan exchange furtive, miserable +glances when Horace returned thus alone, and drew back into the +greatest gloom which the little drawing-room afforded him. Then the +pair would sedulously pretend to read and work while in reality their +ears were on the stretch, and their hearts on the rack, till far on +into the night. These two knew and trusted each other thoroughly by +this time, though Oliver was certain the looks never passed into words. +Wife and brother remained too loyal in their allegiance. + +As Oliver rose hastily to bid Fan welcome, he saw more plainly than +he had yet seen it, and with a sharp pang at the sight, the change in +her looks. A small woman to begin with, she was now little more than +skin and bone. Her brown eyes appeared a sombre black, set in great +shadowy hollows in her white face. The straight firm line of her lips +was drooping and quivering. She put her thin hand in Oliver’s and held +up her face to be kissed, and spoke without any preamble. ‘I am beaten, +Oliver. They say an Englishman never knows when he is beaten, but that +is a man, not a woman. Yet did you ever think I would give in with +life? and I have given in. I have come to you, not to save me—you tried +that once and failed. What did it matter if I might have saved another? +only I have not—there’s the rub. I don’t mind myself, and you need not +mind me. But you must do something. I tell you, Oliver, you must move +heaven and earth to save Harry.’ Her voice rose into a little weak cry. +She was like a creature who had lost all command over herself. + +But it was not so much this reversal of natural law in a woman—by +organisation and courage, self-sufficing, self-restrained, rational +and resolute—which smote Oliver Constable with dismay and compunction, +as if he had been the sinner whose sin was at the bottom of this +spectacle, the most pitiable he had ever beheld. It was some +comprehension of what Fan must have suffered, of what it had cost +this woman—ardent and steadfast as women even more than men can prove +themselves—to own herself beaten, to grovel as it were at his knees, +and fling herself for help on him of all men, who, though he had been a +brother in more than name, had interposed with all his might, without +effect, as both of them were well aware, to turn her from the step +which had brought her to this pass. + +He remembered having, more than once in their lives, angrily accused +her of being incapable of changing her mind; and—knowing as he had +seemed to know her high spirit, unquenchable energy, and unswerving +determination—he had been tempted to believe, against right reason, +that however mistaken and misplaced her aspirations, or foolish and +baseless her dreams, Fan could not be baffled, and would not be +vanquished. + +The end of all was, that she was more thoroughly subdued, presenting +a more deplorable object of contemplation, than if she had been a far +feebler woman. + +‘My God!’ cried Oliver in his heart—moved as he was to its depths when +a believing man can but appeal to the Father of his spirit; ‘what must +she not have borne to crush her whole being, lay her pride in the dust, +extinguish the last spark of hope, and break her heart?’ + +The next moment Oliver was briskly administering to Fan, as most +people in his position, at their wits’ end what to do for the best, +would have administered it, a cold douche—first on the suppliant, +whom he would fain have taken into his arms and sheltered from every +farther blast of the stormy wind which had cast her down bleeding and +powerless, to implore mercy for another and not herself—and next on her +agonised petition. + +‘Nonsense, Fan, you are over-wrought, my dear; your nerves are +unstrung; you do not know what you are saying.’ + +But the time for pulling herself together, struggling to her feet, and +staggering on with the veil drawn decently down again over her torture +and her faintness, was over for Fan. ‘I do know what I am saying, +Oliver,’ she insisted with ashy lips, while the hand which clutched his +arm was trembling like a leaf. ‘You think a wife should not drop the +slightest hint of the skeleton in her closet. I will agree with you +here. And I have not breathed a word to any other human being—not to +Horry, who is his second self—only to you; and do you suppose I could +have spoken to you unless in the last extremity, which has come?’ + +‘Then rest satisfied with what you have done, Fan; say no more about +it,’ Oliver conjured her, as if he would have put his hand upon her +mouth to keep her from further utterance, or brought down the creeping +dusk to hide their faces from each other. He got up, took several turns +up and down the room, so that he might have his back to her when he +promised solemnly; ‘The devil shall not have Harry, so far as I can +help it.’ + +That Fan should have come to her brother with such a prayer on her +lips, was only less bad for him than for Fan herself. + +Oliver Constable had not the most distant thought that Harry Stanhope +could have grossly ill-treated his wife. Oliver would as soon have +suspected Harry of lifting up his strong right arm to strike down +Horace unresisting under the pacific influence of his devotion. It +is your poor half-brutal coal-heaver who ordinarily adds kicks to +curses, where his wife is concerned. As a rule, though certainly not +without exceptions, centuries of refining civilisation and liberal +education remove Harry’s whole class from committing such outrages. +Harry Stanhope, with his graciousness in an entirely muddled condition, +might challenge a muscular ostler to a round in the noble art of +self-defence. He was known to have taken the law into his own hands and +knocked down a ruffian who was belabouring a child and insulting an old +woman. But he had probably hardly ever spoken a rough word to Fan, whom +he had held in the greatest respect ever since he had known her, though +she had become powerless to make a man of him, as he had proposed. She +was not silly, or bumptious, or trying in any way so as to provoke +the wrath which had originally been a rare experience with Harry. But +not the less he had slain her faith in him, by his hopeless levity +and folly, which were tending unmistakably to animal indulgence and +besotted excess. He had not destroyed one atom of her love—else Fan’s +heart too might have died within her in its cold emptiness, but, at +least, it would not have been wrung with the intolerable pang of loving +him to death and beyond death, yet seeing him go down, in spite of her, +to the place of dragons. + +There are students of humanity who positively state that a good man +or woman’s love must inevitably perish with the loss of esteem. If +so, the best human love must be singularly unlike Divine love as it +is revealed to us. And it is one thing voluntarily to give love to a +creature whose repulsive moral disease is evident and undeniable, and +has already penetrated and poisoned the nature through and through—and +quite another to have loved the same creature in the beauty and glory +of sound mortal health, with but the seeds of fatal disease, only to be +detected by the wise physician, lurking in the system, and having once +loved to turn with loathing abhorrence and absolute rejection, from +the sick man, when his weakness has found him out, his sore ancestral +malady has laid fast hold of him, and he is fighting a desperate battle +for life or death. + +Not only did Fan’s love cling to Harry in his social and moral decline +still more closely than when she had learned to love him in the heyday +of his natural gifts; even Oliver—who had early taken Harry for what he +was worth, and condemned him to his destiny, now in the teeth of what +he had done to Fan, felt the man’s heart within him turn and soften +with yearning and commiseration for the stripling who was so unequally +matched, and was standing foot to foot, reeling under the shocks +inflicted by a giant adversary and ghastly foe. + +Oliver needed this compensation of human tenderness revived and called +forth in the heart of a benevolent man, by human weakness and peril in +its sorriest guise and direst strait, to help to make up to him for +the sacrifice he was called on to offer; since the world had not gone +well with Oliver Constable during these last years, and his own affairs +required the unremitting attention which he saw himself compelled, and +had pledged himself to Fan, to give to those of another. + +Oliver had started on his mission impressed with the conviction that +it behoved him especially to make his business prosper, or, if he +could not do that, to prevent its becoming disastrous, in order to +remove the slur thrown liberally on Jacks-of-all-trades, geniuses, +and enthusiasts. He had not the slightest inclination to the modified +martyrdom of commercial losses for their own sake. He decidedly +objected to wasting the money which his father had carefully gathered +that Oliver’s career as a gentleman and scholar might be untrammelled, +even for a good object, if he could prevent it. + +On the contrary, it was part of Oliver Constable’s duty, as he +conceived it, to vindicate the truth that the best citizenship and the +best Christianity did not, as a matter of course, conduct a diligent, +prudent, and self-denying tradesman straight into the Bankruptcy Court. + +But Oliver was fated to share the lot of most real reformers and +pioneers of the highest civilisation—the only civilisation which is +not merely skin-deep, but which, penetrating to the core, pervades the +whole man, and by the grace of God never leaves him, only departing +when he himself departs, to dwell with him in heavenly habitations—and +of the righteous Gospel which the Lord of Righteousness delivered to be +worked out—not in church or chapel wholly or even principally, but on +such fields as the Rialto of Venice or the London Exchange, the shops +of common tradesmen, the tables where feasts, great and small, are +held, the hearths round which men and women meet to rest from the work +of the day, and cheer their souls. + +But Oliver had to discover for himself, in more ways than one, the +pithiness of the proverb that to give a dog an ‘ill name’ is to hang +him, that to run a-muck against popular prejudices is to suffer injury +more or less severe, and wait long for any shadow of a reward. + +He had no manner of doubt that the reward of disarming distrust and +establishing a right to success would come in time, if the worker +could but possess his soul in patience, and exercise sufficient faith, +endurance, and bountiful liberality, if he could tarry and lay out, +nothing doubting, fresh materials and pains. + +Oliver’s fortitude was not exhausted, but he was sensible he had spent +some of his funds freely, and would soon be living on the verge of his +income, if he did not economise every fraction and dedicate it to its +proper use. + +The secession of Jim Hull, with the establishment of his nephew in fine +new baking premises and a fine new business in the town, had diverted +a large slice of the public confidence and custom from what were now +held the _old_ Constable premises and business. The slice was always +increasing in size, and diminishing the original _pièce de résistance_, +from which it had been taken by the shrewdness which proved quite +justified in the anticipation that the public would prefer apparent +purity and actual adulteration, both in the produce of the mill and the +bakehouse, to the uncorrupted but unbleached article. + +There was the additional stimulus to the withdrawal of patronage +of a strong spice of malicious satisfaction, not enough to form +a conspiracy, but existing in sufficient abundance for lending +countenance and support, whether sly or bold, to a rival business +conducted on good old-fashioned, rational, give-and-take principles. +Oliver Constable had come among the Friarton shopkeepers uttering +high-flown heresy, witnessing in his conduct against time-honoured +liberties of trade, and stirring up doubts in the bosoms of the very +tradesmen—not to say of their customers. So the Dadd and Polley part +of the community had no objection that Oliver should bear in his own +person the brunt of his Quixotic ideas. Perhaps that would teach him to +pay greater respect to their superior age and experience. + +In short, Oliver’s business profits were diminishing so steadily as +to threaten to make his mill and bakehouse eat their own heads, if +he did not diminish in proportion the staffs of millers and bakers—a +step which he objected to take so long as he could afford to hold +out, since it would not only be tantamount to an admission that he was +outmatched, he argued with himself, it would be hard upon the men who +had submitted to his rules and consented to work on his terms—not that +he had altogether overcome the workmen’s opposition. His reputation +had gone abroad as a master full of new-fangled fancies and hobbies, +therefore he had been exposed to the further disadvantage of possessing +a succession of restless, suspicious servants, flighty on their own +account, and inclined to perpetual experiments on, and changes of, +employers. + +Then Oliver had been of a mind to show that he would not neglect any +lawful means of improving his flour and bread, so he had set about +introducing expensive new machinery into the mill and bakehouse. +But being, after all, a green hand, without his father’s practical +experience in his double trade, the young man committed several +astounding blunders in the adoption of the machinery, and was much out +of pocket as a punishment for the errors of his ignorance. The result +awoke no small amount of jeering, crowing, and laughter at the leading +tea and supper tables of Friarton. + +Oliver’s inner man had not fared better during these three harassing +years. Fan’s house was not a second home to him. The sole effect, so +far as he could see, of his striving to fraternise in the true sense +with the Dadds and the Polleys was that he had succeeded in arousing +in his father’s old allies a hostile and mocking temper, not pleasant +to encounter. Since his quarrel with Jack Dadd, the old Dadds, who +naturally took their son’s part, had fought shy of Oliver Constable; +and he had also, in some manner, he could not for the life of him tell +how, given serious offence to the whole Polley family. He supposed they +were enlisted, with hot, resentful party spirit, or what they mistook +for party spirit, on Jack Dadd’s side. Oliver was half right, half +wrong. For he was incapable of perceiving the other and major ground +of complaint which the Polleys had against him—because, after raising +false expectations, he had stopped short of seeking to keep company +either with ’Liza or one of her sisters, in the prospect of matrimony. + +Mrs. Hilliard had never gone so far as to shut her door against Oliver +Constable. Nay, she had been so candid as to admit with pleasure that +her later prognostications with regard to him had been premature, and +in the main erroneous. But Oliver’s chief inducement—as he had come to +acknowledge to himself after there was no further need of crushing it +down—for availing himself of the privilege of visiting at the Meadows, +had vanished from the date of the terrible illness which had seized +on Catherine Hilliard. It was one of the worst of those indefinite, +incalculable, nervous illnesses, bred of the conditions of modern +life, which have no beginning and no end, which baffle by their very +intangibility and paralyse by their unrelaxing clutch, and one of whose +horrors is that in their abnormal character they may develop symptoms +piteously fantastic and grotesque, like the antics of madness. Such +illnesses, dreaded not without cause, are apt, when they spare the +wasted life, to reduce the patient to a state of unrelieved, permanent +prostration and chronic invalidism, which is death in life. + +Catherine Hilliard had drifted away from her friends on the misty, +dreary sea of illness which had no shore, till she seemed lost to them +here, till even to Oliver Constable—who now owned to himself, like the +_Bursch_ in the famous _Burschenlied_, that he had loved her always and +would love her throughout eternity—she survived chiefly as the aching, +melancholy thought of the girl who had been capable of dreaming noble +things, but who had not been able to grasp the truth that behind the +commonest, even the most sordid, absolutely repulsive details of human +life, there exist nobler things still than man or woman ever dreamt of +in their highest philosophy. + +And the brute creation, which Catherine Hilliard had so loved, +preferring it to the human, drew dumbly and wistfully away from the +decline of her humanity; while the book world in which she had elected +to dwell, crumbled into dust around her. She had left books too behind +her, and the beings that peopled her present existence were more +visionary than the ghosts she had formerly chosen for her company. + +Oliver could only look forward to her deliverance from this last +bondage to the unreal, by her entrance on unsealed and everlasting +verities. + +Then it was when Oliver was most tempted to regard his enterprise as +a wretched disappointment, he was called on to take up the burden of +another man’s failure. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE PRICE AT WHICH HARRY STANHOPE WAS RESCUED. + + +The first thing to be done for Harry Stanhope was to get him out of +the situation for which he was utterly unfit, into which he had thrust +himself—to extricate him from the network of idleness, false activity, +unsuitable companionship, debt, and dissipation in which he was +entangled. In some respects the feat was not only practicable, it was +comparatively easy. Harry had proved himself so thoroughly incapable +a farmer, that it was not likely any sane landlord would be urgent to +keep this tenant, particularly as his slender funds and a part of his +wife’s portion were already flung to the winds, or rather sunk in the +soil, and he had no more left to deposit in the land even if that had +been his sole mode of spending money. + +Old Peter Constable had believed in women’s power of standing alone, +and had left Fan absolutely mistress of her portion. Oliver had +braved her indignation by asking her to have it settled on herself +before her marriage. And certainly Harry Stanhope had not opposed the +arrangement, for Harry was truly convinced of the treasure Fan was +in herself, as well as habitually careless of pounds, shillings, and +pence. Therefore, though he talked the jargon of his set—to Horace and +others, and professed, as a claim to being a man of the world, not to +be indifferent to tin—to the degree of counting on a woman’s goods +to eke out his resources, he did not really put much weight on Fan’s +bank-book and coupons, or mind whether she kept them in her own hands +or put them into his. + +In the end, Fan, more as a means of vindicating Harry’s +disinterestedness than as a precaution for her own independence in days +to come, allowed half of her portion to be tied up for her personal use +if she should so ordain it. She would gladly have given up to Harry +every shilling of this reserve, after he had disposed of the rest, +had it not been that her foresight for him was not to say infinitely +greater than his for himself or for her, but for any she could have +exercised on her own account. Harry had become to his wife, in all +worldly respects, like one of those minors or infants in the eyes of +the law, with regard to whom it is his protector’s duty to defend him +from the dangers of his own helplessness and to hedge him round with +artificial barriers. Still Fan was eminently an upright woman, and she +would have fought against her despair and nerved herself to strip—not +herself alone but Harry, of her remaining possessions, in order to +discharge the debts which he had contrived to incur in spite of her, +rather than let them fall upon her brother, if she had not known that +even supposing she could get Oliver to forego what all concerned in it +called his ‘loans,’ it would only be a form. It could not prevent him +from being impoverished in the long run, because it must be on Oliver +the little family at Copley Grange Farm would have to depend, till its +mistress was strong enough, if she ever were strong again, to struggle +to secure independence—not merely for herself and Harry, but for Horace +whose oars were shipped in Harry’s boat. + +There was no difficulty on Harry’s side; he had never been overburdened +with scruples, and he hardly suffered from any in accepting Oliver +Constable’s interposition to free him—Harry, from his mess at Oliver’s +cost. For indubitably there were money penalties, the extent of +which even Fan did not guess, to pay all round, before the volunteer +yeoman-farmer could be withdrawn from the ranks of the yeomen, +released from the obligations of his lease, and granted a discharge +by his creditors, while it was Oliver who, in each instance, paid the +defalcation. + +Oliver did not grudge it so much when he found that Harry, sick of +the whole concern, readily consented to go abroad at once with his +wife, brother, and brother-in-law—who appreciated the concession +and was conscious of a lurking sweetness and graciousness in his +unstable prodigal’s freedom from resentment at the old sap and grinder +Constable’s interference and assumption, however carefully masked, or +however dearly bought, of the reins of government. + +Yet, after all, paradoxical as it may sound, dogged resistance would +most assuredly have promised better than unconditional submission for +Harry’s ultimate attainment of moral manhood. + +‘Charity begins at home,’ Oliver told himself, using the proverb in +a sense which satisfied him, when he reckoned up the damage to his +own prospects, of leaving the mill and bakehouse in the charge of a +dolt like Ned Green, and a foreman thirty years younger and a whole +century less acute and discreet than Jim Hull. ‘I have always desired +to be kept from developing into a monster, made up of theories like +Maximilian Robespierre,’ he assured himself farther, with a faint +smile; ‘and no doubt it is the finest thing which can happen to +me—myself, to be forced to skedaddle across the Channel, and potter +about foreign towns with Fan and her small family. It will knock the +starch out of me in no time, and take me down ever so many pegs in my +priggishness.’ + +The sum of Oliver’s project for the Stanhopes, in the meantime, was +to cut off Harry from his moorings and their tendencies, to furnish +him with the substitutes of movement and variety, to afford Fan the +change, rest, and recruiting of which she was sorely in need, till +something more effectual should be devised to rebuild the ruined home, +and replace the lost opportunities. It was a humble enough programme, +not very interesting and exciting, save for the main thread of the +drama, on which all the rest hung, and on which the performers were +shamefacedly silent. + +Most people have experienced the peculiar fascination and absorption +which is caused by dangerous illness in a family, when the whole +interests of life centre in the sick-room and its bulletins. All +outside matters, though they might formerly have been regarded as of +vital moment, dwindle into insignificance, until the wide world with +its empires and peoples, tottering republics and falling thrones, and +nations wresting their liberties at the expense of bloody battles in +which men by thousands perish uncounted, scarcely noticed—are blotted +out for the time by a few feet of flooring and ceiling, a single bed, +one figure lying still with half-closed eyes and half-parted lips, +faintly beating heart and fluttering breath. + +Harry Stanhope had acquired, as his companions knew, the taint of a +grievous disease, half physical, half spiritual, which may rank with +the plague and cholera among moral maladies. So to watch stealthily +his symptoms, note the changes in his state, chronicle with trembling +hope his progress in throwing off the deeply injected poison, or to +recognise with sinking heart its fresh outbreak and farther spread +through the system, laid hold upon and monopolised the thoughts of the +little party of which Harry was the half-unconscious sick man, till +he engrossed them more and more, as the combat thickened, and final +victory or defeat drew nearer and nearer. + +Sometimes Harry would rise so far above his ailment as to lose the +worst of the disfiguring traces which it was stamping on his outer +man. He would be for days and weeks together the easily entertained, +contented, manly lad of the past. He would be as simple and pleasant as +an unspoilt schoolboy, as charmed to go or stay with Fan as in the days +of their courtship, as united to Horry as when the brothers were loving +children, as satisfied with chaffing Constable, and proving the life of +his own circle, where animal spirits were in request, as if there did +not exist for him more highly-flavoured attractions, more enthralling +society—a coarse and powerful supplementary source of excitement. + +In these moods, when Harry was restored to his right mind, he +was—without a grain of hypocrisy, so frank and free, so irresistibly +helpful to children and old people, so easily served by servants, that +he won, without fail, the heart of every stranger with whom he came in +contact. He was the charming fellow-traveller, at each _table-d’hôte_ +and in every steamboat and railway carriage, of hosts of unknown +travellers, native and foreign. Harry was the great social conductor +and bond of union between the whirling world around him and the rest of +his party, who smiled cheerfully, and accepted with gay grumbling their +share of the plague of his popularity. + +Then such a transformation came over the patient that clear brow and +eyes, broad shoulders, active hands and feet and tongue grew as if +they belonged to an entirely different person. Here was a man in the +toils of raging fever, and possessed by its delusions, with the load +of a nameless unbearable oppression on his lowering forehead, the +gleam of a strange fire in his burning eyes, having his head bent, and +his back slouched with the gait of an incorrigible vagabond, who must +escape from the most sacred bonds and solemn obligations, and carry +a distracted spirit ill at ease, and which cannot rest, into kindred +storm and darkness. Why, the very muscular hands were straining and +quivering to clutch the deadly foe, bound to overthrow the victim in +the hateful encounter; the swift feet were stumbling in their frenzied +haste to reach the goal from which there is seldom a return; the +tongue spoke winning words no more, but stammered with the language of +unreasoning fury and aimless invective. + +When the demon of his craving for strong drink leaped upon Harry and +held him, he broke from every other detaining grasp. It was to no +purpose that Fan, Horace, and Oliver put force on their inclinations +in order to go with desperate perseverance on the endless round of +theatres, public gardens, and concerts, as if the travellers had been +so many schoolboys abroad for their holidays, or as if individual +tastes and domestic habits were unknown to the party. Harry would not +suffer Fan by his side; he shook off his brother and Oliver. He quitted +them, and defied them to follow him, or he fled from them and outsped +them by the terrible strength and subtlety of his madness. They lost +him for intervals of hours, increasing to days and even weeks. The +journeyings of the party came to an abrupt stop; all their previous +arrangements were upset. + +Fan and Horry, with Oliver added as a third to the group, looked at +each other, on the first sign of the repetition of the miserable +scenes, as the two had looked in the familiar farmhouse at home. + +Sometimes Fan sat alone in the strange hotel room listening to the +careless coming and going of the other travellers; through the long +hours from sunset to darkness and the white glimmering dawn, while +Horace and Oliver, going different ways, hunted through all the +_places_ and _markets_; the hotels and cafés—conspicuous or obscure—the +houses of entertainment where questionable hosts received strangers +more likely to prove thieves than angels taken in unawares—the hunters +studiously keeping themselves, as far as they might, unseen, till they +stalked their prey. Thrice happy for all if it had been the beast of +the field, and not merely a creature made in the image of God, degraded +into a condition lower than that of the brutes, over which he had +been ordained lord and king. A horse or a dog would have been wiser +than Harry Stanhope, and would have guided him with advantage, in the +circumstances. Or it might be the man-stalkers returned, with reluctant +feet, empty hands, and hanging heads, to the hapless woman condemned to +sit and wait in vain. + +In these altered times, Harry, who was so fond of his kind, constituted +the great insurmountable obstacle to any genial fraternisation between +his family and other travelling parties who were in the wholesome odour +of unsullied respectability and the vigour and gladness of moral health +and strength. He condemned his companions—not simply to a tedious and +irritating quarantine, but to a sad and chilling isolation, as they +drew away from their neighbours to hide their wound and its humiliating +cause under a tightly grasped mantle, which must never be thrown open. + +The isolation served only to draw the group more closely together, and +to engage them, with still greater usurpation of their faculties, in +their deeply human office, till Oliver became well-nigh as wrapped up +as Fan and Horace were, in that vocation of nurse and brother’s keeper, +which—whether it be of the body or the soul—passes with practice into +the most enticing and devouring of pursuits. Witness how it lures its +recruits from the brightest and most peaceful quarters, and holds its +brave soldiers fast, resisting all remonstrance, till they drop at +their posts in dens of squalor and misery. + +Time and place ceased largely to exert their power over persons bound +up in one man’s fortunes in a prolonged and terrible single combat. + +What difference did the varying seasons make, when spring stole on +to summer, and summer glided into autumn, and autumn stiffened and +froze into winter, if yet there was no sure amendment or certain +decline in Harry Stanhope’s condition? What did it matter whether the +battle-ground were the heaths of Brittany, the stony vineyards of +Burgundy, the fat pastures of Guelderland, the forests of Flanders, the +olive and orange gardens wet with the spray of the Mediterranean in the +Riviera; or whether the towns offered to the visitors the picturesque +gables and roofs of Bruges or Nüremberg, the palaces of Genoa, or the +churches of Venice, when the question still was Harry and Harry only? +How long was it since there had been an outbreak of his mania? Was he +steadier this month than last? Was there any hope left? + +It is not merely religious, or what many would call fanatical, people +who are brought to comprehend the sorrowful wonder of the demand, ‘What +shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own +soul?’ For the fate of a soul even here in the light of goodness and +loyal obedience to God’s laws, or of turbulent rebellion against them, +with all future honour and happiness, or all future disgrace and misery +at stake—be it in the case of a not overwise lad like Harry Stanhope—is +really of greater moment and of more intense interest to kindred +humanity, than all the natural beauties and all the acted out history +of the universe. Place a drowning man in juxtaposition with the finest, +most suggestive landscape in the world, and what spectator—not to speak +of the unhappy mortal’s familiar friends, would not—conscious of his +fellow-creature’s strait—turn his back on senseless matter and the dead +past? Unless, indeed, the looker-on were morally dwarfed, distorted, +and hardened almost beyond recognition by his kind crying shame on him, +with honest disgust for his unnatural conduct, he would watch, if he +could do no more, with a sympathetic agony of eagerness, the hard fight +for life of his perishing brother—how he clutched desperately each +bough and every twig in his path,—how he struck out gallantly for a +space till he was well-nigh beyond the engulphing wave,—how he faltered +and gave way, and was sucked back into the insatiable jaws of the +overmastering tide. + +The Stanhopes, with Oliver in their company, went on like the wandering +Jew, as if there were no end to their wandering, no rest for the soles +of their feet. They lived their own throbbing, high-strung family life, +till other lives beyond theirs looked distant, pale, and dim, like +lives in dreams. Tidings from the old home came to the wayfarers, and +did not move them, or only awoke in them dull or fitful responses. A +bachelor uncle of Harry and Horace Stanhope’s died, and, with some +dawning suspicion in his last days that he had left his brother’s +orphan boys very much to sink or swim as they could, sought to +anticipate the moment of reckoning by an act of atonement. He chose to +bequeath the sum of eight thousand pounds—the bulk of his savings in a +colonial office—to the poor relations whom he had shunned and ignored +as much as he could, in the course of their previous existence, instead +of to the well-to-do flesh and blood whom he had hitherto exclusively +cultivated. + +The timely legacy—together with what was left of Fan’s means, would +form a little competence for the Stanhopes, if they made up their minds +to settle in some quiet way abroad. + +The subject scarcely struck any of the pilgrims in this light. Would +it not rather deal the death-stroke to Harry by supplying him with +independent funds, other than his wife’s, for squandering and riot? + +‘Poor old uncle Geof!’ said the man on his trial, with an impulse of +his native kindliness; ‘to think he should be gone, and to cut up +well for us, after all! For at least this legacy, though it ain’t +much,’ continued Harry with a mixture of earnestness and candour, +condescension and defiance peculiar to him, ‘ain’t too little for some +enjoyment, without Fan and the rest of you looking glum. Come on, +Horry; we’ll pay all respect to the old boy and his tin, by drinking +to his memory to begin with, and then we’ll do whatever else enters +our heads, to drive dull care away. Nobody can reasonably expect two +fellows who have succeeded to a small fortune—and the smaller it is the +less self-denial is to be looked for—to abstain from a glorification +or two. But we’ll save enough to make you a handsome present, Fan, +never fear. As for Constable, he’s like the man in history, beyond +being bought.’ + +Agneta wrote—to her brothers this time, to tell them of her approaching +marriage, with the full approbation of her guardians, to Mr. Amyott +of Copley Grange—of all men, the widower approaching middle age, the +father of two or three girls, the biggest already higher than the +writer’s elbow. + +‘Aggie a stepmother! Why doesn’t she go in for being a grandmother +at once?’ cried Harry, as his single derisive comment on an incident +which, since it barely touched him, did not deserve more serious +consideration. + +‘Ah! she was always fond of Copley Grange,’ said Fan, with quick, +womanly extenuation, as if it had been the manor-house and the squire +that Agneta had known and prized. ‘But she is taking a great many +duties and cares upon her at once, which seems a pity, when one thinks +how many more must come in the course of nature,’ ended Fan in assumed +matter-of-factness, and in the languor which had replaced her old fire. +But she began again a moment afterwards. ‘It is not fair to herself and +to what ought to have been her natural obligations.’ Fan spoke now with +something of her former suppressed ardour and inextinguishable passion +for justice; but tears of weakness gathered in her eyes at the same +time. She was not thinking of Agneta’s future alone, but of the future +of others with claims on their sister, which Fan, in the days of her +strength, would have been the last to urge, and which Agneta appeared +deliberately disqualifying herself from ever fulfilling. + +‘Heaven help us! I think we are not very cordial in our +congratulations,’ exclaimed Oliver impatiently. He was pricked by the +troubled consciousness that the cares as well as the pleasures of this +life—the cares which are not of our seeking and which certainly do not +contribute to our ease and satisfaction, are in danger of choking the +good seed of generous thoughts and magnanimous judgments. ‘Can’t we +wish Miss Stanhope and Mr. Amyott joy, without spotting all the real or +imaginary disadvantages in their connection, and collaring the couple +with the double chains of fulfilled and neglected requirements?’ + +A new idea was tickling Harry. ‘Look here, Horry; if we had stayed in +the Farm we should have been Aggie’s tenants—bound to take off our hats +to her. We might even have yoked ourselves into the carriage which +brought her and her blooming bridegroom home from their marriage-tour. +I wonder if she would have had an extra barrel of beer broached for my +benefit? She has some small notion of the depth of my thirst. Wouldn’t +it have been jolly? By Jove! we’ve spoilt an interesting episode for +the county paper. “Charming tableau of attached relations forgetting +the accidental diversities of rank and fortune and rushing into each +other’s arms.” Don’t frown, Fan, my love; you would not have been +called on to drag Aggie up the drive hooraying for our master and +mistress. You would have sat at ease, over the way, and witnessed the +gala from a respectful distance.’ + +‘If it is any gratification to you to talk nonsense, Harry, why then, +do it,’ said Fan, with a lingering reflection of her old girlish +dignity, in the middle of her womanly pain at his want of comprehension +and feeling, and yet with the pathetic indulgence to every defect in +the man she loved, which far transcended both dignity and pain. + +Oliver knew he was still capable of quite another form of selfishness, +when a letter from Mrs. Hilliard reached Fan. Mrs. Hilliard would +not consent to lose sight of her kindred in exile, any more than +when settled in a mill and bakehouse at her door. She had no further +occasion, indeed, to acknowledge Fan’s triumph and pay it homage, but +the eventual defeat of Mrs. Hilliard’s enemy was disarming in another +way. Mrs. Hilliard was interested to learn what farther reversal of +parts might occur among her cousins; and whether poor dear Harry +Stanhope was to prove the reprobate out and out, as she rather feared +would be the end. But nobody could help it save himself, he was the +sole person to blame. It was Philistinish of the Constables to throw +themselves into the breach, and make such a fuss about what was so +likely to happen. It would have been far better for everybody to +have hushed it up, to have put poor Harry and his drag of a brother +quietly out of the way—not by murder, which might have had unpleasant +consequences, but by banishment for life, while Fan came home to her +brother. But these cousins of Mrs. Hilliard’s were not like anybody +else, and would not behave like rational people in the common lot of +having a prodigal among them. + +Mrs. Hilliard’s letter was not purely inquisitive; she was really +softened by the news she had to tell, though she told it in her own +manner. Her cousin Catherine was better. She had surmounted the crisis +of her illness, and she was not only to live and be well again, she +was about to turn over a new leaf—in short, to go a-head and look +alive for the rest of her days. Mrs. Hilliard flattered herself +_that_ would astonish her readers. The miracle had been worked by the +new order of nurse whom the London physician had brought down just +in time to their assistance. It had been during the very dismallest +part of Catherine’s illness, when Mrs. Hilliard’s sole refuge from +the blues on her own account, had been in the anticipation of the +inconsistencies and incongruities she was to encounter in the latest +specimen of nurse—who is no longer a Sairey Gamp but a beneficent +princess in disguise. Now beneficent princesses are charming to think +of, but naturally one would suppose they are not the easiest persons to +accommodate and entertain. Mrs. Hilliard had, therefore, proposed to +lay all the house under contribution for the Sister’s benefit. She had +told off her own maid in the stranger’s service. The maid’s mistress +had even had some idea of converting herself into an abigail, that +she might more fittingly hold pins for her social superior, who was +condescending to attend on Catherine. Mrs. Hilliard had arranged levees +of all the ladies in Friarton to be held in the Meadows’ drawing-room +in honour of the Sister when she was off duty and open to recreation; +and sure enough the Sister had turned out to be a daughter of the +old lord-lieutenant’s, the county belle of ten years ago; but she +had laughed to scorn the words ‘accommodation,’ ‘entertainment,’ and +‘homage.’ + +She had perversely chosen and doggedly stuck to a housemaid’s bedroom, +because it was nearest to Catherine’s room. She had insisted on putting +in for herself the few pins which her holland gown required. She was +so enlivened by her work in the sick-room that she came out of it +looking as fresh as a daisy and as gay as a lark. When she had an hour +to spare, or wanted a little variety, she took it in running about the +town to rout out sickness among the miserable wretches who could not +afford a nurse of any kind, and then in seeking to trace the mischief +to its origin and destroy its sheet anchors of poverty and dirt. She +had caused the two doctors’ hair to stand on end, forced the vicar to +tear what hair was left on his head, and all but driven the youngest +and most enthusiastic of the curates to hang himself. In fine, the +Sister had imparted to Mrs. Hilliard the remarkable information that +she looked on this apparently lowest department of her profession as +in fact the highest, and had been guilty of selecting it for herself. +She had only consented to come down and nurse so swell a patient as +Catherine because she was in extremity, and because the Sister had some +special acquaintance with nervous disorders and skill in treating them. + +Catherine had opened her eyes at the princess in disguise, of course +penetrating the disguise, from the first moment she saw her. The sick +woman had come under the spell of the nurse’s vitality until everybody +who could make a diagnosis said the one craze would cast out the other, +the craze of work would expel the craze of lethargy, the craze of +social regeneration would break the back of individual despondency and +despair. Thus Mrs. Hilliard wrote, and Oliver was free to think over +the news. + +Catherine alive, in health, awakened from her long unhealthy sleep +with its haunting nightmares! Catherine loosed from her grave-clothes! +Catherine informed of the riches of life, stretching out her hands to +take them for herself and share them with others! If he could but see +and speak with Catherine now, would she not understand him, and feel +with him at last, whatever came of it? + +But to see Catherine, with whom all was well, Oliver must abandon Fan +in her tribulation, when, in the light of a fresh trial hanging over +her, she had more need of his help than ever. + +Oliver could not find it in his heart to quit his post under such +conditions, though it was also in his heart to writhe and fret at +what might have been, and the possible forfeiture of his own chance +of human happiness. But he was also capable of feeling thankful that +it was—as he had every reason to believe—only his own happiness, not +Catherine’s—above all, not her well-being, which might be at stake. +He was not put to the torture of having to choose between Fan and +Catherine in this supreme sense. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + THE LAST PENNY PAID. + + +The end came, as it often does after long anxiety, when least expected. +The travelling party had been under the necessity of staying their +wanderings and pitching their tent for a longer season than usual. +For many reasons the leaders had chosen one of the loveliest and most +admired scenes in Europe for their temporary resting place. It was +early summer again, so that the Stanhopes might resort to a mountain +and lake district where the air braced every nerve, and which afforded +opportunity for feats of climbing and boating, to attract and occupy +that member of the family whose delectation and employment were always +the first cares, while the weary might rest in preparation for a fresh +campaign. + +The lake of the four cantons lay shimmering in its beauty, +peacock-green or blue-black in tint as it happened to be in light or in +shade. Great walnut-trees grew by its margin, and dipped their branches +in its waters, while the most stunted pines ceased to flourish on the +bare short grass or the rocky summits of its giant guardians. There +were lower mountains that would have been well-grown mountains anywhere +else, which rose sheer from the lake, and were clothed with waving +wood from the soles of their feet to the crown of their heads; but one +forgot them in the near presence of the bald Rhigi and the desolate +Pilatus and the remoter vision of the blue range of the Engelberg +seamed and tracked with everlasting snows. + +The little burgher town, so grandly framed, was not altogether +smoothed down from its ancient ruggedness and picturesqueness into +modern commonplace uniformity, or, still worse, smartness. True, its +great hotels, with bands of music for evening promenaders, were trying +to the sensitive visitor, and its shops with their staple of carved +wood, however pretty, and verging here and there on art proper, were +not without their objections. But there was something to be said for +the old covered rickety bridges over the pale green water, with the +rude representations of the grotesque horrors of the Dance of Death; +the Water Tower; the bold rough rendering on the face of the rock of +the great sculptor’s idea of the lion of Switzerland, wounded to death, +its paw still defending the broken lily of France. + +Apart from a Babel of tongues, in which English prevailed, and swarms +of motley tourists with the Rhigi railway as the scientific means to +the desired end of attaining a region so strange in giddy height and +width of view, so familiar by the descriptions and raptures of its +crowds of admirers—and those inevitable attributes of Lucerne, were not +very conspicuous in the early summer when the Stanhopes occupied their +quarters—there were two distinct, even discordant, associations sharing +the ground between them. There were the more vivid and recent traces +of what all well-instructed, incredulous people now call the myth of +William Tell—the national hero whose imaginary personality struck the +first blow in breaking the fetters—doubtless as fabulous as the rest—of +his country. Certainly, the common representation of him in a stage +kilt, theatrically administering the oath of allegiance to his equally +fantastic fellow-conspirators, as it figured in cheap photographs, was +not calculated to inspire faith in his identity. + +There was also the mediæval legend which, in its wild superstition, +belonged to all Christendom, of the unrighteous judge who falsely +condemned, not his lord and king alone, but the King of kings and the +Saviour of men. And there was not found any place for repentance, +in men’s horrified minds, for this traitor any more than for the +arch-traitor. Pontius Pilate was doomed for ever to hide his white, +conscience-stricken face, and wring his accursed, palsied hands with +a feeble show of washing away the innocent blood from which no holy +baptism of water could cleanse them. + +Constantly as the sun rose or set on the glorious world of mountain +peaks, wood, and water, these two idealised memories awoke and rose in +conflict, glimmering through the white mists of morning, or brooding +under the purple vault of night—the honest, brave Swiss freeman who +bade all Swiss slaves go free—the falsehearted Roman coward who saw no +evil in this man, and yet delivered up the Deliverer of the World into +the hands of his deadly foes to do with Him what they would. + +At Lucerne, Fan’s baby was born. To the mother her little daughter came +as an angel from heaven, promising her a fresh paradise instead of the +old, which had turned out but a waste howling wilderness with green +oases here and there. + +To the father the child brought the delight of a new toy with which he +might play joyously for a while, and then, without thinking, break it. +Harry had none of the trembling reverence, and clumsy awkwardness, in +the middle of their tenderness, which some inexperienced fathers betray +on their first introduction to their offspring. Harry took his infant +daughter in his arms without hesitation and dandled her like an expert +at once. The nurse and all who saw his performance cried out he was the +most charmingly fatherly young father who had ever been beheld. + +To her Uncle Horace, the last arrival was simply a fresh possession of +Harry’s, a ‘rum’ and funny possession, with which the bachelor uncle +was chary in having much to do, and that inflicted on him sundry spasms +of bashfulness, but of which on the whole he did not disapprove. + +As for Oliver, ‘the little woman’ made him more inclined to thank God +and take courage. She was a tiny, weak weapon which might yet prove +all-powerful in casting down strongholds and overthrowing a foul god, +even the jovial Bacchus of Greek worship, which, seen near, was hideous +as Dagon and cruel as Moloch. + +But there came a speedy interruption to Fan’s recovery. Harry, whom her +danger and weakness, together with the gift she had made him, subdued +for the moment, was devoted to her in those days. He was sitting by her +sofa, when she started up, and fixing on him eyes full of the craving +care of an inappeasable anxiety, amazed and alarmed even Harry, who +hardly knew what mental apprehension, any more than physical fear, +meant, by the eager inquiry, ‘Where’s Harry?’ + +He hastened to soothe her by the assurance of his presence, without +effect. He cried aloud, as he quailed before the blank non-recognition, +and impatient denial of the glance which met his imploring looks, for +Horry—Constable—any witness to convince Fan that here was Harry by her +side. + +The witnesses came quickly, and she knew each of them—down to the nurse +who had been an utter stranger to her till within the last few weeks; +but she did not know her husband, and she would not believe what the +others said of his being himself, and of his standing in the room, the +nearest of all to her, bending over her, clasping her hand. ‘Where’s +Harry?’ she continued to demand with terrible, heart-rending insistance. + +The long strain had snapped the strings of the fine instrument at last. +She cried for Harry day and night, in his sight and hearing. As she +cried she broke the silence which she had only once before stirred in +order to claim succour for him; she poured forth in full measure her +incalculable sufferings. She lived over again to one appalled auditor +the long nights when she had sat listening for a footstep which never +came, but was replaced by other footsteps, each, in its turn, causing +her heart to bound with unwarrantable expectation, and sink in the +sickness—growing always deadlier, of hope deferred; till it seemed as +if all the footsteps which approached and departed in ignorance and +indifference, trod, deliberately and mercilessly, over her quivering +heart, spurning it as they passed. She showed how the truest woman +in the world had been fain to impose upon herself with miserable +deceptions, before she had confessed, in the secrecy of her own soul, +that the fine gold of her idol was only base clay under its lacquer—how +the most straightforward and sincere of human beings had been driven to +play at the wretched game of keeping up appearances, of laying herself +out to hoodwink her neighbors. She had been humbled in the dust as well +as worn out by ceaseless struggles, and tortured to frenzy. Her sleep +had gone from her eyes. Peace had been unknown to her—a God-fearing, +Christ-loving woman. + +The revelation was like the opening of those Books before which every +son of man will smite his breast and call on the mountains to fall upon +him and the hills to cover him. And Harry Stanhope’s accuser, day and +night, before God and his brethren, was the woman who loved him best, +and would sooner have bitten her tongue out than said the lightest word +to blame him. + +Every effort was made to withdraw Harry from the awful, ghastly +ordeal. The instant Horace guessed instinctively what Fan was speaking +of incessantly in the monotonous voice as tuneless as his own, which +he could no longer catch so as to distinguish the words, he started +forward with fury, as if he were mad himself, to drag Harry away; but +Harry shook his brother off. + +Oliver laid a firm hand on Harry’s shoulder, but from that, too, Harry +freed himself. ‘Let me alone, Constable,’ he gasped. ‘My place is by my +wife, and whatever I have done or left undone, I will stay with her and +hear the last she has to say to me.’ + +None could dispute his right, and the men drew back; but there were +still women’s pitiful voices beseeching him to have mercy on himself. +‘Go away, sir, for Heaven’s sake—for her sake. She does not mean it; +she does not know what she is saying. Your staying will do no good.’ + +But Harry would not listen to the entreaties, and in the end he heard +no voice save Fan’s. He stood there till her tale of martyrdom was +burnt in and branded on his conscience. Under the operation his face +did not grow sharp as Fan’s sharpened, neither did his fair hair betray +patches of grey, as her dark hair betrayed when it was pushed aside +that the death-sweat might be wiped from her temples. Yet his whole +aspect underwent such a change as it was hardly possible he could +entirely lose, so as to become the same that he had been before. He +grew perceptibly older-looking in those days which could be so easily +counted, with the sudden stamp of ripening to withering, which rapid, +mortal illness sometimes impresses even on an infant’s face. + +He had never before willingly encountered what was painful either to +his senses or his sensibility. He had always selected the paths which +were easiest and most agreeable to himself, without too much regard +to their going down hill. They had brought him to where the battle +raged hottest in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; and though it was +not himself, but another, who was slain—the fumes of the smoke, the +clatter of the strife, the deep wounds, the flowing life-blood, the +gloom of that valley of shadows, were not likely to depart utterly from +his consciousness, and leave him in the light-hearted, light-headed +carelessness, the hard, untempered blaze of sunshine, of his former +experience. + +Fan had forgotten her baby in that last whirl of the tempest which +swept her away, but she remembered it in the end. In the pouring out of +her tribulation without restraint, she had constantly called on Horace +and Oliver to help Harry, who stood nailed to the ground there by her +pillow. Then, when her voice was sinking into an indistinguishable +murmur, and her hands letting go every earthly hold, she felt +gropingly for her child, and struggled to utter another sentence +audibly. She did not speak for the child with her passing breath as +so many mothers have spoken for their children. Fan’s care for Harry +had swallowed up her care for their child. She spoke to the unheeding, +unconscious infant who for many a long year would be a helpless human +being, needing tender fostering and watchful protection, and instead of +recommending the child to the father, in the bewilderment of poor Fan’s +unapproachable fidelity to Harry, she recommended the father to the +child. ‘Baby, take care of Harry,’ she managed to say, and with a few +more fluttering breaths, died. The words of Fan’s final, fond, foolish +injunction were still ringing in Harry’s ears when he staggered out of +the room. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + OLIVER’S RETURN. + + +Death, and not marriage, wipes out offences, clears scores, and opens +the bolts and bars of shut hearts a little, for a brief space. Harry +Stanhope’s relations mostly wrote to condole with the young widower +on the death of the wife whom they had never countenanced. Lord Mount +Mallow—after all, only a connection by marriage, who happened to be +then disporting himself in the playground of Europe, actually offered +to defer climbing a mountain and come out of his way to grace Fan’s +funeral. + +Agneta Amyott wrote impulsively, instead of penning a letter in which, +while the proprieties were well preserved, the writer committed herself +to nothing. She was deeply grieved, not merely for her dear old Harry, +but for her dear sister, her former kind friend, whom Agneta declared +she would now give half the world to be able to see, if but once again. +And what about the darling little baby? What could three young men make +of such a charge? It was deplorable to think of it. Would Harry let her +send a trustworthy person to fetch the baby, now that she had a home +of her own to receive it in? There were the little Amyotts’ nurse and +nurseries all ready. She had not been able to speak to her husband yet, +but she felt certain Mr. Amyott would not object. To be sure, the close +of Agneta’s letter, in which there was the first note of hesitation, +sounded more natural than the beginning. + +Harry rejected each overture not so much bitterly or pettishly, as with +the first sternness and obduracy which had ever burst up through his +constitutional softness and irrepressible buoyancy. ‘Nobody shall mourn +for Fan but the real mourners—you, Horry, and Constable and me. + +‘Fan’s baby shall not be taken out of charity into the house of any +man—or woman either. She shall not be brought up as we were, if I can +help it.’ + +Fan’s baby succeeded to what was left of her mother’s little fortune; +she might also have the reversion of what Harry and Horace could keep +of their legacy. In the meantime she was not given over to the tender +mercies of three ignorant men, though, even if she had, she might have +fared worse. There was not a woman, high or low, in the Swiss hotel in +which she had been born, who was not interested in the small specimen +of humanity, and there was one woman—a hard-working clergyman’s +hard-working wife, loitering and rather pining abroad while doing her +best to get rid of the lagging, idle weeks of her husband’s necessary +holiday—who pounced upon the motherless baby as a windfall, or rather, +as she would have called it, a Godsend. + +Oliver had not been greatly attracted previously to these reverent +Weatherleys, in any chance intercourse which he had held with them. He +had respected them as very worthy people, but they had seemed to him, +what they were, somewhat fanatical and narrow in their views. As for +Harry Stanhope, no two persons could have been more widely removed from +what he had proved hitherto, or could have possessed less in common +with his past, than the strongly professional as well as pious couple +who were taking, but scarcely enjoying, a compulsory breathing space in +their toiling life. + +But from the moment that Mrs. Weatherley’s motherliness appropriated +the care of Fan’s baby, Harry, as it were, instinctively—with another +of his instincts of self-preservation probably—took to her and clung +to her and her husband in his misery, with a pathetic dependence and +trust, to which they were not slow to respond. + +Indeed, Harry’s remorse from an early stage assumed the form of +contriteness rather than despair, his natural humility and amiability +standing him in good stead here. Fan had willed his rescue from folly +and evil with her whole devoted heart, and though he would never now +have the consolation—the positive gladness, of proving to her that he +was a rescued man, and so, of more than making up to her, in her love, +for all the anguish he had cost her, he was still, in his present mood, +eager to do what Fan had wished, to be as she had chosen for him, in +his best interests. He trusted brokenly that it might atone—if it were +only to her memory, that Fan might know he was sorry and was pulling +himself up, somehow, sometime—that Fan’s God and his would accept and +confirm the late repentance in the great redemption He has provided for +sinners. + +Poor Harry had never been proud, and he was not afflicted with +the insane egotism which sees in its possessor an object of such +consequence in the universe, to his Maker no less than to himself, that +he must needs interfere with the working of human and divine love. +Such a one-sided reasoner will hold, against every assurance to the +contrary, that he has sinned beyond forgiveness, and it is too late +for him to repent and think better of it. In fact, there is a false +Mephistopheles dignity and subtle compensation in this conclusion, when +shame, regret, and grief still take the attitude of resentful defiance. + +But it was not so with Harry, not even in his way of regarding his +baby. He did not turn from it, in the beginning, with the blind +repugnance and unreasoning, unrighteous grudge, with which some +widowers are tempted to regard the child that has cost its mother her +life. Certainly it was not her child, but her husband, who had killed +Fan. Yet Harry might have been so far dishonest as to have given a sop +to his conscience, by shifting a part of the responsibility and blame +on the innocent child. He might have taken a cruel satisfaction in +revenging Fan, by trampling alike on his own natural affections, and on +the just claims of his infant daughter. + +But Harry never did so. He seemed rather to transfer at once to the +baby all the fondness for the mother which was thrown back on his +hands, when she was taken from him. In addition he was ready to lavish +on the child a double portion of the protecting affection which, so +long as he was himself, he had shown to Horace. + +Watching Harry in the new light of his mournful fatherhood, when he +was called on, by every generous and manly impulse, to be father +and mother in one, to the mite whose best friend or worst foe, whose +nearest natural guardian, he found himself, Oliver Constable arrived +at a correct conclusion. If any mere human creature could help to make +a man of Harry Stanhope, could raise him from his soulless levity and +the vicious craving which was grafted on it, it was—strange yet natural +to say, not a brave, devoted woman like Fan, who had gone down into +the breach and held a shield over her husband, and striven vainly to +be the stay to him which, had their relations to each other been what +they ought, he should have proved to her—but this merest atom of a +fellow-mortal, a thousand times weaker than Harry himself, who could +neither appeal to him nor remonstrate with him, who could simply hang +heavily upon him in her helplessness, and who was, humanly speaking, +altogether at his mercy for happiness or wretchedness. + +Oliver was inclined to believe that Harry’s self-conviction had gone to +the root of the matter, and that even his most mercurial temperament +would never shake it off altogether. + +Harry was well-nigh as sacred a trust bequeathed to Oliver by Fan as +her child could be. Indeed, while there were many humane people to +interpose and accept the gracious task of befriending the motherless +babe, who would volunteer to fill the thankless office of standing +by Harry and backing him in resisting the poison which was coursing +through his veins, and the familiar demon that beset him? But in the +meantime Oliver was not frightened to leave Harry Stanhope with his +brother, his infant, and the Weatherleys. When Oliver recalled the +last he confessed he had been unjust in asking incredulously who +would bestow themselves on Harry unless to serve themselves by his +undoing? So far from a knowledge of his former offences disposing the +Weatherleys to withdraw from the old offender, it would only attach +them to him more firmly. For a sinner who had turned or who gave the +faintest indication of turning from the error of his ways, had, if it +be possible, an almost morbid fascination for the clergyman and his +wife. They were not content with fulfilling the divine commission, +and preaching the grand truth that their Master would have mercy +and not sacrifice, their zeal ran away with their discretion until +they would have preferred the dying thief to the Apostle Paul. They +went the length of selecting for their friends and associates rueful +transgressors, in preference to men and women who had been kept and had +kept themselves, with infinite pains, from gross transgression. This +enthusiastic weakness which caused the Weatherleys to dote on reclaimed +burglars and pet converted infidels, almost to the cold exclusion +of people who had refrained from picking and stealing, and who had +reverently trusted and believed, was apt to be fertile in producing +wrath and restiveness in the intolerantly honest and loyal sections of +the community; and, what was still worse, in growing crops of hypocrisy +and fraud among the hardened and desperately deceitful outcasts from +society. But at least it rendered the couple safe to care for Harry +Stanhope and do their best to help him, and Oliver did not think that +Harry would abuse their kindness. + +Oliver Constable did not hurry post haste, though he turned his face in +the direction of Friarton Mill, when he separated from his companions, +in the course of a few weeks after Fan’s death. He knew that many +changes as well as a great blank awaited him, and he sought to fit +himself to meet them in a spirit of peace, as well as to find healing +for his recent wound. + +It was a soft, grey October afternoon when Oliver, leaving the railway +at an intermediate station as before, walked through the well-known +fields in their autumn livery, and arrived at Friarton Mill. + +As it chanced—a chance for which she would never forgive herself—Sally +Pope, who had not been apprised of the exact date when he was likely to +return, had gone on her yearly holiday to visit her relations. Only a +strange young housemaid kept house and received Oliver, taking in good +faith his assertion that he was her master. + +The dreary reception had, as a compensation, a certain relief for +the traveller; but he was not long left to his own thoughts. He had +hardly eaten the meal which his servant improvised in a state of +consternation, with regard to a future searching investigation and +sharp condemnation of all deficiencies by old Sally, when he became +aware, as he was in the act of strolling half mechanically across the +court, to his former smoking station in the mill gallery, that he +was threatened already with visitors from Copley Grange. A lady and +gentleman were walking across the park, and making straight for the +picturesque old mill. + +Oliver groaned under this ill-timed manifestation of the popular +admiration shared between show places and show people, and prepared to +make himself scarce. He stopped short in his retreat, and faced the +intruders, the moment he recognised that they were Mr. and Mrs. Amyott. + +The couple were the most put out by the encounter, for they had clearly +not expected to meet the miller in his own domain. It might be that +the squire was but partially informed of his young wife’s former +familiarity with Friarton Mill as well as with Copley Grange Farm, and +that he had proposed to take advantage of the fine afternoon by making +her better acquainted with what was, still more than the artistic +almshouses, a charming æsthetic advantage belonging to his place. + +In that case Mrs. Amyott might have had some difficulty in evading the +proposal, or she might have been fain, on her side, to get over the +first visit to Friarton Mill in a new character, as early as possible, +in the absence of its master. + +These explanations were more probable than what had flashed across +Oliver’s mind, and caused him to contort his figure by one of his +old excited, awkward movements, in a revulsion from a crying case of +heartless selfishness. He had thought for an instant, could the Amyotts +possibly have guessed the half-resolution which he was only turning +over in his own mind, to let or even sell the mill and mill-house, and +quit the neighbourhood, where there seemed nothing remaining for him to +do, where he had tried his utmost to work out his notions of duty and a +career, and had signally failed? Did the Amyotts know, from Friarton +gossip, that the Constables’ baking business in the town had diminished +to such a fraction that, in justice to himself and his coming +creditors, Oliver must give up the premises from which the business had +departed? Were his nearest neighbours seizing the first opportunity, +with indecent haste and mean covetousness, to sound him, in the hope +of, at the same time, obtaining Naboth’s vineyard and getting rid of +Mordecai at their gates? + +Perhaps Mr. Amyott trusted to an immediate, tempting, and what he might +imagine a substantially handsome offer of purchase, at a fancy price, +to induce a man, impoverished and embarrassed by his crotchets, to +sell his birthright, and so to secure to the owners of Copley Grange +what one of them had long craved. If that were so, a man might well +pray to be delivered from the mania for high art, prevailing to the +extinction of common feeling. For was not the dainty bride, in her +refinement of bridal finery—sobered down still further by the necessity +of wearing a black gown, in memory of her brother’s late lowborn wife, +keenly desirous, under her pretence of mourning, to cut away the last +link between her and the Constables? And all the while she might have +guessed, if she had cared to use her woman’s wit, how much of old Peter +Constable’s honestly and laboriously earned money had gone to fill up +the gaps left by Mrs. Amyott’s brother’s reckless improvidence. + +It was only for a moment that Oliver indulged the suspicion. He saw +almost immediately that the Amyotts were as much taken by surprise, and +more put out, than he was, though they recovered themselves with the +comparative celerity and ease of well-bred people, who were, by their +nurture and position, master and mistress of social situations, and +equal to any social difficulty. + +For that matter, Agneta did such justice to her training and played +her part so well, that Oliver felt inclined to think she was lost as +a simple squire’s wife, and ought to have been a duchess, if not a +princess of some reigning royal family, or a queen in her own person. +She exhibited precisely the proper amount of feeling for the occasion, +without being overcome. She was touched, she was gently courteous and +even friendly to Oliver, without overstepping the limits which the +circumstance of her having become Mr. Amyott’s wife imposed upon Harry +Stanhope’s sister. She alluded simply and sadly to ‘the melancholy +event’ of Fan’s death. She enquired with interest when he had heard +from Harry, and expressed her earnest good wishes for the welfare of +‘the dear little baby.’ She broke off to thank him with grave sincerity +for all he had done for her brothers—though, with regard to the last +graciously grateful speech, Oliver could not avoid the impression that +Agneta considered him in some respects the obliged person, by having +had it in his power to serve the Stanhopes. + +When the conversation strayed to more general topics, Mrs. Amyott +referred with a blending of judicious candour and tact—while her +slightly stooping, and slightly grey, but well-preserved husband +was paying her the lover-like compliment of listening with pleased +attention to every word she said—to the changes which had taken place +in the Mill court since she was there last. She displayed thus with +perfect serenity a considerable acquaintance with the landmarks. + +‘Surely, Mr. Constable, there have been some boughs lopped from the +willow; and, ah! you have had the old seat, which I used to call “the +Pilgrim’s seat,” removed from under the mulberry-bush!’ + +Every word was in such unexceptionable taste; Oliver was let down +so gracefully and gradually from the terms which Agneta Stanhope had +insisted on establishing between them, during those vanished summer +days, that he was inclined to acquiesce in the squire’s conviction +that his last acquired gem was the most finely polished in his whole +collection of treasures. + +In comparison, Mr. Amyott’s _rôle_ required little from the performer, +but he also acquitted himself admirably, with just the degree of +admission of Oliver’s claims which became a gentleman who would not +disallow an obligation, and yet who viewed, with reason, the whole +connection between Copley Grange Farm and Friarton Mill as a foolish +mistake. But he, too, did not refuse to recollect the past. He made +some cursory mention of his wife’s brothers having been his tenants +in the farm; nay, he said with a smile in reference to his recent +marriage, that the temporary arrangement had helped in bringing about +what was for him a most fortunate as well as permanent result. His +first introduction to his wife had arisen from it. Such trifling causes +are, in some sort, the motive power in shaping out our destinies. + +Listening to her husband’s flattering acknowledgment of the +fortuitousness—for him—of her brothers’ short tenancy of Copley +Grange Farm, Agneta smiled sweetly back upon him. Mr. Amyott was +somewhat worn and still more languid in his middle age; a man to +whose over-cultivated nature much of the life around him, with which +his wife’s fresh youth had some instinctive sympathy, was rough, +rude, boisterous, and oppressive, even when it was not offensive, so +that the abiding expression of his aristocratic features was wistful +and pensive, rather than resolute and hopeful: still he was a fine +patrician-looking man, only a little past the prime of life, and a +trifle the worse for the wear. He was gentle and elegant—according +to the old standard of elegance, in his whole tone; a shade +plaintive and fretful occasionally, but never morose or violent. +He was deferential, almost to a fault, to the wishes of his wife, +which he was well able to gratify, since he happened to be in the +possession of an ample, unencumbered rent-roll, a charming place, so +well-ordered an establishment that her stepchildren never came in +their young stepmother’s way, but fell at once into the pleasantest +and most desirable relations with her, and a position second to few +in the county. From Agneta’s point of view, she had good cause to be +satisfied with the marriage which had fulfilled the expectations of +her guardians. Her education—whatever else it had stifled in her, had +served to develop largely a reasonable prudence. + +The Amyotts managed to make use of the fact of Oliver’s arrival that +very afternoon, as an excuse for not waiting to receive the invitation +to enter the Mill-house, which its master was in no haste to give, +while both recognised that the omission on the first encounter served +as an index of the extent of their future intercourse. + +Left alone, Oliver acknowledged the happy couple were free from +ulterior designs in invading his privacy. Apart from these, what was +Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba? He had an idea that Harry and Horace +Stanhope, with their baby, would settle down at a distance from Copley +Grange, which would still farther simplify matters and smooth down +awkwardnesses, so that in the future intercourse of the Manor-house and +the Mill, Fan’s marriage, with its girlish aspirations, would soon be +as though it had never been—and it was best so. + +Oliver reached the carved gallery at last; and leant over the +balustrade looking down on the water of the Brook and away over the +woody undulating ground of Copley Grange Park, where the sombre green +thorns were covered with dark crimson haws, and no note of a bird broke +the stillness, which was only made alive by the monotonous babbling of +the Brook. How vividly some of the more significant scenes of his life, +since he attained manhood, rose before him there! The thorns were red +and white again in flower, and the thrush was once more singing, as he +broke to Fan his life-purpose, and combated her objections. How full +of confidence he had been! With what high hopes and steadfast resolves +he had entered on his mission, and it had come to nothing! He had been +foiled on every side, till at last he was allowing himself to drift out +of the struggle. + +He was watching the ducks eating the mulberries, and turning his back, +in vain, on a stalwart young figure cumbered with a limber attendant, +belonging, by rights, to Oliver’s gone-by ’Varsity days, and yet +starting up, stepping out there through the park, and hailing him on +his threshold, in spite of him. + +He was walking with Fan in her garden, listening to her unwonted +chatter and warm admiration of these new friends. + +The master baker was jostled, tripped up, and thrown down afresh by his +late journeyman in the twilight lane yonder. + +Oliver was cut dead anew by Catherine Hilliard in the High Street of +Friarton. + +The frost was on the ground while Harry Stanhope was besieging Oliver’s +bedroom door to announce his intentions; and presently the brother was +facing the sister on the hearthrug, holding her back from her fate. + +Oliver was grasping Fan’s hands and pledging himself the devil should +not have Harry. Oliver was binding himself to give up any grain which +he might have gathered from the crop which had cost him so dear, that +he might help her to lie on the bed which she had made for herself. +Yet Harry’s deliverance had proved harder to effect than that of Tam +Lane in the ballad. It had been beyond the power either of strong man +or devoted woman, though it was just possible, after Fan’s dead hands +dropped the task, it might be performed by baby fingers in God’s great +way of nature. + +Would Oliver, with his present knowledge, do all he had done over +again, if the choice were once more given him? He thought it over +deliberately and as calmly as he could, in trying to form his plans +for the future, and he honestly believed he would. He solemnly +thanked God for the boon of such a belief, to soften the soreness of +his disappointment and defeat, and still the ache of his heart. The +consciousness confirmed his faith that there had been some good in +his aims. They had not owed their origin entirely to presumption and +self-conceit. However rash and over-confident he might have been, +however much he had bungled the whole business, he had the assurance +of his conscience that the fault had not lain largely in his motives. +Yes, he would if he could begin it all over again—to establish higher +principles of trade—to make trade honourable, to fill hungry mouths +with wholesome food; and he would still have granted Fan’s petition +at all hazards. How did he know that he was to prove the pioneer of +trade reformation, while he was well assured that he was his sister’s +natural refuge and stay? He could not have made himself strange to his +own flesh, with whom his first duty lay. He must have acknowledged the +obligation for charity to begin at home. + +Before the dusk prevented him, Oliver took out and re-read Harry +Stanhope’s last letter. It was a little longer than the usual brief +reports, which were hardly higher intellectual efforts than those of +the young rustics whose vicar has seen that they have profited by a +night-school. This was the ordinary style of Harry’s letters:— + + ‘Dear Constable,—Here goes. We are all well. Baby is thriving. She + has got her frocks shortened, and looks the better for it. It is + still awfully hot. We—Harry and me, for Mr. and Mrs. Weatherley don’t + try the dodge—took a header, and had a swim in the river for an hour + this morning. Woodhurst—that’s the man whose ground lies all about + here, is to let us have lots of fishing. I hope you’re all right. + ‘Yours, &c.’ + +That was as nearly as possible the substance of the unclerkly scrawls +which Harry sent. But to write at all, without compelling cause, was a +great advance on the writer’s native inconsiderateness and freedom from +any comprehension of responsibility. + +In the letter which Oliver held in his hand, however, Harry, in his +stumbling jerking manner, had contrived to say a good deal more. + +The two Stanhopes had gone back with the Weatherleys, on the return +of the clergyman and his wife to their country parish, and had found +lodgings close to the vicarage where Mrs. Weatherley still had the baby +in her kind care. It was the attraction of the baby—with the fear of +doing it harm by removing it from the good offices of an experienced +matron—which in the beginning drew Harry and his brother across the +Channel, back to England, and down into the rural retirement of a +remote parish. But it soon became plain that the Weatherleys—coming in +contact with Harry Stanhope at a turning point in his life, getting him +into their hands when his heart was wrung with suffering and his whole +character subdued—had acquired a growing influence over the young man. +He was rapidly adopting their forms of thought and turns of speech, +and falling in, to some extent, with their habits and practices. He +had always possessed in a sense a ductile disposition, apt to take +the moulding of its surroundings and associations. But a great wrench +had been required to separate a thoughtless young fellow from his low +atmosphere—laden with earthly vapours and dense with worldliness, +and to launch him into the higher, rarer air of altogether loftier +principles and considerations, breathed by the Weatherleys. Harry had +suffered such a wrench and received such an impetus as propels many +men—especially many shallow, impulsive men—to the opposite poles of +their former opinions and pursuits. + +At this epoch of his history—when Harry Stanhope turned inevitably, +with a sick heart, from his old interests; when all his former sports, +though he still engaged in them mechanically, were flat and stale to +him; when what was spiritual in his moral constitution craved spiritual +consolation and refreshment—something beyond this world, some promise +of reward and restoration for his lost love and its object, some +reparation of all wrong, and enduring foundation for all good—Harry +was carried out of the past in a totally new direction from any he had +followed hitherto, where his brother would join him sooner or later. + +Harry retained his simple cordiality, but the simplicity had got a +new bias, and the cordiality a fresh outlet. In those letters—the +occasional writing of which, without the inducement of borrowing money, +was a marvel in itself—while he expressed himself scantily, there was +also something of the transparent prattle though not the gush of a girl. + +In the more recent prattle Oliver learnt a good deal of church services +and parish work, in which, to his wonder at first, he found Harry +was taking part. He had been practising with Mr. Weatherley’s choir, +and doing a little rudimentary teaching in his schools, as well as +helping Mrs. Weatherley with her parish children’s annual feast and the +machinery of her different clubs. + +Harry did not dream of making the slightest apology for those +extraordinary occupations. He was as free from self-consciousness now +as ever. He mentioned the schools and the festival as naturally and +unaffectedly as if he had been referring to a cricket-match and the +dinner which followed. That struck Oliver as the most hopeful symptom +in the case, and he was as devoutly glad as the Weatherleys could have +wished. + +But Oliver’s gladness received a sudden check when he found Harry +writing humbly enough, to be sure, of his unfitness for reading for +orders, as Mr. Weatherley had just been suggesting he might do. + +‘Good heavens, I should think not!’ assented Oliver in a great heat. +‘I am glad Harry retains one iota of common sense, if Weatherley is +so far out of his mind. Now, even supposing Harry has outlived his +lamentable propensity—supposing he were to pass muster, I should have +to interfere and speak to the bishop.’ + +But poor Harry was not really thinking of anything so far beyond him. +He was only modestly preluding the statement that he had been with Mr. +Weatherley when he was delivering some of his cottage addresses, and +Harry had been moved and helped to say a word of warning from his own +experience. + +Was Harry in the way of being taught to go about and speak at such +meetings? Had he, too, turned social reformer and preacher—in the last +particular, as Oliver was free to admit, shrugging his shoulders, far +outstripping his, Oliver’s, performances? Would Harry’s inveterate +fancy for joining in whatever was going on, his incorrigible +good-fellowship, thenceforth, or even for a time, take the shape of +lay aid in priestly ministrations, pointing Mr. Weatherley’s morals +by a word in season from a sinner who was a standing commentary on +the vicar’s text—at once a warning and an example, a young man who +was ready to proclaim himself an evildoer formerly, one who had known +both the temptation and the penalty, but had escaped with the skin of +his teeth? Would Harry, if he continued in well-doing, go on exposing +his shortcomings, steeling himself in the exposure, till he should +come to Fan’s wrongs? Would he regard it as an act of expiation, and +an offering for the good of his fellow-men, to speak out thus, and +when his little daughter was old enough to listen to his words and +understand them, would he still tell his piteous tale, and humble +himself in her hearing—it might be in the hearing of some other +evangelist’s daughter or sister, who might have replaced Fan and become +Harry’s second wife, and the mother of his children? + +Oliver writhed at the mere notion. He recalled Fan’s strong, proud +reserve in the middle of her ardour, her delicate reticence, her +unconquerable shrinking from common speculation and coarse comment. +Were the sacred secrets of her death-bed to be bruited about and made +food for vulgar curiosity by this new kind of weak excess in the man +who had inflicted the agony? + +Then Oliver called himself back. Had he any right to sit in stern +judgment on Harry Stanhope’s weakness, granted that it was weakness +even to self-indulgence? What if this were the sole refuge for Harry +Stanhope, the only means by which the man whom Fan had so loved and +striven to win, could be won to virtue and temperance? What if this +were the single method by which Harry could serve his fellow-creatures? +There are dull or besotted scholars who can receive no teaching save +from homely, broad personalities, and there are primitive teachers +who if they are not personal are nothing. Such teaching might appear +little better than foolish and despicable to Oliver Constable, and yet +what assurance had he, in his arrogance and self-sufficiency, that it +was not among the foolish things which God has chosen to confound the +wise? Might not Fan, from her peace among the angels, regard these +ebullitions—which were at least frank and guileless—that vexed Oliver’s +soul, in an altogether different light from that in which she would +have seen them, had she been still living an erring woman on earth? + +No; let poor Harry do what seemed good unto him. God forbid that Oliver +should put hindrances in Harry’s path—the path which was, perhaps, best +suited for his stumbling feet. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX. + + FRESH SERVICE. + + +On the night of his return, Oliver had been tempted to say— + + My wound is deep, + I fain would sleep, + Take thou the vanguard of the three; + +but the next day found him again leading the van. Happy the wounded who +have still strength for the fight, and whose presence is yet wanted in +the thick of the fray. + +Sally Pope arrived at an early hour the following morning, and gave her +master her greeting. She was so full of self-reproach for her unlucky +absence the previous evening that it diverted her in some degree from +the loud condolences which he was only too content to be spared. And +Sally was a shrewd woman; she knew that ‘men-folk do not care to return +to the topic of their grief, as poor critters of women will discuss it +at large, and find comfort in dwelling on their trials;’ so when her +single heartfelt lamentation for ‘poor Miss Fan as were that nimble and +clever,’ had been made, Sally set herself to divert Oliver from the +cold comfort of his lonely home-coming, by retailing to him all the +latest news of Friarton. + +‘Lord, Master Oliver, we’re not singular in our troubles! There’s young +Dadd down with fever, lying between life and death. Not a critter will +enter Dadd’s shop—not to say the house, and the old people are nigh +besides themselves.’ + +‘Poor Jack! poor souls!’ said Oliver. ‘But what has become of the +Sister—the wonderful nurse Mrs. Hilliard imported into the town?’ + +‘Oh! she’s gone these three months, the more reason that Miss Hilliard +is as spry as any of the rest of the young ladies. But now, Master +Oliver,’ broke off Sally, putting her head on one side and speaking +deprecatingly, almost mincingly, ‘I know as great allowance ought +to be made for idle ladies, and that they mun be left for to direct +themselves in many ways not open to the commonality, else they’ll +fall to pieces like a dry wash-tub, or go all over red rust like a +flat-iron laid aside, and be in danger of slipping through their +friends’ fingers like Miss Hilliard all but slipped, and gave no end +of trouble, the silly thing! Still, Master Oliver, do you think it is +proper for ladies, as are none so old or ill-favoured, to go and get +rid of their spare time—and all time is to spare with them—a feeling of +the pulses and looking at the tongues of sick carters and masons and +their families, ay, and of tramps and their brats, a-treating of them +to shooken’up pillows and cooling drinks, and as many blisters and +draughts as they can set their minds to—save us?’ + +‘Well, Sally, at least you’ll allow it is a good chance for the masons +and tramps,’ said Oliver with a laugh. + +‘I dunno,’ Sally shook her head. ‘I think the world’s turned upside +down. But leastways better such folly than that Miss ’Mily Polley’s +been up to.’ + +‘What has Miss ’Mily been up to?’ + +‘Gone and lost her good name, which she’ll never pick up again—not +though she were the queen on the throne, with armies and navies to +scour the world in search of it, at her word. Now there’s nothing left +Miss ’Mily save a patched-up marriage, to cover the disgrace as will +not be covered, to a rolling stone of a ne’er-do-well that will bring +her to want and misery. Her as was such a pert piece, setting herself +up, picking holes in the coats of her betters, and giggling in her +light-headedness at this body and that body, as if she herself were a +non-such and could go her own road and fear no fall.’ Sally ended with +the cruel relish with which the old, who ought to be, and who, let us +be thankful, often are, the most charitable, still sometimes, alas! +under provocation, contemplate their young neighbours’ receiving their +deserts. + +‘You must be mistaken, Sally,’ remonstrated Oliver, grieved and +shocked. ‘It cannot be as you say. The Polleys have always been most +respectable people. Even Polley, though a useless sinner, picked +himself up, you know. You must have taken some coarse scandal for +gospel. Mrs. Polley has been a good mother, and has looked well after +her daughters.’ + +‘Excuse me, Master Oliver, but it’s much you know of it, sir,’ said +Sally, half huffily, half scornfully. ‘And it is little thanks Mrs. +Polley, poor woman, have got for her work in the shop and her rule of +her family. She were a bit set up, in her own way, and vaunty of what +she had done for them gals and that silly man of hers. Nobody came near +herself, and nought that belonged to her was to be sneezed at. Ah! +her mouth’s shut now, and she won’t hold up her head again, not by a +long chalk, as she has done in Friarton. I am sorry for her though,’ +reflected Sally, showing some signs of relenting, ‘for she were a +through-going woman. Her took the whole load upon her own shoulders, +when it fell off them sloping ones of Polley’s, and asked help from +nobody. Hard she drudged a dozen years back, never sparing herself, to +keep her family out of the gutter. It was ill-done of any one of them +to humble her pride. But it’s the way of children—so it is. It’s a +comfort to the likes of me, as is a single woman, alone in the world, +except for a niece and neffy or two—looking after my savings I’ll be +bound, Master Oliver—to think that I might have had a man and bairns to +my share, and been no better—rather worse served. But I’ll fault Mrs. +Polley with this’—Sally returned to the charge—‘she would do everything +in the shop with her ten fingers. She would keep the management of the +books and accounts in her own hands. Why, them gals weren’t properly +brought up to the grocery business or to any other. They were as silly +as silly could be, if you took them off weighing a pound of sugar, or +cutting a bar of soap, as a child could do. Our Miss Fan could have +bought them at the one end of the town and sold them at t’other. They +went a deal of their time hand-idle, or falalling with their best +clothes; and was that an up-bringing to keep them out of mischief? I +have it on good authority, they would lay a-bed in the mornings, and +they were out at their gadding every blessed evening, though she +pulled them up tight about minding meals and hours, and shutting up +to her face. If they were quick, they could get their heads out—most +of all Miss ’Mily, as was the mother’s favourite—so it seems she had +been drawing a score under her mother’s nose, and carrying on at a fine +rate with that scamp of a half gentleman—a pretty gentleman! Mrs. Sam +Cobbes’ Lon’on brother, though Mrs. Polley had forbidden her gal to +have anything to say to him.’ + +‘I should think so,’ said Oliver, with decision. He knew the man—a +fellow with a specious address, and the glamour of expectations from a +rich uncle in the Customs, which served him as an apology for losing +such mongrel situations as he occasionally condescended to fill, and +for loafing away the greater portion of his days, hanging on to other +and humbler relations than the autocrat in the Customs, the credulous +Cobbes for instance, always in a lazy, often in a disreputable +fashion. He was just the sort of acquaintance, full of false +pretensions, vulgar smartness, and strongly-flavoured dash, to take the +fancy of an ignorant, ill-brought-up, wilful girl like ’Mily Polley. +And on the man’s side, he would not hesitate to amuse himself with her +openly-expressed admiration, as the best joke going. + +But Sally was eager to empty her budget. ‘Mrs. Polley she finds +out that ’Mily is snapping her fingers in her mother’s face,’ the +storyteller resumed the thread of her narrative, nothing loth, ‘and +keeping company with Birt on the sly, continually: so the old woman’s +temper, as is none of the coolest at the best of times, flies into a +blaze, and she up and dares the gal to see the fellow again, or she +will be turned to the door, as not worthy of such a home, and to serve +as a warning to her sisters. Mrs. Polley, if you please, never lets +’Mily out of her sight from that moment, except at night, when the +mother locks the gals’ room door on them, in their hearing. + +‘Sure enough, it is no more use than locking the stable-door after the +horse has got his head out of the halter, and kicked up his heels in +giving the stable-boy the go-by. And the black affront before the rest +of the family—certain to leak out too, with the feeling of a gaol, +after the liberty the gal had snatched, in spite of Mrs. Policy’s +tantrums, druv Miss ’Mily from bad to worse. She goes and throws dust +into the eyes of them sillies of sisters, or else she scares them +into telling no tales; she bribes the poor slavey of a maid. Any how, +Master Oliver, she manages to give her mother the slip again, gets out +of the house after it is shut up for the night, and runs and meets +the scoundrel at the improperest hours. All is up with the foolish, +wrong-headed lass’s good name then, Master Oliver, I need not go for to +tell you. Mrs. Polley catches her youngest daughter a stealing in at +the airy-door, under cloud of night, and thrusts her out with her own +hand, raging that ’Mily is never to cross her mother’s honest threshold +again. She will have nought more to say to the gal; she may go back to +where she came from. + +‘Them as told me,’ said Sally, after a pause to recover her breath in +her unconscious dramatising of the miserable details, ‘maintained that +Polley did interfere, and try to put in a word for his daughter; but, +in course, his wife would not hear him, and it do stand to reason that +he has been so poor a critter, he has lost all title to be listened +to. The long and the short of it is, the talk was over the whole town +the next morning. The Cobbes took ’Mily in—they could not do less—with +Birt, who had got the gal into trouble, their brother; and ’Mily Polley +is to be married, and go straight off to Lon’on, or Manchester, or +Glasgow—one of them big towns—with her bargain next week. Folk think +Sam Cobbe’s that ashamed, he has forked out the money—though he’s none +so rich, and the coal and potato trade ain’t so flourishing—and has +used all his influence to over-persuade Birt, by threatening to expose +him to his uncle in the Customs, to make the gal the amends of marrying +her against his will—the mean scuff.’ + +‘I am afraid it is a bad business,’ admitted Oliver sadly, compelled +as he was to regard this lingering version, in a lower walk of life, +of the wild, youthful escapades, and the half-brutal parental tyranny +and violence which met the rebellion half way, that were to be found in +every rank, before Christian civilisation did its work, a century and +more ago. Now such evil tales were only possible among the desperately +vicious of the highest, and the desperately ignorant of the lowest, +ranks, or in the gross materialism and incapability of self-restraint +which form the standing reproach and grievous disfigurement, to set +against the many virtues of that large class of smaller shopkeepers—to +raise whom in the scale of humanity Oliver Constable had been willing +to devote his life. + +Oliver went immediately to Friarton to look after his own business. It +did not take him long to despatch what he had to do. He had only to +receive the last report from the not greatly interested foreman. It +was quite what Oliver had expected. He went through it in less than an +hour. It took him no more than ten minutes afterwards to write out, in +the back shop, his announcement of giving up his father’s and his own +baking business—he could not pretend to sell the goodwill of what had +ceased to pay its cost—to be inserted in the next week’s Friarton’s +newspapers. + +Oliver walked along the High Street afterwards, without happening to +meet any save the most casual acquaintances. He passed the Polleys’ +shop door, having a glimpse of Mrs. Polley with the purplish flush on +her face to which she was liable, fixed in her cheeks, and a certain +hard, set turn of the head and jerking activity of movement, as she +served her customers. He knew that she would stand and do her work +there, though the force she put on herself might involve the danger +of her falling behind the counter. But he could not go in then, +or for some time to come—not till the sough of the scandal in the +family had so far died out, and the bitter mortification its head was +experiencing, had partly worn off. Sympathy and condolence were not to +be thought of here. They would be a positive insult. + +But there was nothing to hinder Oliver from repairing to the Dadds’, +forgetful of the coolness between him and Jack, or rather spurred on by +it to the quicker exercise of old friendship. + +Oliver found the shop much as it had been described by Sally Pope, +forsaken by customers, abandoned to the disheartened journeymen and +shop-boys, with the goods either unexposed for sale or lying about +in a state of confusion and disorder, which marked the absence or +indifference of the masters. For both the Dadds had taken pride in +their well-filled, well-kept shop. Friarton was somewhat given to +panics in case of dangerous infectious diseases. The undaunted Sister +who had brought light above the horizon had not stayed long enough to +convert the town to her view of illness. + +Oliver had barely time to enquire for the patient, when old Dadd +hurried out from the back shop and accosted him. It was a relief to +distinguish the voice of an old friend who had come voluntarily into +the shop and was standing quietly leaning against the counter, instead +of fleeing from the place, as if it were a pest-house. It almost +exhilarated the stout-hearted old man, who was keeping up bravely, to +crack one of his old jokes. + +‘Not come back yet a family man, Mr. Oliver? Not wholly without its +advantage—I mean the bachelor state. Mind coming in farther? Bless you! +_don’t_ you mind? It will do Mrs. Dadd a power of good to see a strange +face—as ain’t really strange—quite the contrary, and ain’t the doctor’s +or one of them dratted nurses—which they never keep their time nor do +their dooty properly, as the poor fellow needing them knows to his cost. +His mother can’t watch day and night for weeks, and I’m but a poor +hand at the trade,’ said the father wistfully, ‘though I would give a +deal to take it up off-hand. But, you see, it don’t come natural like +to a man as it do to a woman, and I wasn’t bred to it, in any sort, +being come of a healthy family,’ rambled the linen-draper, staving off +questions, as Oliver suspected, till they were through the back shop, +up the stair and into the vacant, dreary-looking best parlour, with +its torn prescriptions cast heedlessly on the carpet and its tray of +half-empty physic-bottles and slops put down recklessly on the edge +of the table, where guests had been wont to see more substantial fare +carefully deposited. Then old Dadd raised his fist and was about to +bring it down on the table with a bang—which in the very act of being +dealt, was caught up and so much suppressed that it barely caused +the physic-bottles to jingle, because Jack’s bedroom lay no farther +off than the other side of the passage. ‘Yes, sir, my boy Jack is +swimming for his life, they tell me,’ said the poor man, winking his +eyes, knitting his brows hard, and speaking as if Oliver were about to +question the statement. + +The door behind them opened, and the unnaturally pitched voice sank +into silence abruptly, while the late speaker turned eagerly to meet +the new comer. + +Mrs. Dadd had thought Oliver was the doctor, and entered hastily. At +the sudden sight of her son’s contemporary and old companion standing +there in the flush of health and strength, she broke down, for a +moment, more completely than Dadd had done, to his great dismay. For +Mrs. Dadd was a mannerly woman—so far as she understood manners. She +prided herself on being at home with sickness, and she was accustomed +to say, she did not know what a woman was good for, unless it were to +bear up on these occasions when a man was sure to give way. One gain +that was got by her sinking into a chair and covering her face, in +place of greeting Oliver, was that it roused old Dadd to bustle about +in order to quiet her, and to seek to explain the strange state of +matters to Oliver. + +‘Now, don’t take on so, like a good soul; he ain’t worse since morning. +No, I knew it. And don’t you go for to think, Mr. Oliver, it’s any ill +feeling to you that’s sticking in the Missuss’s throat. Nothing of the +kind, sir. Why, that was all out of head with poor Jack himself—who was +never a chap to bear malice, months ago. He said to me only the other +day when this illness was coming on him; “I can’t tell what ails me, +father; it ain’t my head, or my back, or my legs in petickler—only I +feel seedy all over. I ain’t fit for the shop, and I’m still less fit +for a field-day”—you see the autumn manoeuvres was coming on—“if it had +been a year or two back, I might have gone out to Friarton Mill and had +a quiet afternoon with Constable, and tried what that would have done +for me. Yes,” he said, “I remember there was bad blood between us; but +I’m not so cock sure as I have been, that I had the best of it. Anyhow, +Constable was the right sort to go to, at a pinch. You could look to be +borne with, and set on your feet again when you felt you had not a leg +left to stand on, as it is my bad luck to do to-day.”’ + +‘That was very good of Jack,’ said Oliver warmly. ‘Then you’ll let me +sit up with him tonight, since he’ll not mind; perhaps he’ll rather +like it. I don’t mean to boast of my qualifications as a nurse; but I +think you and Mrs. Dadd may trust me to see to the doctor’s orders.’ + +‘I should think so, Mr. Oliver,’ said Dadd with emphasis. ‘You are +kind, and we are much indebted to you, as we’ll tell you better some +day, please God. Others has offered, but none so hearty, or whom we +could put such faith in,’ old Dadd astonished Oliver by saying. ‘And as +to Jack’s minding or liking, bless you! he don’t know his own mother +from a stranger, and hasn’t these three days back.’ + +‘It’s that as has made me useless, Mr. Oliver,’ said Mrs. Dadd, sitting +up and apologising feebly; ‘so that I haven’t even had the grace to +thank you for your offer.’ + +‘Never mind thanks,’ said Oliver. ‘Did my father go out of his way to +thank you when you stayed at Friarton Mill and brought his little girl +through her fever?’ + +‘Ah, that was different; that was all in a woman’s way for a motherless +little thing, and I ran no risk, having had the scarlet fever myself +when I was a child. I wish I had been with her at the last, poor soul! +When her trouble came upon her, in a strange place, and none as she +knew, save men to look after her, I reckon she would have cared then to +see the face of an old acquaintance, as was a woman like herself and +knew her needs. But the Lord will protect you, Mr. Oliver, as He may +have raised you up, and sent you home, at this time, to save my dear +Jack. May be it is the greatest mark of respect I could show you or any +man, after all, to think of leaving my own lad in your care.’ + +Oliver did not know about having been raised up and sent home to +save Jack Dadd, but he said ‘Surely,’ with fervour to Mrs. Dadd’s +passionate amendment on her formal thanks. + +So Oliver was regularly installed, with the doctor’s consent, +night-nurse to Jack Dadd; and in place of calling at the Meadows, he +went out of the way to avoid the house and any chance of encountering +Mrs. Hilliard or her cousin, as he passed backwards and forwards +between the rooms above the shop in the High Street, Friarton, and +Friarton Mill for a considerable number of mornings and evenings. Such +fellow-townsmen as he met contented themselves with looking curiously +after him, whether they stopped him to enquire for the sick man, +or whether they crossed the street to shun the lightest breath of +infection. An odd fish, Oliver Constable, not without feeling—strange +to say—in his queer composition. + + + + + CHAPTER XXX. + + STUMBLED ACROSS—INTERVIEWED—TAKEN AT HIS WORD. + + +One night, before it was late, as Oliver was stooping over Jack, trying +to ascertain whether he were really muttering irrelevantly, + + ‘There’s Ruby, and Rover, and Ranter, too,’ + +or asking for something the sufferer wanted, a man’s figure in +professional black, which was yet not the doctor’s, appeared on the +opposite side of the bed. Oliver looked up—it was Mr. Holland, the +Dadds’ and Oliver’s minister. He had not been there before—partly +because he had been away on sick leave, partly because he had returned, +only half recruited, after the anxiously economised weeks at the +sea-side with his family—difficult for the poor minister to afford in +more ways than one. And his wife had so implored him not to put his +shaken health and strength, not fairly reestablished, to the severe +test of a fever-laden atmosphere, that he had yielded reluctantly, +and kept away from the unconscious Jack and his burdened father and +mother, till Mr. Holland could do so no longer. Come what might of it, +though it should cost him his own life, and his wife should be left +a widow and his children fatherless, the pastor must be at his post; +and when he went to it, he found the rebel of his congregation hanging +over the sick man—indifferent to inhaling the tainted vapours at the +fountain-head. + +Mr. Holland coloured high and hesitated. + +Oliver looked up and spoke without the slightest difficulty, rather +with a roughish freedom, born of the necessity of the moment. + +‘Hallo, sir! are you there? Look here, Holland; from the colour of your +coat, you have seen more sickness than I. Can you feel a pulse? Can you +pronounce on the state of a tongue? You come as a stranger, you can +tell how Jack strikes you. What do you think of his chance?’ + +Mr. Holland stepped forward and did as he was required. Oliver and he +consulted together and watched and nursed Jack, without a thought of +anybody besides, for some hours. Then, after the clergyman had taken up +his hat to go, he hesitated once more, put it down again, and touched +Oliver’s arm with a hand that shook slightly. + +‘Brother,’ said Mr. Holland solemnly, in phraseology adopted both by +Papists and Puritans in exceptional circumstances and seasons of strong +feeling, ‘have you any objection to joining with me in prayer, and +offering up an intercession for our sick brother?’ + +‘None in the world,’ replied Oliver promptly. And the two men prayed +aloud by the voice of the one, for Jack Dadd. + +The next Sunday, Mr. Holland preached a sermon, which slightly +bewildered his hearers, on the text, ‘Not they who say “Lord, Lord,” +but they who do the will of my Father.’ + +The early October mornings were getting always darker—with a darkness +which partook of white haze as well as dank wet, dimmer, chiller, when +Oliver—buttoning up his great coat, as he came out of the Dadds’ house +into the street, where last night’s lamps were still burning, and which +had not yet woke up for the day, since not even an early milkman had +put in an appearance—was startled by a woman in a bonnet and veil, +hugging a shawl round her, coming out upon him from the nearest alley, +and accosting him in a gasping, constrained voice. + +‘Please, sir, can you tell me how Mr.—how Mr. Jack Dadd is going on +this morning?’ enquired the speaker, with little pants between the +broken utterances of the words. + +In place of answering the question, Oliver exclaimed in amazement, +‘Miss ’Liza Polley! What are you doing here at this hour of the +morning?’ + +‘Oh, Mr. Oliver, don’t betray me!’ cried poor ’Liza, in her natural +voice, though it was quivering with distress and terror. ‘I thought you +would not know me. But never mind that just now; tell me quick, how is +Jack? Oh! will he die, Mr. Oliver? Will Jack die?’ + +‘I hope not,’ said Oliver gently; ‘he’s no worse, and every hour gained +is in his favour. But this is not a time for you to be out. It was not +six when Mrs. Dadd took my seat. Let me see you home, Miss ’Liza, at +once.’ + +‘Oh! no, no, Mr. Oliver,’ refused ’Liza, in a fresh paroxysm of alarm +and trouble. Mother would be fit to kill me outright, if I came in +with a man—with a gentleman, at this hour of the morning—though it is +morning—not night,’ pleaded ’Liza piteously; ‘and old Betty Miles has +come to wash, and had the door opened for her’—taking further refuge +in the business of the day’s having really begun—‘or else I should not +have dared to get up, and slip out at all. Oh dear! You do not know +how hard mother has grown, how hard everything is, since poor ’Mily +went wrong,’ protested ’Liza, weeping, not violently, but in a crushed +manner. ‘It is so dull you cannot think! We dare not lift up our heads +from our work, or make a joke, or speak of running out to pay a single +call. Mother says we are all as bad as ’Mily, and have no sense or +feeling. She is ashamed of us. No respectable people will wish us to +darken their doors, or dream of returning our visits. But oh! it would +be nothing, Mr. Oliver,’ broke off ’Liza, returning to the dominant +cause of her misery, ‘if Jack Dadd were only a little better. Mother +may do or say what she chooses,’ continued the girl, writhing like any +other worm trodden on, and turning on its oppressor, ‘I must and will +hear how Jack is, or I shall go mad. Mother may serve me as she served +’Mily. I don’t care, there! Anybody may hear me, and go and tell mother +that likes.’ + +‘Jack is highly honoured,’ said Oliver, at a loss for any other +observation. ‘But now, don’t you think, since he is no worse, and will +soon, I trust, be a great deal better, it would be as well for you to +take care of yourself, and do what your mother wishes you, for his +sake, as well as hers, Miss ’Liza?’ + +‘Oh! hush, hush! Don’t say my name, in case anybody hear you,’ ’Liza +objected with the greatest inconsistency. ‘You are a kind chap—that is, +you are very good; but I did not mean you or anybody to see or know me. +I thought you would not penetrate my disguise,’ said ’Liza with solemn +simplicity. + +‘I was too clever,’ said Oliver, tempted to laugh. + +‘But you will not think ill of me?’ besought ’Liza—sinking again, in +a moment, from the part of the heroine of romance she had formerly +longed to play, which, even this morning, she had found some faint +compensation in trying to support, for Jack was not dead, only very +ill—into the affronted, unhappy, childish young woman. ‘You will not +tell upon me? You see Jack Dadd and I have known each other all our +days, and sometimes—well, he has looked and said things—though he was +not always kind. He was fair angry because I let you talk to me first +when you came back,’ explained ’Liza, with a little hysterical giggle. +‘I am sure, Mr. Oliver, we two said nothing which all the world might +not have heard, and Jack had given himself no right to interfere with +me for speaking to anybody. Now mother says nobody will ever care +to come near us again, after the disgrace ’Mily has brought upon the +family.’ ’Liza began to droop afresh, and to cry without the most +distant admixture of small triumphant laughter. ‘It would be very hard +and cruel, if it were true, for how could we—Ann and I, help it? Mother +was always putting ’Mily before us,’ complained ’Liza resentfully, +‘and Jack and ’Mily would carry on together, just to plague me, I +believe. Oh dear! what am I doing?’—stopping short and wringing her +hands—‘Blaming Jack when he may be dying or dead for aught I know; and +I may never see or speak to him again in my life. But I should not mind +that, if God would only let Jack live and get well and be happy, though +it were all away from me. Oh! Mr. Oliver, will he live? Will Jack live?’ + +The poor delicate girl was quite spent and shaken. She was forced to +let Oliver—who was not without some apprehension of arousing the blind +fury of Mrs. Polley—give her his arm within sight of her mother’s door. + +‘So that was the way of it?’ Oliver said to himself softly, as he +walked away. ‘Poor thing! poor old Jack—who can hardly move a finger at +this moment! And I came between them and made mischief, did I? without +the faintest suspicion, in my stupid bungling? But, let us be thankful, +it may not be too Late to set this right if the beggar will only +recover.’ + +Oliver was coming in to Jack, not going from him, when the gas-lights +in the streets of Friarton looked white and bright and encouraging +as they look with the night setting in—not yellow and faded and +dispiriting, after a career of unwarrantable dissipation, according to +their faithless discomfiting habit with the first streak of dawn. + +There were still many people about, largely the promenaders, shoppers, +and callers belonging to the classes to which day brings work and +evening recreation, with the recreation consisting mainly of what is +best expressed by the old-fashioned word ‘gadding’—going abroad and +foraging for some little excitement in the way of gossip or otherwise. +This was the season when the Polley girls had been wont to disport +themselves among their acquaintances, till the striking of a clock sent +them scampering and scuttling home, like Cinderella minus her glass +slipper. + +And sure enough ’Mily Polley came forward in her conspicuous hat and +outrageous skirt, bustling along as if all the business of Friarton +were left for her to do, and meeting Oliver Constable in the face. + +At the first glance she appeared perfectly unabashed. The only +difference in her was that to the girlish pertness and boldness there +was added a touch of the hard brazenness which defies such a position +as hers. She was alone—she espied Oliver at once. Her sharp eyes had +never been known to miss man or woman, and now—far from being cast +down, they were roving on all sides, challenging every passer-by. +There was the complete contrast between ’Liza and ’Mily Polley which +is generally to be found between the sinned against and the sinner. +’Mily attempted no foolish disguise. She was not seeking to escape from +Oliver’s recognition. She darted up to him, hailing him loudly—‘Mr. +Oliver Constable, it is a treat to see you now-a-days.’ + +Oliver stopped and spoke to ’Mily. She made no enquiry for Jack Dadd, +or the most distant allusion to Oliver’s recent loss. On the contrary, +in full view of his mourning, she referred to the changes which had +occurred lately, with boisterous gaiety. ‘And there are more and +greater changes coming, I can tell you, Mr. Oliver,’ said ’Mily, in her +glibest manner. ‘I am turning my back on this dull hole, I’m glad to +say. I am to be married next Thursday; the day is so near that I need +not make a mystery of it. I dare say you have heard, though you have +not wished me joy yet. If you were quicker about it, I might give you +an invitation to my wedding.’ + +‘Do,’ said Oliver, on the impulse of the moment; ‘and I’ll be happy to +come in the character of an old friend.’ + +‘Will you?’ asked ’Mily, quickly and doubtfully. ‘Will you, indeed, Mr. +Oliver? Do you mean what you say?’ + +‘Yes, of course.’ + +‘That will be awfully good of you. I’ll be as proud as a peacock; +no’—with a sudden flush—‘not that, but very much obliged and thankful +to show his friends that all the people I ever knew have not turned +their backs upon me.’ She finished with bitterness, still her voice +and face betrayed some shame and regret. ‘Would you mind walking and +talking with me a bit, Mr. Oliver?’ she asked almost gently. ‘We’ll +turn down into Jervis’s yard, where there is nobody working at this +hour. I should like to speak out to you this once. It is not late, and +though it were, there’s nobody to hinder me from stopping out till +after ten, now. But, oh! Mr. Oliver’—breaking out passionately—‘it +was mother herself put the finishing touch to my folly. I had been +wild and flown in her face, and disobeyed her, but I was not bad, +when she turned me from my father’s door, and locked it in my face. +She has herself to thank for what came of it,—no, no, I don’t mean +that’—cried ’Mily, calling herself back with an accent of terror in +her despair—‘What is it the Bible says about them as curses father and +mother? And it is only them as honours father and mother that lives +long; so that any way I’m booked to die young like Jack Dadd and Fan—I +beg your pardon, Mr. Oliver—Mrs. Harry Stanhope. Well, I’ve got an +inkling there are worse fates going. But it was heartless and ill-done +of me,’ confessed poor ’Mily, with something like real contrition in +the tears which welled up into her round eyes,—‘to come forward and +look in your face, and at the band round your hat, and begin with my +idle nonsense—only it’s such sore nonsense now-a-days—you can’t guess, +Mr. Oliver. Did you ever think it would come to this—that my banns +should be put up here, in Friarton, and my marriage day next week, yet +neither mother, nor ’Liza, nor any of them, should care to come near +me? That they should not be able to tell what I’m to wear, or seek to +bid me good-bye before I go?’ + +‘It will be better when you are gone,’ said Oliver. ‘Forgiveness and +forgetfulness will come in time. You will try to do your best, ’Mily, +God helping you, in the future, and when you come back——’ + +‘I’ll never come back, never,’ said ’Mily, with strong conviction. +‘I’ll never show my face here again, though I’ve sought to look as if +I did not care that I had met the disgrace, I deserved, I suppose. But +you’ll come to my marriage, Mr. Oliver,’ pleaded ’Mily, ‘and wish me +the best that can happen to me, now? Birt will be pleased, because of +your college breeding and connections, and will think more of me since +a gentleman like you does not hold it beneath him to stand by me. And +you will tell them at home some day, Mr. Oliver, what I wore—you’ll +take a good stare at my bonnet and gown for the purpose—and how I +looked, and that I had taken care, as far as I could, out of the little +bit of money my aunt ’Mily, as was also my godmother, left me, that +everything about the marriage should be as slap-bang as the Cobbes +could manage it? No doubt mother’s daughter, considering what mother +has made of the shop, and what her bank-book comes to, might have been +entitled to a great deal more. I know I used to fancy I might be +married in a white satin and go off in a carriage and pair at least,’ +replied ’Mily, half-proudly, half ruefully; ‘still you’ll see there +will be nothing in the way the marriage is gone about, to affront +mother and the rest—though none of them has come to look after my +credit and theirs,’ ended ’Mily, with a considerable flavour of the old +woman lingering about her still. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI. + + LIFE—AND DEATH. + + +Jack Dadd was more like a girl than ever—more like even than the +puniest of pink and white complexioned lads—with whom to associate the +idea of a bold, rude, fox-hunter or a slashing soldier, or a reckless +buccaneer, as they had been represented in Jack’s favourite songs, +would have been the height of absurdity, pathetic in the very wildness +of the imagination. + +He was wasted and worn to skin and bone, and faded to the colour of +blanched wax, lying with his eyes shut, though he was not sleeping. Yet +Jack was considered to have got the turn, to be in a fair, though still +a precarious, way of recovery. Oliver had not altogether resigned his +functions; he was with Jack this night again, sitting reading at a +little distance from the bed, when he was startled by hearing a piping +voice address him, and looking round, he saw Jack’s eyes wide open, +with reason in their glance, fixed upon him. It was a critical moment, +for between delirium and sheer feebleness, Jack had not before shown +any consciousness of Oliver’s identity. + +‘Noll,’ said Jack, ‘don’t you remember how I won your taws that time?’ +referring to a famous, far-off, game of marbles in the Friarton +playground. + +Oliver was immensely relieved. ‘Yes, Jack, you beat me to sticks,’ he +admitted candidly, while Jack emitted the ghost of a chuckle at the +recollection of his old victory. + +But Jack’s next speech was not so reassuring. ‘Constable,’ said Jack, +‘I’ve often been guilty of rank impudence to you.’ + +‘Gammon!’ said Oliver; ‘shut up for the rest of the night, old boy; let +me turn you round, and do you try and get another sleep, which will set +you on your pins again in no time, and let me finish my book.’ + +But Jack’s hour for conversation had come, and he would not be +silenced. ‘I say, Constable, I hope I may get over this bout, and +be let off this time, to live and make up for some things I’ve done +unlike—unlike a gentleman.’ + +Heaven help the lad! who was too shy in the middle of his forwardness +to say a Christian, the young counter-jumper who had his own standard +for a man and a gentleman. + +‘You may live to behave like a prince, Jack, if you’ll only be careful +and not exhaust yourself. Here; swallow this stuff, and snooze away.’ + +But Jack was at his confessions again, more briskly than before, +the moment he had taken the stimulant. ‘I wonder if anybody but the +poor old guv’nor, and the mother, and perhaps a good fellow like +you, Constable, would care whether I hopped the twig or not? I don’t +deserve it from some people. There’s ’Liza—’Liza Polley—’Liza might +not have always known her own mind, or rather, her friends went in and +bamboozled her, and put a lot of nonsense into her head, but I was not +quite fair to ’Liza. I came down hard upon her, when, as it turned out, +you were not going after her, and when, if you will believe me,’ said +Jack, with emphasis, succeeding in raising himself on his elbow, ‘she +never cared a rap for you, it was me she cared for all the time—poor +’Liza!’ ended Jack, falling back with a sigh. + +The delicious _naïveté_ of the assertion pleased Oliver greatly, while +he hastened to give it a handsome corroboration. ‘I am profoundly +convinced of the truth of what you say, Jack; and if it would not bring +on a fresh attack of fever, I might generously tell you in return that +Miss ’Liza Polley met me at break of day the other morning, daring the +wrath of her mother, just to hear the last news of your health.’ + +‘Did she, though?’ exclaimed Jack, with his poor face brightening into +a dim glow of satisfaction; ‘and ’Liza is as frightened as a hare while +her mother has been like a she-bear that has been robbed of her whelps, +since she sent ’Mily up the spout.’ There was a little pause. Oliver +hoped Jack was dropping off to sleep. ‘I’ll not forget it of ’Liza +Polley,’ Jack spoke again, with drowsy, lordly magnanimity; ‘it was +the best errand she ever ran on. I’ll act on the square to her—on the +square all round, please God. And as for Mrs. Polley, won’t the guv’nor +make her squeak to a different tune, when he calls to pop the question +to the mother for me?’ + +Yes, Jack was going to recover, to be a man instead of a boy—a good +man ‘please God,’ as he had said simply. And it would please the Father +of Lights, the source and the reward of all goodness. + +Death and desolation were distanced for once. The strange, sad sights, +sounds, and memories which the King of Terrors, even though his sceptre +has been wrested from his grasp, still brings with him, and leaves +behind him wherever his ‘pale feet’ pass, would be changed for the +cheery, sweet, common tokens of returning health and life: the fresh, +open air, everyday work, the familiar faces of friends no longer +anxious or averted. + +Oliver felt it like a great boon to himself. He went to ’Mily Polley’s +marriage with much better spirit and hope, since there was no longer +the least probability of his having to attend Jack Dadd’s funeral. + +Oliver represented ’Mily’s circle, though Sam Cobbe gave her away. An +old friend lent her his countenance when she needed it. For she was +conscience-stricken and shame-smitten through all her defiance. She was +really smarting keenly under the abandonment of her kindred. She was +awaking silently—and when had ’Mily ever been silent before?—and sadly, +already, even before he had made her his wife, to the utter poverty and +short-lived nature of the passion which had existed between her and the +man for whom she had—not generously but wilfully, sacrificed all that +women hold dear. For this reason she was susceptible to the compliment +of Oliver’s presence even more than to the show of her gaudy blue silk +gown and desperately smart bonnet and veil. She thanked him with an +earnestness which struck Oliver in ’Mily, and which he considered far +out of proportion to the cause of the thanks, in the last words she +said to him. She went with her husband straight from the church to the +railway-station, as the Cobbes could not be expected to furnish the +shabbiest version of a wedding-breakfast, and left immediately for +Manchester. There was no trace of the couple when Oliver followed them +to the station in the course of a quarter of an hour, intending to take +a short journey on his own affairs. + +Oliver Constable had his foot on a carriage step when the +station-master hurried up, white and scared-looking, struggling to +maintain his composure. He whispered to Oliver, ‘There’s been an +accident to the 11.30 train north, close to Medlar Bridge. I’ve just +had word. There’s folk hurt. All that can help is wanted immediately; +but there’s no use driving the town wild, and bringing out a pack of +useless, frantic people as long as it can be prevented. Would you mind, +sir, coming with me and the nearest doctor and the surface-men?’ + +‘All right,’ consented Oliver, in reference to what was evidently all +wrong. He, too, was agitated by the suddenness and shock of the message. + +It was not till the little party had started and aroused the suspicion +of a few idlers, though another quarter of an hour would pass before +the vague alarm took shape, spread abroad and thrilled the town, that +Oliver recollected the 11.30 train north was the very train by which +the newly-married pair were to travel. He told himself the next moment +that amongst the hundreds in the train there was little likelihood that +the Birts should be the particular victims. + +The place where the last portion of the train had run off the line, +with the usual amount of overthrow and wreck, lay about midway +between Friarton and the next station, from which assistance had +already come, before the Friarton station-master and his band of +helpers arrived. Oliver saw only the _débris_ of broken carriages +and a throng of excited but uninjured people, when he leapt from the +engine, on reaching his destination. ‘Not so bad as had been feared +from the earliest report,’ Oliver heard proclaimed by various voices +immediately. Two of the smashed carriages were found to have been +empty. Only one carriage and the guard’s van were occupied. A woman had +been killed, and five or six persons more or less hurt.’ + +Oliver Constable passed through the eager speakers, looking on every +side for the Birts, half expecting to find ’Mily in hysterics if she +had happened to be in a carriage near those which had broken loose, and +if she had seen anything of the accident. + +Before he was aware he found himself close to the waiting-room into +which the sufferers had been carried. A railway servant at the door, +taking it for granted that Oliver was seeking for the room and had a +right to enter, beckoned him in before he could think where he was +going, among the doctors and their patients—fainting or groaning, while +pulses were felt, heads bandaged, and limbs set. + +Oliver prepared to retreat, but first he cast a quick glance round. +Stay! Was not that Birt in the soiled, jaunty new clothes for which +’Mily had paid, out of her little bit of money? + +The man did not look much the worse, in spite of the outcry he was +making over what a doctor was coolly pooh-poohing as a trifle of a +broken collar-bone. + +But where was ’Mily? + +In another moment Oliver learnt the incredible fact that Birt did not +know. The bridegroom had been smoking with the guard in the van when +the accident happened, and ever since then—speaking from Birt’s point +of view—he had been in far too bad a way to enquire after anybody. But +no doubt she was somewhere outside, gaping and screeching with the +rest of the women. She ought to be looked up at once—Birt grumbled +crossly, taking the first word of scolding—to see if she could not make +a beginning in minding her duty, and trying to do something for him +when he was in mortal agony and as sick as a dog. + +Oliver, with his heart standing still, took one step towards the door +of another room which was kept closed. An elderly woman turned the key +in the lock and let him go in. Alas! yes; there lay all that was mortal +of ’Mily, the poor mangled body decently composed, covered over and +put away from fascinated, appalled gaze, or rude, gloating scrutiny—in +the very dress she had so often pictured herself as wearing, that she +had bidden Oliver notice particularly, which she had, not three hours +before, gone to church in. The chubby face was little altered, except +for the closed eyes, since it had been spared, while death must have +proved instantaneous. With no friend by her side, not missed, though +she was in her bridal glory, till Oliver sought her out, the disastrous +end of ’Mily’s foolish young life had indeed come swiftly. + +In the grief and oppression with which Oliver set about making the +necessary arrangements, he could yet believe that, as ’Mily had said of +Fan’s fate, so her own might have been more miserable still. + +It was a wise choice made by the warrior and poet king—rather to fall +into God’s than into man’s hands. To die in an instant, though it were +on her marriage morning, in her bridal finery, when her heart was +softened in the act of quitting Friarton, thinking as she thought in +all probability—with regretful tenderness of her mother and family, and +repenting of her misconduct, while, at the same time, all faith and +hope in her husband had not been crushed out of her, was surely better +than to live on at the mercy of a man like Birt, to be dragged down by +him into lower and lower depths, to risk becoming at last as heartless +and worthless as himself. + +Oliver had a worse ordeal to face before night than that of seeking out +’Mily on her marriage day, as the woman killed in the railway accident. + +Mrs. Polley sent over an express to Friarton Mill to bid Mr. Constable +come into the town and speak to her. In other circumstances it would +have been an exacting, unreasonable demand; as it was Oliver, like any +man with a true man’s heart, obeyed it as he would have obeyed the +behest of the Queen. + +He found the Polleys’ shop with the shutters up in the middle of the +afternoon, for the first time in his recollection. Mrs. Polley was +not in the back shop; she was in her daughters’ room, to which she +had gone, with rapid unsteady feet, the moment a rash or stolid +customer had pushed forward to the counter, and, in place of giving +an order, had told the tragedy in all its raw anguish and frightful +force, without waiting to weigh words, or to secure the presence of +some solemnly commissioned, skilled, and pitying comforter. The mother +was sitting by the side of the bed in which ’Mily had been wont to +sleep. Mrs. Polley’s hard-working hand was mechanically smoothing down +the crochet quilt, which had been one of the few feats of industry +accomplished by the joint efforts of the sisters while they were still +at school, and in which ’Mily, though the youngest, had played the +foremost part. The first married of the three workers was to have +carried off the quilt, but the bargain had not been kept in spite of +’Mily’s double title to the prize. + +The heavy flush had not grown lighter on Mrs. Polley’s cheeks. She +continued dry-eyed and silent, while all the eyes around her were dim, +and the faces swollen with crying, and as Oliver—the last person there +who had seen and spoken with ’Mily—entered the room, a fresh burst of +lamentation broke from her sisters, even her father groaned aloud, and +bowed his face over his shaking hands. + +Oliver took Mrs. Polley’s hand reverently. ‘I am very sorry,’ he +muttered. ‘She could not have suffered. She is in better hands even +than in those of the friends who loved her best. I have done all that +was required.’ + +‘Mr. Oliver,’ said Mrs. Polley, in a loud, harsh voice which startled +everybody, ‘I have sent for you in case I should not live another +night. How do I know when them as I’ve seen full of youth and life and +gladness is took in the twinkling of an eye? I want to thank you before +I die, and I may never have another chance. Yes, I know all you have +done for my ’Mily this day. You have stood beside her—both as a bride +and as a corpse. When every friend she had gave my gal up, and left her +to be despised and trodden upon, when the mother as bore and had turned +her adrift, that so her folly might grow into sin, showed no mercy, you +came to her and let her feel she had one friend left on earth, so that +she might be able to believe that she had still a Father and Saviour +in heaven. You have ordered her coffin and undertook, if necessary, to +pay for it, and are ready to see all that the cruel, grinding, tearing +wheels left of her, laid in it, and to help to carry her yourself to +the churchyard. Mr. Oliver, my thanks ain’t worth much; for aught that +I know, they may be no better than ill wishes and curses, since I was +the unnatural mother as shut ’Mily out into the street, where she had +no refuge, save the base villain that had decoyed her from her mother’s +roof. Hold your tongue, Polley, and you gals, and you, sir, though you +were thrice my pastor,’ addressing Mr. Holland, as he came softly and +sorrowfully into the room. She resisted fiercely all attempts of her +frightened husband and children and the other awed bystanders to stay +her wild self-accusation. ‘I will speak out. I’ve sung my own praises +and been my own trumpeter many’s the time. I’ll publish likewise my +barbarous cruelty. It was I as denounced my own daughter and condemned +her to destruction and an early grave. So what would it serve you, Mr. +Oliver, though you were to let me go down on my knees and bless you, +because you had more pity on my ’Mily—my bright, clever ’Mily, that is +now as cold and still as a clod of the walley, than her wicked mother +had on her poor, thoughtless child?’ + +‘You loved her better than yourself, all the time you blamed her most,’ +Oliver told the miserable woman. ‘It was your very love for her, and +pride in her, which made you hard. She knew that then; she knows it +better now.’ + +Something in the words spoken almost at random, opened the closed +floodgate of tears which quenched the frenzy blazing into a devouring +flame, and saved the stout heart from breaking. ‘Yes, I were fond +and proud of my ’Mily, with good reason,’ protested Mrs. Polley more +softly, though the softness was expressed by the deep sobs which rent +her breast, and the torrents of tears that gushed from her eyes. ‘There +was none of the other gals fit to hold a candle to her. She were that +smart, my little ’Mily, she could run and speak by the time she was +eighteen months. I’ve seen her a sitting up rosy and full of roguery, +playing with the pillows in this here bed, when other children would +have been lying like so many little logses. Her fingers and her tongue +alike were that clever! She had finished her piece and begun another of +this very bed quilt long before Ann or ’Liza had got half through with +either of theirs—and her the youngest and only in her first quarter at +the school. “I’ll make them stand about, mother, she would say to me,” +with one of her merry laughs; “and I’ll wager I’ll be married first, as +well as first done with my bit of the crochet, and get the quilt all to +myself.” So she has been married first, and she has died first, leaving +me and her father behind, as ought by rights to have gone long before +her. Oh! ’Mily, ’Mily, if I could but have died for you!’ + +Poor young ’Mily Polley’s death on her marriage morning caused a great +revulsion in the feelings which had been entertained towards her in +her native town. Her awful fate wiped out, in human eyes, the sum of +her transgressions. Her death was regarded—not so much in the light +of retribution as of atonement. A tender veil of commiseration and +charity was drawn over her offences till they were in a fair way to +be forgotten as well as forgiven. Her memory was likely to survive in +Friarton and appeal to all gentle, romantic hearts for generations to +come—not as that of the erring girl, but as that of the newly-made wife +who perished in the first hours of her wifehood. + +’Mily’s intimate associates were forced to acknowledge remorsefully the +little allowance they had made for her temptations, and the unanimity +with which they had forsaken her in her humiliation. + +Even some of the townspeople who had only noticed and inveighed against +the girl as an exceedingly vulgar, pert, giddy creature, experienced an +uncomfortable conviction that her opportunities of learning to become +more civilised, modest, and steady had been limited, and, such as +they were, might have been a good deal counteracted by the old feuds +and jealousies between classes. At the same time the blithe ring of +her voice as it had floated accidentally to them, the light fall of +her footstep when she had passed them, lingered in the ears of these +judges, and smote them with the realisation of how young this ’Mily +Polley must have been, when her detractors had not thought it beneath +their superior age, rank, and refinement, to enlarge on her sins +against good taste. ’Mily had her revenge in this fact, that whereas +she and her set had been heartily despised, sharply ridiculed, and +religiously shunned by those more gently bred ladies of Friarton, who +held it as a pious duty to work for, bear with, instruct and assist the +laziest and most reckless of the poor in the town, very few could now +afford to scorn ’Mily. All except the smallest and grossest minds saw +that the solemnity of death, even without its tragedy—as in ’Mily’s +piteous case—invested the girl with a simple dignity in her grave. But +it was a pity that not more men and women had possessed the larger, +gentler eyes to recognise that the sacredness of life had also bestowed +on her worth and importance—even while she still bounced about her +mother’s shop, and flounced along the streets. + +Remorse, in its slightest manifestation of doubt and discontent with +one’s self, is not an agreeable sensation, therefore the townspeople of +Friarton, who, like the rest of the world, greatly preferred to feel at +ease in their own minds, if not gently titillated with a consciousness +of having done their best in the matters of justice and mercy, began +to look around them in order to discover any loophole of escape from +the painful impression that they had been hard and contemptuous to +’Mily Polley and perhaps hounded her on—for girls are sensitive as well +as perverse—to her undoing. They were remarkably successful in their +search. For one man had, as it were, redeemed the humane character of +Friarton. Oliver Constable had paid respect to the girl from the first, +and shown her mercy to the last. He had acted as the representative +of her neighbours, and so removed, in a great measure, the lurking +self-reproach from their consciences. And it was the same Oliver who +had gone in for nursing old Dadd’s son, and pulled him through his +fever. + +It did seem as if Oliver Constable had come home from watching by his +sister’s death-bed to save the life of Jack Dadd and to speak a parting +word of forgiveness and God-speed to ’Mily Polley, so as to deliver +the whole town from the charge of selfish cowardice and intolerant +persecution. If so, what sort of man could he really be who had +received such a commission and given himself to its fulfilment? + +The reaction which had set in for poor ’Mily extended to Oliver. +His fellow-townsmen commenced to conceive an altogether different +impression of him, to exalt and make much of him, to canonise him—not +merely before a hundred years had elapsed, but in his very lifetime. +This experience is comparatively rare, still it happens sometimes that +just as men’s sins occasionally go before them to judgment, so men’s +patient continuance in well-doing is observed and awakens a response in +their brethren before death has set its seal to virtue. + +In the meantime Oliver was perfectly unaware of the sudden revolution +in the sentiments of the town towards him, so that in place of being +unpopular and lightly esteemed—not to say grossly slandered—he had +sprung at once to the height of popularity and general respect, among +those who were not particularly ashamed of thus turning their coats, +after they had so recently decried and abused their champion and hero. + +The only thing which struck Oliver as he walked along the streets of +Friarton, in the drizzle and mud of November, was, that in spite of +the season and the weather, he was constantly meeting friends and +acquaintances, and that not merely everybody had something to say to +him, but that all men and women were in the best humour, overflowing +with geniality, as if they were reflecting June sunshine rather than +November fog. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII. + + ‘DO THEY BELIEVE IN ME NOW?’ + + +Oliver Constable’s announcement that he was retiring from the baking +business had appeared three times in the Friarton weekly newspapers. +The first time it was received with scoffs and sneers, the next it +was met by a troubled silence, the last time it was anticipated by an +urgent protest, though Oliver did not happen to be within hearing. The +earliest result of his advertisement—so far as Oliver knew—came in the +shape of a formal call in the back shop from Jim Hull. + +Jim had never entered the premises since he and his nephew ’Arry +set up a rival business. Oliver made no question that Jim came now +with some proposal from the flourishing firm of which he was one of +the representatives, while he indulged in an austere satisfaction at +the realisation of his own prophecies of the certain consequences of +Oliver’s new-fangled, hair-splitting scruples and crotchets. Anyway, +Oliver thought, Jim Hull might have saved himself the trouble. It was +execrable taste in him to come and crow at all, in the circumstances. + +‘_Et tu Brute!_’ Oliver said in spirit to his father’s old friend and +servant, who arrived to speak to Oliver of his acknowledged failure, +and to suggest Jim’s nephew’s further rise on Oliver Constable’s +downfall. + +Neither did Jim seem to prosper on his heartlessness and +vindictiveness. He looked much older and greyer, and his fine, +well-cut face was all creased over with the wrinkles which had been +just perceptible, here and there, two or three years before. The face +had always looked compact, but now it had a contracted appearance, as +if Jim had got into a habit of setting his few teeth and drawing his +grizzled brows together, by the hour. + +‘Master Oliver,’ said Jim hesitatingly, ‘will you not think twice of +this resolution?’ + +‘I have no intention, Jim,’ said Oliver shortly, as he drummed on the +table before him; and then, scorning to make use of a subterfuge, he +added, ‘It is not in my power.’ + +‘Not though I bring you the earliest information that my nephew ’Arry +is also giving up, leastways selling his business here?’ said Jim, +leaning halfway across the table in his earnestness. ‘He has got word +of a famous opening in London, which is a field as will suit him +better,’ said Jim, in a lower tone, sinking back in his chair. + +Oliver was taken by surprise. He could only say it would be odd if +Friarton were left without bakers, except the small fry. But there +could be no difficulty in finding a purchaser and successor to such +a _thriving_ business as Jim and his nephew had established. Were +there no other nephews of Jim’s?—Oliver remembered a whole family of +sons, cousins of Harry’s—to take the place of the ambitious fellow who +thought Friarton beneath his further attentions, and would, no doubt, +die Lord Mayor of London? Oliver had—he could not have told why, unless +in the underlying sense of bitterness produced by the contrast with his +own experience—put an emphasis on the epithet ‘thriving’ which he had +applied to Jim and his nephew’s business. + +The stress on the word caused Jim to wince. A dull, faded red suffused +the old servant’s withered face, and caused positive pain to the +quondam master. What right had Oliver to taunt Jim with his success? +Was not the old man at liberty to make his methods, in which he saw no +harm, succeed to the utmost of his power? + +While Oliver took himself to task, Jim was informing him, +ceremoniously, that the only nephew he had in the baking trade, besides +’Arry, had gone to Australia, ‘and well for him,’ muttered the speaker. +‘But I was thinking, Master Oliver,’ resumed Jim, wistfully, ‘that you +might take ’Arry’s business, of which my share would go far to buy up +the goodwill, and carry it on instead of the old one here.’ + +‘What, Jim! because I have half ruined myself with the one, go on to +wholly ruin myself with the other?’ said Oliver, with a forced laugh to +hide his perplexity and embarrassment. + +‘But things is different,’ insisted Jim eagerly. ‘It were the +opposition—of which there would be no more, not a scrap—as did for you; +and I would manage for you again, if you liked to have me. There’s a +deal more work left in me yet than some folks think for,’ Jim put in +resentful parenthesis, flicking away the remains of flour from his +sleeve. ‘I’m not the man as would advise another man, least of all you, +Master Oliver, if you will believe me, to fling good money after bad; +but here is the finest chance as ever Providence made—on purpose, I had +a’most said, for you to retrieve your losses, and build up Constable’s +business again on a firmer foundation than ever, and carry out your +schemes to boot,’ cried Jim, waxing enthusiastic, ‘if you’ll not go and +fling it to the dogs in a pet.’ + +Oliver was fairly puzzled. He was a man tenacious of his principles +and projects. So far from being wearied out by disappointment and +thwarting, and glad of the excuse to throw the baking business over, it +‘riled’ him thoroughly, tortured and mortified him, to resign it and +all the hopes he had set upon it, after what they had cost him. He was +strongly tempted to catch at the most distant prospect, consistent +with common prudence, of resuming the trade, and waging it thenceforth +to a triumphant issue, for the benefit of his fellow-men. + +But what of the old practical difficulties with Jim? Oliver was +not disposed to yield an atom of what he looked upon as trade +righteousness. Sooner sacrifice half-a-dozen businesses, or promises +of business, than make a holocaust of his trade creed, which was a +prominent part of his Christian creed. Jim, with the hold on his master +which the manager’s having largely contributed to buy back the business +must give him, would be in a position to maintain his opposite views, +while Oliver would no longer have the power to object to them, far less +to put them down. + +‘I am greatly obliged to you, Jim,’ said Oliver, at last, ‘and not the +least for this—that, in spite of the mull I have made, you speak as if +you had some faith in me still. But I am not cured of my hobbies; I am +as great a fool as ever, you will think, when I tell you that I cannot +be in business as a baker and suffer artificially-whitened bread, or +fancy bread which is not weighed, to go out of my shop. Besides, I do +not know what other eccentricities might occur to me, which I should +feel bound to see carried out.’ + +Instead of the half-repressed disgust which Oliver had expected to +excite, Jim met the declaration with a shame-faced assent. ‘Never mind, +Master Oliver, them are trifles after all, and it’s erring on the safe +side. Yes, sir, I’m bound to say to you this much—it’s erring on the +safe side,’ raising his voice, and speaking sternly, while he fumbled +nervously with his watch-chain. + +With the exception of another abrupt sentence, ‘I’ll swallow all your +stipulations, and stick to you like a vice, now, Master Oliver, never +fear,’ it was all the admission Jim Hull ever made to Oliver of having +found himself the wrong man in the wrong place. But it was enough to +recall to Oliver’s mind stories he had heard, only half believed and +never repeated, of the sort of bread which the new business had gone +on to sell in Friarton. A young doctor, who had taken upon himself +the office of unpaid analyst in defence of an ungrateful public, had +pronounced the bread largely and most perniciously adulterated. ’Arry +had advanced a long way before his sickened and horrified uncle in +courses which Jim had found himself utterly unable to restrain to mild, +half-openly-confessed, traditional trade liberties. London was indeed a +fitter field for ’Arry’s genius. + +The day has long gone by when the outbreak of deadly epidemics aroused +the frantic outcry of poisoned wells and poisoned loaves. But are the +water and the bread provided for the people really pure and wholesome? +Has the time not come for the old charge to be revived in more +measured and reasonable tones, without any thought of vengeance on sins +which are those of ignorance—however wilful—sloth, and haste to make +rich, not of deliberate conspiracy and barbarous treachery against +human health and life? + +‘But, Jim, though you consent to bear with my fads, I am afraid the +Friarton people will still find them insupportable. They will still +clamour for bread of chalky whiteness, varying in size as well as in +shape. I have wearied them out with my efforts to be honest and do them +good against their will.’ + +‘No, you haven’t,’ said Jim decisively. ‘No one will wag a finger +against your bread. They have come to know better. Bless you! they are +ready to swallow wholesale any stuff you may offer them.’ + +Oliver stared, then thinking Jim was making another covert allusion +to his nephew’s tolerably extensive experiments on the palates and +digestive organs of his customers, Oliver delicately waived the point +in discussion. + +Oliver Constable and Jim Hull talked for some time on the +practicability of Oliver’s stepping into a vigorous business in place +of laying down an exhausted trade. The longer they talked, the more +Oliver became satisfied of the possibility and advisability of the +proceeding—that the career he had proposed for himself might not be cut +short, and that he might have the chance of rising like a phœnix from +its ashes. + +The last thing which vexed Oliver was that Jim pressed him to go in +for the new premises—reared by Jim and his nephew—which were in full +working order, rather than transfer their business to the Constables’ +bakehouse and shop, which had latterly been only half used. + +What! Give up the shop Peter Constable had proudly built for his son, +which Agneta Stanhope had foolishly called ‘the ancestral shop,’ with +all the kindly associations to which Oliver was so susceptible, and +remove into these brand-new premises, destitute of any association +except that they had been raised to knock down the other, which they +had done! + +Yet all was true that Jim argued. Time and tide were sweeping away the +old traffic from the old channels. The new premises were in a better +situation than Oliver’s. They had commanded ampler space and secured +freer ventilation. They were more commodious and convenient. The spot +on which Peter Constable built his shop had long been looked on with +a covetous eye by those public-spirited citizens of Friarton who held +that the town should have a new town-hall worthier of the name than +that in which Oliver had delivered his lecture on Wordsworth, and +Lady Cicely Hartley had been a stall-keeper in a bazaar. The town was +flourishing in funds at the present moment, and the talk about the +town-hall was actually passing into deed. If Oliver were to sell +the piece of ground on which his shop and bakehouse stood to the new +town-hall committee, his exchequer would at once be considerably +replenished. There was no resemblance between the shop and bakehouse +and Naboth’s vineyard. The former had seen their day and effected their +purpose. Peter Constable would have been the first to pat his son on +the shoulder and enjoin him, ‘Sell, my boy; sell when it is wise and +right to do it. My memorial, my idea! Never mind them. Would I have had +them stand in the way of your progress, which is the progress of your +work? They have taken care of themselves hitherto, they will live again +like everything which has real vitality in it, in a new mould, shaped +to the fresh needs of a later day.’ + +The treaty in hand between Oliver and Jim Hull was still unsuspected in +Friarton when Oliver found his back shop and his leisure a second time +invaded—not by delegates from his journeymen bakers; truth to tell, +they were the last to comprehend intelligently and to give in anything +like a cordial adherence to their master. It was a deputation from his +fellow-tradesmen that next waited upon Oliver. The party consisted of +old Dadd, Polley, who had enough manhood for a deputation in which his +wife’s bonnet and gown would have looked out of place, and another +shopkeeper—the saddler, whose bill to Harry Stanhope Oliver had taken +care should be paid in full. + +They were so occupied with the ceremoniousness of their mission that +Oliver could hardly get them to sit down or put their hats out of their +hands; and old Dadd, who was the leader, kept saying ‘sir’ to Oliver +at every other word. They had not come to ask the miller and baker +to go into the vestry or council as a step to becoming churchwarden +or mayor. They had no notion of giving him a dinner or a piece of +plate—solutions to the formal visit which, luckily, never crossed +Oliver’s mind. They had come to more purpose. + +These tradesmen—representing very nearly the whole shopkeepers of +Friarton—the deputation had furnished themselves with a list of the +names—were there to beg Oliver to withdraw his announcement of retiring +from business. ‘We feel, sir, you are an honour to our order,’ said +old Dadd, with as much spirit as if it were an order of knighthood. +‘Sir, we mayn’t all see with your eyes, or be prepared to carry out +your views to a _t_, but we do see they does you great credit. We are +quite sure, sir, the world and trade in the long run, would be none the +worse of a few more gents like you in them. So, Mr. Oliver, to retain +you among us, we, your fellow-shopkeepers in this here town, ’umbly and +’eartily solicit you to keep on your late worthy father’s business. +And we are here, sir, in a body, or as the representatives of a body, +to pledge you our support in such plain reforms and improvements as +you think fit to introduce. We ask you to excuse us for not being wide +awake to their crying necessity from the first. Sir, men could not +speak fairer,’ wound up Dadd, in some elation at his own eloquence. + +There was more behind. This flattering petition came from the general +body of the shopkeepers, stirred up by their leaders, who, in their +private capacities, had something else to say. It was Dadd, again, who +acted as their mouthpiece, and, though not quite so fluent, was as +fervent and ’earty as before. He remarked, abruptly, there were some +favours no man with a heart in his breast could think of repaying, to +which sentiment Policy chorussed incoherently, ‘No, nor no woman with a +heart in her bosom—quite so, quite so, Mr. Dadd.’ Then old Dadd went +on to press on Oliver, in the friendliest, most considerate manner, +such an advance in money as these three could afford, to tide him over +the temporary difficulties which might have induced him to give up the +baking business. + +It was all clear to Oliver at last, while he shrugged his shoulders, +grimaced fearfully, and stammered out his thanks, assuring the +gentlemen there was no occasion for their last act of friendship, but +he would never forget their generous sympathy and confidence, never. +The truth was it warmed his heart, and he was not at all sure that if +he had gone on to say this was the proudest moment of his life, there +would have been the least hypocrisy in the trite hyperbole in his case. + +Yes, it was pleasant to have won some appreciation—however little +deserved—from his fellow-townsmen, who ought to know him best, to be +assured that they gave him credit, after all, for meaning well. + +The nature of the acknowledgment touched and softened Oliver more than +he could express. He wished his father and Fan might know it. As he +went out into the streets afterwards, he was sensible of breathing +another air, of his face being irradiated with a different light. +He was no longer surprised that he encountered so many friends, and +that they were all so friendly. Of course they must see he felt that +everybody was almost intolerably kind, till he could have wished +they would not come round a beggar so, and demoralise him with their +kindness. ‘Do they believe in me now?’ Oliver was saying to himself, +half sadly, in the midst of his gladness, half incredulously still. + +Oliver’s feet, like fate, at this crisis, carried him in the direction +of the Meadows. All danger of infection from Jack Dadd’s fever was +over, and nothing could be more salutary for the reformer, to prevent +his losing his head altogether, than the cold douche of Mrs. Hilliard’s +laughter, and Catherine’s indifference, in contradiction to the absurd +excitement of the rest of the inhabitants of Friarton. + +But the instant he was shown into the Meadows’ drawing-room—cheery even +on a November day, Oliver discovered that the antidote he was seeking +was useless, or rather that there was no such corrective. The town’s +dilatory admiration and gratitude were there before him, in all the +excess in which they might be expected from women. Mrs. Hilliard’s +inveterate jests sounded very much as if they were uttered to save +herself from breaking down, and her jolly voice grew shaky when she +asked after Fan’s baby. + +With regard to Catherine, she might still have been silent and stiff, +had she not been penetrated, stirred to the depths of her nature, and +spurred on by a full share of the public feeling. So much so, that +when they were giving Oliver tea and he had cunningly worked round +the conversation to a neutral topic—the new orders of nurses and the +new theories of nursing—Catherine, her pale eager face, and eyes +alight and aglow, with an expression which had all at once acquired a +certain likeness to Fan’s, suddenly turned round on him and told him +barefacedly, with the clearest personal application—Sister Elizabeth’s +opinion was that her own work was good, but it was a better and nobler +work to prevent the evils which took such costly sacrifices to cure +them. When a man stood to his post, laboured to clear away his share of +the abuses which had crept into all trades, and called nothing common +and unclean—that was preventing great and widespread evils. + +‘Oh, Gemini!’ groaned Oliver, gathering up his long legs in a +marvellous coil which would have done credit to the brothers Davenport, +‘don’t you two go in with the others to make a fool and a hero of me!’ + +‘Who shall prevent us?’ cried Mrs. Hilliard. ‘If the town take it into +its thick head to give you its freedom on an exquisitely illuminated +card—the illumination done by the most accomplished young lady in the +place—or if it think fit to crown you with an olive-wreath covered with +goldbeater’s leaf, you will have to submit. It would never do for you +to be ungracious, that would spoil everything.’ + +‘Then don’t let the town take it into its head. Upon the whole, you had +better all suffer me to go away in peace, before you recover from your +delusion.’ + +‘It is not now we are deluded,’ said Catherine. ‘Our eyes have been +opened, so that we—some of us, no longer see men and women—not so much +like trees walking, but as hideous caricatures. We see plain at last, +and recognise our kind—our kin, God-sib—our gossips, if you will, as +God made them, through what they have made themselves, or what their +neighbours have consented to make them. Do you think so lightly of +us as to imagine we shall ever forget the sight? Do you not know it +is like life from the dead to recognise brothers and sisters—a great +multitude which no man could number, wherever we turn? No, you will not +have the heart to go away from Friarton,’ she finished, in a lower tone +which was still audible to him, as she played with her spoon, ‘just +when we are beginning to understand, and when God is going to show you +the work of your hands, and to establish it.’ + +Oliver made an excuse to cross the room with his cup. On his return to +his seat, he paused behind Catherine Hilliard’s chair, and said for her +ear alone, ‘Take care, Catherine, or else you will be more cruel in the +end than in the beginning.’ + +‘Have I been cruel?’ she asked, drawing back shyly. But this was the +season of settling accounts, and he deserved full payment. ‘No, not to +you,’ she whispered tremulously, with a soft smile. ‘If I was cruel, it +was to myself—never to you.’ + +Mrs. Hilliard entered her protest, later in the evening; for Oliver +stayed to dinner without troubling to go home to dress, and he was +still lingering, talking, as he had never talked in his life before, +after Mrs. Hilliard had reminded him there was such a ceremony as +locking the doors in most households. Then she suggested, ‘If there are +to be two enthusiasts, social reformers, muscular Christians—whatever +you like to call yourselves—instead of one, and I’m sure one was quite +enough to come to grief, what is to become of me, I should like to +know? I shall have a bad time of it, for though Catherine is her own +mistress, there is such a being as an indignant ex-guardian, and I’m +not her sole cousin. When all trades are held alike, and everybody is +respected, half of my occupation will be gone, while my ungrateful +kindred, whom I have suffered to set good, sound long-established +social distinctions at defiance, will never admit a laughing hyena into +their menagerie.’ + + + LONDON: PRINTED BY + SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE + AND PARLIAMENT STREET + + + + + Transcriber Notes + + + The following are corrections to the original text. + p108 “markts” changed to (the places and markets). + p165 added period to end of (Stanhope’s last letter.) + p240 “backshop” changed to (back shop from Jim Hull.) + p261 added period to end of (in the beginning.’) +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78319 *** diff --git a/78319-h/78319-h.htm b/78319-h/78319-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee873ef --- /dev/null +++ b/78319-h/78319-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4491 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + Oliver Constable, vol. 3 | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +/* .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +p { text-indent: 2em; } /* Adds first paragraph indent */ + +h1 span { font-size: .5em; } /* h1 and h2 sub headings */ +h2 span { font-size: .7em; } + +.sub1 { font-size: .5em; } /* Preset font-size adjustments */ +.sub2 { font-size: .8em; } + +.flat { text-indent: 0em; } /* removes first paragraph indent */ + +.front { /* Matches h2 but w/out chapter marker */ + font-size: 1.5em; + font-weight: bold; + margin-top: 20px; + margin-bottom: 10px; + display: block; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + } + +.hang2 { /* adds hanging indent */ + padding-left: 2em; + padding-right: 1em; + text-indent: -1em; + text-align: left; + } + +.tdt { vertical-align: top; } /* Custom table adjustments */ +.tdb { vertical-align: bottom; } +.tdw { white-space: nowrap; } + + +.poetry-container { display: flex; + justify-content: center; } + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent1 {text-indent: -2.5em;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78319 ***</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1 class="nobreak"> +OLIVER CONSTABLE<br> +<br><span> +MILLER AND BAKER<br> +</span> +</h1> +<br> +<p class="center"> +BY<br> +<br> +SARAH TYTLER<br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">AUTHOR OF ‘CITOYENNE JACQUELINE’ ‘SCOTCH FIRS’ ETC.</span><br> +<br><br> +<i>IN THREE VOLUMES</i><br> +<br> +VOL. III.<br> +<br> +LONDON<br> +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE<br> +1880<br> +<br> +[<i>All rights reserved</i>] +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + <br> + <span class="sub1">OF</span> + <br> + <span>THE THIRD VOLUME.</span> + </h2> +</div> + +<table> + <tr> + <td class="tdw">CHAPTER</td> + <td colspan=2 class="tdw">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXIII.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">Harry Stanhope’s Want</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXIV.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">Fan’s Triumph</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">22</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXV.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">‘The Devil shall not have Harry’</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">59</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXVI.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">The Price at which Harry Stanhope was Rescued</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">96</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXVII.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">The Last Penny paid</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">126</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXVIII.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">Oliver’s Return</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">140</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXIX.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">Fresh Service</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">175</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXX.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">Stumbled Across, Interviewed, Taken + at his Word</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">197</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXXI.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">Life—and Death</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">214</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdt">XXXII.</td> + <td class="smcap hang2">‘Do they believe in me now?’</td> + <td class="tdb"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">240</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + + + <p class="front" id="OLIVER_CONSTABLE"> + OLIVER CONSTABLE, + <br> + <span class="sub2"><i>MILLER AND BAKER</i>.</span> + </p> +</div> + + +<hr class="tb"> + +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"> + CHAPTER XXIII. + <br> + <span>HARRY STANHOPE’S WANT.</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">Oliver</span> had liberally allowed Harry Stanhope six months in which to ride +his hobby and grow sick beyond endurance of his <i>rôle</i> of yeoman.</p> + +<p>But whereas Harry had entered on the character, on a fine summer +afternoon, in the attractive prospect of hay-making, corn-cutting, +and hop-picking, it was midwinter, with no more agreeable occupations +in view than thrashing <span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>corn, pulling turnips, turning over potatoes +in the pits, and ploughing a stiff clay soil under the murky sky of a +short day in muggy weather, still he showed no signs of throwing up the +part in satiety and disgust.</p> + +<p>True, he had sufficient leisure to join the other farmers in presenting +himself in the hunting field, and enjoying as good mounts and glorious +runs as the squires or the M.F.H. himself.</p> + +<p>It did not come under the head of sport. Harry was persuaded it lay at +the core of his business, that he should attend—not only the Friarton +Market, but every market within a day’s journey. He went to them no +longer in his shirt sleeves, or riding a bare-backed horse as it had +been taken to the watering, not even in the market cart in which he +had prefigured Harry and himself crossing country—out of sight, and +therefore out of danger of wounding the feelings of their aristocratic +relations. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>Harry had modified so far his Robinson Crusoe and Vicar of +Wakefield notions, as to have set up a trap handsome enough to have +been driven by any of his cousins. The trap was matched by an equally +well-bred, delicate, costly horse, which Harry candidly admitted was +not quite ‘the cheese’ for a yeoman. Yet why not, if he rented and +paid the rent of the paddock in which it ran, afforded the corn for +its feeds, and took care that it should do his work in running like +the wind with him and Horry to the innumerable markets and sales which +the brothers found themselves forced to attend. Harry’s pride ended +with his equipage. He was not to say guilty of affability; he was every +man’s man, in the streets, or corn exchanges, or commercial inns where +the farmers congregated. He was as ready to sit with the last man in +the bar-parlour, and try return races against his trap, as to compare +samples of grain in legitimate business. Harry <span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>was all things to all +men—not to gain some for what he fervently believed their good, but +in sheer sociality—with a vain, light-hearted, light-headed love of +popularity, which was at this time his ruling passion. Horace never +thwarted his brother in this or any other inclination. He remained the +abiding shadow inseparable from Harry’s sunshine, and in some respects +a relief from its glare.</p> + +<p>Harry was also able to derive no small amount of animation and +amusement from such windfalls in the day’s routine, as brisk bouts of +ratting when a stack was being pulled down, or in the granary after it +was left empty; and he waited religiously every evening on the feeding +of the cattle and horses in the sheds and stables.</p> + +<p>Harry was an extremely indulgent, if totally inconsiderate, and +occasionally capricious, master, whose lavish tolerance was only now +and then broken, like the abounding calm of tropical seas, by a storm +violent as it was brief. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>That Harry spoilt his retainers horribly was +not an objection which his servants were likely to take into account +in the first flush of ‘the young squire’s’ popularity. For in spite of +Harry Stanhope’s well-nigh nettled protests and vigorous acting of his +part, probably because of his over-acting, the would-be yeoman was the +young squire to his labourers, who in the middle of their stolidity +were not altogether without shrewd observation and sound deduction.</p> + +<p>Harry not only continued unexpectedly constant to his vocation as he +believed it, he remained faithful to the earliest friendship he had +claimed on his arrival at Copley Grange Farm. He went more frequently +to Friarton Mill than to any other house where he was made welcome, +which was saying a good deal, seeing that Harry’s life, whether in +the way of his business requirements, or when he might be supposed +clear of their urgent obligations, was a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>constant round of varied +visiting. Indeed, it struck Oliver that Harry grossly abused his +privilege, and came intolerably often, and at absurdly unconventional +seasons, from ‘early morn to dewy eve’—sometimes in the raw air before +breakfast, sometimes through a setting in snowstorm after supper—to the +mill-house, during this winter.</p> + +<p>But what could Oliver do? not turn out the thoughtless lad for whom +the elder man had a sneaking kindness, or close the doors against the +soullessly jolly young face, which, however provocative of censure, +always brought with it, when it flashed upon the man, a reflection of +unimpaired freshness, and unburdened lightness of heart.</p> + +<p>Since Fan allowed these intrusions, and even seemed to enjoy them, what +was left for Oliver save to shrug his shoulders, grumble to himself, or +deliver the silent hint of turning his back, after the first greeting, +on his visitors? <span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>For, of course, Harry dragged over Horry in his +train. And Oliver often left Fan to entertain the two in one, while he +read on unceremoniously at the newspaper or book with which he had been +engaged on their entrance.</p> + +<p>Alas! Harry only took the cavalier rudeness for friendliest +encouragement. ‘Don’t apologise to me, old fellow,’ he would enjoin the +master of the house, cheerfully. ‘It is not you I have come to see, it +is Miss Constable,’ Harry would say audaciously. ‘I have come to report +myself to Miss Constable. She has been so good as to take me in hand. +She is making a man—that is a veritable yeoman, of me.’</p> + +<p>And Fan lent herself to this egregious fiction. Fan, who had never +interested herself in a single detail of her father and brother’s +trades, who had not so much as made an exception in favour of the +chicks, directed a charmed ear to all Harry Stanhope’s chatter of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>the +prices in the market, the field which was sown that day, the ox which +had choked itself and been brought round in its stall the night before, +the first long-legged, big-headed calf which he had bought for a song.</p> + +<p>Sally Pope grinned at Oliver behind the backs of this most practical +young couple.</p> + +<p>Horace Stanhope began to fidget and glance jealously at the master of +the house in his obliviousness. But not even the phenomena of Harry’s +coming at last, once or twice, without his brother, and showing some +slight self-consciousness when the unusual omission was remarked upon, +roused the suspicions of the too secure and single-minded host.</p> + +<p>One fine frosty night Harry had walked in alone, uninvited and +unannounced. For Fan’s carefully-trained housemaid had become weary +of announcing the perpetual visitor, and, without any rebuke from +her mistress, had proceeded to treat the special duty as a work of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>supererogation where Mr. Harry Stanhope was concerned.</p> + +<p>Oliver had nodded and sat still in the shade at his father’s desk, +turning over some papers, keeping his post mainly to preserve the +liberty of pursuing his own train of reflections; while Harry Stanhope +and Fan had put their heads together over the lamp on Fan’s little +table in the chimney-corner, and were, according to Oliver’s conception +of the situation, going over the best plans for growing corn and +rearing stock, and—what was adding insult to injury in reference to +Oliver’s pets, the ducks—the latest contrivances for a high development +of poultry. Not satisfied with the solution of these momentous problems +by lamp-light, when the pair went to the window to predict from the +purple-blue sky and the glitter of the stars hung like lamps of heaven +in the dark branches of the trees of Copley Grange Park, the weather +to-morrow—whether skating on the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>mill-pond would be the order of the +day, or whether the frost would give way and the scent hold, so that +Harry might join the hunt ten miles off—it seemed to Oliver as if they +must have started afresh to answer the whole code of agricultural +questions over again, by starlight, till his patience was reduced to a +shred.</p> + +<p>At last Harry took his departure somewhat abruptly in the end.</p> + +<p>Oliver stretched himself with vicious emphasis, and growled, this was +insufferable, he did not think he could stand it much longer.</p> + +<p>Fan, generally so quick in retort, said nothing, but she appeared to +have appropriated the observation and taken it to heart; for a moment +later, when she came to bid Oliver goodnight, she suddenly put her +hands upon his shoulders and looked wistfully in his face with tears in +her dark eyes, and her colour wavering—as he remarked with surprise. +‘You are not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>angry, Oliver, dear?’ she said, with one of her rare +caressing gestures and phrases, which coming as they did unlooked for, +from a high-spirited almost hard little woman like Fan, were apt to sap +a man’s defences, and melt his heart like wax on the spot. ‘You are +not angry, Oliver?’ repeated Fan with a slight quaver in the wistful +earnestness of her voice.</p> + +<p>‘Of course I am not angry with <i>you</i>, you goose of a Fanchen?’ +said Oliver with affectionate bluster. ‘How can you help Stanhope’s +unconscionable coolness, which begins to be rank impudence? But why +in the name of justice, should I blame you for his faults?’ enquired +Oliver in all simplicity. ‘You are compelled to listen to his rigmarole +in your own house, when I turn him over to you. I own I ought not to +do it, to such an extent,’ admitted Oliver, contritely; ‘but the young +wretch is so indefatigable in preying on our hospitality, and has +acquired such a fatal <span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>fluency in airing his farming bosh, that I must +have some relief, or knock him down. I often admire your powers of +endurance, but don’t give the beggar too much line, Fan, if you love +me. I am not sure, whether, after all, his class are the finest judges +of courtesy.’</p> + +<p>Fan had flushed crimson at her brother’s words. She knitted her +delicate brows—black brows at the same time, and then as if she had +thought better of it, her lips parted in a half-smile. ‘No, no; don’t +speak treason either of me, or of another,’ she said; and then she +added, a little incoherently, ‘I believe there is nobody so good and +kind as you are, yourself, Oliver, in the whole world. Remember I have +said so, though we quarrelled some time ago, and may quarrel again. +Remember I have told you that you are always my own dear good boy, whom +I have loved all through our lives, whom I love with all my heart at +this moment, whom I could have <span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>served, if you would have let me,’ and +Fan fairly hugged Oliver, who resisted stoutly in his mystification, +with a dim apprehension that he might otherwise pledge himself to +something he did not in the least understand.</p> + +<p>‘What do you mean?’ cried Oliver. ‘Is Fan also among the wheedlers? For +what mighty boon can she deign to wheedle?’</p> + +<p>‘Never mind, it is too late to ask me now—good night.’</p> + +<p>Fan succeeded in making her retreat, and in the act of doing so, Oliver +might have seen, if he had been quick at reading women’s faces, that +all the soft relenting and indescribable yearning which had been in +hers a moment ago, had vanished and was replaced by such unmingled +exultation that the girl looked radiant.</p> + +<p>It was the last loving altercation which passed between the brother and +sister for many a day.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p> + +<p>The next morning, Harry Stanhope wound up his offences against +domestic privacy by re-appearing at Friarton Mill, as if he had +slept at the gate, seeking admission to Oliver before the latter had +completed his toilet. Only the most urgent business could warrant such +pressing attendance. Harry himself, in his superb self-complacency +and confidence, betrayed, nevertheless, a shadow of a doubt of his +reception.</p> + +<p>‘You will think I am always here, Constable?’ he said with a confused +laugh.</p> + +<p>‘Well, you are here pretty often,’ the aggrieved Oliver put it mildly. +‘I am afraid your other engagements must suffer from your paying us the +compliment of being so much at Friarton Mill; and your brother—he is +not with you this morning—will miss you.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh! hang Horry!’ exclaimed Harry hastily; ‘no, I don’t mean that, of +course, and old Horry won’t stand in the way. He’s all <span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>right. Besides, +if one’s father and mother, when a fellow possesses them, an’t counted, +a brother can’t have much to say either way, can he?’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t know what you’re after,’ said Oliver in perfect sincerity. ‘If +I were a supernumerary in an old play, I ought to exclaim, “Anan,” to +that last enigmatical sentence of yours.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, it ain’t easy to come out with it,’ protested Harry, struggling +with what was, for him, the most extraordinary hesitation. ‘Your +sister, Constable—you must have seen she has been goodness itself to +me. I know she will have to furnish the brains and backbone, for my +head-piece ain’t worth much, and my pluck is of the rough and ready +sort, but since she graciously consents to do for me and Horry—to make +a true farmer’s wife, which will be an inestimable advantage to us—I +may take it that you will not have any great objection to accepting me +for a brother-in-law?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p> + +<p>‘Stanhope, have you lost your wits?’ burst out Oliver. ‘Come, there +must be no more of this absurd nonsense. I tell you I will have no such +foolish jesting where my sister is concerned.’</p> + +<p>‘Never was farther from jesting in my life!’ declared poor Harry +indignantly.</p> + +<p>‘Then let me say, once for all, you must get rid of this idiotic idea. +It won’t do. My sister is not for a fellow like you. I don’t want +to hurt your feelings, but you have somehow tumbled into the hugest +blunder, and I must speak out. I can answer for Fan: she did not dream +of encouraging such a vain delusion, she will be terribly vexed and +annoyed. This comes of masquerading and making-believe. It seems to +me you don’t want a wife for twenty years to come: when you do, take +my advice—if you will excuse me for offering it, after what I have +said—marry strictly within your own class; you of all fellows require +such a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>safeguard, and the more influential your wife’s people, the +better both for her and you!’ muttered Oliver <i>sotto voce</i>. Then +he resumed aloud, ‘Wait till you can persuade a lady to share your +lot—if you will cultivate prudence, you may make it not a bad one—as a +gentleman-farmer.’</p> + +<p>Harry was looking at Oliver with such a strong sense of superior +knowledge and wisdom that it disarmed any rising resentment on the +lad’s part, at the tone of provoked disdainful repudiation of the +proposal which Oliver could not help betraying. The contrast between +the truth as Harry realised it and Oliver’s undoubting convictions, +brought out the comic element in the affair so dear to Harry’s boyish +heart, even in the serious mood which had been on him, when he +‘declared his intentions.’</p> + +<p>‘Make-believe, indeed!’ cried Harry, lightly; ‘who plays at being +miller and baker?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<p>‘Not I!’ denied Oliver hotly. ‘I have taken up my father’s business, +which is no unusual thing for a tradesman’s son to do, and I have not +adopted it as a mere makeshift, or as the last resource for a man who +would otherwise be idle; I desire to make it the object of my life; +I do not think any honest trade is unworthy of the dedication of the +trader’s talents to render it as good in every respect as possible. I +trust to do no discredit to my father’s business.’</p> + +<p>‘At least you need not be so cocky over other people whose fathers had +not the luck to be in trade,’ remonstrated Harry. ‘As to not wanting +a wife—I being a farmer, and having no competent young woman with my +interest at heart,’ went on Harry, his blue eyes twinkling, ‘to look +after the butter and cheese, the feeding of the calves, the fattening +of the geese, and the multiplying of the eggs and chickens, when I +find I have quite enough to do, even <span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>with Horry for my <i>aide</i>, +to manage the labourer fellows in the fields and offices, and attend +the markets—if you think I don’t want a wife dreadfully, it is little +you know of a yeoman’s difficulties. As to consenting to try for an +imitation farmer’s wife, why you yourself politely hinted a minute ago +that there was quite enough of the mock article at Copley Grange Farm +already. No, thanks. I knew exactly what the position was when Aggie +spent her holiday weeks at the Farm. The babe could not have told +barley from oats if they had not been in the ear; and though that did +not matter much, I am morally certain she was shaky on the important +question of hens’ nests—whether they were not to be found in bushes, +if not on tree-tops. She spoilt all the dairy produce while she was +here, by insisting on dabbling in it in her ignorance, my housekeeper +complained. And the child was always begging to be amused, and seeking +to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>go and look at the horses and cattle when it was not convenient and +I ought to have been hard at work elsewhere. She would not be put off +with Horry’s escort; fact was, all my energies were employed in keeping +the peace between the little girl and the cantankerous old man.’</p> + +<p>Oliver was forced to laugh, but he laughed harshly. ‘Stanhope, you’re a +donkey if you propose to marry my sister, that she may act as your head +dairymaid and principal hen-wife. That is not her <i>forte</i>,’ he +said.</p> + +<p>‘Do you mean to insult me?’ cried Harry, firing up in spite of his easy +temper. ‘By Jove, you may thank Fan if I bear it. I may have cracked +an ill-timed joke, but it was you who tempted me to it. Fan believes +me; she understands how I love and honour her, and choose her before +all other women; and if she does me the honour to choose me in return, +I suppose she is at liberty to make <span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>her choice? Not even a Turk of a +brother, since he is not her father, and she is of age, can prevent +it,’ ended Harry defiantly.</p> + +<p>‘This preposterous stuff must be put an end to. I will see my sister.’ +Oliver flung out of his room, and encountered Fan hovering over the +breakfast-table, and looking fresh yet pale, like a solitary daisy +blooming in a sheltered corner.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"> + CHAPTER XXIV. + <br> + <span>FAN’S TRIUMPH.</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">‘Come</span> along, Fan, to the front door, where the fellow has retreated. +Here is a fluke, but the sooner you deal with it the better; you must +spoil your breakfast, and have done with it. Harry Stanhope is as mad +as a hatter this morning, and nothing will bring him back to soberness +of mind save your giving him his <i>congé</i> in so many words. This is +speaking plainly. Are you not amazed? I imagine you never apprehended +such a desperately moonshiny business from Stanhope, who’s in a general +way commonplace and matter-of-fact in his greenness. But come along, it +will not do to keep the young idiot waiting.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> + +<p>‘But what if there are two of us as mad as hatters?’ said Fan, blushing +and brightening up like the white daisy when the red tips of its petals +catch the beams of the sun.</p> + +<p>‘Fan, you cannot be so crazy, so weak to imbecility!’ cried Oliver, +incredulously; and then, as his unbelief began to be shaken by her +looks, still more than her words, he protested passionately on her +account: ‘A boy like Harry Stanhope! the merest boy in his fancies, as +you have had abundant proof; hardly responsible for his actions, not +fit to know his own mind, as sure to change as the wind.’</p> + +<p>‘He is not so much younger a boy than you are, Oliver,’ said Fan, with +restrained spirit. ‘He is a little older than I am in years, and I +don’t feel so very youthful in spirit. I should be inclined to think I +was capable of knowing my own mind, and being held responsible <span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>for my +actions. But, no doubt, women are a great deal older, in proportion, +than men. You are all boys to us,’ said Fan, with demure motherliness. +‘I have even ventured to call a sage like you a boy.’</p> + +<p>‘Fan,’ said Oliver, ‘don’t drive me beside myself. This is no occasion +for teasing, and I could not have believed you the woman to begin +to tease in such circumstances. I have been accustomed to think you +sensible, capable of self-respect, rather proud than meek. Have you +considered what sort of beggar Stanhope is, apart from his birth and +breeding, and the grace which they have given him. He is feather-headed +and an empty canister—if ever there were one. He has never thought +of anything save his own pleasure since he was born. He is incapable +of self-restraint, even if he knew the thing by name. He is the +incarnation of selfishness—genial and jolly now, I grant you, but +which will without fail grow <span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>coarser and harder with years. At forty +Harry Stanhope’s stupidity and self-indulgence will be palpable to the +shallowest intellect, and so may his grossness—even his brutality—if +his good angel do not interfere.’</p> + +<p>‘His good angel will interfere. How dare you accuse and prophecy evil +of a better man than yourself—if humility and kindliness are better +than arrogance and harshness, as the Bible teaches?’</p> + +<p>Fan stood at bay for her lover. ‘Harry is not a student or a scholar, +any more than I am by nature,’ she said more quietly; ‘but that +does not make him and me less of a man and a woman than if we were +a fantastic theorist and an abstracted visionary. If he thinks of +his pleasure, why not? when his pleasure has always been manly and +honest—and is not that to his credit, left to himself, to all intents +and purposes, as he has been? And it is not true that he cares only for +himself; he has <span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>been a good and true brother, as he will be good and +true in all the relations of life.’</p> + +<p>Oliver groaned. ‘Do you know what the farmers, with whom he classes +himself, say of his conceited, childish enterprise? They lighten their +own troubles by guffawing over his muddles and messes. They say, “The +plough would need to turn up gold for Mr. Stanhope to reap a harvest, +even if times were as good as they are bad for agriculture.” They +calculate confidently he will have succeeded in making such a mull of +the business into which he has rushed, without a particle of knowledge +or experience, that he will be sold out and polished off in three or +four years at the farthest.’</p> + +<p>‘The more need of the nearest and dearest of his friends to stand by +him,’ said Fan, with steadfast eyes.</p> + +<p>‘His best friend will not be able to stand by him and defend him from +the ruinous consequences <span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>of the new habits he is grafting on the +old,’ maintained Oliver doggedly. ‘Harry Stanhope was known at Oxford +as one of the most careless and reckless of the undergraduates who +were his contemporaries. He was so unboundedly social that he was +never missing where company of any kind congregated. If he could not +get good, he could put up with bad. He was a regular frequenter of +village alehouses, as well as a conspicuous figure at every “wine” +within his reach. Now—country-town markets and the farmers’ circles in +commercial inns are his great resorts. To a man of Harry Stanhope’s +accommodating temperament, every company in which swallowing strong +drink is inseparably associated with friendly intercourse, must prove +playing with fire. God forbid that I should say the lad is cursed by a +fatal taint, but it will be next to a miracle in his case if the demon +is disappointed in getting possession of his victim.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p> + +<p>‘Oliver,’ said Fan, with bated breath in her anger, as she stood on the +hearthrug, confronting him, ‘who is it that did not care though he were +mixed up with the low larks of the shop lads of Friarton, so that even +respectable people could grow common liars and slanderers, taking it +upon them to say that he was sentenced to carry about in his person, to +his dying day, the mark of his degrading excesses?’</p> + +<p>‘Let them say it,’ retorted Oliver, raising his head, quickly, and +without flinching; ‘that is another affair. The end may justify the +means, if some small love of fair play and poor humanity keep a man +true to his colours, through evil as well as good report; if his +conscience clear him, and they who ought to know, are satisfied he +is falsely accused. But only charity on the brain can regard Harry +Stanhope as bitten by a rabid regard for his kind, or for anybody save +himself, and perhaps his second self Horry.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> + +<p>He tried her on other grounds. ‘How can you take it upon you to be +a farmer’s wife, Fan? How can you pretend to acquirements which you +never possessed, which you have never so much as tried to gain? You +have always had the strongest prejudice against the position of a +tradesman, and I take it you cannot put a yeoman on a much higher +level. Your ambition, which you did not conceal, was to lead the life +of a conventional lady.’</p> + +<p>‘I was silly,’ said Fan, composedly. ‘I did not know what a gentleman +could do, and yet retain his gentle bearing unimpaired. I never met a +true gentleman—forgive me, Oliver—till I saw Harry Stanhope. I will +learn all farmhouse work that a farmer’s wife can do, for the sake of +my farmer, to help him to conquer fortune, more quickly than I learned +lessons at school to fit me to be your companion. I am not afraid to +say that I will be a good farmer’s wife—behind none in the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>country.’ +Fan pledged herself proudly, and Oliver knew the pledge would be +redeemed, though Fan died for it.</p> + +<p>‘Are you willing to enter a family, every member of which will look +down on you, if one of them own you at all, which I very much doubt? +Can you not open your wilfully closed eyes enough to see that Horace +Stanhope has not come here of late with his brother?’</p> + +<p>‘Oliver!’ said Fan with flashing eyes, ‘you are seeking to pique me +by an objection which you must know does not exist in connection with +Harry. He has no people with claims on him. He has no friends who +would consider his welfare before any good to themselves, save me and +his brother—who has not gone against him, and surely the more reason +we should not forsake him. Did not Harry break off from his uncles +and aunts when he became a farmer? They allowed him to follow his own +course, and they must accept the consequences. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>“If they cut it up +rough,” as he says, “they have themselves to blame for it,” when they +consented to what was likely to happen, if he and Horry became yeomen. +Poor Horry, he would be as jealous as a woman of any other woman’s +coming between him and Harry!’ said Fan, with a little laugh and blush; +‘but I will help him to get over it for Harry’s sake: he is waiving +his objections already. The worst of it is, I am not just such a girl +as Agneta, with whom the poor dear fellow was always sparring, so that +Harry had to come in with his sweet temper, and reconcile the two. But +do you imagine that I find fault with Horace Stanhope because he would +not count any woman beneath the rank of a duke’s daughter, who was not +beautiful as the day, and an angel of virtue, deserving of Harry? There +would have been the old search over again, if the devoted soul had been +consulted:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Where is the maiden of mortal strain</div> + <div class="verse indent1">May match with the Baron of Triermain?</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p> +<p class="flat">‘It is little you know of things, Oliver, though you are a +philosopher, if you think that would have made me angry with Horry, +who will soon forgive me, because of the sympathy between us. Besides +Horry, there is only Agneta who is really interested,’ said Fan, after +an instant’s pause, ‘and she is my friend.’</p> + +<p>‘It remains to be seen how far the friendship will stand this test!’ +said Oliver with gloomy scepticism. He was so exasperated as to add a +taunt, for which he was sorry the moment after he had uttered it. ‘Why +don’t you admit frankly that you are besotted enough to believe the +whole race of Vere de Vere will open their arms to receive you into +their castles? That must be the real inducement to form such an insane +connection—not the cheap merits of a lad like Harry Stanhope.’</p> + +<p>‘If you think so badly of me, Oliver, even though I may have given you +some cause by being foolish and worldly-minded, I cannot <span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>help it!’ +said Fan, deeply wounded and offended.</p> + +<p>There was no more to be said. Harry Stanhope must not be kept kicking +his heels in the mill-house court a moment longer. As Harry had calmly +stated at an early stage of the contest, Oliver could not prevent his +sister from making her own choice of a husband: she was of age, she +was mistress of herself in every way, including the disposal of her +little fortune. With respect to that, Oliver had been more just to +Harry Stanhope than her brother had shown himself to Fan. Oliver had +not attributed mercenary motives to the lad, as the person who ought to +have known her best had fastened upon Fan the all-powerful promptings +of a vain and small ambition. Oliver was quite aware that men of the +class to which Harry belonged are often as good arithmeticians as the +huxterers whom the gentlemen despise. The sons of the most <span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>ancient +and noble families, having the bluest blood in their veins, will +look out for ‘tin’ with their wives, even though the suitors have to +descend into mercantile walks and put up with plebeian antecedents, +in order to secure the indispensable metal, as unblushingly as the +northern farmer sought ‘prupitty’ with his daughter-in-law. Perhaps the +young patricians may plead the obligation of necessity in the cases +of all save the heads of their houses. The eldest son has his future +secured; but if he has unfortunate younger brothers, it may reasonably +be said—in spite of the gentlemanly professions provided for them, +which, when it comes to that, for the most part imply the spending +rather than the earning of money—they cannot dig, and to beg they are +ashamed. But Harry was not of this stamp, though he may have used their +slang in conversation. His mortal enemy could not accuse him of being +calculating. His defects, however flagrant, were free from mercenary +meanness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p> + +<p>Oliver looked upon himself as compelled to yield a formal outward +assent, in contradiction to the inward protest, to Fan’s right in the +selection of a mate.</p> + +<p>Therefore, there was no open rupture in the little family. Harry +Stanhope, after his momentary spurt of anger, only laughed at his +future brother-in-law’s manner of receiving his first overtures, and +at Oliver’s way of conducting himself in the later arrangements. In +Harry’s eyes, Oliver’s behaviour was in keeping with the grumpiness +which the young aristocrat had always imputed to his democratic senior. +It was part of the <i>rôle</i> of a radical, which Harry conceived +Oliver to be.</p> + +<p>Harry could afford to treat the matter lightly; neither did Oliver, +after the first pang of painful surprise and bitter disappointment, +wish to quarrel outright with Fan’s bridegroom. Thus the two preserved +a truce; though they fell off, rather than drew closer, in whatever +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>friendship had hitherto existed between them, in the prospect of their +nearer alliance. Oliver turned over Harry entirely to Fan, as, no +doubt, he might have done in any circumstances, unless the young fellow +had been Oliver’s chosen chum and mate as well as Fan’s.</p> + +<p>Fan smothered the keen regret called forth by her brother’s unshaken, +inveterate hostility to the marriage he could not hinder, and to the +gulf deepening between them, as best she might.</p> + +<p>In every other light Fan’s lot was a triumph. For she had never +been mercenary, any more than Harry had been. She had been aspiring +in a sense, with a craving for superficial refinement, as somehow +representing to Fan the far deeper refinement and nobility of nature, +of which the surface polish—however becoming in itself and pleasant +to encounter—is by no means the inseparable accompaniment; and for +pure love of Harry <span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>Stanhope, Fan was prepared to crush her individual +tastes. She was willing to be a poor man’s partner, to drudge as a +practical housekeeper, to toil after another fashion as the notable +wife of a lucky farmer, to forget her girlish dreams of bountiful ease, +culture, and elegance.</p> + +<p>Fan had her bright, brief day both in a higher and a lower sense. She +enjoyed that short interval in which a woman is beside herself and +counts herself—not merely the happiest of women, but the only happy +woman in the world deserving of the name, because she has not only won +a heart in exchange for her own, but because this heart, subdued by +her power, is the heart of hearts to her, compared to which all other +hearts are little better than dross.</p> + +<p>Fan had also the lower, but what was to her the genuine and natural +gratification of being conscious that those of her neighbours on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>whose opinions she had been wont to set store, having arrived at the +unanimous conclusion that Fan Constable had done well for herself, +became suddenly moved to change their chorus of condemnation to a +chant of glorification. The Fremantles and Wrights proved themselves +no more mercenary than Fan and Harry. The magnates of Friarton had not +worshipped in fear and trembling a big burly image of mammon, but a +shadowy fetish of gentility. Fan Constable, whom the ladies and the +professional set now acknowledged to be the most charming ladylike +girl in the neighbourhood, would not be a farmer’s wife to them. +She would—since the inferior distinction merged and was lost in the +superior—be the wife of Harry Stanhope, grandson of Lord St. Ives, +nephew by marriage of Lord Mount Mallow. Accordingly these authorities +renewed their withdrawn attentions with an eager lavishness, in +striking contrast to the donors’ former cautious, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>stinted dole of +recognition. They betrayed the knowledge, which Fan shared, that it +would soon be her turn to pay them attention.</p> + +<p>When Fan’s honours were fully fledged, she might have a share of the +liberty which was vouchsafed to her husband, granted to her. She might +skim the milk in her dairy, and gather the eggs in her poultry-yard, +even carry them in the skirt of her gown, as Agneta Stanhope had +carried them, without challenge. And if Harry had been the son and not +the grandson of a viscount, and thus only one degree instead of two +removed from a peerage, or if his father’s father had been a marquis or +a duke, who knows but that Fan might have been allowed to go on to milk +her cows and feed her calves—not in frolic?</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hilliard was impressed by Fan’s promotion. ‘That girl Fan +Constable has proved her mettle with perfectly lawful weapons, for she +is too true a little Philistine to stoop to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>employ any other.’ Mrs. +Hilliard ate her leek before her cousin, and it was no small comfort to +Louisa Hilliard, in her state of mind at the moment, that Catherine was +next to nobody when eating a leek was in question.</p> + +<p>‘Both of these Constables have used me ill, have got the better of +me—of us all.’ Mrs. Hilliard spoke ruefully for her. ‘Fan, with her +negative drawing-room and positive attitude, has been and gone and done +it under our very noses.’</p> + +<p>‘Done what?’ enquired the only half-awake Catherine.</p> + +<p>‘Distanced her competitors—the Houghtons, the head-master’s nieces; how +do I know how many? all who had entered for the prize. She has overcome +and trampled upon her foes, and carried off the chance which might have +been yours, my dear, only you sat still and missed it.’</p> + +<p>‘Was Harry Stanhope my chance in life?’ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>enquired Catherine, opening +her weary eyes. ‘Have I missed my all in losing him? Well, I did not +flatter myself there was any great thing to look forward to in my +career, if a woman can be said to have a career, but I have been guilty +of the presumption of dreading (and do you know the dread gave a kind +of trembling interest to life?) that there might be greater losses to +encounter than that of Harry Stanhope’s handkerchief—not that there was +ever the remotest prospect of its being thrown at me.’</p> + +<p>‘Catherine!’ and with the exclamation Mrs. Hilliard looked at her +cousin gravely for once, though her lively mind soon reverted to its +ordinary track. ‘You frighten me, and that is treating me still worse +than the Constables have treated me. My cousins, whom I owned, have +eluded my grasp, and got beyond me, the one floored and the other +crowned—alike disqualified for serving as food for my entertainment. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>But I never asked you to entertain me’—Mrs. Hilliard assailed +Catherine, growing serious again—‘only to entertain yourself. And if +you cannot do it in any other way, I am tempted to wish I could approve +of a Protestant sisterhood for you. It might afford you a refuge when +the world makes you so tired that you seem in danger of falling down +under the load. I can lift it off myself with my little finger, but I +cannot with my two hands, and all my might, remove the burden from you, +poor child.’ The clear ring of Mrs. Hilliard’s voice had softened, and +there was moisture in the eyes usually so dry in their sparkle.</p> + +<p>‘Never mind me, Louisa,’ said Catherine, roused to faint surprise and +reluctance to cause trouble. ‘I am only too well off, you know. I am +sickening—that is, if I am sickening—“of a vague disease;” I ought to +have to work for my bread—supposing bread is worth working for—yet +starvation must really be an unpleasant <span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>process to stimulate so +many people to frantic exertions in order to avert the catastrophe. +Protestant sisterhoods would not suit me, nor would Catholic nunneries, +though I think, of the two, I should prefer the last, as possessing a +respectable antiquity and consistency. But to enter either would be a +sham in me, since I really believe that the Son of God could help me +staying with you, as well as with any lady superior or abbess—that we +are as near heaven living in the world in which He lived, as when we +try in vain to get out of it. It would only be a change of yoke, and my +shoulders seem to be slimmer than other women’s,’ remarked Catherine +with a forlorn smile. ‘Besides, no sisterhood would receive a menagerie +with me—and whatever else I might be brought to resign, I do not see +how I could get on without a large small family of beasts and birds.’</p> + +<p>‘Thank you for the implied compliment,’ said Mrs. Hilliard, recovering +herself with a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>laugh. ‘Catherine, you administer tonics, though you +won’t swallow them.’</p> + +<p>When the time came for Mrs. Hilliard to offer the usual +congratulations, her hearty admiration of Fan’s prowess so influenced +the lady, that she presented the tribute cordially, and was entitled to +complain that Fan had no reason to receive it superciliously.