Kitabı oku: «The Carbonels», sayfa 9
Chapter Seventeen.
Progress or no Progress
“For some cry quick and some cry slow,
But while the hills remain,
Uphill, too slow, will need the whip,
Downhill, too quick, the chain.”
Tennyson.
Several years had passed away, and Mary’s Approach had never been made, though the lane had been improved and worn a good deal smoother, and the Duchess and other grandees had found their way along it.
There were other expenses and other interests. Dora was married. A fellow-soldier of Captain Carbonel’s had come on a visit, and had carried the bright young sister off to Malta. She was a terrible loss to all the parish, and it would have been worse if Sophia had not grown up to take her place, and to be the great helper in the school and parish, as well as the story-teller and playmate, the ever ready “Aunt Sophy” of the little children.
And these years had made the farm and garden look much prettier and neater altogether. The garden was full of flowers, and roses climbed up the verandah; and the home-field beyond looked quite park-like with iron railings between, so that the pretty gentle Alderney cows could be plainly seen.
The skim-milk afforded by those same cows went in great part to the delicate children in the village, though Mrs Carbonel had every year to fight a battle for it with Master Pucklechurch and his wife, who considered the whole of it as the right of the calves and little pigs, and would hardly allow that the little human Bartons or Morrises were more worth rearing.
There had been a visitation of measles through the village—very bad in the cottages, and at Greenhow the three little children had all been very ill; the second, Dora, died, and the elder one, little Mary, remained exceedingly delicate, screaming herself ill on any alarm or agitation, and needing the most anxious care.
The cottagers had learnt to look to Greenhow and the “Gobblealls” as the safe resource in time of any distress, whether of a child having eaten too many blackberries, or of a man being helpless from “rhumatiz;” a girl needing a recommendation to a service, or “Please, sir, I wants to know if it is allowed for a man to kill my father?” which was the startling preface to George Truman’s complaint of a public-house row in which his father had got a black eye.
Still, there was less fighting among the men and much less among the women, since Nanny Barton and Betsy Seddon had lodged counter-accusations after a great quarrel over the well, when Nanny had called Betsy, among other choice epithets, “a sneaking hypercriting old cat of a goody,” and Betsy had returned the compliment by terming Nanny “a drunken, trapesing, good-for-nothing jade, as had no call to good water.” On which Nanny had torn out a large bunch of Betsy’s hair, and Betsy had used her claws to make long scratches on Nanny’s cheeks, the scars of which were cherished for the magistrates! It was expected in the village that Betsy would get off, being that she and her husband worked for Captain Gobbleall, and Nanny was known, when “a bit overtaken,” to have sauced Miss Sophy. Nevertheless they were equally fined, with the choice of three weeks’ imprisonment, and, to every one’s surprise, the fines were produced.
Betsy thought it very hard that she should be fined when she worked in the captain’s fields; and she lamented still more when he insisted on the family removing to a vacant cottage of his own between two of his fields. It was in better condition, had more garden, and a lower rent, and her husband, who was a quiet man, never quarrelling unless she made him, much rejoiced. “She have too much tongue,” he said, and she had to keep the peace, for the captain declared that, after the next uproar in his fields, he should give her no more work there. And though she declared it was not her, but “they women who would not let her alone,” things certainly became much quieter.
For Captain Carbonel was an active magistrate, busy in all the county improvements, and preserving as much order in the two parishes as was possible where there was no rural police, only the constable, Cobbler Cox, who was said to be more “skeered of the rogues than the rogues was of he,” and, at Downhill, Appleton, the thatcher, who was generally to be found enjoying himself at the Selby Arms. Still, fewer cases came up to the bench than in former times, and Uphill hardly furnished one conviction in a quarter. The doctors at the infirmary said that they knew an Uphill person by the tidier clothing. This was chiefly owing to the weekly club, of which the women were very glad. “It is just as if it was given,” they said, when the clothes came in half-yearly, and decent garments encouraged more attendance at church. There was no doubt that Uphill was more orderly, but who could tell what was the amount of real improvement in the people’s hearts and souls?