</p> + +<p>But Catherine was not merely languid in her felicitations, she stopped +short in them, and substituted an uncalled-for piece of condolence: +‘How dull it will be for you with Mr. Stanhope and his brother at +Copley Grange Farm, when you have been accustomed to solitude with +your own brother!’ looking at amazed, indignant Fan, with great +uncomprehending, commiserating eyes. ‘I hope you will not die of +<i>ennui</i> after the first week. No, I don’t forget that Mr. Stanhope +is very fond of visiting, and you will have to visit a great deal with +him, but won’t that also be dreadfully fatiguing?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> + +<p>The Polleys and Dadds were not behind the others with their ovation; +but, to Fan’s immense relief, she found she had established by this +last step such a distance between herself and her early associates +that they no longer even attempted to bridge it over. Fan Constable +had succeeded in passing out of their sphere. They wished her joy as +it were through Harry Stanhope, and they were as respectful in the +expression of their good wishes, as if the rank which she was so soon +to borrow from him already belonged to her.</p> + +<p>Old Dadd refrained from a single joke, and was almost solemn in +alluding to the subject.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Polley only bristled up to Oliver, and represented to him that he +would no longer be content to sit down in her back parlour, since he +might be making the round of all the castles in the kingdom in company +with his brother-in-law.</p> + +<p>Jack Dadd actually called Fan ‘Miss Constable,’ unless in the strictest +privacy, among <span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>his most intimate cronies, or as a means of teasing the +Polley girls.</p> + +<p>’Mily Polley did not propose to call on Mrs. Stanhope. ‘She is a cut +above us, now, and no mistake, when she’ll be going among his grand +relations—generals and admirals, and Lady This and Lady That, every +time he takes her up to town. I dare say the fine people will snub +her, but Fan Constable won’t mind that, since they can’t close their +doors against her, and she married to their nephew and first cousin; +and she’ll give as good as she’ll take, I’ll say that for her. She’s +never behind. But I tell you what, ’Liza, we’ll put our pride in our +pockets—what’s the good of letting it stand in our way? and come round +mother, and go to church instead of to chapel, the first Sunday after +Mrs. Stanhope has returned from her wedding jaunt. We’ll try if we +can’t get a wrinkle—as Jack Dadd says—out of her new bonnet. Only Fan +Constable <span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>does not know how to dress herself. Yet she has caught a +duck of a real gentleman, like Mr. Stanhope is, with her dowdy clothes, +and her plain sewing, and her whity-brown face,’ cried ’Mily, in +exasperation at the contradiction.</p> + +<p>‘She had been his fate,’ said ’Liza, mysteriously.</p> + +<p>‘You shut up, ’Liza, and don’t talk as if you believed in +fortune-telling—not that I should mind a bit getting my fortune told +by a right old woman, in a red cloak, with a pack of cards. It would +be lovely. And, oh my! wouldn’t mother be down on me, if she found me +out!’ cried ’Mily, in high glee at the bare idea of the servant girl’s +escapade.</p> + +<p>‘It is an instinct of self-preservation on the fellow’s part, and on +Fan’s it is the old infatuation and the recent reaction working their +worst together. There is no help for it,’ said Oliver to himself, +slowly and sadly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> + +<p>Beyond the area of Copley Grange Farm every voice of every Stanhope +was dumb on the announcement of Harry’s marriage. The members of the +Stanhope family certainly agreed with Oliver, that it was useless to +interpose from any hope of dealing effectually with the consummation +of Harry’s descent in life, to which his friends had formerly been +provoked into giving a reluctant consent.</p> + +<p>At last Agneta wrote to Fan, very prettily, within certain limits. +Agneta was glad that her dear old Harry should be happy. She thanked +Fan for making his happiness. She trusted that she and Fan would always +remain friends. But there was not a word of Agneta’s coming down to +Copley Grange Farm to grace the marriage; not a hint of any future +visit; not a syllable of meeting Fan again in the whole course of their +respective lives.</p> + +<p>Fan read the letter without any remark. As she read she grew still +more colourless in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>her olive paleness, which ’Mily Polley called +‘whity-brownness,’ but there was also a more steadfast set of her +well-cut mouth, a more indomitable expression in her brown eyes.</p> + +<p>She did not give Oliver the letter to read; indeed, the brother and +sister were no longer on such terms as to volunteer an exchange of +confidences. She only surrendered the dainty epistle to Harry at his +special request.</p> + +<p>Harry reddened and bit his lip as he took in, at a couple of glances, +the familiar writing on the page and a half of note-paper. ‘Dash it! +I did not think Aggie could have been such a cold-hearted chit,’ he +muttered; ‘I did think she was more of a lady than to be a stuck-up +snob.’</p> + +<p>‘Never mind,’ said Fan, with determined magnanimity; ‘I dare say it is +hard for her to have you stoop for a wife.’</p> + +<p>‘Stoop!’ protested Harry, who was loyal in his attachments, if he was +anything; ‘it is my <span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>first regular attempt at climbing since I got out +of the garret window at one of our tutors. I nearly broke my neck then, +but I have fallen on my feet this time. I have done the best stroke of +business I can ever hope to accomplish, though I should live to head +all the markets round with my heifers and south downs, and win the +prizes from the Prince and all the agricultural nobs in the country +at the show at Islington. Ask your brother who has the best of the +bargain in our blessed contract. It is all Aunt Julia’s doing. In her +aping of liberality and angling for popularity she is at heart the most +time-serving and intolerant old woman under the sun.’</p> + +<p>‘Then it will be a victory indeed, if we can force her, and everybody +else with her, to come round to our side at last,’ said Fan, fired by +her dauntless courage.</p> + +<p>There was not more than a grain of truth in Oliver’s cruel +accusation of what had led <span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>Fan to listen to Harry Stanhope. But +that fructifying grain, together with the passion of her love for +Harry, helped the unimaginative, rational young woman to rear an airy +structure—representing her ultimate relations with the Stanhopes +and the great world. There was Harry encouraged, aided, ‘kept up to +the scratch,’ by his wife’s proud and loving support in all manly +energy and perseverance in his profession. There were his name, fame, +and fortune established, as the most enterprising and successful +gentleman-farmer in the country. (Fan paid no heed to the signs of +the times or to impending agricultural distress, in her dream). There +was the reappearance of the Hartleys on every rumour of a fresh +election, with John Hartley, thankful to accept Harry Stanhope as +an ally on equal terms, with Lady Cicely, who had once demurred at +the possibility of Fan’s accompanying her brother to dine at Copley +Grange, pleased to drive over with her husband, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>and dine herself at +Copley Grange Farm. Of course, that must be after the old farmhouse +was added to and improved, so as not to be altogether ill-matched with +the manor-house. If the <i>entrée</i> to the manor-house were secured +during the Hartleys’ temporary occupation of Copley Grange, it would +almost certainly remain free to the Stanhopes when Mr. Amyott resumed +his permanent reign. The example of the Stanhopes’ landlord would be +followed by other squires whose houses were within visiting distance of +the Farm.</p> + +<p>Fan, in her chrysalis state, had often looked from the mill side of +the Brook across to the park and great house, with its dignified blot +of an Italian façade. She had fancied how bountiful and gracious life +must be there, contrasted with life in the back shops and parlours +of the Polleys and Dadds. But she had felt then that if by virtue of +Oliver’s genius and scholarship <span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>she ever rose to cross the threshold +of such an Eden of refinement and culture, its roses would be full of +thorns for her, simply because she would not be, like the daughters +of that privileged region, to the manner born. Innately she was a +lady, but outwardly she would blunder and flounder in the labyrinths +of precedence and etiquette, or amidst the appalling topics of sport, +horses and wines, from all acquaintance with which her sex, alas! did +not exempt a woman of the higher orders. Fan would cause flippant +waiting-maids to titter, and staid butlers to frown, at her mistakes.</p> + +<p>Now all this was changed. When Fan should procure the ‘Open, Sesame!’ +to the charmed houses by so strange a process as that of becoming a +yeoman’s wife and doing a yeoman’s wife’s work, all her troubles would +be at an end. Harry had been born to the purple, and he would always be +at hand to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>give involuntarily the cue which she would take as quickly +as ever King Cophetua’s beggar-maid borrowed lustre from her royal +husband, and developed without loss of time into a right queenly lady. +Fan would not wear sparkling diamonds or sumptuous velvet, indeed, but +she had never cared for jewels or fine clothes or luxury. What she +had cared for she would attain, the simple elegance of bearing and +behaviour of a gentlewoman, by art as well as by nature.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, while these chickens were unhatched, Friarton took it +as a matter of course that Harry Stanhope’s kindred should begin by +looking coldly on the projected alliance between Copley Grange Farm and +Friarton Mill, and did not think of deposing Fan from her pedestal as a +bride because she was subjected to this ordeal.</p> + +<p>One relative came forward before the knot was tied, and accepted +Fan—not simply as an <span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>inevitable misfortune, but as a member of the +illustrious family of Stanhope. The next time Harry came to the Mill, +after Agneta’s note had been received there, he was not only attended +by his second shadow; a voice, which had been hitherto dumb, spoke.</p> + +<p>Horace managed, with his surly awkwardness—which was something +quite different from Oliver Constable’s awkwardness—and his bilious +ungraciousness, even in conferring a compliment, which made it seem as +if a good-natured impulse went entirely against the grain with him, to +propose himself as Harry’s groomsman. ‘If you don’t mind, if no other +body will serve Harry’s purpose, and help to turn him off,’ he said to +Fan in the voice, the tone of which was out of tune and grating, unless +sometimes when he addressed his brother.</p> + +<p>Fan had never smiled so sweetly on Harry in the whole course of his +wooing, as she now smiled on the grudging, unjoyous groomsman, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>who, +sure enough, was to be Harry’s servant, not hers. ‘Oh! I am glad and +grateful that Harry’s oldest and best friend is to stand by him on his +marriage day,’ she said audibly to the dull ears. ‘I know you are not +thinking of me, and I do not wish you to think of me—I only say this to +express, though you may not care to hear, what an obligation and honour +you are conferring on me by acting as Harry’s brother still. But it is +so, Mr. Horace’ (she had not begun to call him by his Christian name, +just as he had never called her anything save ‘Miss Constable.’ She was +in some apprehension that ‘Miss Constable’ would not even pass into +‘Mrs. Stanhope’ with Horace). ‘I will never forget your kindness to +Harry,’ she finished.</p> + +<p>He looked at her for a moment with an impulse of furious displeasure +added to his ordinary gruff, sardonic mood, as if he questioned her +right to thank him for Harry, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>bade her be wary of taking so +much upon her. Then her tender tact penetrated the thick skin of his +jaundiced, warped nature. ‘All right, Fan,’ he said, touching her hand +and dropping it again, and giving what exacting, fastidious people +might have classed as a ghastly grin. But from that date Fan was +happily convinced that though she was a very small person compared to +Harry in his brother’s eyes, Horace had forgiven her on the spot, and +taken her, for all time to come, into a humble corner of the chamber of +his affections, since she had shown herself capable of comprehending, +in a degree, what the brothers were to each other, and would never seek +to separate them. Thus Harry Stanhope’s lovers and slaves became sworn +allies, and not vowed adversaries.</p> + +<p>The hard lines were for Oliver. It was all very well for Sally Pope +to cackle that now Miss Fan had got her will, and she wished the +young mistress well, neither was it any harm <span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>to speed her going, for +marriage was the best lot that could befall most young women, and she +would ‘fettle’ Master Oliver—see how comfortable she would make him, in +all the old homely ways, like a king with his faithful housekeeper.</p> + +<p>Oliver had no doubt Sally would make his body comfortable, but what +of the refreshment of his mind and heart now that his father was +dead, when his only sister—the little Fan of other days—alienated +from him already, should have left him in order to make a foolish +<i>mésalliance</i> of which no good could come? Friarton Mill in its +sweet domestic beauty would be robbed of its chief attraction so soon +as Fan was gone.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV"> + CHAPTER XXV. + <br> + <span>‘THE DEVIL SHALL NOT HAVE HARRY.’</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">The</span> three years allotted by his brother-farmers for Harry Stanhope to +run through what small patrimony he had invested in Copley Grange Farm, +and what credit he had begun upon, did their work more effectually than +the months given by Oliver Constable for Harry to tire of his part as a +yeoman.</p> + +<p>Fan had held her husband back with a little hand which was like a +vice for staunchness, but which had, at last, loosened its grip under +overwhelming pressure.</p> + +<p>Horace had thrown his passive dead weight in the way, to impede Harry’s +swift progress to ruin.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p> + +<p>Oliver Constable had not stood aside in sulky neutrality, or hard +inflexibility flavoured with vindictiveness, to witness the fulfilment +of his predictions. He would have given much for them to prove false. +He did all he could to prevent their realisation. He had little in +common with his brother-in-law, and it was in the characters of the two +men to grow always more apart instead of nearer to each other. Still +Oliver, though he was not much in Harry Stanhope’s company, and though +Harry showed himself constantly more restive, under any influence which +Oliver had ever possessed over him, tried his best in the thankless +office of looking after Harry, when he was beyond his wife’s scope, and +of interposing to save him—not merely from the consequences of his own +folly, but from falling a victim to his neighbours’ weaknesses. As a +result of this knight-errantry on Oliver’s part, there was an entire +rupture between him and Jack Dadd on Harry’s account.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span></p> + +<p>Harry Stanhope’s incapacity for drawing distinctions—moral as well as +social—his vanity and passion for popularity, had all pointed with +tolerable clearness to one conclusion from the first. He had no notion +of what was expedient. He was not particular in his easygoing fashion. +He was bound to turn soon from his self-imposed obligations, selected +very much at haphazard, and sitting with the greatest lightness upon +him. He must have excitement of some kind, at any cost.</p> + +<p>The upper, and, to be fair, the more decorous, set in Friarton, +which had commenced by being delighted with their opposite in Harry +Stanhope’s <i>abandon</i>, matched as it was with his gentle birth +and breeding, ceased to prize his company when they found it was +bestowed on their social inferiors with a thousand times the lavishness +and indiscriminateness which they had severely censured in Oliver +Constable. And all the time Oliver had claimed a right to act as he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>did, and asserted a principle in it, while he had shown a method in +his madness. In the course of the last three years, he had brought his +accusers to acknowledge that, though he had lost himself in the matter +of his money, talents, and education, with the desirable position which +they might have commanded, he was not a reprobate, and he had known +when to stop long before the climax of individual degradation.</p> + +<p>As Harry Stanhope ceased to be the idol of the gentlemen and ladies, +he became also less of the pet and more of the butt of the lower grade +into which he was increasingly thrown. The young farmers and tradesmen +with whom he fraternised, not only at market and in cricket-matches and +games of bowls, but on every occasion, public and private, still looked +up to him in many things, and copied him—not always to their benefit, +but a stronger tincture of contempt was getting infused into their +liking.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p> + +<p>This was especially true of Jack Dadd, who, while he continued proud +of being hand-in-glove with Harry Stanhope, did not scruple to make a +cat’s-paw of his friend, and rather enjoyed leading him into a scrape +and leaving him there. This disloyalty and shade of baseness did not +spring necessarily from Jack’s class or calling, and they had still +less to do with his natural good temper. They belonged to long-standing +class feuds and the lingering spite thus engendered. It was almost +inevitably wreaked on a person who, however ready to forget social +prejudices, sprang still from the privileged order.</p> + +<p>Oliver humbled himself in the room of Harry Stanhope, and through Harry +in the place of Fan, to remonstrate with Jack Dadd.</p> + +<p>‘You are older than Stanhope, Jack,’ Oliver reminded his quondam +friend, who had bragged earlier of their friendship, ‘and you <span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>were not +brought up in the very odour of thoughtlessness.’</p> + +<p>‘So I suppose I ain’t fit to go about with your gentleman +brother-in-law, unless as his keeper. “Not if I know it;” “Not for +Joe,”’ interrupted Jack, rudely and flippantly. ‘I ain’t so fond of +being a fellow’s keeper, as you are, Constable, though you don’t seem +to like to try it on Harry Stanhope. I thought you had got a lesson and +rid yourself of such priggishness, long ago. It ain’t a compliment to +Stanhope to make out he’s not fit to take care of hisself, or to choose +his company and be on equal terms with them. Lord! it was a funny sort +of equality last night when I cut my stick, just as he was challenging +the stableman at the “Wheat Ears” to box with him, Dummy being to hold +their jackets, I take it. Stanhope ain’t proud; I’ll say that for him, +neither when he’s as tight as a lord, nor when he’s as sober as a +judge—which don’t often happen now-a-days. It comes to this, Constable, +I’ve had enough of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>your sauce of dictation. There was not so much +difference between that and your sister’s airs, and a fine pass they’ve +brought her to: got her a gentleman for a husband, no doubt—and, what +is more, he’s worth the two of you; but he’s made her work for him so +as keeping a shop would have been a joke by comparison, and he’ll kick +the causeway all the same.’</p> + +<p>After that conversation there was an end to friendly intercourse +between Oliver and Jack, and to any fond hope which the former had once +been so conceited as to entertain, of swaying his brother-tradesman to +higher aims.</p> + +<p>Harry Stanhope’s deterioration in every respect included his inveterate +idleness in all pursuits which did not take the form of sport or +frolic, while ploughing, sowing, cattle-feeding, even hay-making +and reaping, when they ceased to be novelties, ceased also to be +sport or frolic, lost every element of interest and amusement, and +became positively repugnant <span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>to the man who remained always a boy. +He neglected his farming utterly, or made wild havoc with it in his +fitful, reckless operations, forced sales, and consequent desperate +losses.</p> + +<p>With all this wanton waste Fan had nothing to do. She had accomplished +wonders in the <i>rôle</i> she had undertaken. Her dairy produce and +poultry were from the first among the best in the neighbourhood. She +competed successfully with those farmers’ wives who were either nothing +save dairymaids and henwives, or who employed experienced servants +to do their mistresses’ work by proxy. Any prizes which agricultural +societies awarded to the tenants of Copley Grange Farm were for its +mistress’s butter and cheese, goslings and turkey poults.</p> + +<p>And all the time Fan was not a dairymaid alone, she was a gentleman’s +wife deserving of the name. In order to unite the contrasting +attributes, she rose up early and lay down late, and ate the bread +of carefulness. She changed <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>her dress as often as any fine lady who +has nothing to do, no occupation or pleasure in life save dressing +herself by the help of a maid. Fan was rewarded when Harry noticed the +freshness of her calicot morning gown, the daintiness of her afternoon +piqué, the good taste of her evening grenadine.</p> + +<p>Neither Harry nor Horace had an idea of gardening beyond sticking a +spade into the ground once in the course of the spring and leaving it +there after a quarter of an hour, or gathering an occasional handful of +strawberries, while the cook demanded a regular supply of vegetables, +and the masters missed seasonable fruit when it was not forthcoming, +appearing to expect cherries, peaches, and pears to drop from the skies +like manna. Fan read garden chronicles alternately with dairy manuals, +and spent many a fatiguing hour of her early married life striving to +direct the labours of an improvised <span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>gardener drawn from the ranks of +the field workers. It was as much out of the question for Harry to keep +a skilled gardener as it was for Fan to set up a qualified housekeeper +and an experienced dairymaid, though Harry would have attempted it +without a doubt if he had been suffered. But Fan stinted herself +of all other worthy assistants, because a good cook and a trained +table-boy who could cater for the two young men and wait upon them as +they had been used to be waited upon, became absolutely necessary to +the Stanhopes, as soon as their establishment at Copley Grange Farm +acquired a settled character, and ceased to partake of the nature of +living for a time <i>al fresco</i>, or <i>in villeggiatura</i>.</p> + +<p>When Fan became painfully conscious that she had not only her own +arduous double and treble duties to attend to, she must also supply +deficiencies on Harry’s part, she rose to the occasion gallantly. +She added agricultural <span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>journals, treatises on husbandry, essays on +farm stock, to her other diligent studies. She crammed herself; she +sought to coach Harry. She tired herself to death and exposed herself +to innumerable catarrhs and coughs wandering over the fields in all +kinds of weather, to win him, by her close sympathetic companionship, +to go among his men, or else to show them, in his interest, that there +was the eye of a mistress, if not a master, on their work. She drove +with Harry and Horace to the markets, and if it had not been to spare +Harry’s dignity as a yeoman and his credit as a man—since poor Fan had +a double object and a double terror in accompanying her husband to the +towns—she would willingly have stood with him in the streets and the +corn exchanges and sat with him at the inn tables. And if Fan could +have been ten women instead of one, she might have saved Harry Stanhope +from worldly destruction, as Mrs. Polley had rescued her husband and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>children. The two women did not resemble each other much in other +respects, and there was little love lost between them. But they shared +at least the helpfulness, command of resources, and capacity for brave +effort and endurance, of the women of the trading classes—the women who +have not been spoilt, and have not lost the instincts of energy and +enterprise, and with it the most distant resemblance to the virtuous +woman in Proverbs. This was part of Fan’s inheritance as a tradesman’s +daughter, which she had neither guessed nor valued as it deserved.</p> + +<p>It is a fact established by experience that many women, both widows +and spinsters, have made, when the opportunities offered themselves, +good and successful farmers. Fan was a clever woman apart from +book-learning; she was a woman of strong resolution, and she was +stimulated and braced by every motive which she held dear. If a single +mortal woman could <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>have redeemed Harry Stanhope’s fortunes, she would +have redeemed them.</p> + +<p>But the one woman must certainly have been ten, and Fan could +not multiply her identity or render herself ubiquitous. She was +tremendously overweighted—not only by the whole burden and anxiety of +the farm’s being cast upon her, who ought to have been treated as the +weaker vessel, but by the unnerving, despairing suspicion—deepening +every day into hopeless conviction, that an impending wreck of other +than worldly goods was to be faced and wrestled with. Harry was—in what +became always more imminent and hideous danger—of being as speedily and +utterly swamped in tastes, opinions, habits—all that constitute moral +character, as in income and capital. In the dread and horror of that +final downfall, all other falls began to look light.</p> + +<p>Fan ceased to pay the smallest heed to the fact that still there came +no recognition of her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>entrance into the Stanhope family save from +pretty, temporising, meaningless letters written by Agneta. The other +members coolly ignored the intruder. Mrs. Harry Stanhope had no concern +to spare for the consciousness that the little household at Copley +Grange Farm were not keeping their first footing, which had seemed to +be their birthright, among the upper ten of Friarton.</p> + +<p>She did not even mind that the Polleys and Dadds grew loud in amazed +pity—in which, at the same time, she believed they revelled, over +her altered circumstances. Mrs. Harry Stanhope was not only reduced +to sending butter, cheese and eggs into the town for sale, she came +herself to the Polleys’ shop and the cheese shop, to square the +accounts which no one else at the farm could make out. Everybody knew +Harry Stanhope had turned out a gentle beggar and purely ornamental. He +could not afford to keep a bailiff to give the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>orders for which he was +so little prepared that his men continually laughed in their sleeves +at the instructions they received. The mistress of Copley Grange Farm +commanded no more help than she could get from a girl under twenty +in addition to the dairyman to manage the dairy and poultry-yard, on +which it was evident the principal dependence of the farmer must rest. +And did not the old Fan Constable look worn and pulled down, though +she might be proud and ‘game’ to the last, as Mrs. Harry Stanhope? The +truth was that when Fan was from home or in society without Harry, her +eyes had already acquired the fixed, abstracted look of eyes which are +looking beyond their present surroundings, and seeing in the distance +things invisible to her companions. Her ears were constantly on the +alert, strained to catch sounds inaudible to the rest of the party. +While she was taking her share in the conversation or the business +going on about her, there was a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>perpetual undercurrent of thought +and care in her mind which had no reference to the topics discussed. +She had great self-command, so that she could preserve a double +consciousness, but she was never at ease, never without trouble; and +the unresting worry beneath the calm and smiling surface, showed itself +in a haggard, aging look which was rapidly robbing Fan of all traces of +her youth.</p> + +<p>One evening in spring, when the thrushes and blackbirds were +anticipating the nightingales and tuning their ’prentice notes in the +hedges—which had gained the purplish-red bloom, the herald of a flush +of green—over the primroses looking pale and cold in the raw wind of +the March twilight, after the golden shields of the celandines, which +had kept their neighbours company with quite an exuberance of jollity +in the morning sunshine, had collapsed, as early as the afternoon, into +small tightly wrapped-up balls, encased in dim green envelopes, Oliver +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>was startled by Fan’s walking like a ghost unexpected, unannounced, +and all alone, into the mill-house parlour.</p> + +<p>It was too early in the season for evening strolls, and lately Fan +had never been seen abroad without her husband. The same could not be +said of Harry, who was often enough from home without his wife, and +not quite so frequently, but still with tolerably constant recurrence +during the winter, without his brother, whom he had learnt at last +to shake off imperiously. There had come to be an unnatural divorce +between light and shade, and day and night, neither faring well in the +separation. For Harry, all by himself, drove his chariot of the sun, +like another Phaëton, madly, and if he did not set the world on fire, +his own eyes grew scorched and bloodshot, his lips parched, his hands +palsied; the whole goodly springs of his manliness and kindliness were +dried up and polluted with ashes, because of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>the burden of consuming +fire he had laid hold of and would thenceforth try in vain to guide and +control.</p> + +<p>As for Horace, he would slink away like a dog summarily dismissed by +his master, withdraw into his corner to sit moodily there, and only +start up on the distant sound of Harry’s clogged instead of winged +footsteps. Oliver had seen Horace and Fan exchange furtive, miserable +glances when Horace returned thus alone, and drew back into the +greatest gloom which the little drawing-room afforded him. Then the +pair would sedulously pretend to read and work while in reality their +ears were on the stretch, and their hearts on the rack, till far on +into the night. These two knew and trusted each other thoroughly by +this time, though Oliver was certain the looks never passed into words. +Wife and brother remained too loyal in their allegiance.</p> + +<p>As Oliver rose hastily to bid Fan welcome, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>he saw more plainly than +he had yet seen it, and with a sharp pang at the sight, the change in +her looks. A small woman to begin with, she was now little more than +skin and bone. Her brown eyes appeared a sombre black, set in great +shadowy hollows in her white face. The straight firm line of her lips +was drooping and quivering. She put her thin hand in Oliver’s and held +up her face to be kissed, and spoke without any preamble. ‘I am beaten, +Oliver. They say an Englishman never knows when he is beaten, but that +is a man, not a woman. Yet did you ever think I would give in with +life? and I have given in. I have come to you, not to save me—you tried +that once and failed. What did it matter if I might have saved another? +only I have not—there’s the rub. I don’t mind myself, and you need not +mind me. But you must do something. I tell you, Oliver, you must move +heaven and earth to save Harry.’ Her voice rose into a little weak cry. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>She was like a creature who had lost all command over herself.</p> + +<p>But it was not so much this reversal of natural law in a woman—by +organisation and courage, self-sufficing, self-restrained, rational +and resolute—which smote Oliver Constable with dismay and compunction, +as if he had been the sinner whose sin was at the bottom of this +spectacle, the most pitiable he had ever beheld. It was some +comprehension of what Fan must have suffered, of what it had cost +this woman—ardent and steadfast as women even more than men can prove +themselves—to own herself beaten, to grovel as it were at his knees, +and fling herself for help on him of all men, who, though he had been a +brother in more than name, had interposed with all his might, without +effect, as both of them were well aware, to turn her from the step +which had brought her to this pass.</p> + +<p>He remembered having, more than once in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>their lives, angrily accused +her of being incapable of changing her mind; and—knowing as he had +seemed to know her high spirit, unquenchable energy, and unswerving +determination—he had been tempted to believe, against right reason, +that however mistaken and misplaced her aspirations, or foolish and +baseless her dreams, Fan could not be baffled, and would not be +vanquished.</p> + +<p>The end of all was, that she was more thoroughly subdued, presenting +a more deplorable object of contemplation, than if she had been a far +feebler woman.</p> + +<p>‘My God!’ cried Oliver in his heart—moved as he was to its depths when +a believing man can but appeal to the Father of his spirit; ‘what must +she not have borne to crush her whole being, lay her pride in the dust, +extinguish the last spark of hope, and break her heart?’</p> + +<p>The next moment Oliver was briskly <span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>administering to Fan, as most +people in his position, at their wits’ end what to do for the best, +would have administered it, a cold douche—first on the suppliant, +whom he would fain have taken into his arms and sheltered from every +farther blast of the stormy wind which had cast her down bleeding and +powerless, to implore mercy for another and not herself—and next on her +agonised petition.</p> + +<p>‘Nonsense, Fan, you are over-wrought, my dear; your nerves are +unstrung; you do not know what you are saying.’</p> + +<p>But the time for pulling herself together, struggling to her feet, and +staggering on with the veil drawn decently down again over her torture +and her faintness, was over for Fan. ‘I do know what I am saying, +Oliver,’ she insisted with ashy lips, while the hand which clutched his +arm was trembling like a leaf. ‘You think a wife should not drop the +slightest hint of the skeleton in her closet. I will agree <span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>with you +here. And I have not breathed a word to any other human being—not to +Horry, who is his second self—only to you; and do you suppose I could +have spoken to you unless in the last extremity, which has come?’</p> + +<p>‘Then rest satisfied with what you have done, Fan; say no more about +it,’ Oliver conjured her, as if he would have put his hand upon her +mouth to keep her from further utterance, or brought down the creeping +dusk to hide their faces from each other. He got up, took several turns +up and down the room, so that he might have his back to her when he +promised solemnly; ‘The devil shall not have Harry, so far as I can +help it.’</p> + +<p>That Fan should have come to her brother with such a prayer on her +lips, was only less bad for him than for Fan herself.</p> + +<p>Oliver Constable had not the most distant thought that Harry Stanhope +could have grossly ill-treated his wife. Oliver would as <span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>soon have +suspected Harry of lifting up his strong right arm to strike down +Horace unresisting under the pacific influence of his devotion. It +is your poor half-brutal coal-heaver who ordinarily adds kicks to +curses, where his wife is concerned. As a rule, though certainly not +without exceptions, centuries of refining civilisation and liberal +education remove Harry’s whole class from committing such outrages. +Harry Stanhope, with his graciousness in an entirely muddled condition, +might challenge a muscular ostler to a round in the noble art of +self-defence. He was known to have taken the law into his own hands and +knocked down a ruffian who was belabouring a child and insulting an old +woman. But he had probably hardly ever spoken a rough word to Fan, whom +he had held in the greatest respect ever since he had known her, though +she had become powerless to make a man of him, as he had proposed. She +was not silly, or bumptious, or trying in any way so as to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>provoke +the wrath which had originally been a rare experience with Harry. But +not the less he had slain her faith in him, by his hopeless levity +and folly, which were tending unmistakably to animal indulgence and +besotted excess. He had not destroyed one atom of her love—else Fan’s +heart too might have died within her in its cold emptiness, but, at +least, it would not have been wrung with the intolerable pang of loving +him to death and beyond death, yet seeing him go down, in spite of her, +to the place of dragons.</p> + +<p>There are students of humanity who positively state that a good man +or woman’s love must inevitably perish with the loss of esteem. If +so, the best human love must be singularly unlike Divine love as it +is revealed to us. And it is one thing voluntarily to give love to a +creature whose repulsive moral disease is evident and undeniable, and +has already penetrated and poisoned the nature through and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>through—and +quite another to have loved the same creature in the beauty and glory +of sound mortal health, with but the seeds of fatal disease, only to be +detected by the wise physician, lurking in the system, and having once +loved to turn with loathing abhorrence and absolute rejection, from +the sick man, when his weakness has found him out, his sore ancestral +malady has laid fast hold of him, and he is fighting a desperate battle +for life or death.</p> + +<p>Not only did Fan’s love cling to Harry in his social and moral decline +still more closely than when she had learned to love him in the heyday +of his natural gifts; even Oliver—who had early taken Harry for what he +was worth, and condemned him to his destiny, now in the teeth of what +he had done to Fan, felt the man’s heart within him turn and soften +with yearning and commiseration for the stripling who was so unequally +matched, and was standing foot to foot, reeling under the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>shocks +inflicted by a giant adversary and ghastly foe.</p> + +<p>Oliver needed this compensation of human tenderness revived and called +forth in the heart of a benevolent man, by human weakness and peril in +its sorriest guise and direst strait, to help to make up to him for +the sacrifice he was called on to offer; since the world had not gone +well with Oliver Constable during these last years, and his own affairs +required the unremitting attention which he saw himself compelled, and +had pledged himself to Fan, to give to those of another.</p> + +<p>Oliver had started on his mission impressed with the conviction that +it behoved him especially to make his business prosper, or, if he +could not do that, to prevent its becoming disastrous, in order to +remove the slur thrown liberally on Jacks-of-all-trades, geniuses, +and enthusiasts. He had not the slightest inclination to the modified +martyrdom of commercial <span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>losses for their own sake. He decidedly +objected to wasting the money which his father had carefully gathered +that Oliver’s career as a gentleman and scholar might be untrammelled, +even for a good object, if he could prevent it.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, it was part of Oliver Constable’s duty, as he +conceived it, to vindicate the truth that the best citizenship and the +best Christianity did not, as a matter of course, conduct a diligent, +prudent, and self-denying tradesman straight into the Bankruptcy Court.</p> + +<p>But Oliver was fated to share the lot of most real reformers and +pioneers of the highest civilisation—the only civilisation which is +not merely skin-deep, but which, penetrating to the core, pervades the +whole man, and by the grace of God never leaves him, only departing +when he himself departs, to dwell with him in heavenly habitations—and +of the righteous Gospel which the Lord of Righteousness delivered to be +worked out—not in church or <span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>chapel wholly or even principally, but on +such fields as the Rialto of Venice or the London Exchange, the shops +of common tradesmen, the tables where feasts, great and small, are +held, the hearths round which men and women meet to rest from the work +of the day, and cheer their souls.</p> + +<p>But Oliver had to discover for himself, in more ways than one, the +pithiness of the proverb that to give a dog an ‘ill name’ is to hang +him, that to run a-muck against popular prejudices is to suffer injury +more or less severe, and wait long for any shadow of a reward.</p> + +<p>He had no manner of doubt that the reward of disarming distrust and +establishing a right to success would come in time, if the worker +could but possess his soul in patience, and exercise sufficient faith, +endurance, and bountiful liberality, if he could tarry and lay out, +nothing doubting, fresh materials and pains.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></p> + +<p>Oliver’s fortitude was not exhausted, but he was sensible he had spent +some of his funds freely, and would soon be living on the verge of his +income, if he did not economise every fraction and dedicate it to its +proper use.</p> + +<p>The secession of Jim Hull, with the establishment of his nephew in fine +new baking premises and a fine new business in the town, had diverted +a large slice of the public confidence and custom from what were now +held the <i>old</i> Constable premises and business. The slice was +always increasing in size, and diminishing the original <i>pièce de +résistance</i>, from which it had been taken by the shrewdness which +proved quite justified in the anticipation that the public would prefer +apparent purity and actual adulteration, both in the produce of the +mill and the bakehouse, to the uncorrupted but unbleached article.</p> + +<p>There was the additional stimulus to the withdrawal of patronage +of a strong spice of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>malicious satisfaction, not enough to form +a conspiracy, but existing in sufficient abundance for lending +countenance and support, whether sly or bold, to a rival business +conducted on good old-fashioned, rational, give-and-take principles. +Oliver Constable had come among the Friarton shopkeepers uttering +high-flown heresy, witnessing in his conduct against time-honoured +liberties of trade, and stirring up doubts in the bosoms of the very +tradesmen—not to say of their customers. So the Dadd and Polley part +of the community had no objection that Oliver should bear in his own +person the brunt of his Quixotic ideas. Perhaps that would teach him to +pay greater respect to their superior age and experience.</p> + +<p>In short, Oliver’s business profits were diminishing so steadily as +to threaten to make his mill and bakehouse eat their own heads, if +he did not diminish in proportion the staffs of millers and bakers—a +step which he objected <span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>to take so long as he could afford to hold +out, since it would not only be tantamount to an admission that he was +outmatched, he argued with himself, it would be hard upon the men who +had submitted to his rules and consented to work on his terms—not that +he had altogether overcome the workmen’s opposition. His reputation +had gone abroad as a master full of new-fangled fancies and hobbies, +therefore he had been exposed to the further disadvantage of possessing +a succession of restless, suspicious servants, flighty on their own +account, and inclined to perpetual experiments on, and changes of, +employers.</p> + +<p>Then Oliver had been of a mind to show that he would not neglect any +lawful means of improving his flour and bread, so he had set about +introducing expensive new machinery into the mill and bakehouse. +But being, after all, a green hand, without his father’s practical +experience in his double trade, the young man <span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>committed several +astounding blunders in the adoption of the machinery, and was much out +of pocket as a punishment for the errors of his ignorance. The result +awoke no small amount of jeering, crowing, and laughter at the leading +tea and supper tables of Friarton.</p> + +<p>Oliver’s inner man had not fared better during these three harassing +years. Fan’s house was not a second home to him. The sole effect, so +far as he could see, of his striving to fraternise in the true sense +with the Dadds and the Polleys was that he had succeeded in arousing +in his father’s old allies a hostile and mocking temper, not pleasant +to encounter. Since his quarrel with Jack Dadd, the old Dadds, who +naturally took their son’s part, had fought shy of Oliver Constable; +and he had also, in some manner, he could not for the life of him tell +how, given serious offence to the whole Polley family. He supposed they +were enlisted, with hot, resentful party spirit, or <span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>what they mistook +for party spirit, on Jack Dadd’s side. Oliver was half right, half +wrong. For he was incapable of perceiving the other and major ground +of complaint which the Polleys had against him—because, after raising +false expectations, he had stopped short of seeking to keep company +either with ’Liza or one of her sisters, in the prospect of matrimony.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hilliard had never gone so far as to shut her door against Oliver +Constable. Nay, she had been so candid as to admit with pleasure that +her later prognostications with regard to him had been premature, and +in the main erroneous. But Oliver’s chief inducement—as he had come to +acknowledge to himself after there was no further need of crushing it +down—for availing himself of the privilege of visiting at the Meadows, +had vanished from the date of the terrible illness which had seized +on Catherine Hilliard. It was one of the worst of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>those indefinite, +incalculable, nervous illnesses, bred of the conditions of modern +life, which have no beginning and no end, which baffle by their very +intangibility and paralyse by their unrelaxing clutch, and one of whose +horrors is that in their abnormal character they may develop symptoms +piteously fantastic and grotesque, like the antics of madness. Such +illnesses, dreaded not without cause, are apt, when they spare the +wasted life, to reduce the patient to a state of unrelieved, permanent +prostration and chronic invalidism, which is death in life.</p> + +<p>Catherine Hilliard had drifted away from her friends on the misty, +dreary sea of illness which had no shore, till she seemed lost to them +here, till even to Oliver Constable—who now owned to himself, like the +<i>Bursch</i> in the famous <i>Burschenlied</i>, that he had loved her +always and would love her throughout eternity—she survived chiefly as +the aching, melancholy <span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>thought of the girl who had been capable of +dreaming noble things, but who had not been able to grasp the truth +that behind the commonest, even the most sordid, absolutely repulsive +details of human life, there exist nobler things still than man or +woman ever dreamt of in their highest philosophy.</p> + +<p>And the brute creation, which Catherine Hilliard had so loved, +preferring it to the human, drew dumbly and wistfully away from the +decline of her humanity; while the book world in which she had elected +to dwell, crumbled into dust around her. She had left books too behind +her, and the beings that peopled her present existence were more +visionary than the ghosts she had formerly chosen for her company.</p> + +<p>Oliver could only look forward to her deliverance from this last +bondage to the unreal, by her entrance on unsealed and everlasting +verities.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p> + +<p>Then it was when Oliver was most tempted to regard his enterprise as +a wretched disappointment, he was called on to take up the burden of +another man’s failure.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"> + CHAPTER XXVI. + <br> + <span>THE PRICE AT WHICH HARRY STANHOPE WAS RESCUED.</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">The</span> first thing to be done for Harry Stanhope was to get him out of +the situation for which he was utterly unfit, into which he had thrust +himself—to extricate him from the network of idleness, false activity, +unsuitable companionship, debt, and dissipation in which he was +entangled. In some respects the feat was not only practicable, it was +comparatively easy. Harry had proved himself so thoroughly incapable +a farmer, that it was not likely any sane landlord would be urgent to +keep this tenant, particularly as his slender funds and a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>part of his +wife’s portion were already flung to the winds, or rather sunk in the +soil, and he had no more left to deposit in the land even if that had +been his sole mode of spending money.</p> + +<p>Old Peter Constable had believed in women’s power of standing alone, +and had left Fan absolutely mistress of her portion. Oliver had +braved her indignation by asking her to have it settled on herself +before her marriage. And certainly Harry Stanhope had not opposed the +arrangement, for Harry was truly convinced of the treasure Fan was +in herself, as well as habitually careless of pounds, shillings, and +pence. Therefore, though he talked the jargon of his set—to Horace and +others, and professed, as a claim to being a man of the world, not to +be indifferent to tin—to the degree of counting on a woman’s goods +to eke out his resources, he did not really put much weight on Fan’s +bank-book and coupons, or <span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>mind whether she kept them in her own hands +or put them into his.</p> + +<p>In the end, Fan, more as a means of vindicating Harry’s +disinterestedness than as a precaution for her own independence in days +to come, allowed half of her portion to be tied up for her personal use +if she should so ordain it. She would gladly have given up to Harry +every shilling of this reserve, after he had disposed of the rest, +had it not been that her foresight for him was not to say infinitely +greater than his for himself or for her, but for any she could have +exercised on her own account. Harry had become to his wife, in all +worldly respects, like one of those minors or infants in the eyes of +the law, with regard to whom it is his protector’s duty to defend him +from the dangers of his own helplessness and to hedge him round with +artificial barriers. Still Fan was eminently an upright woman, and she +would have fought against her despair and nerved herself to strip—not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>herself alone but Harry, of her remaining possessions, in order to +discharge the debts which he had contrived to incur in spite of her, +rather than let them fall upon her brother, if she had not known that +even supposing she could get Oliver to forego what all concerned in it +called his ‘loans,’ it would only be a form. It could not prevent him +from being impoverished in the long run, because it must be on Oliver +the little family at Copley Grange Farm would have to depend, till its +mistress was strong enough, if she ever were strong again, to struggle +to secure independence—not merely for herself and Harry, but for Horace +whose oars were shipped in Harry’s boat.</p> + +<p>There was no difficulty on Harry’s side; he had never been overburdened +with scruples, and he hardly suffered from any in accepting Oliver +Constable’s interposition to free him—Harry, from his mess at Oliver’s +cost. For indubitably there were money penalties, the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>extent of +which even Fan did not guess, to pay all round, before the volunteer +yeoman-farmer could be withdrawn from the ranks of the yeomen, +released from the obligations of his lease, and granted a discharge +by his creditors, while it was Oliver who, in each instance, paid the +defalcation.</p> + +<p>Oliver did not grudge it so much when he found that Harry, sick of +the whole concern, readily consented to go abroad at once with his +wife, brother, and brother-in-law—who appreciated the concession +and was conscious of a lurking sweetness and graciousness in his +unstable prodigal’s freedom from resentment at the old sap and grinder +Constable’s interference and assumption, however carefully masked, or +however dearly bought, of the reins of government.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all, paradoxical as it may sound, dogged resistance would +most assuredly have promised better than unconditional submission <span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>for +Harry’s ultimate attainment of moral manhood.</p> + +<p>‘Charity begins at home,’ Oliver told himself, using the proverb in +a sense which satisfied him, when he reckoned up the damage to his +own prospects, of leaving the mill and bakehouse in the charge of a +dolt like Ned Green, and a foreman thirty years younger and a whole +century less acute and discreet than Jim Hull. ‘I have always desired +to be kept from developing into a monster, made up of theories like +Maximilian Robespierre,’ he assured himself farther, with a faint +smile; ‘and no doubt it is the finest thing which can happen to +me—myself, to be forced to skedaddle across the Channel, and potter +about foreign towns with Fan and her small family. It will knock the +starch out of me in no time, and take me down ever so many pegs in my +priggishness.’</p> + +<p>The sum of Oliver’s project for the Stanhopes, in the meantime, was +to cut off Harry <span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>from his moorings and their tendencies, to furnish +him with the substitutes of movement and variety, to afford Fan the +change, rest, and recruiting of which she was sorely in need, till +something more effectual should be devised to rebuild the ruined home, +and replace the lost opportunities. It was a humble enough programme, +not very interesting and exciting, save for the main thread of the +drama, on which all the rest hung, and on which the performers were +shamefacedly silent.</p> + +<p>Most people have experienced the peculiar fascination and absorption +which is caused by dangerous illness in a family, when the whole +interests of life centre in the sick-room and its bulletins. All +outside matters, though they might formerly have been regarded as of +vital moment, dwindle into insignificance, until the wide world with +its empires and peoples, tottering republics and falling thrones, and +nations wresting their liberties at the expense of bloody <span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>battles in +which men by thousands perish uncounted, scarcely noticed—are blotted +out for the time by a few feet of flooring and ceiling, a single bed, +one figure lying still with half-closed eyes and half-parted lips, +faintly beating heart and fluttering breath.</p> + +<p>Harry Stanhope had acquired, as his companions knew, the taint of a +grievous disease, half physical, half spiritual, which may rank with +the plague and cholera among moral maladies. So to watch stealthily +his symptoms, note the changes in his state, chronicle with trembling +hope his progress in throwing off the deeply injected poison, or to +recognise with sinking heart its fresh outbreak and farther spread +through the system, laid hold upon and monopolised the thoughts of the +little party of which Harry was the half-unconscious sick man, till +he engrossed them more and more, as the combat thickened, and final +victory or defeat drew nearer and nearer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span></p> + +<p>Sometimes Harry would rise so far above his ailment as to lose the +worst of the disfiguring traces which it was stamping on his outer +man. He would be for days and weeks together the easily entertained, +contented, manly lad of the past. He would be as simple and pleasant as +an unspoilt schoolboy, as charmed to go or stay with Fan as in the days +of their courtship, as united to Horry as when the brothers were loving +children, as satisfied with chaffing Constable, and proving the life of +his own circle, where animal spirits were in request, as if there did +not exist for him more highly-flavoured attractions, more enthralling +society—a coarse and powerful supplementary source of excitement.</p> + +<p>In these moods, when Harry was restored to his right mind, he +was—without a grain of hypocrisy, so frank and free, so irresistibly +helpful to children and old people, so easily served by servants, +that he won, without fail, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>the heart of every stranger with whom +he came in contact. He was the charming fellow-traveller, at each +<i>table-d’hôte</i> and in every steamboat and railway carriage, of +hosts of unknown travellers, native and foreign. Harry was the great +social conductor and bond of union between the whirling world around +him and the rest of his party, who smiled cheerfully, and accepted with +gay grumbling their share of the plague of his popularity.</p> + +<p>Then such a transformation came over the patient that clear brow and +eyes, broad shoulders, active hands and feet and tongue grew as if +they belonged to an entirely different person. Here was a man in the +toils of raging fever, and possessed by its delusions, with the load +of a nameless unbearable oppression on his lowering forehead, the +gleam of a strange fire in his burning eyes, having his head bent, and +his back slouched with the gait of an incorrigible vagabond, who must +escape from the most <span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>sacred bonds and solemn obligations, and carry +a distracted spirit ill at ease, and which cannot rest, into kindred +storm and darkness. Why, the very muscular hands were straining and +quivering to clutch the deadly foe, bound to overthrow the victim in +the hateful encounter; the swift feet were stumbling in their frenzied +haste to reach the goal from which there is seldom a return; the +tongue spoke winning words no more, but stammered with the language of +unreasoning fury and aimless invective.</p> + +<p>When the demon of his craving for strong drink leaped upon Harry and +held him, he broke from every other detaining grasp. It was to no +purpose that Fan, Horace, and Oliver put force on their inclinations +in order to go with desperate perseverance on the endless round of +theatres, public gardens, and concerts, as if the travellers had been +so many schoolboys abroad for their holidays, or as if individual +tastes and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>domestic habits were unknown to the party. Harry would not +suffer Fan by his side; he shook off his brother and Oliver. He quitted +them, and defied them to follow him, or he fled from them and outsped +them by the terrible strength and subtlety of his madness. They lost +him for intervals of hours, increasing to days and even weeks. The +journeyings of the party came to an abrupt stop; all their previous +arrangements were upset.</p> + +<p>Fan and Horry, with Oliver added as a third to the group, looked at +each other, on the first sign of the repetition of the miserable +scenes, as the two had looked in the familiar farmhouse at home.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Fan sat alone in the strange hotel room listening to the +careless coming and going of the other travellers; through the long +hours from sunset to darkness and the white glimmering dawn, while +Horace and Oliver, going different ways, hunted through <span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>all the +<i>places</i> and <span id="cor0"></span><i>markets</i>; the hotels and cafés—conspicuous +or obscure—the houses of entertainment where questionable hosts +received strangers more likely to prove thieves than angels taken in +unawares—the hunters studiously keeping themselves, as far as they +might, unseen, till they stalked their prey. Thrice happy for all if +it had been the beast of the field, and not merely a creature made in +the image of God, degraded into a condition lower than that of the +brutes, over which he had been ordained lord and king. A horse or a dog +would have been wiser than Harry Stanhope, and would have guided him +with advantage, in the circumstances. Or it might be the man-stalkers +returned, with reluctant feet, empty hands, and hanging heads, to the +hapless woman condemned to sit and wait in vain.</p> + +<p>In these altered times, Harry, who was so fond of his kind, constituted +the great insurmountable obstacle to any genial fraternisation <span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>between +his family and other travelling parties who were in the wholesome odour +of unsullied respectability and the vigour and gladness of moral health +and strength. He condemned his companions—not simply to a tedious and +irritating quarantine, but to a sad and chilling isolation, as they +drew away from their neighbours to hide their wound and its humiliating +cause under a tightly grasped mantle, which must never be thrown open.</p> + +<p>The isolation served only to draw the group more closely together, and +to engage them, with still greater usurpation of their faculties, in +their deeply human office, till Oliver became well-nigh as wrapped up +as Fan and Horace were, in that vocation of nurse and brother’s keeper, +which—whether it be of the body or the soul—passes with practice into +the most enticing and devouring of pursuits. Witness how it lures its +recruits from the brightest and most peaceful quarters, and holds its +brave soldiers <span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>fast, resisting all remonstrance, till they drop at +their posts in dens of squalor and misery.</p> + +<p>Time and place ceased largely to exert their power over persons bound +up in one man’s fortunes in a prolonged and terrible single combat.</p> + +<p>What difference did the varying seasons make, when spring stole on +to summer, and summer glided into autumn, and autumn stiffened and +froze into winter, if yet there was no sure amendment or certain +decline in Harry Stanhope’s condition? What did it matter whether the +battle-ground were the heaths of Brittany, the stony vineyards of +Burgundy, the fat pastures of Guelderland, the forests of Flanders, the +olive and orange gardens wet with the spray of the Mediterranean in the +Riviera; or whether the towns offered to the visitors the picturesque +gables and roofs of Bruges or Nüremberg, the palaces of Genoa, or the +churches of Venice, when the question still <span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>was Harry and Harry only? +How long was it since there had been an outbreak of his mania? Was he +steadier this month than last? Was there any hope left?</p> + +<p>It is not merely religious, or what many would call fanatical, people +who are brought to comprehend the sorrowful wonder of the demand, ‘What +shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own +soul?’ For the fate of a soul even here in the light of goodness and +loyal obedience to God’s laws, or of turbulent rebellion against them, +with all future honour and happiness, or all future disgrace and misery +at stake—be it in the case of a not overwise lad like Harry Stanhope—is +really of greater moment and of more intense interest to kindred +humanity, than all the natural beauties and all the acted out history +of the universe. Place a drowning man in juxtaposition with the finest, +most suggestive landscape in the world, and what spectator—not to speak +of the unhappy <span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>mortal’s familiar friends, would not—conscious of his +fellow-creature’s strait—turn his back on senseless matter and the dead +past? Unless, indeed, the looker-on were morally dwarfed, distorted, +and hardened almost beyond recognition by his kind crying shame on him, +with honest disgust for his unnatural conduct, he would watch, if he +could do no more, with a sympathetic agony of eagerness, the hard fight +for life of his perishing brother—how he clutched desperately each +bough and every twig in his path,—how he struck out gallantly for a +space till he was well-nigh beyond the engulphing wave,—how he faltered +and gave way, and was sucked back into the insatiable jaws of the +overmastering tide.</p> + +<p>The Stanhopes, with Oliver in their company, went on like the wandering +Jew, as if there were no end to their wandering, no rest for the soles +of their feet. They lived their own throbbing, high-strung family life, +till other lives <span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>beyond theirs looked distant, pale, and dim, like +lives in dreams. Tidings from the old home came to the wayfarers, and +did not move them, or only awoke in them dull or fitful responses. A +bachelor uncle of Harry and Horace Stanhope’s died, and, with some +dawning suspicion in his last days that he had left his brother’s +orphan boys very much to sink or swim as they could, sought to +anticipate the moment of reckoning by an act of atonement. He chose to +bequeath the sum of eight thousand pounds—the bulk of his savings in a +colonial office—to the poor relations whom he had shunned and ignored +as much as he could, in the course of their previous existence, instead +of to the well-to-do flesh and blood whom he had hitherto exclusively +cultivated.</p> + +<p>The timely legacy—together with what was left of Fan’s means, would +form a little competence for the Stanhopes, if they made up their minds +to settle in some quiet way abroad.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span></p> + +<p>The subject scarcely struck any of the pilgrims in this light. Would +it not rather deal the death-stroke to Harry by supplying him with +independent funds, other than his wife’s, for squandering and riot?</p> + +<p>‘Poor old uncle Geof!’ said the man on his trial, with an impulse of +his native kindliness; ‘to think he should be gone, and to cut up +well for us, after all! For at least this legacy, though it ain’t +much,’ continued Harry with a mixture of earnestness and candour, +condescension and defiance peculiar to him, ‘ain’t too little for some +enjoyment, without Fan and the rest of you looking glum. Come on, +Horry; we’ll pay all respect to the old boy and his tin, by drinking +to his memory to begin with, and then we’ll do whatever else enters +our heads, to drive dull care away. Nobody can reasonably expect two +fellows who have succeeded to a small fortune—and the smaller it is the +less self-denial is to be looked for—to abstain from <span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>a glorification +or two. But we’ll save enough to make you a handsome present, Fan, +never fear. As for Constable, he’s like the man in history, beyond +being bought.’</p> + +<p>Agneta wrote—to her brothers this time, to tell them of her approaching +marriage, with the full approbation of her guardians, to Mr. Amyott +of Copley Grange—of all men, the widower approaching middle age, the +father of two or three girls, the biggest already higher than the +writer’s elbow.</p> + +<p>‘Aggie a stepmother! Why doesn’t she go in for being a grandmother +at once?’ cried Harry, as his single derisive comment on an incident +which, since it barely touched him, did not deserve more serious +consideration.</p> + +<p>‘Ah! she was always fond of Copley Grange,’ said Fan, with quick, +womanly extenuation, as if it had been the manor-house and the squire +that Agneta had known and prized. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>‘But she is taking a great many +duties and cares upon her at once, which seems a pity, when one thinks +how many more must come in the course of nature,’ ended Fan in assumed +matter-of-factness, and in the languor which had replaced her old fire. +But she began again a moment afterwards. ‘It is not fair to herself and +to what ought to have been her natural obligations.’ Fan spoke now with +something of her former suppressed ardour and inextinguishable passion +for justice; but tears of weakness gathered in her eyes at the same +time. She was not thinking of Agneta’s future alone, but of the future +of others with claims on their sister, which Fan, in the days of her +strength, would have been the last to urge, and which Agneta appeared +deliberately disqualifying herself from ever fulfilling.</p> + +<p>‘Heaven help us! I think we are not very cordial in our +congratulations,’ exclaimed Oliver impatiently. He was pricked by the +troubled <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>consciousness that the cares as well as the pleasures of this +life—the cares which are not of our seeking and which certainly do not +contribute to our ease and satisfaction, are in danger of choking the +good seed of generous thoughts and magnanimous judgments. ‘Can’t we +wish Miss Stanhope and Mr. Amyott joy, without spotting all the real or +imaginary disadvantages in their connection, and collaring the couple +with the double chains of fulfilled and neglected requirements?’</p> + +<p>A new idea was tickling Harry. ‘Look here, Horry; if we had stayed in +the Farm we should have been Aggie’s tenants—bound to take off our hats +to her. We might even have yoked ourselves into the carriage which +brought her and her blooming bridegroom home from their marriage-tour. +I wonder if she would have had an extra barrel of beer broached for my +benefit? She has some small notion of the depth of my thirst. Wouldn’t +it have been jolly? <span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>By Jove! we’ve spoilt an interesting episode for +the county paper. “Charming tableau of attached relations forgetting +the accidental diversities of rank and fortune and rushing into each +other’s arms.” Don’t frown, Fan, my love; you would not have been +called on to drag Aggie up the drive hooraying for our master and +mistress. You would have sat at ease, over the way, and witnessed the +gala from a respectful distance.’</p> + +<p>‘If it is any gratification to you to talk nonsense, Harry, why then, +do it,’ said Fan, with a lingering reflection of her old girlish +dignity, in the middle of her womanly pain at his want of comprehension +and feeling, and yet with the pathetic indulgence to every defect in +the man she loved, which far transcended both dignity and pain.</p> + +<p>Oliver knew he was still capable of quite another form of selfishness, +when a letter from Mrs. Hilliard reached Fan. Mrs. Hilliard <span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>would +not consent to lose sight of her kindred in exile, any more than +when settled in a mill and bakehouse at her door. She had no further +occasion, indeed, to acknowledge Fan’s triumph and pay it homage, but +the eventual defeat of Mrs. Hilliard’s enemy was disarming in another +way. Mrs. Hilliard was interested to learn what farther reversal of +parts might occur among her cousins; and whether poor dear Harry +Stanhope was to prove the reprobate out and out, as she rather feared +would be the end. But nobody could help it save himself, he was the +sole person to blame. It was Philistinish of the Constables to throw +themselves into the breach, and make such a fuss about what was so +likely to happen. It would have been far better for everybody to +have hushed it up, to have put poor Harry and his drag of a brother +quietly out of the way—not by murder, which might have had unpleasant +consequences, but by banishment for life, while <span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>Fan came home to her +brother. But these cousins of Mrs. Hilliard’s were not like anybody +else, and would not behave like rational people in the common lot of +having a prodigal among them.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hilliard’s letter was not purely inquisitive; she was really +softened by the news she had to tell, though she told it in her own +manner. Her cousin Catherine was better. She had surmounted the crisis +of her illness, and she was not only to live and be well again, she was +about to turn over a new leaf—in short, to go a-head and look alive +for the rest of her days. Mrs. Hilliard flattered herself <i>that</i> +would astonish her readers. The miracle had been worked by the new +order of nurse whom the London physician had brought down just in +time to their assistance. It had been during the very dismallest +part of Catherine’s illness, when Mrs. Hilliard’s sole refuge from +the blues on her own account, had been <span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>in the anticipation of the +inconsistencies and incongruities she was to encounter in the latest +specimen of nurse—who is no longer a Sairey Gamp but a beneficent +princess in disguise. Now beneficent princesses are charming to think +of, but naturally one would suppose they are not the easiest persons to +accommodate and entertain. Mrs. Hilliard had, therefore, proposed to +lay all the house under contribution for the Sister’s benefit. She had +told off her own maid in the stranger’s service. The maid’s mistress +had even had some idea of converting herself into an abigail, that +she might more fittingly hold pins for her social superior, who was +condescending to attend on Catherine. Mrs. Hilliard had arranged levees +of all the ladies in Friarton to be held in the Meadows’ drawing-room +in honour of the Sister when she was off duty and open to recreation; +and sure enough the Sister had turned out to be a daughter of the +old lord-lieutenant’s, the county <span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>belle of ten years ago; but she +had laughed to scorn the words ‘accommodation,’ ‘entertainment,’ and +‘homage.’</p> + +<p>She had perversely chosen and doggedly stuck to a housemaid’s bedroom, +because it was nearest to Catherine’s room. She had insisted on putting +in for herself the few pins which her holland gown required. She was +so enlivened by her work in the sick-room that she came out of it +looking as fresh as a daisy and as gay as a lark. When she had an hour +to spare, or wanted a little variety, she took it in running about the +town to rout out sickness among the miserable wretches who could not +afford a nurse of any kind, and then in seeking to trace the mischief +to its origin and destroy its sheet anchors of poverty and dirt. She +had caused the two doctors’ hair to stand on end, forced the vicar to +tear what hair was left on his head, and all but driven the youngest +and most enthusiastic of the curates <span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>to hang himself. In fine, the +Sister had imparted to Mrs. Hilliard the remarkable information that +she looked on this apparently lowest department of her profession as +in fact the highest, and had been guilty of selecting it for herself. +She had only consented to come down and nurse so swell a patient as +Catherine because she was in extremity, and because the Sister had some +special acquaintance with nervous disorders and skill in treating them.</p> + +<p>Catherine had opened her eyes at the princess in disguise, of course +penetrating the disguise, from the first moment she saw her. The sick +woman had come under the spell of the nurse’s vitality until everybody +who could make a diagnosis said the one craze would cast out the other, +the craze of work would expel the craze of lethargy, the craze of +social regeneration would break the back of individual despondency and +despair. Thus Mrs. Hilliard <span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>wrote, and Oliver was free to think over +the news.</p> + +<p>Catherine alive, in health, awakened from her long unhealthy sleep +with its haunting nightmares! Catherine loosed from her grave-clothes! +Catherine informed of the riches of life, stretching out her hands to +take them for herself and share them with others! If he could but see +and speak with Catherine now, would she not understand him, and feel +with him at last, whatever came of it?</p> + +<p>But to see Catherine, with whom all was well, Oliver must abandon Fan +in her tribulation, when, in the light of a fresh trial hanging over +her, she had more need of his help than ever.</p> + +<p>Oliver could not find it in his heart to quit his post under such +conditions, though it was also in his heart to writhe and fret at +what might have been, and the possible forfeiture of his own chance +of human happiness. But he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>was also capable of feeling thankful that +it was—as he had every reason to believe—only his own happiness, not +Catherine’s—above all, not her well-being, which might be at stake. +He was not put to the torture of having to choose between Fan and +Catherine in this supreme sense.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"> + CHAPTER XXVII. + <br> + <span>THE LAST PENNY PAID.</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">The</span> end came, as it often does after long anxiety, when least expected. +The travelling party had been under the necessity of staying their +wanderings and pitching their tent for a longer season than usual. +For many reasons the leaders had chosen one of the loveliest and most +admired scenes in Europe for their temporary resting place. It was +early summer again, so that the Stanhopes might resort to a mountain +and lake district where the air braced every nerve, and which afforded +opportunity for feats of climbing and boating, to attract and occupy +that member of the family whose <span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>delectation and employment were always +the first cares, while the weary might rest in preparation for a fresh +campaign.</p> + +<p>The lake of the four cantons lay shimmering in its beauty, +peacock-green or blue-black in tint as it happened to be in light or in +shade. Great walnut-trees grew by its margin, and dipped their branches +in its waters, while the most stunted pines ceased to flourish on the +bare short grass or the rocky summits of its giant guardians. There +were lower mountains that would have been well-grown mountains anywhere +else, which rose sheer from the lake, and were clothed with waving +wood from the soles of their feet to the crown of their heads; but one +forgot them in the near presence of the bald Rhigi and the desolate +Pilatus and the remoter vision of the blue range of the Engelberg +seamed and tracked with everlasting snows.</p> + +<p>The little burgher town, so grandly framed, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>was not altogether +smoothed down from its ancient ruggedness and picturesqueness into +modern commonplace uniformity, or, still worse, smartness. True, its +great hotels, with bands of music for evening promenaders, were trying +to the sensitive visitor, and its shops with their staple of carved +wood, however pretty, and verging here and there on art proper, were +not without their objections. But there was something to be said for +the old covered rickety bridges over the pale green water, with the +rude representations of the grotesque horrors of the Dance of Death; +the Water Tower; the bold rough rendering on the face of the rock of +the great sculptor’s idea of the lion of Switzerland, wounded to death, +its paw still defending the broken lily of France.</p> + +<p>Apart from a Babel of tongues, in which English prevailed, and swarms +of motley tourists with the Rhigi railway as the scientific means to +the desired end of attaining a region <span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>so strange in giddy height and +width of view, so familiar by the descriptions and raptures of its +crowds of admirers—and those inevitable attributes of Lucerne, were not +very conspicuous in the early summer when the Stanhopes occupied their +quarters—there were two distinct, even discordant, associations sharing +the ground between them. There were the more vivid and recent traces +of what all well-instructed, incredulous people now call the myth of +William Tell—the national hero whose imaginary personality struck the +first blow in breaking the fetters—doubtless as fabulous as the rest—of +his country. Certainly, the common representation of him in a stage +kilt, theatrically administering the oath of allegiance to his equally +fantastic fellow-conspirators, as it figured in cheap photographs, was +not calculated to inspire faith in his identity.</p> + +<p>There was also the mediæval legend which, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>in its wild superstition, +belonged to all Christendom, of the unrighteous judge who falsely +condemned, not his lord and king alone, but the King of kings and the +Saviour of men. And there was not found any place for repentance, +in men’s horrified minds, for this traitor any more than for the +arch-traitor. Pontius Pilate was doomed for ever to hide his white, +conscience-stricken face, and wring his accursed, palsied hands with +a feeble show of washing away the innocent blood from which no holy +baptism of water could cleanse them.</p> + +<p>Constantly as the sun rose or set on the glorious world of mountain +peaks, wood, and water, these two idealised memories awoke and rose in +conflict, glimmering through the white mists of morning, or brooding +under the purple vault of night—the honest, brave Swiss freeman who +bade all Swiss slaves go free—the falsehearted Roman coward who saw no +evil in this man, and yet delivered up the Deliverer of the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>World into +the hands of his deadly foes to do with Him what they would.</p> + +<p>At Lucerne, Fan’s baby was born. To the mother her little daughter came +as an angel from heaven, promising her a fresh paradise instead of the +old, which had turned out but a waste howling wilderness with green +oases here and there.</p> + +<p>To the father the child brought the delight of a new toy with which he +might play joyously for a while, and then, without thinking, break it. +Harry had none of the trembling reverence, and clumsy awkwardness, in +the middle of their tenderness, which some inexperienced fathers betray +on their first introduction to their offspring. Harry took his infant +daughter in his arms without hesitation and dandled her like an expert +at once. The nurse and all who saw his performance cried out he was the +most charmingly fatherly young father who had ever been beheld.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span></p> + +<p>To her Uncle Horace, the last arrival was simply a fresh possession of +Harry’s, a ‘rum’ and funny possession, with which the bachelor uncle +was chary in having much to do, and that inflicted on him sundry spasms +of bashfulness, but of which on the whole he did not disapprove.</p> + +<p>As for Oliver, ‘the little woman’ made him more inclined to thank God +and take courage. She was a tiny, weak weapon which might yet prove +all-powerful in casting down strongholds and overthrowing a foul god, +even the jovial Bacchus of Greek worship, which, seen near, was hideous +as Dagon and cruel as Moloch.</p> + +<p>But there came a speedy interruption to Fan’s recovery. Harry, whom her +danger and weakness, together with the gift she had made him, subdued +for the moment, was devoted to her in those days. He was sitting by her +sofa, when she started up, and fixing on him eyes full of the craving +care of an inappeasable <span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>anxiety, amazed and alarmed even Harry, who +hardly knew what mental apprehension, any more than physical fear, +meant, by the eager inquiry, ‘Where’s Harry?’</p> + +<p>He hastened to soothe her by the assurance of his presence, without +effect. He cried aloud, as he quailed before the blank non-recognition, +and impatient denial of the glance which met his imploring looks, for +Horry—Constable—any witness to convince Fan that here was Harry by her +side.</p> + +<p>The witnesses came quickly, and she knew each of them—down to the nurse +who had been an utter stranger to her till within the last few weeks; +but she did not know her husband, and she would not believe what the +others said of his being himself, and of his standing in the room, the +nearest of all to her, bending over her, clasping her hand. ‘Where’s +Harry?’ she continued to demand with terrible, heart-rending insistance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span></p> + +<p>The long strain had snapped the strings of the fine instrument at last. +She cried for Harry day and night, in his sight and hearing. As she +cried she broke the silence which she had only once before stirred in +order to claim succour for him; she poured forth in full measure her +incalculable sufferings. She lived over again to one appalled auditor +the long nights when she had sat listening for a footstep which never +came, but was replaced by other footsteps, each, in its turn, causing +her heart to bound with unwarrantable expectation, and sink in the +sickness—growing always deadlier, of hope deferred; till it seemed as +if all the footsteps which approached and departed in ignorance and +indifference, trod, deliberately and mercilessly, over her quivering +heart, spurning it as they passed. She showed how the truest woman +in the world had been fain to impose upon herself with miserable +deceptions, before she had confessed, in the secrecy of her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>own soul, +that the fine gold of her idol was only base clay under its lacquer—how +the most straightforward and sincere of human beings had been driven to +play at the wretched game of keeping up appearances, of laying herself +out to hoodwink her neighbors. She had been humbled in the dust as well +as worn out by ceaseless struggles, and tortured to frenzy. Her sleep +had gone from her eyes. Peace had been unknown to her—a God-fearing, +Christ-loving woman.</p> + +<p>The revelation was like the opening of those Books before which every +son of man will smite his breast and call on the mountains to fall upon +him and the hills to cover him. And Harry Stanhope’s accuser, day and +night, before God and his brethren, was the woman who loved him best, +and would sooner have bitten her tongue out than said the lightest word +to blame him.</p> + +<p>Every effort was made to withdraw Harry <span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>from the awful, ghastly +ordeal. The instant Horace guessed instinctively what Fan was speaking +of incessantly in the monotonous voice as tuneless as his own, which +he could no longer catch so as to distinguish the words, he started +forward with fury, as if he were mad himself, to drag Harry away; but +Harry shook his brother off.</p> + +<p>Oliver laid a firm hand on Harry’s shoulder, but from that, too, Harry +freed himself. ‘Let me alone, Constable,’ he gasped. ‘My place is by my +wife, and whatever I have done or left undone, I will stay with her and +hear the last she has to say to me.’</p> + +<p>None could dispute his right, and the men drew back; but there were +still women’s pitiful voices beseeching him to have mercy on himself. +‘Go away, sir, for Heaven’s sake—for her sake. She does not mean it; +she does not know what she is saying. Your staying will do no good.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span></p> + +<p>But Harry would not listen to the entreaties, and in the end he heard +no voice save Fan’s. He stood there till her tale of martyrdom was +burnt in and branded on his conscience. Under the operation his face +did not grow sharp as Fan’s sharpened, neither did his fair hair betray +patches of grey, as her dark hair betrayed when it was pushed aside +that the death-sweat might be wiped from her temples. Yet his whole +aspect underwent such a change as it was hardly possible he could +entirely lose, so as to become the same that he had been before. He +grew perceptibly older-looking in those days which could be so easily +counted, with the sudden stamp of ripening to withering, which rapid, +mortal illness sometimes impresses even on an infant’s face.</p> + +<p>He had never before willingly encountered what was painful either to +his senses or his sensibility. He had always selected the paths which +were easiest and most agreeable to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>himself, without too much regard +to their going down hill. They had brought him to where the battle +raged hottest in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; and though it was +not himself, but another, who was slain—the fumes of the smoke, the +clatter of the strife, the deep wounds, the flowing life-blood, the +gloom of that valley of shadows, were not likely to depart utterly from +his consciousness, and leave him in the light-hearted, light-headed +carelessness, the hard, untempered blaze of sunshine, of his former +experience.</p> + +<p>Fan had forgotten her baby in that last whirl of the tempest which +swept her away, but she remembered it in the end. In the pouring out of +her tribulation without restraint, she had constantly called on Horace +and Oliver to help Harry, who stood nailed to the ground there by her +pillow. Then, when her voice was sinking into an indistinguishable +murmur, and her hands letting go every earthly hold, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>she felt +gropingly for her child, and struggled to utter another sentence +audibly. She did not speak for the child with her passing breath as +so many mothers have spoken for their children. Fan’s care for Harry +had swallowed up her care for their child. She spoke to the unheeding, +unconscious infant who for many a long year would be a helpless human +being, needing tender fostering and watchful protection, and instead of +recommending the child to the father, in the bewilderment of poor Fan’s +unapproachable fidelity to Harry, she recommended the father to the +child. ‘Baby, take care of Harry,’ she managed to say, and with a few +more fluttering breaths, died. The words of Fan’s final, fond, foolish +injunction were still ringing in Harry’s ears when he staggered out of +the room.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"> + CHAPTER XXVIII. + <br> + <span>OLIVER’S RETURN.</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">Death,</span> and not marriage, wipes out offences, clears scores, and opens +the bolts and bars of shut hearts a little, for a brief space. Harry +Stanhope’s relations mostly wrote to condole with the young widower +on the death of the wife whom they had never countenanced. Lord Mount +Mallow—after all, only a connection by marriage, who happened to be +then disporting himself in the playground of Europe, actually offered +to defer climbing a mountain and come out of his way to grace Fan’s +funeral.</p> + +<p>Agneta Amyott wrote impulsively, instead <span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>of penning a letter in which, +while the proprieties were well preserved, the writer committed herself +to nothing. She was deeply grieved, not merely for her dear old Harry, +but for her dear sister, her former kind friend, whom Agneta declared +she would now give half the world to be able to see, if but once again. +And what about the darling little baby? What could three young men make +of such a charge? It was deplorable to think of it. Would Harry let her +send a trustworthy person to fetch the baby, now that she had a home +of her own to receive it in? There were the little Amyotts’ nurse and +nurseries all ready. She had not been able to speak to her husband yet, +but she felt certain Mr. Amyott would not object. To be sure, the close +of Agneta’s letter, in which there was the first note of hesitation, +sounded more natural than the beginning.</p> + +<p>Harry rejected each overture not so much bitterly or pettishly, as with +the first sternness <span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>and obduracy which had ever burst up through his +constitutional softness and irrepressible buoyancy. ‘Nobody shall mourn +for Fan but the real mourners—you, Horry, and Constable and me.</p> + +<p>‘Fan’s baby shall not be taken out of charity into the house of any +man—or woman either. She shall not be brought up as we were, if I can +help it.’</p> + +<p>Fan’s baby succeeded to what was left of her mother’s little fortune; +she might also have the reversion of what Harry and Horace could keep +of their legacy. In the meantime she was not given over to the tender +mercies of three ignorant men, though, even if she had, she might have +fared worse. There was not a woman, high or low, in the Swiss hotel in +which she had been born, who was not interested in the small specimen +of humanity, and there was one woman—a hard-working clergyman’s +hard-working wife, loitering and rather <span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>pining abroad while doing her +best to get rid of the lagging, idle weeks of her husband’s necessary +holiday—who pounced upon the motherless baby as a windfall, or rather, +as she would have called it, a Godsend.</p> + +<p>Oliver had not been greatly attracted previously to these reverent +Weatherleys, in any chance intercourse which he had held with them. He +had respected them as very worthy people, but they had seemed to him, +what they were, somewhat fanatical and narrow in their views. As for +Harry Stanhope, no two persons could have been more widely removed from +what he had proved hitherto, or could have possessed less in common +with his past, than the strongly professional as well as pious couple +who were taking, but scarcely enjoying, a compulsory breathing space in +their toiling life.</p> + +<p>But from the moment that Mrs. Weatherley’s motherliness appropriated +the care of Fan’s baby, Harry, as it were, instinctively—with <span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>another +of his instincts of self-preservation probably—took to her and clung +to her and her husband in his misery, with a pathetic dependence and +trust, to which they were not slow to respond.</p> + +<p>Indeed, Harry’s remorse from an early stage assumed the form of +contriteness rather than despair, his natural humility and amiability +standing him in good stead here. Fan had willed his rescue from folly +and evil with her whole devoted heart, and though he would never now +have the consolation—the positive gladness, of proving to her that he +was a rescued man, and so, of more than making up to her, in her love, +for all the anguish he had cost her, he was still, in his present mood, +eager to do what Fan had wished, to be as she had chosen for him, in +his best interests. He trusted brokenly that it might atone—if it were +only to her memory, that Fan might know he was sorry and was pulling +himself up, somehow, sometime—that Fan’s God <span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>and his would accept and +confirm the late repentance in the great redemption He has provided for +sinners.</p> + +<p>Poor Harry had never been proud, and he was not afflicted with +the insane egotism which sees in its possessor an object of such +consequence in the universe, to his Maker no less than to himself, that +he must needs interfere with the working of human and divine love. +Such a one-sided reasoner will hold, against every assurance to the +contrary, that he has sinned beyond forgiveness, and it is too late +for him to repent and think better of it. In fact, there is a false +Mephistopheles dignity and subtle compensation in this conclusion, when +shame, regret, and grief still take the attitude of resentful defiance.</p> + +<p>But it was not so with Harry, not even in his way of regarding his +baby. He did not turn from it, in the beginning, with the blind +repugnance and unreasoning, unrighteous <span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>grudge, with which some +widowers are tempted to regard the child that has cost its mother her +life. Certainly it was not her child, but her husband, who had killed +Fan. Yet Harry might have been so far dishonest as to have given a sop +to his conscience, by shifting a part of the responsibility and blame +on the innocent child. He might have taken a cruel satisfaction in +revenging Fan, by trampling alike on his own natural affections, and on +the just claims of his infant daughter.</p> + +<p>But Harry never did so. He seemed rather to transfer at once to the +baby all the fondness for the mother which was thrown back on his +hands, when she was taken from him. In addition he was ready to lavish +on the child a double portion of the protecting affection which, so +long as he was himself, he had shown to Horace.</p> + +<p>Watching Harry in the new light of his mournful fatherhood, when he +was called on, by <span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>every generous and manly impulse, to be father +and mother in one, to the mite whose best friend or worst foe, whose +nearest natural guardian, he found himself, Oliver Constable arrived +at a correct conclusion. If any mere human creature could help to make +a man of Harry Stanhope, could raise him from his soulless levity and +the vicious craving which was grafted on it, it was—strange yet natural +to say, not a brave, devoted woman like Fan, who had gone down into +the breach and held a shield over her husband, and striven vainly to +be the stay to him which, had their relations to each other been what +they ought, he should have proved to her—but this merest atom of a +fellow-mortal, a thousand times weaker than Harry himself, who could +neither appeal to him nor remonstrate with him, who could simply hang +heavily upon him in her helplessness, and who was, humanly speaking, +altogether at his mercy for happiness or wretchedness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span></p> + +<p>Oliver was inclined to believe that Harry’s self-conviction had gone to +the root of the matter, and that even his most mercurial temperament +would never shake it off altogether.</p> + +<p>Harry was well-nigh as sacred a trust bequeathed to Oliver by Fan as +her child could be. Indeed, while there were many humane people to +interpose and accept the gracious task of befriending the motherless +babe, who would volunteer to fill the thankless office of standing +by Harry and backing him in resisting the poison which was coursing +through his veins, and the familiar demon that beset him? But in the +meantime Oliver was not frightened to leave Harry Stanhope with his +brother, his infant, and the Weatherleys. When Oliver recalled the +last he confessed he had been unjust in asking incredulously who +would bestow themselves on Harry unless to serve themselves by his +undoing? So far from a knowledge of his former offences disposing <span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>the +Weatherleys to withdraw from the old offender, it would only attach +them to him more firmly. For a sinner who had turned or who gave the +faintest indication of turning from the error of his ways, had, if it +be possible, an almost morbid fascination for the clergyman and his +wife. They were not content with fulfilling the divine commission, +and preaching the grand truth that their Master would have mercy +and not sacrifice, their zeal ran away with their discretion until +they would have preferred the dying thief to the Apostle Paul. They +went the length of selecting for their friends and associates rueful +transgressors, in preference to men and women who had been kept and had +kept themselves, with infinite pains, from gross transgression. This +enthusiastic weakness which caused the Weatherleys to dote on reclaimed +burglars and pet converted infidels, almost to the cold exclusion +of people who had refrained from picking and stealing, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>and who had +reverently trusted and believed, was apt to be fertile in producing +wrath and restiveness in the intolerantly honest and loyal sections of +the community; and, what was still worse, in growing crops of hypocrisy +and fraud among the hardened and desperately deceitful outcasts from +society. But at least it rendered the couple safe to care for Harry +Stanhope and do their best to help him, and Oliver did not think that +Harry would abuse their kindness.</p> + +<p>Oliver Constable did not hurry post haste, though he turned his face in +the direction of Friarton Mill, when he separated from his companions, +in the course of a few weeks after Fan’s death. He knew that many +changes as well as a great blank awaited him, and he sought to fit +himself to meet them in a spirit of peace, as well as to find healing +for his recent wound.</p> + +<p>It was a soft, grey October afternoon when <span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>Oliver, leaving the railway +at an intermediate station as before, walked through the well-known +fields in their autumn livery, and arrived at Friarton Mill.</p> + +<p>As it chanced—a chance for which she would never forgive herself—Sally +Pope, who had not been apprised of the exact date when he was likely to +return, had gone on her yearly holiday to visit her relations. Only a +strange young housemaid kept house and received Oliver, taking in good +faith his assertion that he was her master.</p> + +<p>The dreary reception had, as a compensation, a certain relief for +the traveller; but he was not long left to his own thoughts. He had +hardly eaten the meal which his servant improvised in a state of +consternation, with regard to a future searching investigation and +sharp condemnation of all deficiencies by old Sally, when he became +aware, as he was in the act of strolling half mechanically across the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>court, to his former smoking station in the mill gallery, that he +was threatened already with visitors from Copley Grange. A lady and +gentleman were walking across the park, and making straight for the +picturesque old mill.</p> + +<p>Oliver groaned under this ill-timed manifestation of the popular +admiration shared between show places and show people, and prepared to +make himself scarce. He stopped short in his retreat, and faced the +intruders, the moment he recognised that they were Mr. and Mrs. Amyott.</p> + +<p>The couple were the most put out by the encounter, for they had clearly +not expected to meet the miller in his own domain. It might be that +the squire was but partially informed of his young wife’s former +familiarity with Friarton Mill as well as with Copley Grange Farm, and +that he had proposed to take advantage of the fine afternoon by making +her better acquainted with what was, still more than the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>artistic +almshouses, a charming æsthetic advantage belonging to his place.</p> + +<p>In that case Mrs. Amyott might have had some difficulty in evading the +proposal, or she might have been fain, on her side, to get over the +first visit to Friarton Mill in a new character, as early as possible, +in the absence of its master.</p> + +<p>These explanations were more probable than what had flashed across +Oliver’s mind, and caused him to contort his figure by one of his +old excited, awkward movements, in a revulsion from a crying case of +heartless selfishness. He had thought for an instant, could the Amyotts +possibly have guessed the half-resolution which he was only turning +over in his own mind, to let or even sell the mill and mill-house, and +quit the neighbourhood, where there seemed nothing remaining for him to +do, where he had tried his utmost to work out his notions of duty and a +career, and had signally <span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>failed? Did the Amyotts know, from Friarton +gossip, that the Constables’ baking business in the town had diminished +to such a fraction that, in justice to himself and his coming +creditors, Oliver must give up the premises from which the business had +departed? Were his nearest neighbours seizing the first opportunity, +with indecent haste and mean covetousness, to sound him, in the hope +of, at the same time, obtaining Naboth’s vineyard and getting rid of +Mordecai at their gates?