That first Confirmation had only produced two additional communicants, Sophia Carbonel, and Susan Pucklechurch, who was in training in the Greenhow nursery. Not one of the others came to the Holy Feast. Their parents, for the most part, said they were too young, and, as these parents never came themselves, the matter seemed hopeless unless some deeper religious feeling could be infused by diligent care.
In one case, where there was a terrible illness and a slow recovery of George Truman, he became strongly impressed, and so did his wife, a very nice, meek woman, who had been in a good service. They both came to the Holy Communion the month after the man was out again, but he did not keep it up. “Sir, if you knew what the talk was like out in the fields, you would not wish it,” he said. Which gave Mr Harford much to think about.
The next Confirmation, three years later, collected nearly the same number of boys and girls, and Mr Harford walked with the boys himself, and sent Mrs Thorpe with the girls, so that there was no such scandal as before. The only lad who presented himself from among those rejected of the former year, was Johnnie Hewlett. He was by this time older than any of the other candidates, and he had learnt in a measure to stand alone, though it was chiefly his promise to his aunt that brought him now. He still worked with his cousin George Hewlett, and was a good deal trusted, and made useful. His father had, however, drifted farther and farther away, since George had absolutely refused to employ him again in his business.
“You never know where you are with such as he,” said George, and with good reason; but Dan laid it all to “they Gobblealls and their spite.” It was so far true that it was the depredations at Greenhow Farm that first convinced George that Dan was an absolute pilferer, though he had before suspected it, and tried to shut his eyes to the doubt. Dan, being a really clever workman, far brighter-witted than George, had lived upon chance jobs at Downhill or Poppleby, together with a good deal of underhand poaching, which he kept as much as possible from the knowledge of his family, never being sure what Molly might not tell her sister, nor what Judith might disclose to the ladies. Polly had made a miserable marriage, and Jenny was in service at a public-house, Jem, a big idle lad, whom no one employed if it could be helped, Judy was still at home, and a comfort to her aunt.
It was his aunt that chiefly induced John to live at home, though he could easily have lodged away and have been nearer to the workshop. His father had let him alone, and not interfered with his Sunday School going, as long as he was a mere boy, till this second time, when, at eighteen, and grown to man’s stature, he was going up as a candidate with the younger ones. Then the father swore “he was not going to have his son make a tomfool of hisself to please that there parson.”
“I have promised,” said John.
“Promised? What—parson or ladies, or any sneaks that come meddling where no one wants ’em?”
“’Twere not parson,” said John.
“Then ’twas one of they Gobblealls”—with an oath. “That ain’t of no account.”
“’Tweren’t,” again said John.
No more was to be got out of him than “’Tweren’t,” and “I shall keep my word.” He was too big to be beaten; a tall, strong, well-made youth, and Dan was obliged to let him alone, and only swear at him for turning his back on his old father, and being no better than a Methody.
In point of fact, Molly and the two younger children were chiefly supported by John’s earnings and Judith’s pension, for whatever Dan earned at Downhill or picked up in his various fashions was pretty sure to be swallowed either by the “Blue Lion” or by the “Fox and Hounds.” Judith was entirely in bed upstairs, and the kitchen had lost all the little semblance of smartness it once had. While Molly might have been taken for sixty years old instead of forty-five, though that was not unusual among the hard-working women, who got aged and dried up with weather in the fields and with toil and care at home—even when they had kindly, sober husbands.
Judith’s room was a place of peace and order, so kept by the help of little Judy and of John, both of whom loved her heartily, and felt as if she were a mother to them. She had brought home to them all the good that they knew. She had always made them say their prayers by her as children, and John continued to do so still, “for old sake’s sake if for no other reason.” They had always repeated to her what they had heard at school, and by-and-by the text and substance of the sermons as far as they could; and she told them her own thoughts, freely and earnestly, thoughts that came partly from the readings of Mrs Carbonel and Mr Harford with her, but far more than she knew from her own study of the Bible, backed by her earnest spiritual mind, which grew deeper and deeper as her earthly sufferings increased. Of course she had tried to do the same with her sister and the other children, but none of them would endure it. Molly always had something to do elsewhere, and said what was all very well for a sick woman like Judith could not be expected in one who had such a lot of trouble that she did not know which way to look.
Poor thing! Neither Judith nor Mr Harford could persuade her that there was a way to look which would have lightened all these troubles! But John had learnt how to stand alone, and he did so, not only by presenting himself for confirmation, but by becoming a Communicant. Not another lad did so, but his cousin George and his wife had begun at last, under the influence of Mr Harford’s sermons, and so had a few more in the parish. John, in his cousin’s workshop, was shielded from a good deal of the evil talk and jesting that went on among his fellows in the fields. He “took after” George in being grave and quiet, and he loved no company better than his invalid aunt’s; but to be a steady and religious youth was a more difficult matter in those days than at present, for harmless outlets for youthful spirits had not been devised, and to avoid mischief it was almost needful to abstain from almost all the company and pleasures of a country lad.
Chapter Eighteen.
The Threshing-Machine
“When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.”
Cowper.
Captain Carbonel had made his farming answer better than his friends, or still more the farmers, had predicted. He had gone to the markets and talked with the farmers, and not shown off any airs, though, as they said, he was a gentleman, so known by his honest, straightforward dealing. Nor had he been tempted to launch out into experiments and improvements beyond what he could properly afford, though he kept everything in good order, and used new methods according to the soil of his farm.
Master Pucklechurch growled at first, and foretold that nothing would come of “thicken a’”; that the “mangled weazel,” as he called the mangel wurzel, would not grow; and that the cows would never eat “that there red clover as they calls apollyon;” but when the mangel swelled into splendid crimson root and the cows throve upon the bright fields of trifolium, he was as proud as any one, and he showed off the sleek sides of the kine, and the big mis-shapen roots of the beet with the utmost satisfaction.
Equal grumbling heralded the introduction of a threshing-machine, which Captain Carbonel purchased after long consideration. The beat of the flail on barn floors was a regular winter sound at Uphill, as in all the country round, but to get all the corn threshed and winnowed by a curious revolving fan with four canvas sails, was a troublesome affair, making farmers behindhand in coming to the market. And as soon as he could afford the venture the Captain obtained a machine to be worked by horse-power, for steam had hardly been brought as yet into use even for sea traffic, and the first railway was only opened late in 1830, the time of the accession of William the Fourth.
The farm people, with old Pucklechurch at their head, looked at the operations of the machine with some distrust, but this gradually became wonder and admiration on the part of the Greenhow labourers, for threshing with the flail was very hard work for the shoulders and back, and Captain Carbonel took care to find employment for the men in winter time, so that his men did not join in the complaint of Barton and Morris that there wouldn’t be nothing for a poor chap to get his bread by in the winter. In truth, the machine and its work were a perfect show to the neighbourhood for the first harvest or two, when Seddon was to be seen sitting aloft enthroned over a mist of dust, driving the horse that went round and round, turning the flails that beat out corn from the ears in the sheaves with which Pucklechurch and Truman fed the interior.
All Greenhow was proud of its “Mr Machy,” as the little Mary called it, thinking perhaps that it was a wonderful live creature.
The neighbourhood remained quiet even when George the Fourth died, and there was much hope and rejoicing over the accession of his brother, who was reported to be the friend of the people, and to mean to make changes in their favour. Poor old George Hewlett was, however, much exercised on the first Sunday, when, in the prayers for the king, Mr Harford inadvertently said George instead of William, and George Hewlett, the clerk, held it to be praying for the dead, which he supposed to be an act forbidden.
There was, of course, an election for the new parliament, but it did not greatly affect Uphill, as nobody had any votes, except Captain Carbonel, the farmers, and the landlord of the “Fox and Hounds,” and the place was too far from Minsterham for any one to share in the election news, except Dan Hewlett and Joe Todd, who tramped over thither to hear the speeches, swell the riotous multitude, and partake of all the beer to which both sides freely treated all comers. They came home full of news, and reported in the bar of the “Fox and Hounds” that there were to be grand doings in this new parliament; the people wasn’t going to stand it no longer, not if the right gentlemen got in; but there would be an end of they machines, as made horses do men’s work, and take the bread from their poor children. Beer would be ever so much cheaper, and every poor man would have a fat pig in his sty. That is, if Mr Bramdean, as was the people’s friend, got in.