</p> + +<p>Perhaps Mr. Amyott trusted to an immediate, tempting, and what he might +imagine a substantially handsome offer of purchase, at a fancy price, +to induce a man, impoverished and embarrassed by his crotchets, to +sell his birthright, and so to secure to the owners of Copley Grange +what one of them had long craved. If that were so, a man might well +pray to be delivered from the mania for high art, prevailing to the +extinction of common feeling. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>For was not the dainty bride, in her +refinement of bridal finery—sobered down still further by the necessity +of wearing a black gown, in memory of her brother’s late lowborn wife, +keenly desirous, under her pretence of mourning, to cut away the last +link between her and the Constables? And all the while she might have +guessed, if she had cared to use her woman’s wit, how much of old Peter +Constable’s honestly and laboriously earned money had gone to fill up +the gaps left by Mrs. Amyott’s brother’s reckless improvidence.</p> + +<p>It was only for a moment that Oliver indulged the suspicion. He saw +almost immediately that the Amyotts were as much taken by surprise, and +more put out, than he was, though they recovered themselves with the +comparative celerity and ease of well-bred people, who were, by their +nurture and position, master and mistress of social situations, and +equal to any social difficulty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p> + +<p>For that matter, Agneta did such justice to her training and played +her part so well, that Oliver felt inclined to think she was lost as +a simple squire’s wife, and ought to have been a duchess, if not a +princess of some reigning royal family, or a queen in her own person. +She exhibited precisely the proper amount of feeling for the occasion, +without being overcome. She was touched, she was gently courteous and +even friendly to Oliver, without overstepping the limits which the +circumstance of her having become Mr. Amyott’s wife imposed upon Harry +Stanhope’s sister. She alluded simply and sadly to ‘the melancholy +event’ of Fan’s death. She enquired with interest when he had heard +from Harry, and expressed her earnest good wishes for the welfare of +‘the dear little baby.’ She broke off to thank him with grave sincerity +for all he had done for her brothers—though, with regard to the last +graciously grateful speech, Oliver could <span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>not avoid the impression that +Agneta considered him in some respects the obliged person, by having +had it in his power to serve the Stanhopes.</p> + +<p>When the conversation strayed to more general topics, Mrs. Amyott +referred with a blending of judicious candour and tact—while her +slightly stooping, and slightly grey, but well-preserved husband +was paying her the lover-like compliment of listening with pleased +attention to every word she said—to the changes which had taken place +in the Mill court since she was there last. She displayed thus with +perfect serenity a considerable acquaintance with the landmarks.</p> + +<p>‘Surely, Mr. Constable, there have been some boughs lopped from the +willow; and, ah! you have had the old seat, which I used to call “the +Pilgrim’s seat,” removed from under the mulberry-bush!’</p> + +<p>Every word was in such unexceptionable <span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>taste; Oliver was let down +so gracefully and gradually from the terms which Agneta Stanhope had +insisted on establishing between them, during those vanished summer +days, that he was inclined to acquiesce in the squire’s conviction +that his last acquired gem was the most finely polished in his whole +collection of treasures.</p> + +<p>In comparison, Mr. Amyott’s <i>rôle</i> required little from the +performer, but he also acquitted himself admirably, with just the +degree of admission of Oliver’s claims which became a gentleman who +would not disallow an obligation, and yet who viewed, with reason, +the whole connection between Copley Grange Farm and Friarton Mill as +a foolish mistake. But he, too, did not refuse to recollect the past. +He made some cursory mention of his wife’s brothers having been his +tenants in the farm; nay, he said with a smile in reference to his +recent marriage, that the temporary arrangement <span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span>had helped in bringing +about what was for him a most fortunate as well as permanent result. +His first introduction to his wife had arisen from it. Such trifling +causes are, in some sort, the motive power in shaping out our destinies.</p> + +<p>Listening to her husband’s flattering acknowledgment of the +fortuitousness—for him—of her brothers’ short tenancy of Copley +Grange Farm, Agneta smiled sweetly back upon him. Mr. Amyott was +somewhat worn and still more languid in his middle age; a man to +whose over-cultivated nature much of the life around him, with which +his wife’s fresh youth had some instinctive sympathy, was rough, +rude, boisterous, and oppressive, even when it was not offensive, so +that the abiding expression of his aristocratic features was wistful +and pensive, rather than resolute and hopeful: still he was a fine +patrician-looking man, only a little past the prime of life, and a +trifle the worse for the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>wear. He was gentle and elegant—according +to the old standard of elegance, in his whole tone; a shade +plaintive and fretful occasionally, but never morose or violent. +He was deferential, almost to a fault, to the wishes of his wife, +which he was well able to gratify, since he happened to be in the +possession of an ample, unencumbered rent-roll, a charming place, so +well-ordered an establishment that her stepchildren never came in +their young stepmother’s way, but fell at once into the pleasantest +and most desirable relations with her, and a position second to few +in the county. From Agneta’s point of view, she had good cause to be +satisfied with the marriage which had fulfilled the expectations of +her guardians. Her education—whatever else it had stifled in her, had +served to develop largely a reasonable prudence.</p> + +<p>The Amyotts managed to make use of the fact of Oliver’s arrival that +very afternoon, as an excuse for not waiting to receive the invitation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>to enter the Mill-house, which its master was in no haste to give, +while both recognised that the omission on the first encounter served +as an index of the extent of their future intercourse.</p> + +<p>Left alone, Oliver acknowledged the happy couple were free from +ulterior designs in invading his privacy. Apart from these, what was +Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba? He had an idea that Harry and Horace +Stanhope, with their baby, would settle down at a distance from Copley +Grange, which would still farther simplify matters and smooth down +awkwardnesses, so that in the future intercourse of the Manor-house and +the Mill, Fan’s marriage, with its girlish aspirations, would soon be +as though it had never been—and it was best so.</p> + +<p>Oliver reached the carved gallery at last; and leant over the +balustrade looking down on the water of the Brook and away over the +woody undulating ground of Copley Grange <span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span>Park, where the sombre green +thorns were covered with dark crimson haws, and no note of a bird broke +the stillness, which was only made alive by the monotonous babbling of +the Brook. How vividly some of the more significant scenes of his life, +since he attained manhood, rose before him there! The thorns were red +and white again in flower, and the thrush was once more singing, as he +broke to Fan his life-purpose, and combated her objections. How full +of confidence he had been! With what high hopes and steadfast resolves +he had entered on his mission, and it had come to nothing! He had been +foiled on every side, till at last he was allowing himself to drift out +of the struggle.</p> + +<p>He was watching the ducks eating the mulberries, and turning his back, +in vain, on a stalwart young figure cumbered with a limber attendant, +belonging, by rights, to Oliver’s gone-by ’Varsity days, and yet +starting up, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span>stepping out there through the park, and hailing him on +his threshold, in spite of him.</p> + +<p>He was walking with Fan in her garden, listening to her unwonted +chatter and warm admiration of these new friends.</p> + +<p>The master baker was jostled, tripped up, and thrown down afresh by his +late journeyman in the twilight lane yonder.</p> + +<p>Oliver was cut dead anew by Catherine Hilliard in the High Street of +Friarton.</p> + +<p>The frost was on the ground while Harry Stanhope was besieging Oliver’s +bedroom door to announce his intentions; and presently the brother was +facing the sister on the hearthrug, holding her back from her fate.</p> + +<p>Oliver was grasping Fan’s hands and pledging himself the devil should +not have Harry. Oliver was binding himself to give up any grain which +he might have gathered from the crop which had cost him so dear, that +he might help her to lie on the bed which she had <span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>made for herself. +Yet Harry’s deliverance had proved harder to effect than that of Tam +Lane in the ballad. It had been beyond the power either of strong man +or devoted woman, though it was just possible, after Fan’s dead hands +dropped the task, it might be performed by baby fingers in God’s great +way of nature.</p> + +<p>Would Oliver, with his present knowledge, do all he had done over +again, if the choice were once more given him? He thought it over +deliberately and as calmly as he could, in trying to form his plans +for the future, and he honestly believed he would. He solemnly +thanked God for the boon of such a belief, to soften the soreness of +his disappointment and defeat, and still the ache of his heart. The +consciousness confirmed his faith that there had been some good in +his aims. They had not owed their origin entirely to presumption and +self-conceit. However rash and over-confident <span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>he might have been, +however much he had bungled the whole business, he had the assurance +of his conscience that the fault had not lain largely in his motives. +Yes, he would if he could begin it all over again—to establish higher +principles of trade—to make trade honourable, to fill hungry mouths +with wholesome food; and he would still have granted Fan’s petition +at all hazards. How did he know that he was to prove the pioneer of +trade reformation, while he was well assured that he was his sister’s +natural refuge and stay? He could not have made himself strange to his +own flesh, with whom his first duty lay. He must have acknowledged the +obligation for charity to begin at home.</p> + +<p>Before the dusk prevented him, Oliver took out and re-read Harry +<span id="cor2"></span>Stanhope’s last letter. It was a little longer than the usual brief +reports, which were hardly higher intellectual efforts than those of +the young rustics whose <span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>vicar has seen that they have profited by a +night-school. This was the ordinary style of Harry’s letters:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>‘Dear Constable,—Here goes. We are all well. Baby is thriving. She +has got her frocks shortened, and looks the better for it. It is +still awfully hot. We—Harry and me, for Mr. and Mrs. Weatherley don’t +try the dodge—took a header, and had a swim in the river for an hour +this morning. Woodhurst—that’s the man whose ground lies all about +here, is to let us have lots of fishing. I hope you’re all right.</p> + +<p class="tdr">‘Yours, &c.’</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>That was as nearly as possible the substance of the unclerkly scrawls +which Harry sent. But to write at all, without compelling cause, was a +great advance on the writer’s native inconsiderateness and freedom from +any comprehension of responsibility.</p> + +<p>In the letter which Oliver held in his hand, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>however, Harry, in his +stumbling jerking manner, had contrived to say a good deal more.</p> + +<p>The two Stanhopes had gone back with the Weatherleys, on the return +of the clergyman and his wife to their country parish, and had found +lodgings close to the vicarage where Mrs. Weatherley still had the baby +in her kind care. It was the attraction of the baby—with the fear of +doing it harm by removing it from the good offices of an experienced +matron—which in the beginning drew Harry and his brother across the +Channel, back to England, and down into the rural retirement of a +remote parish. But it soon became plain that the Weatherleys—coming in +contact with Harry Stanhope at a turning point in his life, getting him +into their hands when his heart was wrung with suffering and his whole +character subdued—had acquired a growing influence over the young man. +He was rapidly adopting their forms of thought and turns of speech, +and falling in, to some extent, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>with their habits and practices. He +had always possessed in a sense a ductile disposition, apt to take +the moulding of its surroundings and associations. But a great wrench +had been required to separate a thoughtless young fellow from his low +atmosphere—laden with earthly vapours and dense with worldliness, +and to launch him into the higher, rarer air of altogether loftier +principles and considerations, breathed by the Weatherleys. Harry had +suffered such a wrench and received such an impetus as propels many +men—especially many shallow, impulsive men—to the opposite poles of +their former opinions and pursuits.</p> + +<p>At this epoch of his history—when Harry Stanhope turned inevitably, +with a sick heart, from his old interests; when all his former sports, +though he still engaged in them mechanically, were flat and stale to +him; when what was spiritual in his moral constitution craved spiritual +consolation and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>refreshment—something beyond this world, some promise +of reward and restoration for his lost love and its object, some +reparation of all wrong, and enduring foundation for all good—Harry +was carried out of the past in a totally new direction from any he had +followed hitherto, where his brother would join him sooner or later.</p> + +<p>Harry retained his simple cordiality, but the simplicity had got a +new bias, and the cordiality a fresh outlet. In those letters—the +occasional writing of which, without the inducement of borrowing money, +was a marvel in itself—while he expressed himself scantily, there was +also something of the transparent prattle though not the gush of a girl.</p> + +<p>In the more recent prattle Oliver learnt a good deal of church services +and parish work, in which, to his wonder at first, he found Harry +was taking part. He had been practising with Mr. Weatherley’s choir, +and doing a little rudimentary <span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>teaching in his schools, as well as +helping Mrs. Weatherley with her parish children’s annual feast and the +machinery of her different clubs.</p> + +<p>Harry did not dream of making the slightest apology for those +extraordinary occupations. He was as free from self-consciousness now +as ever. He mentioned the schools and the festival as naturally and +unaffectedly as if he had been referring to a cricket-match and the +dinner which followed. That struck Oliver as the most hopeful symptom +in the case, and he was as devoutly glad as the Weatherleys could have +wished.</p> + +<p>But Oliver’s gladness received a sudden check when he found Harry +writing humbly enough, to be sure, of his unfitness for reading for +orders, as Mr. Weatherley had just been suggesting he might do.</p> + +<p>‘Good heavens, I should think not!’ assented Oliver in a great heat. +‘I am glad Harry <span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>retains one iota of common sense, if Weatherley is +so far out of his mind. Now, even supposing Harry has outlived his +lamentable propensity—supposing he were to pass muster, I should have +to interfere and speak to the bishop.’</p> + +<p>But poor Harry was not really thinking of anything so far beyond him. +He was only modestly preluding the statement that he had been with Mr. +Weatherley when he was delivering some of his cottage addresses, and +Harry had been moved and helped to say a word of warning from his own +experience.</p> + +<p>Was Harry in the way of being taught to go about and speak at such +meetings? Had he, too, turned social reformer and preacher—in the last +particular, as Oliver was free to admit, shrugging his shoulders, far +outstripping his, Oliver’s, performances? Would Harry’s inveterate +fancy for joining in whatever was going on, his incorrigible +good-fellowship, thenceforth, or even for a time, take the shape of +lay aid in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>priestly ministrations, pointing Mr. Weatherley’s morals +by a word in season from a sinner who was a standing commentary on +the vicar’s text—at once a warning and an example, a young man who +was ready to proclaim himself an evildoer formerly, one who had known +both the temptation and the penalty, but had escaped with the skin of +his teeth? Would Harry, if he continued in well-doing, go on exposing +his shortcomings, steeling himself in the exposure, till he should +come to Fan’s wrongs? Would he regard it as an act of expiation, and +an offering for the good of his fellow-men, to speak out thus, and +when his little daughter was old enough to listen to his words and +understand them, would he still tell his piteous tale, and humble +himself in her hearing—it might be in the hearing of some other +evangelist’s daughter or sister, who might have replaced Fan and become +Harry’s second wife, and the mother of his children?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p> + +<p>Oliver writhed at the mere notion. He recalled Fan’s strong, proud +reserve in the middle of her ardour, her delicate reticence, her +unconquerable shrinking from common speculation and coarse comment. +Were the sacred secrets of her death-bed to be bruited about and made +food for vulgar curiosity by this new kind of weak excess in the man +who had inflicted the agony?</p> + +<p>Then Oliver called himself back. Had he any right to sit in stern +judgment on Harry Stanhope’s weakness, granted that it was weakness +even to self-indulgence? What if this were the sole refuge for Harry +Stanhope, the only means by which the man whom Fan had so loved and +striven to win, could be won to virtue and temperance? What if this +were the single method by which Harry could serve his fellow-creatures? +There are dull or besotted scholars who can receive no teaching save +from homely, broad personalities, and there are <span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span>primitive teachers +who if they are not personal are nothing. Such teaching might appear +little better than foolish and despicable to Oliver Constable, and yet +what assurance had he, in his arrogance and self-sufficiency, that it +was not among the foolish things which God has chosen to confound the +wise? Might not Fan, from her peace among the angels, regard these +ebullitions—which were at least frank and guileless—that vexed Oliver’s +soul, in an altogether different light from that in which she would +have seen them, had she been still living an erring woman on earth?</p> + +<p>No; let poor Harry do what seemed good unto him. God forbid that Oliver +should put hindrances in Harry’s path—the path which was, perhaps, best +suited for his stumbling feet.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"> + CHAPTER XXIX. + <br> + <span>FRESH SERVICE.</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">On</span> the night of his return, Oliver had been tempted to say—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">My wound is deep,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I fain would sleep,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Take thou the vanguard of the three;</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="flat">but the next day found him again leading the van. Happy the wounded who +have still strength for the fight, and whose presence is yet wanted in +the thick of the fray.</p> + +<p>Sally Pope arrived at an early hour the following morning, and gave her +master her greeting. She was so full of self-reproach for her unlucky +absence the previous evening that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>it diverted her in some degree from +the loud condolences which he was only too content to be spared. And +Sally was a shrewd woman; she knew that ‘men-folk do not care to return +to the topic of their grief, as poor critters of women will discuss it +at large, and find comfort in dwelling on their trials;’ so when her +single heartfelt lamentation for ‘poor Miss Fan as were that nimble and +clever,’ had been made, Sally set herself to divert Oliver from the +cold comfort of his lonely home-coming, by retailing to him all the +latest news of Friarton.</p> + +<p>‘Lord, Master Oliver, we’re not singular in our troubles! There’s young +Dadd down with fever, lying between life and death. Not a critter will +enter Dadd’s shop—not to say the house, and the old people are nigh +besides themselves.’</p> + +<p>‘Poor Jack! poor souls!’ said Oliver. ‘But what has become of the +Sister—the wonderful nurse Mrs. Hilliard imported into the town?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span></p> + +<p>‘Oh! she’s gone these three months, the more reason that Miss Hilliard +is as spry as any of the rest of the young ladies. But now, Master +Oliver,’ broke off Sally, putting her head on one side and speaking +deprecatingly, almost mincingly, ‘I know as great allowance ought +to be made for idle ladies, and that they mun be left for to direct +themselves in many ways not open to the commonality, else they’ll +fall to pieces like a dry wash-tub, or go all over red rust like a +flat-iron laid aside, and be in danger of slipping through their +friends’ fingers like Miss Hilliard all but slipped, and gave no end +of trouble, the silly thing! Still, Master Oliver, do you think it is +proper for ladies, as are none so old or ill-favoured, to go and get +rid of their spare time—and all time is to spare with them—a feeling of +the pulses and looking at the tongues of sick carters and masons and +their families, ay, and of tramps and their brats, a-treating of them +to shooken’up <span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>pillows and cooling drinks, and as many blisters and +draughts as they can set their minds to—save us?’</p> + +<p>‘Well, Sally, at least you’ll allow it is a good chance for the masons +and tramps,’ said Oliver with a laugh.</p> + +<p>‘I dunno,’ Sally shook her head. ‘I think the world’s turned upside +down. But leastways better such folly than that Miss ’Mily Polley’s +been up to.’</p> + +<p>‘What has Miss ’Mily been up to?’</p> + +<p>‘Gone and lost her good name, which she’ll never pick up again—not +though she were the queen on the throne, with armies and navies to +scour the world in search of it, at her word. Now there’s nothing left +Miss ’Mily save a patched-up marriage, to cover the disgrace as will +not be covered, to a rolling stone of a ne’er-do-well that will bring +her to want and misery. Her as was such a pert piece, setting herself +up, picking holes in the coats of her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span>betters, and giggling in her +light-headedness at this body and that body, as if she herself were a +non-such and could go her own road and fear no fall.’ Sally ended with +the cruel relish with which the old, who ought to be, and who, let us +be thankful, often are, the most charitable, still sometimes, alas! +under provocation, contemplate their young neighbours’ receiving their +deserts.</p> + +<p>‘You must be mistaken, Sally,’ remonstrated Oliver, grieved and +shocked. ‘It cannot be as you say. The Polleys have always been most +respectable people. Even Polley, though a useless sinner, picked +himself up, you know. You must have taken some coarse scandal for +gospel. Mrs. Polley has been a good mother, and has looked well after +her daughters.’</p> + +<p>‘Excuse me, Master Oliver, but it’s much you know of it, sir,’ said +Sally, half huffily, half scornfully. ‘And it is little thanks Mrs. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span>Polley, poor woman, have got for her work in the shop and her rule of +her family. She were a bit set up, in her own way, and vaunty of what +she had done for them gals and that silly man of hers. Nobody came near +herself, and nought that belonged to her was to be sneezed at. Ah! +her mouth’s shut now, and she won’t hold up her head again, not by a +long chalk, as she has done in Friarton. I am sorry for her though,’ +reflected Sally, showing some signs of relenting, ‘for she were a +through-going woman. Her took the whole load upon her own shoulders, +when it fell off them sloping ones of Polley’s, and asked help from +nobody. Hard she drudged a dozen years back, never sparing herself, to +keep her family out of the gutter. It was ill-done of any one of them +to humble her pride. But it’s the way of children—so it is. It’s a +comfort to the likes of me, as is a single woman, alone in the world, +except for a niece and neffy or <span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>two—looking after my savings I’ll be +bound, Master Oliver—to think that I might have had a man and bairns to +my share, and been no better—rather worse served. But I’ll fault Mrs. +Polley with this’—Sally returned to the charge—‘she would do everything +in the shop with her ten fingers. She would keep the management of the +books and accounts in her own hands. Why, them gals weren’t properly +brought up to the grocery business or to any other. They were as silly +as silly could be, if you took them off weighing a pound of sugar, or +cutting a bar of soap, as a child could do. Our Miss Fan could have +bought them at the one end of the town and sold them at t’other. They +went a deal of their time hand-idle, or falalling with their best +clothes; and was that an up-bringing to keep them out of mischief? I +have it on good authority, they would lay a-bed in the mornings, and +they were out at their gadding every blessed evening, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>though she +pulled them up tight about minding meals and hours, and shutting up +to her face. If they were quick, they could get their heads out—most +of all Miss ’Mily, as was the mother’s favourite—so it seems she had +been drawing a score under her mother’s nose, and carrying on at a fine +rate with that scamp of a half gentleman—a pretty gentleman! Mrs. Sam +Cobbes’ Lon’on brother, though Mrs. Polley had forbidden her gal to +have anything to say to him.’</p> + +<p>‘I should think so,’ said Oliver, with decision. He knew the man—a +fellow with a specious address, and the glamour of expectations from a +rich uncle in the Customs, which served him as an apology for losing +such mongrel situations as he occasionally condescended to fill, and +for loafing away the greater portion of his days, hanging on to other +and humbler relations than the autocrat in the Customs, the credulous +Cobbes for instance, always in a lazy, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>often in a disreputable +fashion. He was just the sort of acquaintance, full of false +pretensions, vulgar smartness, and strongly-flavoured dash, to take the +fancy of an ignorant, ill-brought-up, wilful girl like ’Mily Polley. +And on the man’s side, he would not hesitate to amuse himself with her +openly-expressed admiration, as the best joke going.</p> + +<p>But Sally was eager to empty her budget. ‘Mrs. Polley she finds +out that ’Mily is snapping her fingers in her mother’s face,’ the +storyteller resumed the thread of her narrative, nothing loth, ‘and +keeping company with Birt on the sly, continually: so the old woman’s +temper, as is none of the coolest at the best of times, flies into a +blaze, and she up and dares the gal to see the fellow again, or she +will be turned to the door, as not worthy of such a home, and to serve +as a warning to her sisters. Mrs. Polley, if you please, never lets +’Mily out of her sight from that moment, except <span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span>at night, when the +mother locks the gals’ room door on them, in their hearing.</p> + +<p>‘Sure enough, it is no more use than locking the stable-door after the +horse has got his head out of the halter, and kicked up his heels in +giving the stable-boy the go-by. And the black affront before the rest +of the family—certain to leak out too, with the feeling of a gaol, +after the liberty the gal had snatched, in spite of Mrs. Policy’s +tantrums, druv Miss ’Mily from bad to worse. She goes and throws dust +into the eyes of them sillies of sisters, or else she scares them +into telling no tales; she bribes the poor slavey of a maid. Any how, +Master Oliver, she manages to give her mother the slip again, gets out +of the house after it is shut up for the night, and runs and meets +the scoundrel at the improperest hours. All is up with the foolish, +wrong-headed lass’s good name then, Master Oliver, I need not go for to +tell you. Mrs. Polley catches her youngest daughter a stealing <span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>in at +the airy-door, under cloud of night, and thrusts her out with her own +hand, raging that ’Mily is never to cross her mother’s honest threshold +again. She will have nought more to say to the gal; she may go back to +where she came from.</p> + +<p>‘Them as told me,’ said Sally, after a pause to recover her breath in +her unconscious dramatising of the miserable details, ‘maintained that +Polley did interfere, and try to put in a word for his daughter; but, +in course, his wife would not hear him, and it do stand to reason that +he has been so poor a critter, he has lost all title to be listened +to. The long and the short of it is, the talk was over the whole town +the next morning. The Cobbes took ’Mily in—they could not do less—with +Birt, who had got the gal into trouble, their brother; and ’Mily Polley +is to be married, and go straight off to Lon’on, or Manchester, or +Glasgow—one of them big towns—with her bargain next <span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>week. Folk think +Sam Cobbe’s that ashamed, he has forked out the money—though he’s none +so rich, and the coal and potato trade ain’t so flourishing—and has +used all his influence to over-persuade Birt, by threatening to expose +him to his uncle in the Customs, to make the gal the amends of marrying +her against his will—the mean scuff.’</p> + +<p>‘I am afraid it is a bad business,’ admitted Oliver sadly, compelled +as he was to regard this lingering version, in a lower walk of life, +of the wild, youthful escapades, and the half-brutal parental tyranny +and violence which met the rebellion half way, that were to be found in +every rank, before Christian civilisation did its work, a century and +more ago. Now such evil tales were only possible among the desperately +vicious of the highest, and the desperately ignorant of the lowest, +ranks, or in the gross materialism and incapability of self-restraint +which form the standing <span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>reproach and grievous disfigurement, to set +against the many virtues of that large class of smaller shopkeepers—to +raise whom in the scale of humanity Oliver Constable had been willing +to devote his life.</p> + +<p>Oliver went immediately to Friarton to look after his own business. It +did not take him long to despatch what he had to do. He had only to +receive the last report from the not greatly interested foreman. It +was quite what Oliver had expected. He went through it in less than an +hour. It took him no more than ten minutes afterwards to write out, in +the back shop, his announcement of giving up his father’s and his own +baking business—he could not pretend to sell the goodwill of what had +ceased to pay its cost—to be inserted in the next week’s Friarton’s +newspapers.</p> + +<p>Oliver walked along the High Street afterwards, without happening to +meet any save the most casual acquaintances. He passed the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>Polleys’ +shop door, having a glimpse of Mrs. Polley with the purplish flush on +her face to which she was liable, fixed in her cheeks, and a certain +hard, set turn of the head and jerking activity of movement, as she +served her customers. He knew that she would stand and do her work +there, though the force she put on herself might involve the danger +of her falling behind the counter. But he could not go in then, +or for some time to come—not till the sough of the scandal in the +family had so far died out, and the bitter mortification its head was +experiencing, had partly worn off. Sympathy and condolence were not to +be thought of here. They would be a positive insult.</p> + +<p>But there was nothing to hinder Oliver from repairing to the Dadds’, +forgetful of the coolness between him and Jack, or rather spurred on by +it to the quicker exercise of old friendship.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span></p> + +<p>Oliver found the shop much as it had been described by Sally Pope, +forsaken by customers, abandoned to the disheartened journeymen and +shop-boys, with the goods either unexposed for sale or lying about +in a state of confusion and disorder, which marked the absence or +indifference of the masters. For both the Dadds had taken pride in +their well-filled, well-kept shop. Friarton was somewhat given to +panics in case of dangerous infectious diseases. The undaunted Sister +who had brought light above the horizon had not stayed long enough to +convert the town to her view of illness.</p> + +<p>Oliver had barely time to enquire for the patient, when old Dadd +hurried out from the back shop and accosted him. It was a relief to +distinguish the voice of an old friend who had come voluntarily into +the shop and was standing quietly leaning against the counter, instead +of fleeing from the place, as if it were a pest-house. It almost +exhilarated the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>stout-hearted old man, who was keeping up bravely, to +crack one of his old jokes.</p> + +<p>‘Not come back yet a family man, Mr. Oliver? Not wholly without its +advantage—I mean the bachelor state. Mind coming in farther? Bless you! +<i>don’t</i> you mind? It will do Mrs. Dadd a power of good to see a +strange face—as ain’t really strange—quite the contrary, and ain’t the +doctor’s or one of them dratted nurses—which they never keep their +time nor do their dooty properly, as the poor fellow needing them knows +to his cost. His mother can’t watch day and night for weeks, and I’m +but a poor hand at the trade,’ said the father wistfully, ‘though I +would give a deal to take it up off-hand. But, you see, it don’t come +natural like to a man as it do to a woman, and I wasn’t bred to it, in +any sort, being come of a healthy family,’ rambled the linen-draper, +staving off questions, as Oliver suspected, till they were through +the back shop, up the stair <span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>and into the vacant, dreary-looking best +parlour, with its torn prescriptions cast heedlessly on the carpet and +its tray of half-empty physic-bottles and slops put down recklessly +on the edge of the table, where guests had been wont to see more +substantial fare carefully deposited. Then old Dadd raised his fist and +was about to bring it down on the table with a bang—which in the very +act of being dealt, was caught up and so much suppressed that it barely +caused the physic-bottles to jingle, because Jack’s bedroom lay no +farther off than the other side of the passage. ‘Yes, sir, my boy Jack +is swimming for his life, they tell me,’ said the poor man, winking his +eyes, knitting his brows hard, and speaking as if Oliver were about to +question the statement.</p> + +<p>The door behind them opened, and the unnaturally pitched voice sank +into silence abruptly, while the late speaker turned eagerly to meet +the new comer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Dadd had thought Oliver was the doctor, and entered hastily. At +the sudden sight of her son’s contemporary and old companion standing +there in the flush of health and strength, she broke down, for a +moment, more completely than Dadd had done, to his great dismay. For +Mrs. Dadd was a mannerly woman—so far as she understood manners. She +prided herself on being at home with sickness, and she was accustomed +to say, she did not know what a woman was good for, unless it were to +bear up on these occasions when a man was sure to give way. One gain +that was got by her sinking into a chair and covering her face, in +place of greeting Oliver, was that it roused old Dadd to bustle about +in order to quiet her, and to seek to explain the strange state of +matters to Oliver.</p> + +<p>‘Now, don’t take on so, like a good soul; he ain’t worse since morning. +No, I knew it. And don’t you go for to think, Mr. Oliver, it’s <span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>any ill +feeling to you that’s sticking in the Missuss’s throat. Nothing of the +kind, sir. Why, that was all out of head with poor Jack himself—who was +never a chap to bear malice, months ago. He said to me only the other +day when this illness was coming on him; “I can’t tell what ails me, +father; it ain’t my head, or my back, or my legs in petickler—only I +feel seedy all over. I ain’t fit for the shop, and I’m still less fit +for a field-day”—you see the autumn manoeuvres was coming on—“if it had +been a year or two back, I might have gone out to Friarton Mill and had +a quiet afternoon with Constable, and tried what that would have done +for me. Yes,” he said, “I remember there was bad blood between us; but +I’m not so cock sure as I have been, that I had the best of it. Anyhow, +Constable was the right sort to go to, at a pinch. You could look to be +borne with, and set on your feet again <span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>when you felt you had not a leg +left to stand on, as it is my bad luck to do to-day.”’</p> + +<p>‘That was very good of Jack,’ said Oliver warmly. ‘Then you’ll let me +sit up with him tonight, since he’ll not mind; perhaps he’ll rather +like it. I don’t mean to boast of my qualifications as a nurse; but I +think you and Mrs. Dadd may trust me to see to the doctor’s orders.’</p> + +<p>‘I should think so, Mr. Oliver,’ said Dadd with emphasis. ‘You are +kind, and we are much indebted to you, as we’ll tell you better some +day, please God. Others has offered, but none so hearty, or whom we +could put such faith in,’ old Dadd astonished Oliver by saying. ‘And as +to Jack’s minding or liking, bless you! he don’t know his own mother +from a stranger, and hasn’t these three days back.’</p> + +<p>‘It’s that as has made me useless, Mr. Oliver,’ said Mrs. Dadd, sitting +up and apologising feebly; ‘so that I haven’t even had the grace to +thank you for your offer.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span></p> + +<p>‘Never mind thanks,’ said Oliver. ‘Did my father go out of his way to +thank you when you stayed at Friarton Mill and brought his little girl +through her fever?’</p> + +<p>‘Ah, that was different; that was all in a woman’s way for a motherless +little thing, and I ran no risk, having had the scarlet fever myself +when I was a child. I wish I had been with her at the last, poor soul! +When her trouble came upon her, in a strange place, and none as she +knew, save men to look after her, I reckon she would have cared then to +see the face of an old acquaintance, as was a woman like herself and +knew her needs. But the Lord will protect you, Mr. Oliver, as He may +have raised you up, and sent you home, at this time, to save my dear +Jack. May be it is the greatest mark of respect I could show you or any +man, after all, to think of leaving my own lad in your care.’</p> + +<p>Oliver did not know about having been raised up and sent home to +save Jack Dadd, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span>but he said ‘Surely,’ with fervour to Mrs. Dadd’s +passionate amendment on her formal thanks.</p> + +<p>So Oliver was regularly installed, with the doctor’s consent, +night-nurse to Jack Dadd; and in place of calling at the Meadows, he +went out of the way to avoid the house and any chance of encountering +Mrs. Hilliard or her cousin, as he passed backwards and forwards +between the rooms above the shop in the High Street, Friarton, and +Friarton Mill for a considerable number of mornings and evenings. Such +fellow-townsmen as he met contented themselves with looking curiously +after him, whether they stopped him to enquire for the sick man, +or whether they crossed the street to shun the lightest breath of +infection. An odd fish, Oliver Constable, not without feeling—strange +to say—in his queer composition.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXX"> + CHAPTER XXX. + <br> + <span>STUMBLED ACROSS—INTERVIEWED—TAKEN AT HIS WORD.</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">One</span> night, before it was late, as Oliver was stooping over Jack, trying +to ascertain whether he were really muttering irrelevantly,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘There’s Ruby, and Rover, and Ranter, too,’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="flat">or asking for something the sufferer wanted, a man’s figure in +professional black, which was yet not the doctor’s, appeared on the +opposite side of the bed. Oliver looked up—it was Mr. Holland, the +Dadds’ and Oliver’s minister. He had not been there before—partly +because he had been away on sick leave, partly because he had returned, +only half recruited, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span>after the anxiously economised weeks at the +sea-side with his family—difficult for the poor minister to afford in +more ways than one. And his wife had so implored him not to put his +shaken health and strength, not fairly reestablished, to the severe +test of a fever-laden atmosphere, that he had yielded reluctantly, +and kept away from the unconscious Jack and his burdened father and +mother, till Mr. Holland could do so no longer. Come what might of it, +though it should cost him his own life, and his wife should be left +a widow and his children fatherless, the pastor must be at his post; +and when he went to it, he found the rebel of his congregation hanging +over the sick man—indifferent to inhaling the tainted vapours at the +fountain-head.</p> + +<p>Mr. Holland coloured high and hesitated.</p> + +<p>Oliver looked up and spoke without the slightest difficulty, rather +with a roughish freedom, born of the necessity of the moment.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p> + +<p>‘Hallo, sir! are you there? Look here, Holland; from the colour of your +coat, you have seen more sickness than I. Can you feel a pulse? Can you +pronounce on the state of a tongue? You come as a stranger, you can +tell how Jack strikes you. What do you think of his chance?’</p> + +<p>Mr. Holland stepped forward and did as he was required. Oliver and he +consulted together and watched and nursed Jack, without a thought of +anybody besides, for some hours. Then, after the clergyman had taken up +his hat to go, he hesitated once more, put it down again, and touched +Oliver’s arm with a hand that shook slightly.</p> + +<p>‘Brother,’ said Mr. Holland solemnly, in phraseology adopted both by +Papists and Puritans in exceptional circumstances and seasons of strong +feeling, ‘have you any objection to joining with me in prayer, and +offering up an intercession for our sick brother?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span></p> + +<p>‘None in the world,’ replied Oliver promptly. And the two men prayed +aloud by the voice of the one, for Jack Dadd.</p> + +<p>The next Sunday, Mr. Holland preached a sermon, which slightly +bewildered his hearers, on the text, ‘Not they who say “Lord, Lord,” +but they who do the will of my Father.’</p> + +<p>The early October mornings were getting always darker—with a darkness +which partook of white haze as well as dank wet, dimmer, chiller, when +Oliver—buttoning up his great coat, as he came out of the Dadds’ house +into the street, where last night’s lamps were still burning, and which +had not yet woke up for the day, since not even an early milkman had +put in an appearance—was startled by a woman in a bonnet and veil, +hugging a shawl round her, coming out upon him from the nearest alley, +and accosting him in a gasping, constrained voice.</p> + +<p>‘Please, sir, can you tell me how Mr.—how Mr. Jack Dadd is going on +this morning?’ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>enquired the speaker, with little pants between the +broken utterances of the words.</p> + +<p>In place of answering the question, Oliver exclaimed in amazement, +‘Miss ’Liza Polley! What are you doing here at this hour of the +morning?’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, Mr. Oliver, don’t betray me!’ cried poor ’Liza, in her natural +voice, though it was quivering with distress and terror. ‘I thought you +would not know me. But never mind that just now; tell me quick, how is +Jack? Oh! will he die, Mr. Oliver? Will Jack die?’</p> + +<p>‘I hope not,’ said Oliver gently; ‘he’s no worse, and every hour gained +is in his favour. But this is not a time for you to be out. It was not +six when Mrs. Dadd took my seat. Let me see you home, Miss ’Liza, at +once.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh! no, no, Mr. Oliver,’ refused ’Liza, in a fresh paroxysm of alarm +and trouble. Mother would be fit to kill me outright, if I came in +with a man—with a gentleman, at this hour of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span>the morning—though it is +morning—not night,’ pleaded ’Liza piteously; ‘and old Betty Miles has +come to wash, and had the door opened for her’—taking further refuge +in the business of the day’s having really begun—‘or else I should not +have dared to get up, and slip out at all. Oh dear! You do not know +how hard mother has grown, how hard everything is, since poor ’Mily +went wrong,’ protested ’Liza, weeping, not violently, but in a crushed +manner. ‘It is so dull you cannot think! We dare not lift up our heads +from our work, or make a joke, or speak of running out to pay a single +call. Mother says we are all as bad as ’Mily, and have no sense or +feeling. She is ashamed of us. No respectable people will wish us to +darken their doors, or dream of returning our visits. But oh! it would +be nothing, Mr. Oliver,’ broke off ’Liza, returning to the dominant +cause of her misery, ‘if Jack Dadd were only a little better. Mother +may do or say <span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>what she chooses,’ continued the girl, writhing like any +other worm trodden on, and turning on its oppressor, ‘I must and will +hear how Jack is, or I shall go mad. Mother may serve me as she served +’Mily. I don’t care, there! Anybody may hear me, and go and tell mother +that likes.’</p> + +<p>‘Jack is highly honoured,’ said Oliver, at a loss for any other +observation. ‘But now, don’t you think, since he is no worse, and will +soon, I trust, be a great deal better, it would be as well for you to +take care of yourself, and do what your mother wishes you, for his +sake, as well as hers, Miss ’Liza?’</p> + +<p>‘Oh! hush, hush! Don’t say my name, in case anybody hear you,’ ’Liza +objected with the greatest inconsistency. ‘You are a kind chap—that is, +you are very good; but I did not mean you or anybody to see or know me. +I thought you would not penetrate my disguise,’ said ’Liza with solemn +simplicity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span></p> + +<p>‘I was too clever,’ said Oliver, tempted to laugh.</p> + +<p>‘But you will not think ill of me?’ besought ’Liza—sinking again, in +a moment, from the part of the heroine of romance she had formerly +longed to play, which, even this morning, she had found some faint +compensation in trying to support, for Jack was not dead, only very +ill—into the affronted, unhappy, childish young woman. ‘You will not +tell upon me? You see Jack Dadd and I have known each other all our +days, and sometimes—well, he has looked and said things—though he was +not always kind. He was fair angry because I let you talk to me first +when you came back,’ explained ’Liza, with a little hysterical giggle. +‘I am sure, Mr. Oliver, we two said nothing which all the world might +not have heard, and Jack had given himself no right to interfere with +me for speaking to anybody. Now mother <span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span>says nobody will ever care +to come near us again, after the disgrace ’Mily has brought upon the +family.’ ’Liza began to droop afresh, and to cry without the most +distant admixture of small triumphant laughter. ‘It would be very hard +and cruel, if it were true, for how could we—Ann and I, help it? Mother +was always putting ’Mily before us,’ complained ’Liza resentfully, +‘and Jack and ’Mily would carry on together, just to plague me, I +believe. Oh dear! what am I doing?’—stopping short and wringing her +hands—‘Blaming Jack when he may be dying or dead for aught I know; and +I may never see or speak to him again in my life. But I should not mind +that, if God would only let Jack live and get well and be happy, though +it were all away from me. Oh! Mr. Oliver, will he live? Will Jack live?’</p> + +<p>The poor delicate girl was quite spent and shaken. She was forced to +let Oliver—who <span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>was not without some apprehension of arousing the blind +fury of Mrs. Polley—give her his arm within sight of her mother’s door.</p> + +<p>‘So that was the way of it?’ Oliver said to himself softly, as he +walked away. ‘Poor thing! poor old Jack—who can hardly move a finger at +this moment! And I came between them and made mischief, did I? without +the faintest suspicion, in my stupid bungling? But, let us be thankful, +it may not be too Late to set this right if the beggar will only +recover.’</p> + +<p>Oliver was coming in to Jack, not going from him, when the gas-lights +in the streets of Friarton looked white and bright and encouraging +as they look with the night setting in—not yellow and faded and +dispiriting, after a career of unwarrantable dissipation, according to +their faithless discomfiting habit with the first streak of dawn.</p> + +<p>There were still many people about, largely the promenaders, shoppers, +and callers belonging <span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>to the classes to which day brings work and +evening recreation, with the recreation consisting mainly of what is +best expressed by the old-fashioned word ‘gadding’—going abroad and +foraging for some little excitement in the way of gossip or otherwise. +This was the season when the Polley girls had been wont to disport +themselves among their acquaintances, till the striking of a clock sent +them scampering and scuttling home, like Cinderella minus her glass +slipper.</p> + +<p>And sure enough ’Mily Polley came forward in her conspicuous hat and +outrageous skirt, bustling along as if all the business of Friarton +were left for her to do, and meeting Oliver Constable in the face.</p> + +<p>At the first glance she appeared perfectly unabashed. The only +difference in her was that to the girlish pertness and boldness there +was added a touch of the hard brazenness which defies such a position +as hers. She was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span>alone—she espied Oliver at once. Her sharp eyes had +never been known to miss man or woman, and now—far from being cast +down, they were roving on all sides, challenging every passer-by. +There was the complete contrast between ’Liza and ’Mily Polley which +is generally to be found between the sinned against and the sinner. +’Mily attempted no foolish disguise. She was not seeking to escape from +Oliver’s recognition. She darted up to him, hailing him loudly—‘Mr. +Oliver Constable, it is a treat to see you now-a-days.’</p> + +<p>Oliver stopped and spoke to ’Mily. She made no enquiry for Jack Dadd, +or the most distant allusion to Oliver’s recent loss. On the contrary, +in full view of his mourning, she referred to the changes which had +occurred lately, with boisterous gaiety. ‘And there are more and +greater changes coming, I can tell you, Mr. Oliver,’ said ’Mily, in her +glibest manner. ‘I am turning my back on this dull <span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>hole, I’m glad to +say. I am to be married next Thursday; the day is so near that I need +not make a mystery of it. I dare say you have heard, though you have +not wished me joy yet. If you were quicker about it, I might give you +an invitation to my wedding.’