“Why, he was the one as our Captain Gobbleall was agin,” observed Cox, who had come in to hear the news.
“To be sure he was; Gobbleall is hand and glove with all the tyrums. Ha’n’t he got a machine?” said Dan, in an oracular manner.
“No one will never tell me as how our captain ain’t a friend o’ the people,” returned Seddon. “Don’t he get coals reasonable for us, and didn’t he head the petition for your pig, Jim, and draw it up, too?”
“Ay, but what right had he to say my missus shouldn’t take it out of the parish?” said Jim Parsons. “We’d a made a couple of pounds more, if she’d been free to go her rounds, as Betty Blake did.”
“Ay, that’s the way of ’em. They grudges us everything what they don’t give themselves,” said Dan, “and little of that, too.”
No one understood the spirit which desired to make people independent, and raise them above indiscriminate beggary, and Todd said, with a grim laugh, “They would not see us make a little purse for ourselves, not if they can help it.”
Seddon feebly said the ladies was free enough with their gifts. “They had never had no one before to help the women folk and the children.”
“Pig’s wash! Much good may it do ’em,” said Dan, so contemptuously that Seddon durst not utter another word in the general laugh, though he carried home a little can of milk every day, and he and others well knew the store that their wives set by the assistance of their little ones.
They knew it well enough, though they were afraid to maintain the cause of the Gobblealls before such an orator as Dan; and nothing worse than these grumblings took place all harvest time, where the whole families were fully employed, the men each taking a portion of the field, while their wives and children aided in the reaping and binding, and earned sums amongst them which would pay the quarter’s rent, buy the pig, and provide huge boots for the father, if for no others of the family. The farmers provided substantial luncheons and suppers for the toilers in the field; and, when all was over, and the last load carried, amid joyful shouts, there was a great harvest supper at each farm, where songs were sung, dances were danced, and there was often a most unlimited quantity of beer swallowed.
No one had then thought of harvest thanksgivings; but at Greenhow there was as usual the farm supper, but with only ale enough for good and not for harm; the ladies came to hear the songs in the great farm kitchen, and the party had to break up at nine o’clock. The women, especially Mrs Mole, were glad; but the men, even the steady ones, did not like having only half an evening of it, and “such a mean sup of beer.” It really was excellent strong beer—far better than the farmers’ brew—but that did not matter to the discontented, who, instead of letting themselves be taken home by their wives, adjourned to the “Fox and Hounds,” and there sat over their pint cups, replenished from time to time, while they discussed the captain’s meanness, and listened to a dirty old newspaper, which told of the doings of Jack Swing, who was going about in Wiltshire, raising mobs, threatening farmers and squires, and destroying machines. There was much excitement among the gentry about Reform, but apparently the poor cared not about it.
To the Uphill mind, Wiltshire was as strange and distant a country as Australia, and this made little impression, so that, as the days went on, everybody went to their usual work, and there was no alarm.
“Oh no,” said Mrs Carbonel, “the people here have far too much good sense to want to molest their best friends. They quite admire our threshing-machine; and see what a saving of labour it is!”
However, it was thought right to raise a body of yeomanry for the defence of the country, in case the disaffection should become more serious, and the assistance of Captain Carbonel at the county town was urgently requested to organise the members of it. He left home for a few days without the least anxiety. And Mr Harford, too, went on the Monday to attend a college meeting at Oxford, and would not return till he had visited his patient lady-love. The Selbys were away, spending the autumn at Cheltenham.
Chapter Nineteen.
A Night Journey
“And he must post, without delay,
Along the bridge and through the dale.
And by the church and o’er the down.”
Wordsworth.
John Hewlett had finished his day’s work, and come home in the dusk of an October evening. He found the house hung all over with the family linen, taken in to shelter from a shower; but not before it had become damp enough to need to be put by the fire before it could be ironed or folded. His mother was moaning over it, and there was no place to sit down. He did not wonder that Jem had taken his hunch of bread and gone away with it, nor that his father was not at home; but he took off his boots at the back door, as his aunt never liked his coming into her room in them—though they were nothing to what he would have worn had he worked in the fields—and then climbed up the stairs.
Judith was sitting up in bed, with her teapot, tea-cup, and a piece of stale loaf, laid out on a tray before her; and little Judy beside her, drinking out of a cracked mug. Judith’s eyes had a strange look of fright in them, but there was an air of relief when she saw Johnnie.
“Well, aunt, is that all you have got for tea?”
“Poor mother has been hindered; but never mind that,” returned Judith, in a quick, agitated tone. “Judy, my dear, drink up your tea and run down to help mother, there’s a dear.”
“You haven’t brought nothing, Johnnie,” Judy lingered to ask.
“No, not I. I’ve worked too late to go to shop,” said Johnnie.
“Go down, my dear, as I told you,” said Judith, with a little unwonted tone of impatience, which made the youth certain that she had something important to tell him; and as soon as the little girl began clumping down the stairs, she held out her hand and said in the lowest of voices, “Come near, Johnnie, that you may hear.” He came near; she put out her hand to pull him on his knees, so that his ear might be close to her, and whispered, “Jack Swing is coming to Greenhow to-morrow.”
“The captain away! How do you know?”
“A man came and talked with your father in the back garden—just under this window. Mother had run up to shop for a bit of soap; but they thought she might come in any minute, and so went out at the back door, so that I heard them all the better.”
“They never thought of that! Well?”
“They mean to come on Greenhow, ask for money and arms, break up the machine, and burn the ricks if they don’t get what they want. Father said they might be sure of the Downhill men, and most of ’em here, for they all hate that there machine that is to starve poor folk in winter time; and those that were not of that way would be afraid to hold back, or they would show them the reason why.”
“And the captain away. It is enough to be the death of madam and the little ones.”
“That’s just what I thought. Oh, Johnnie dear, can’t you help to save them, and hinder it?”
“Master wouldn’t go along with such doings,” said John.
“I wouldn’t answer for George! He’s a steady man, and would do no harm if he’s let alone; but he’s a mortal fearsome one! No, John, there’s no help for it, but that you should get over in time to fetch the captain, and let him take away the ladies, or stand up for them. He’ll know what to be at!”
“But will it get father into trouble?” asked John.
“Not among so many. He’s sharp enough. The captain, if he were only at home, would see how to get them away. Anyway, think of the poor ladies and the little children!”
John stood for a minute or two by the window thinking, while Judith sat up in her bed gazing at him with eager, anxious eyes; and at last he turned back, and would have spoken aloud but that she raised her hand to caution him. He knelt down again beside her, and said, “No, aunt, I couldn’t rest to think of all those rough brutes of chaps from we don’t know where coming and playing their rigs, and bullying the ladies, with no one to help. There was a lady frightened to death with them,—master was reading it out in the paper. Yes, I’ll go and fetch the captain home to take care of them. Where is he?”
“Miss Sophy told me he was at the hotel at Minsterham with a lot of them. Have you ever been there, Johnnie?”
“Yes. Once I went with master in the cart when he wanted a bit of mahogany wood for Mrs Goodenough’s chairs. It is a long way,” said Johnnie, looking wistfully at the darkening window; “but I’ll do it, please God.”
“Yes. Please God, and He will help you. You’ve had your tea. No! Well, drink up this,—it is cold enough—and take this hunch of bread. I am afraid there’s nothing better to be had. And here’s sixpence, in case you want a bit of food.”
“I’ve got ninepence of my own,” said John, feeling in his pocket; and though most of his pay went to his mother for his washing and board, he always kept a little back every week.
“There, then, you’d best be off, my dear lad. Keep out of sight, you know, as long as you are in the village.”
Johnnie bobbed his head; and his aunt threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him, as she had not done since he was in petticoats; and then she murmured, “God bless you, my darling lad, and take care of you.”