</p> + +<p>‘Do,’ said Oliver, on the impulse of the moment; ‘and I’ll be happy to +come in the character of an old friend.’</p> + +<p>‘Will you?’ asked ’Mily, quickly and doubtfully. ‘Will you, indeed, Mr. +Oliver? Do you mean what you say?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, of course.’</p> + +<p>‘That will be awfully good of you. I’ll be as proud as a peacock; +no’—with a sudden flush—‘not that, but very much obliged and thankful +to show his friends that all the people I ever knew have not turned +their backs upon me.’ She finished with bitterness, still her voice +and face betrayed some shame and regret. ‘Would you mind walking and +talking with me <span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>a bit, Mr. Oliver?’ she asked almost gently. ‘We’ll +turn down into Jervis’s yard, where there is nobody working at this +hour. I should like to speak out to you this once. It is not late, and +though it were, there’s nobody to hinder me from stopping out till +after ten, now. But, oh! Mr. Oliver’—breaking out passionately—‘it +was mother herself put the finishing touch to my folly. I had been +wild and flown in her face, and disobeyed her, but I was not bad, +when she turned me from my father’s door, and locked it in my face. +She has herself to thank for what came of it,—no, no, I don’t mean +that’—cried ’Mily, calling herself back with an accent of terror in +her despair—‘What is it the Bible says about them as curses father and +mother? And it is only them as honours father and mother that lives +long; so that any way I’m booked to die young like Jack Dadd and Fan—I +beg your pardon, Mr. Oliver—Mrs. Harry Stanhope. Well, I’ve <span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>got an +inkling there are worse fates going. But it was heartless and ill-done +of me,’ confessed poor ’Mily, with something like real contrition in +the tears which welled up into her round eyes,—‘to come forward and +look in your face, and at the band round your hat, and begin with my +idle nonsense—only it’s such sore nonsense now-a-days—you can’t guess, +Mr. Oliver. Did you ever think it would come to this—that my banns +should be put up here, in Friarton, and my marriage day next week, yet +neither mother, nor ’Liza, nor any of them, should care to come near +me? That they should not be able to tell what I’m to wear, or seek to +bid me good-bye before I go?’</p> + +<p>‘It will be better when you are gone,’ said Oliver. ‘Forgiveness and +forgetfulness will come in time. You will try to do your best, ’Mily, +God helping you, in the future, and when you come back——’</p> + +<p>‘I’ll never come back, never,’ said ’Mily, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>with strong conviction. +‘I’ll never show my face here again, though I’ve sought to look as if +I did not care that I had met the disgrace, I deserved, I suppose. But +you’ll come to my marriage, Mr. Oliver,’ pleaded ’Mily, ‘and wish me +the best that can happen to me, now? Birt will be pleased, because of +your college breeding and connections, and will think more of me since +a gentleman like you does not hold it beneath him to stand by me. And +you will tell them at home some day, Mr. Oliver, what I wore—you’ll +take a good stare at my bonnet and gown for the purpose—and how I +looked, and that I had taken care, as far as I could, out of the little +bit of money my aunt ’Mily, as was also my godmother, left me, that +everything about the marriage should be as slap-bang as the Cobbes +could manage it? No doubt mother’s daughter, considering what mother +has made of the shop, and what her bank-book comes to, might have been +entitled to a great <span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>deal more. I know I used to fancy I might be +married in a white satin and go off in a carriage and pair at least,’ +replied ’Mily, half-proudly, half ruefully; ‘still you’ll see there +will be nothing in the way the marriage is gone about, to affront +mother and the rest—though none of them has come to look after my +credit and theirs,’ ended ’Mily, with a considerable flavour of the old +woman lingering about her still.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"> + CHAPTER XXXI. + <br> + <span>LIFE—AND DEATH.</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">Jack Dadd</span> was more like a girl than ever—more like even than the +puniest of pink and white complexioned lads—with whom to associate the +idea of a bold, rude, fox-hunter or a slashing soldier, or a reckless +buccaneer, as they had been represented in Jack’s favourite songs, +would have been the height of absurdity, pathetic in the very wildness +of the imagination.</p> + +<p>He was wasted and worn to skin and bone, and faded to the colour of +blanched wax, lying with his eyes shut, though he was not sleeping. Yet +Jack was considered to have got the turn, to be in a fair, though still +a precarious, way of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span>recovery. Oliver had not altogether resigned his +functions; he was with Jack this night again, sitting reading at a +little distance from the bed, when he was startled by hearing a piping +voice address him, and looking round, he saw Jack’s eyes wide open, +with reason in their glance, fixed upon him. It was a critical moment, +for between delirium and sheer feebleness, Jack had not before shown +any consciousness of Oliver’s identity.</p> + +<p>‘Noll,’ said Jack, ‘don’t you remember how I won your taws that time?’ +referring to a famous, far-off, game of marbles in the Friarton +playground.</p> + +<p>Oliver was immensely relieved. ‘Yes, Jack, you beat me to sticks,’ he +admitted candidly, while Jack emitted the ghost of a chuckle at the +recollection of his old victory.</p> + +<p>But Jack’s next speech was not so reassuring. ‘Constable,’ said Jack, +‘I’ve often been guilty of rank impudence to you.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span></p> + +<p>‘Gammon!’ said Oliver; ‘shut up for the rest of the night, old boy; let +me turn you round, and do you try and get another sleep, which will set +you on your pins again in no time, and let me finish my book.’</p> + +<p>But Jack’s hour for conversation had come, and he would not be +silenced. ‘I say, Constable, I hope I may get over this bout, and +be let off this time, to live and make up for some things I’ve done +unlike—unlike a gentleman.’</p> + +<p>Heaven help the lad! who was too shy in the middle of his forwardness +to say a Christian, the young counter-jumper who had his own standard +for a man and a gentleman.</p> + +<p>‘You may live to behave like a prince, Jack, if you’ll only be careful +and not exhaust yourself. Here; swallow this stuff, and snooze away.’</p> + +<p>But Jack was at his confessions again, more briskly than before, +the moment he had taken the stimulant. ‘I wonder if anybody but the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span>poor old guv’nor, and the mother, and perhaps a good fellow like +you, Constable, would care whether I hopped the twig or not? I don’t +deserve it from some people. There’s ’Liza—’Liza Polley—’Liza might +not have always known her own mind, or rather, her friends went in and +bamboozled her, and put a lot of nonsense into her head, but I was not +quite fair to ’Liza. I came down hard upon her, when, as it turned out, +you were not going after her, and when, if you will believe me,’ said +Jack, with emphasis, succeeding in raising himself on his elbow, ‘she +never cared a rap for you, it was me she cared for all the time—poor +’Liza!’ ended Jack, falling back with a sigh.</p> + +<p>The delicious <i>naïveté</i> of the assertion pleased Oliver greatly, +while he hastened to give it a handsome corroboration. ‘I am profoundly +convinced of the truth of what you say, Jack; and if it would not bring +on a fresh <span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>attack of fever, I might generously tell you in return that +Miss ’Liza Polley met me at break of day the other morning, daring the +wrath of her mother, just to hear the last news of your health.’</p> + +<p>‘Did she, though?’ exclaimed Jack, with his poor face brightening into +a dim glow of satisfaction; ‘and ’Liza is as frightened as a hare while +her mother has been like a she-bear that has been robbed of her whelps, +since she sent ’Mily up the spout.’ There was a little pause. Oliver +hoped Jack was dropping off to sleep. ‘I’ll not forget it of ’Liza +Polley,’ Jack spoke again, with drowsy, lordly magnanimity; ‘it was +the best errand she ever ran on. I’ll act on the square to her—on the +square all round, please God. And as for Mrs. Polley, won’t the guv’nor +make her squeak to a different tune, when he calls to pop the question +to the mother for me?’</p> + +<p>Yes, Jack was going to recover, to be a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>man instead of a boy—a good +man ‘please God,’ as he had said simply. And it would please the Father +of Lights, the source and the reward of all goodness.</p> + +<p>Death and desolation were distanced for once. The strange, sad sights, +sounds, and memories which the King of Terrors, even though his sceptre +has been wrested from his grasp, still brings with him, and leaves +behind him wherever his ‘pale feet’ pass, would be changed for the +cheery, sweet, common tokens of returning health and life: the fresh, +open air, everyday work, the familiar faces of friends no longer +anxious or averted.</p> + +<p>Oliver felt it like a great boon to himself. He went to ’Mily Polley’s +marriage with much better spirit and hope, since there was no longer +the least probability of his having to attend Jack Dadd’s funeral.</p> + +<p>Oliver represented ’Mily’s circle, though Sam Cobbe gave her away. An +old friend <span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>lent her his countenance when she needed it. For she was +conscience-stricken and shame-smitten through all her defiance. She was +really smarting keenly under the abandonment of her kindred. She was +awaking silently—and when had ’Mily ever been silent before?—and sadly, +already, even before he had made her his wife, to the utter poverty and +short-lived nature of the passion which had existed between her and the +man for whom she had—not generously but wilfully, sacrificed all that +women hold dear. For this reason she was susceptible to the compliment +of Oliver’s presence even more than to the show of her gaudy blue silk +gown and desperately smart bonnet and veil. She thanked him with an +earnestness which struck Oliver in ’Mily, and which he considered far +out of proportion to the cause of the thanks, in the last words she +said to him. She went with her husband straight from the church to the +railway-station, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>as the Cobbes could not be expected to furnish the +shabbiest version of a wedding-breakfast, and left immediately for +Manchester. There was no trace of the couple when Oliver followed them +to the station in the course of a quarter of an hour, intending to take +a short journey on his own affairs.</p> + +<p>Oliver Constable had his foot on a carriage step when the +station-master hurried up, white and scared-looking, struggling to +maintain his composure. He whispered to Oliver, ‘There’s been an +accident to the 11.30 train north, close to Medlar Bridge. I’ve just +had word. There’s folk hurt. All that can help is wanted immediately; +but there’s no use driving the town wild, and bringing out a pack of +useless, frantic people as long as it can be prevented. Would you mind, +sir, coming with me and the nearest doctor and the surface-men?’</p> + +<p>‘All right,’ consented Oliver, in reference to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>what was evidently all +wrong. He, too, was agitated by the suddenness and shock of the message.</p> + +<p>It was not till the little party had started and aroused the suspicion +of a few idlers, though another quarter of an hour would pass before +the vague alarm took shape, spread abroad and thrilled the town, that +Oliver recollected the 11.30 train north was the very train by which +the newly-married pair were to travel. He told himself the next moment +that amongst the hundreds in the train there was little likelihood that +the Birts should be the particular victims.</p> + +<p>The place where the last portion of the train had run off the line, +with the usual amount of overthrow and wreck, lay about midway between +Friarton and the next station, from which assistance had already +come, before the Friarton station-master and his band of helpers +arrived. Oliver saw only the <i>débris</i> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>of broken carriages and +a throng of excited but uninjured people, when he leapt from the +engine, on reaching his destination. ‘Not so bad as had been feared +from the earliest report,’ Oliver heard proclaimed by various voices +immediately. Two of the smashed carriages were found to have been +empty. Only one carriage and the guard’s van were occupied. A woman had +been killed, and five or six persons more or less hurt.’</p> + +<p>Oliver Constable passed through the eager speakers, looking on every +side for the Birts, half expecting to find ’Mily in hysterics if she +had happened to be in a carriage near those which had broken loose, and +if she had seen anything of the accident.</p> + +<p>Before he was aware he found himself close to the waiting-room into +which the sufferers had been carried. A railway servant at the door, +taking it for granted that Oliver was seeking for the room and had a +right to enter, beckoned him <span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>in before he could think where he was +going, among the doctors and their patients—fainting or groaning, while +pulses were felt, heads bandaged, and limbs set.</p> + +<p>Oliver prepared to retreat, but first he cast a quick glance round. +Stay! Was not that Birt in the soiled, jaunty new clothes for which +’Mily had paid, out of her little bit of money?</p> + +<p>The man did not look much the worse, in spite of the outcry he was +making over what a doctor was coolly pooh-poohing as a trifle of a +broken collar-bone.</p> + +<p>But where was ’Mily?</p> + +<p>In another moment Oliver learnt the incredible fact that Birt did not +know. The bridegroom had been smoking with the guard in the van when +the accident happened, and ever since then—speaking from Birt’s point +of view—he had been in far too bad a way to enquire after anybody. But +no doubt she was somewhere outside, gaping and screeching <span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>with the +rest of the women. She ought to be looked up at once—Birt grumbled +crossly, taking the first word of scolding—to see if she could not make +a beginning in minding her duty, and trying to do something for him +when he was in mortal agony and as sick as a dog.</p> + +<p>Oliver, with his heart standing still, took one step towards the door +of another room which was kept closed. An elderly woman turned the key +in the lock and let him go in. Alas! yes; there lay all that was mortal +of ’Mily, the poor mangled body decently composed, covered over and +put away from fascinated, appalled gaze, or rude, gloating scrutiny—in +the very dress she had so often pictured herself as wearing, that she +had bidden Oliver notice particularly, which she had, not three hours +before, gone to church in. The chubby face was little altered, except +for the closed eyes, since it had been spared, while death must <span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>have +proved instantaneous. With no friend by her side, not missed, though +she was in her bridal glory, till Oliver sought her out, the disastrous +end of ’Mily’s foolish young life had indeed come swiftly.</p> + +<p>In the grief and oppression with which Oliver set about making the +necessary arrangements, he could yet believe that, as ’Mily had said of +Fan’s fate, so her own might have been more miserable still.</p> + +<p>It was a wise choice made by the warrior and poet king—rather to fall +into God’s than into man’s hands. To die in an instant, though it were +on her marriage morning, in her bridal finery, when her heart was +softened in the act of quitting Friarton, thinking as she thought in +all probability—with regretful tenderness of her mother and family, and +repenting of her misconduct, while, at the same time, all faith and +hope in her husband had not been crushed out of her, was surely better +than to live on <span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>at the mercy of a man like Birt, to be dragged down by +him into lower and lower depths, to risk becoming at last as heartless +and worthless as himself.</p> + +<p>Oliver had a worse ordeal to face before night than that of seeking out +’Mily on her marriage day, as the woman killed in the railway accident.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Polley sent over an express to Friarton Mill to bid Mr. Constable +come into the town and speak to her. In other circumstances it would +have been an exacting, unreasonable demand; as it was Oliver, like any +man with a true man’s heart, obeyed it as he would have obeyed the +behest of the Queen.</p> + +<p>He found the Polleys’ shop with the shutters up in the middle of the +afternoon, for the first time in his recollection. Mrs. Polley was +not in the back shop; she was in her daughters’ room, to which she +had gone, with rapid unsteady <span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>feet, the moment a rash or stolid +customer had pushed forward to the counter, and, in place of giving +an order, had told the tragedy in all its raw anguish and frightful +force, without waiting to weigh words, or to secure the presence of +some solemnly commissioned, skilled, and pitying comforter. The mother +was sitting by the side of the bed in which ’Mily had been wont to +sleep. Mrs. Polley’s hard-working hand was mechanically smoothing down +the crochet quilt, which had been one of the few feats of industry +accomplished by the joint efforts of the sisters while they were still +at school, and in which ’Mily, though the youngest, had played the +foremost part. The first married of the three workers was to have +carried off the quilt, but the bargain had not been kept in spite of +’Mily’s double title to the prize.</p> + +<p>The heavy flush had not grown lighter on Mrs. Polley’s cheeks. She +continued dry-eyed <span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>and silent, while all the eyes around her were dim, +and the faces swollen with crying, and as Oliver—the last person there +who had seen and spoken with ’Mily—entered the room, a fresh burst of +lamentation broke from her sisters, even her father groaned aloud, and +bowed his face over his shaking hands.</p> + +<p>Oliver took Mrs. Polley’s hand reverently. ‘I am very sorry,’ he +muttered. ‘She could not have suffered. She is in better hands even +than in those of the friends who loved her best. I have done all that +was required.’</p> + +<p>‘Mr. Oliver,’ said Mrs. Polley, in a loud, harsh voice which startled +everybody, ‘I have sent for you in case I should not live another +night. How do I know when them as I’ve seen full of youth and life and +gladness is took in the twinkling of an eye? I want to thank you before +I die, and I may never have another chance. Yes, I know all you have +done for my ’Mily this day. You have stood beside her—both <span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>as a bride +and as a corpse. When every friend she had gave my gal up, and left her +to be despised and trodden upon, when the mother as bore and had turned +her adrift, that so her folly might grow into sin, showed no mercy, you +came to her and let her feel she had one friend left on earth, so that +she might be able to believe that she had still a Father and Saviour +in heaven. You have ordered her coffin and undertook, if necessary, to +pay for it, and are ready to see all that the cruel, grinding, tearing +wheels left of her, laid in it, and to help to carry her yourself to +the churchyard. Mr. Oliver, my thanks ain’t worth much; for aught that +I know, they may be no better than ill wishes and curses, since I was +the unnatural mother as shut ’Mily out into the street, where she had +no refuge, save the base villain that had decoyed her from her mother’s +roof. Hold your tongue, Polley, and you gals, and you, sir, though you +were thrice my pastor,’ addressing <span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span>Mr. Holland, as he came softly and +sorrowfully into the room. She resisted fiercely all attempts of her +frightened husband and children and the other awed bystanders to stay +her wild self-accusation. ‘I will speak out. I’ve sung my own praises +and been my own trumpeter many’s the time. I’ll publish likewise my +barbarous cruelty. It was I as denounced my own daughter and condemned +her to destruction and an early grave. So what would it serve you, Mr. +Oliver, though you were to let me go down on my knees and bless you, +because you had more pity on my ’Mily—my bright, clever ’Mily, that is +now as cold and still as a clod of the walley, than her wicked mother +had on her poor, thoughtless child?’</p> + +<p>‘You loved her better than yourself, all the time you blamed her most,’ +Oliver told the miserable woman. ‘It was your very love for her, and +pride in her, which made you hard. She knew that then; she knows it +better now.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span></p> + +<p>Something in the words spoken almost at random, opened the closed +floodgate of tears which quenched the frenzy blazing into a devouring +flame, and saved the stout heart from breaking. ‘Yes, I were fond +and proud of my ’Mily, with good reason,’ protested Mrs. Polley more +softly, though the softness was expressed by the deep sobs which rent +her breast, and the torrents of tears that gushed from her eyes. ‘There +was none of the other gals fit to hold a candle to her. She were that +smart, my little ’Mily, she could run and speak by the time she was +eighteen months. I’ve seen her a sitting up rosy and full of roguery, +playing with the pillows in this here bed, when other children would +have been lying like so many little logses. Her fingers and her tongue +alike were that clever! She had finished her piece and begun another of +this very bed quilt long before Ann or ’Liza had got half through with +either of theirs—and her the youngest and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>only in her first quarter at +the school. “I’ll make them stand about, mother, she would say to me,” +with one of her merry laughs; “and I’ll wager I’ll be married first, as +well as first done with my bit of the crochet, and get the quilt all to +myself.” So she has been married first, and she has died first, leaving +me and her father behind, as ought by rights to have gone long before +her. Oh! ’Mily, ’Mily, if I could but have died for you!’</p> + +<p>Poor young ’Mily Polley’s death on her marriage morning caused a great +revulsion in the feelings which had been entertained towards her in +her native town. Her awful fate wiped out, in human eyes, the sum of +her transgressions. Her death was regarded—not so much in the light +of retribution as of atonement. A tender veil of commiseration and +charity was drawn over her offences till they were in a fair way to +be forgotten as well as forgiven. Her memory was likely to survive in +Friarton and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>appeal to all gentle, romantic hearts for generations to +come—not as that of the erring girl, but as that of the newly-made wife +who perished in the first hours of her wifehood.</p> + +<p>’Mily’s intimate associates were forced to acknowledge remorsefully the +little allowance they had made for her temptations, and the unanimity +with which they had forsaken her in her humiliation.</p> + +<p>Even some of the townspeople who had only noticed and inveighed against +the girl as an exceedingly vulgar, pert, giddy creature, experienced an +uncomfortable conviction that her opportunities of learning to become +more civilised, modest, and steady had been limited, and, such as +they were, might have been a good deal counteracted by the old feuds +and jealousies between classes. At the same time the blithe ring of +her voice as it had floated accidentally to them, the light fall of +her footstep when she had passed them, lingered in the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>ears of these +judges, and smote them with the realisation of how young this ’Mily +Polley must have been, when her detractors had not thought it beneath +their superior age, rank, and refinement, to enlarge on her sins +against good taste. ’Mily had her revenge in this fact, that whereas +she and her set had been heartily despised, sharply ridiculed, and +religiously shunned by those more gently bred ladies of Friarton, who +held it as a pious duty to work for, bear with, instruct and assist the +laziest and most reckless of the poor in the town, very few could now +afford to scorn ’Mily. All except the smallest and grossest minds saw +that the solemnity of death, even without its tragedy—as in ’Mily’s +piteous case—invested the girl with a simple dignity in her grave. But +it was a pity that not more men and women had possessed the larger, +gentler eyes to recognise that the sacredness of life had also bestowed +on her worth and importance—even <span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>while she still bounced about her +mother’s shop, and flounced along the streets.</p> + +<p>Remorse, in its slightest manifestation of doubt and discontent with +one’s self, is not an agreeable sensation, therefore the townspeople of +Friarton, who, like the rest of the world, greatly preferred to feel at +ease in their own minds, if not gently titillated with a consciousness +of having done their best in the matters of justice and mercy, began +to look around them in order to discover any loophole of escape from +the painful impression that they had been hard and contemptuous to +’Mily Polley and perhaps hounded her on—for girls are sensitive as well +as perverse—to her undoing. They were remarkably successful in their +search. For one man had, as it were, redeemed the humane character of +Friarton. Oliver Constable had paid respect to the girl from the first, +and shown her mercy to the last. He had acted as the representative +of her neighbours, and so <span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>removed, in a great measure, the lurking +self-reproach from their consciences. And it was the same Oliver who +had gone in for nursing old Dadd’s son, and pulled him through his +fever.</p> + +<p>It did seem as if Oliver Constable had come home from watching by his +sister’s death-bed to save the life of Jack Dadd and to speak a parting +word of forgiveness and God-speed to ’Mily Polley, so as to deliver +the whole town from the charge of selfish cowardice and intolerant +persecution. If so, what sort of man could he really be who had +received such a commission and given himself to its fulfilment?</p> + +<p>The reaction which had set in for poor ’Mily extended to Oliver. +His fellow-townsmen commenced to conceive an altogether different +impression of him, to exalt and make much of him, to canonise him—not +merely before a hundred years had elapsed, but in his very lifetime. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>This experience is comparatively rare, still it happens sometimes that +just as men’s sins occasionally go before them to judgment, so men’s +patient continuance in well-doing is observed and awakens a response in +their brethren before death has set its seal to virtue.</p> + +<p>In the meantime Oliver was perfectly unaware of the sudden revolution +in the sentiments of the town towards him, so that in place of being +unpopular and lightly esteemed—not to say grossly slandered—he had +sprung at once to the height of popularity and general respect, among +those who were not particularly ashamed of thus turning their coats, +after they had so recently decried and abused their champion and hero.</p> + +<p>The only thing which struck Oliver as he walked along the streets of +Friarton, in the drizzle and mud of November, was, that in spite of +the season and the weather, he was constantly <span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span>meeting friends and +acquaintances, and that not merely everybody had something to say to +him, but that all men and women were in the best humour, overflowing +with geniality, as if they were reflecting June sunshine rather than +November fog.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"> + CHAPTER XXXII. + <br> + <span>‘DO THEY BELIEVE IN ME NOW?’</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="flat"><span class="smcap">Oliver Constable’s</span> announcement that he was retiring from the baking +business had appeared three times in the Friarton weekly newspapers. +The first time it was received with scoffs and sneers, the next it +was met by a troubled silence, the last time it was anticipated by an +urgent protest, though Oliver did not happen to be within hearing. The +earliest result of his advertisement—so far as Oliver knew—came in the +shape of a formal call in the <span id="cor7"></span>back shop from Jim Hull.</p> + +<p>Jim had never entered the premises since he and his nephew ’Arry +set up a rival business. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>Oliver made no question that Jim came now +with some proposal from the flourishing firm of which he was one of +the representatives, while he indulged in an austere satisfaction at +the realisation of his own prophecies of the certain consequences of +Oliver’s new-fangled, hair-splitting scruples and crotchets. Anyway, +Oliver thought, Jim Hull might have saved himself the trouble. It was +execrable taste in him to come and crow at all, in the circumstances.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Et tu Brute!</i>’ Oliver said in spirit to his father’s old friend +and servant, who arrived to speak to Oliver of his acknowledged +failure, and to suggest Jim’s nephew’s further rise on Oliver +Constable’s downfall.</p> + +<p>Neither did Jim seem to prosper on his heartlessness and +vindictiveness. He looked much older and greyer, and his fine, +well-cut face was all creased over with the wrinkles which had been +just perceptible, here and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>there, two or three years before. The face +had always looked compact, but now it had a contracted appearance, as +if Jim had got into a habit of setting his few teeth and drawing his +grizzled brows together, by the hour.</p> + +<p>‘Master Oliver,’ said Jim hesitatingly, ‘will you not think twice of +this resolution?’</p> + +<p>‘I have no intention, Jim,’ said Oliver shortly, as he drummed on the +table before him; and then, scorning to make use of a subterfuge, he +added, ‘It is not in my power.’</p> + +<p>‘Not though I bring you the earliest information that my nephew ’Arry +is also giving up, leastways selling his business here?’ said Jim, +leaning halfway across the table in his earnestness. ‘He has got word +of a famous opening in London, which is a field as will suit him +better,’ said Jim, in a lower tone, sinking back in his chair.</p> + +<p>Oliver was taken by surprise. He could only say it would be odd if +Friarton were left <span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>without bakers, except the small fry. But there +could be no difficulty in finding a purchaser and successor to such a +<i>thriving</i> business as Jim and his nephew had established. Were +there no other nephews of Jim’s?—Oliver remembered a whole family of +sons, cousins of Harry’s—to take the place of the ambitious fellow who +thought Friarton beneath his further attentions, and would, no doubt, +die Lord Mayor of London? Oliver had—he could not have told why, unless +in the underlying sense of bitterness produced by the contrast with his +own experience—put an emphasis on the epithet ‘thriving’ which he had +applied to Jim and his nephew’s business.</p> + +<p>The stress on the word caused Jim to wince. A dull, faded red suffused +the old servant’s withered face, and caused positive pain to the +quondam master. What right had Oliver to taunt Jim with his success? +Was not the old man at liberty to make his methods, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>in which he saw no +harm, succeed to the utmost of his power?</p> + +<p>While Oliver took himself to task, Jim was informing him, +ceremoniously, that the only nephew he had in the baking trade, besides +’Arry, had gone to Australia, ‘and well for him,’ muttered the speaker. +‘But I was thinking, Master Oliver,’ resumed Jim, wistfully, ‘that you +might take ’Arry’s business, of which my share would go far to buy up +the goodwill, and carry it on instead of the old one here.’</p> + +<p>‘What, Jim! because I have half ruined myself with the one, go on to +wholly ruin myself with the other?’ said Oliver, with a forced laugh to +hide his perplexity and embarrassment.</p> + +<p>‘But things is different,’ insisted Jim eagerly. ‘It were the +opposition—of which there would be no more, not a scrap—as did for you; +and I would manage for you again, if you liked to have me. There’s a +deal more work left in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>me yet than some folks think for,’ Jim put in +resentful parenthesis, flicking away the remains of flour from his +sleeve. ‘I’m not the man as would advise another man, least of all you, +Master Oliver, if you will believe me, to fling good money after bad; +but here is the finest chance as ever Providence made—on purpose, I had +a’most said, for you to retrieve your losses, and build up Constable’s +business again on a firmer foundation than ever, and carry out your +schemes to boot,’ cried Jim, waxing enthusiastic, ‘if you’ll not go and +fling it to the dogs in a pet.’</p> + +<p>Oliver was fairly puzzled. He was a man tenacious of his principles +and projects. So far from being wearied out by disappointment and +thwarting, and glad of the excuse to throw the baking business over, it +‘riled’ him thoroughly, tortured and mortified him, to resign it and +all the hopes he had set upon it, after what they had cost him. He was +strongly tempted to catch <span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>at the most distant prospect, consistent +with common prudence, of resuming the trade, and waging it thenceforth +to a triumphant issue, for the benefit of his fellow-men.</p> + +<p>But what of the old practical difficulties with Jim? Oliver was +not disposed to yield an atom of what he looked upon as trade +righteousness. Sooner sacrifice half-a-dozen businesses, or promises +of business, than make a holocaust of his trade creed, which was a +prominent part of his Christian creed. Jim, with the hold on his master +which the manager’s having largely contributed to buy back the business +must give him, would be in a position to maintain his opposite views, +while Oliver would no longer have the power to object to them, far less +to put them down.</p> + +<p>‘I am greatly obliged to you, Jim,’ said Oliver, at last, ‘and not the +least for this—that, in spite of the mull I have made, you speak as if +you had some faith in me still. But I am <span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>not cured of my hobbies; I am +as great a fool as ever, you will think, when I tell you that I cannot +be in business as a baker and suffer artificially-whitened bread, or +fancy bread which is not weighed, to go out of my shop. Besides, I do +not know what other eccentricities might occur to me, which I should +feel bound to see carried out.’</p> + +<p>Instead of the half-repressed disgust which Oliver had expected to +excite, Jim met the declaration with a shame-faced assent. ‘Never mind, +Master Oliver, them are trifles after all, and it’s erring on the safe +side. Yes, sir, I’m bound to say to you this much—it’s erring on the +safe side,’ raising his voice, and speaking sternly, while he fumbled +nervously with his watch-chain.</p> + +<p>With the exception of another abrupt sentence, ‘I’ll swallow all your +stipulations, and stick to you like a vice, now, Master Oliver, never +fear,’ it was all the admission Jim Hull <span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>ever made to Oliver of having +found himself the wrong man in the wrong place. But it was enough to +recall to Oliver’s mind stories he had heard, only half believed and +never repeated, of the sort of bread which the new business had gone +on to sell in Friarton. A young doctor, who had taken upon himself +the office of unpaid analyst in defence of an ungrateful public, had +pronounced the bread largely and most perniciously adulterated. ’Arry +had advanced a long way before his sickened and horrified uncle in +courses which Jim had found himself utterly unable to restrain to mild, +half-openly-confessed, traditional trade liberties. London was indeed a +fitter field for ’Arry’s genius.</p> + +<p>The day has long gone by when the outbreak of deadly epidemics aroused +the frantic outcry of poisoned wells and poisoned loaves. But are the +water and the bread provided for the people really pure and wholesome? +Has the time not come for the old charge to be <span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span>revived in more +measured and reasonable tones, without any thought of vengeance on sins +which are those of ignorance—however wilful—sloth, and haste to make +rich, not of deliberate conspiracy and barbarous treachery against +human health and life?</p> + +<p>‘But, Jim, though you consent to bear with my fads, I am afraid the +Friarton people will still find them insupportable. They will still +clamour for bread of chalky whiteness, varying in size as well as in +shape. I have wearied them out with my efforts to be honest and do them +good against their will.’</p> + +<p>‘No, you haven’t,’ said Jim decisively. ‘No one will wag a finger +against your bread. They have come to know better. Bless you! they are +ready to swallow wholesale any stuff you may offer them.’</p> + +<p>Oliver stared, then thinking Jim was making another covert allusion +to his nephew’s tolerably extensive experiments on the palates and +digestive <span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span>organs of his customers, Oliver delicately waived the point +in discussion.</p> + +<p>Oliver Constable and Jim Hull talked for some time on the +practicability of Oliver’s stepping into a vigorous business in place +of laying down an exhausted trade. The longer they talked, the more +Oliver became satisfied of the possibility and advisability of the +proceeding—that the career he had proposed for himself might not be cut +short, and that he might have the chance of rising like a phœnix from +its ashes.</p> + +<p>The last thing which vexed Oliver was that Jim pressed him to go in +for the new premises—reared by Jim and his nephew—which were in full +working order, rather than transfer their business to the Constables’ +bakehouse and shop, which had latterly been only half used.</p> + +<p>What! Give up the shop Peter Constable had proudly built for his son, +which Agneta Stanhope had foolishly called ‘the ancestral <span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>shop,’ with +all the kindly associations to which Oliver was so susceptible, and +remove into these brand-new premises, destitute of any association +except that they had been raised to knock down the other, which they +had done!</p> + +<p>Yet all was true that Jim argued. Time and tide were sweeping away the +old traffic from the old channels. The new premises were in a better +situation than Oliver’s. They had commanded ampler space and secured +freer ventilation. They were more commodious and convenient. The spot +on which Peter Constable built his shop had long been looked on with +a covetous eye by those public-spirited citizens of Friarton who held +that the town should have a new town-hall worthier of the name than +that in which Oliver had delivered his lecture on Wordsworth, and +Lady Cicely Hartley had been a stall-keeper in a bazaar. The town was +flourishing in funds at the present moment, and the talk about the +town-hall <span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>was actually passing into deed. If Oliver were to sell +the piece of ground on which his shop and bakehouse stood to the new +town-hall committee, his exchequer would at once be considerably +replenished. There was no resemblance between the shop and bakehouse +and Naboth’s vineyard. The former had seen their day and effected their +purpose. Peter Constable would have been the first to pat his son on +the shoulder and enjoin him, ‘Sell, my boy; sell when it is wise and +right to do it. My memorial, my idea! Never mind them. Would I have had +them stand in the way of your progress, which is the progress of your +work? They have taken care of themselves hitherto, they will live again +like everything which has real vitality in it, in a new mould, shaped +to the fresh needs of a later day.’</p> + +<p>The treaty in hand between Oliver and Jim Hull was still unsuspected in +Friarton when <span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>Oliver found his back shop and his leisure a second time +invaded—not by delegates from his journeymen bakers; truth to tell, +they were the last to comprehend intelligently and to give in anything +like a cordial adherence to their master. It was a deputation from his +fellow-tradesmen that next waited upon Oliver. The party consisted of +old Dadd, Polley, who had enough manhood for a deputation in which his +wife’s bonnet and gown would have looked out of place, and another +shopkeeper—the saddler, whose bill to Harry Stanhope Oliver had taken +care should be paid in full.</p> + +<p>They were so occupied with the ceremoniousness of their mission that +Oliver could hardly get them to sit down or put their hats out of their +hands; and old Dadd, who was the leader, kept saying ‘sir’ to Oliver +at every other word. They had not come to ask the miller and baker +to go into the vestry or council as a step to becoming churchwarden +or mayor. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>They had no notion of giving him a dinner or a piece of +plate—solutions to the formal visit which, luckily, never crossed +Oliver’s mind. They had come to more purpose.</p> + +<p>These tradesmen—representing very nearly the whole shopkeepers of +Friarton—the deputation had furnished themselves with a list of the +names—were there to beg Oliver to withdraw his announcement of retiring +from business. ‘We feel, sir, you are an honour to our order,’ said old +Dadd, with as much spirit as if it were an order of knighthood. ‘Sir, +we mayn’t all see with your eyes, or be prepared to carry out your +views to a <i>t</i>, but we do see they does you great credit. We are +quite sure, sir, the world and trade in the long run, would be none the +worse of a few more gents like you in them. So, Mr. Oliver, to retain +you among us, we, your fellow-shopkeepers in this here town, ’umbly and +’eartily solicit you to keep on your late worthy father’s <span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>business. +And we are here, sir, in a body, or as the representatives of a body, +to pledge you our support in such plain reforms and improvements as +you think fit to introduce. We ask you to excuse us for not being wide +awake to their crying necessity from the first. Sir, men could not +speak fairer,’ wound up Dadd, in some elation at his own eloquence.</p> + +<p>There was more behind. This flattering petition came from the general +body of the shopkeepers, stirred up by their leaders, who, in their +private capacities, had something else to say. It was Dadd, again, who +acted as their mouthpiece, and, though not quite so fluent, was as +fervent and ’earty as before. He remarked, abruptly, there were some +favours no man with a heart in his breast could think of repaying, to +which sentiment Policy chorussed incoherently, ‘No, nor no woman with a +heart in her bosom—quite so, quite so, Mr. Dadd.’ Then old Dadd went +on <span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>to press on Oliver, in the friendliest, most considerate manner, +such an advance in money as these three could afford, to tide him over +the temporary difficulties which might have induced him to give up the +baking business.</p> + +<p>It was all clear to Oliver at last, while he shrugged his shoulders, +grimaced fearfully, and stammered out his thanks, assuring the +gentlemen there was no occasion for their last act of friendship, but +he would never forget their generous sympathy and confidence, never. +The truth was it warmed his heart, and he was not at all sure that if +he had gone on to say this was the proudest moment of his life, there +would have been the least hypocrisy in the trite hyperbole in his case.</p> + +<p>Yes, it was pleasant to have won some appreciation—however little +deserved—from his fellow-townsmen, who ought to know him best, to be +assured that they gave him credit, after all, for meaning well.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span></p> + +<p>The nature of the acknowledgment touched and softened Oliver more than +he could express. He wished his father and Fan might know it. As he +went out into the streets afterwards, he was sensible of breathing +another air, of his face being irradiated with a different light. +He was no longer surprised that he encountered so many friends, and +that they were all so friendly. Of course they must see he felt that +everybody was almost intolerably kind, till he could have wished +they would not come round a beggar so, and demoralise him with their +kindness. ‘Do they believe in me now?’ Oliver was saying to himself, +half sadly, in the midst of his gladness, half incredulously still.</p> + +<p>Oliver’s feet, like fate, at this crisis, carried him in the direction +of the Meadows. All danger of infection from Jack Dadd’s fever was +over, and nothing could be more salutary <span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>for the reformer, to prevent +his losing his head altogether, than the cold douche of Mrs. Hilliard’s +laughter, and Catherine’s indifference, in contradiction to the absurd +excitement of the rest of the inhabitants of Friarton.</p> + +<p>But the instant he was shown into the Meadows’ drawing-room—cheery even +on a November day, Oliver discovered that the antidote he was seeking +was useless, or rather that there was no such corrective. The town’s +dilatory admiration and gratitude were there before him, in all the +excess in which they might be expected from women. Mrs. Hilliard’s +inveterate jests sounded very much as if they were uttered to save +herself from breaking down, and her jolly voice grew shaky when she +asked after Fan’s baby.</p> + +<p>With regard to Catherine, she might still have been silent and stiff, +had she not been penetrated, stirred to the depths of her nature, and +spurred on by a full share of the public <span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>feeling. So much so, that +when they were giving Oliver tea and he had cunningly worked round +the conversation to a neutral topic—the new orders of nurses and the +new theories of nursing—Catherine, her pale eager face, and eyes +alight and aglow, with an expression which had all at once acquired a +certain likeness to Fan’s, suddenly turned round on him and told him +barefacedly, with the clearest personal application—Sister Elizabeth’s +opinion was that her own work was good, but it was a better and nobler +work to prevent the evils which took such costly sacrifices to cure +them. When a man stood to his post, laboured to clear away his share of +the abuses which had crept into all trades, and called nothing common +and unclean—that was preventing great and widespread evils.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, Gemini!’ groaned Oliver, gathering up his long legs in a +marvellous coil which would have done credit to the brothers Davenport, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>‘don’t you two go in with the others to make a fool and a hero of me!’</p> + +<p>‘Who shall prevent us?’ cried Mrs. Hilliard. ‘If the town take it into +its thick head to give you its freedom on an exquisitely illuminated +card—the illumination done by the most accomplished young lady in the +place—or if it think fit to crown you with an olive-wreath covered with +goldbeater’s leaf, you will have to submit. It would never do for you +to be ungracious, that would spoil everything.’</p> + +<p>‘Then don’t let the town take it into its head. Upon the whole, you had +better all suffer me to go away in peace, before you recover from your +delusion.’</p> + +<p>‘It is not now we are deluded,’ said Catherine. ‘Our eyes have been +opened, so that we—some of us, no longer see men and women—not so much +like trees walking, but as hideous caricatures. We see plain at last, +and recognise our kind—our kin, God-sib—our <span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>gossips, if you will, as +God made them, through what they have made themselves, or what their +neighbours have consented to make them. Do you think so lightly of +us as to imagine we shall ever forget the sight? Do you not know it +is like life from the dead to recognise brothers and sisters—a great +multitude which no man could number, wherever we turn? No, you will not +have the heart to go away from Friarton,’ she finished, in a lower tone +which was still audible to him, as she played with her spoon, ‘just +when we are beginning to understand, and when God is going to show you +the work of your hands, and to establish it.’</p> + +<p>Oliver made an excuse to cross the room with his cup. On his return to +his seat, he paused behind Catherine Hilliard’s chair, and said for her +ear alone, ‘Take care, Catherine, or else you will be more cruel in the +end than <span id="cor9"></span>in the beginning.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span></p> + +<p>‘Have I been cruel?’ she asked, drawing back shyly. But this was the +season of settling accounts, and he deserved full payment. ‘No, not to +you,’ she whispered tremulously, with a soft smile. ‘If I was cruel, it +was to myself—never to you.’</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hilliard entered her protest, later in the evening; for Oliver +stayed to dinner without troubling to go home to dress, and he was +still lingering, talking, as he had never talked in his life before, +after Mrs. Hilliard had reminded him there was such a ceremony as +locking the doors in most households. Then she suggested, ‘If there are +to be two enthusiasts, social reformers, muscular Christians—whatever +you like to call yourselves—instead of one, and I’m sure one was quite +enough to come to grief, what is to become of me, I should like to +know? I shall have a bad time of it, for though Catherine is her own +mistress, there is such a being as an indignant <span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>ex-guardian, and I’m +not her sole cousin. When all trades are held alike, and everybody is +respected, half of my occupation will be gone, while my ungrateful +kindred, whom I have suffered to set good, sound long-established +social distinctions at defiance, will never admit a laughing hyena into +their menagerie.’</p> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center allsmcap"> +LONDON: PRINTED BY<br> +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br> +AND PARLIAMENT STREET +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcriber_Notes"> + Transcriber Notes + </h2> + +<table> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td>The following are corrections to the original text.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>p108</td> + <td><a href="#cor0">“markts” changed to (the places and markets).</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>p165</td> + <td><a href="#cor2">added period to end of (Stanhope’s last letter.)</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>p240</td> + <td><a href="#cor7">“backshop” changed to (back shop from Jim Hull.)</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>p261</td> + <td><a href="#cor9">added period to end of (in the beginning.’)</a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78319 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78319-h/images/cover.jpg b/78319-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..51f8424 --- /dev/null +++ b/78319-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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