Johnnie did not feel the prayer needless, for in spite of his eighteen year, he had all a country lad’s dislike of being out alone in the dark; and to this was added the sense that it was a time when evil-minded people might be about, who would certainly assault and stop him if they guessed his errand. To meet his father would make it certain that he would be seized, abused, beaten, and turned back, with the reproach of being an unnatural son—turning against his father. Of this, however, there was little chance, as Dan Hewlett was pretty certain to be either in the “Fox and Hounds” or in the “Blue Lion” collecting partisans. And Johnnie, getting out through the back door, then by the untidy garden, and over the wall of the empty pig-stye, cut out into a stubble field. He was not afraid of his mother missing him till bedtime, as it was the wont of the youths—especially of those who had comfortless homes—to wander about in parties in the evening, bat-fowling sometimes, but often in an aimless sort of way, doing little bits of mischief, and seeking diversion, which they seldom found, unless there was any solitary figure to be shouted at and startled. His father was not likely to come in till after he was turned out of the public-house; so John strode, all unseen, across the field, and through the gateway into the next. He did think of the possibilities of bringing arrest and prosecution upon his father; but this did not greatly trouble him, for at this early period no regular measures of defence had been taken against the rioters; and as they went about disguised, and did not, as a rule, threaten life, they generally escaped scot-free.
And the idea of a rude mob terrifying Mrs Carbonel to death was terrible to him. Even since the day when she had stood before him in the Sunday School at the wash-house at Greenhow, she had been his notion of all that was lovely and angelic in womanhood. She had said many a kind word to him over his work, and little Miss Mary had come and watched him with intense interest, eager chatter, and many questions when he was mending the gate.
He was obliged to go down to the bridge at Downhill so as to cross the river, but there were lights in the houses, and a sound of singing in the “Blue Lion,” which made him get into the fields behind as soon as possible, though by this time it was quite dark, so that he had to guide himself as well as he could by the lights in the windows. This led to a great many wanderings and stumbles, since he did not know every field with its gates and gaps as well as he knew Uphill, so that he lost a good deal of time by blundering about, looking for a lighter space in the hedge which might or might not lead into the next field. He made his way up to the opening. It proved to be a gap, but lately mended, and he ran a couple of thorns deep into his hand before he tumbled over into a ditch.
This was a grass field, and he heard the coughings of an old sheep, and the suppressed baaings of the others, finding himself presently outside their fold. He guided himself along by the hurdles and came to deep ruts in stiff clay, but these led to a gate, and that into a narrow and muddy lane. This he knew would bring him back to the high road, and that was comparatively plain sailing.
Still there was Poppleby to go through, though not for several miles, which he tramped along, quietly enough, not meeting any one, but beginning to hear the sounds of the night-loving animals.
Owls flew about with their hootings and snappings, startling him a good deal, as much from some notions of bad luck as from wonder at first if it were a human shout. Then the lights of Poppleby were welcome to his eyes, and as they were chiefly in the upper windows he thought the town must be safe to walk through without fear of being met and stopped. Gas-lamps hardly existed then and Poppleby was all dark except for the big lamps over the public-house doors, and this was well for Johnnie, for just as he was about to pass the “Blue Lion,” the door was thrown open, and a whole party came swaggering and staggering out, singing at the tops of their voices. Johnnie had time to throw himself into a garden behind a hedge, and heard them pass by, holloaing rather than singing out—
“Down, down with they machines
That takes the poor folks’ bread.”
There was something too about “Friends to the people and foes beware”; but what startled Johnny the most was that he knew his father’s voice in the shout, and for one moment saw the light of a lantern fall across a face that could belong to no one else but his father. It could hardly be told whether, as he lay trembling there, the sight made him the more dislike his expedition, or the sound of those cries the more anxious to bring protection to his friends at Greenhow. Anyway, he had given his word to his aunt, and he must go through with it, and he fancied that he could get to Minsterham before the keepers of late hours were shut up for the night, and might return again to see how things were going, and get excused by his cousin.
Not till the shouts had died away in the distance did he venture out, and plodded once more into the darkness, under overhanging trees, meeting nothing, except one carriage, whose bright lamps came on like two fiery eyes, glowing more and more as they came nearer, and the black shadow of horses, driver, and close carriage rushed by, and left him again, deciding that it must be the doctor’s chariot. Then came another long long spell, so long that he thought it must be near morning, and was surprised to hear behind him in the frosty air the church clock at Poppleby striking far too many strokes, and what he hoped had been one turned into either eleven or twelve! He hoped it was twelve.
