Shirley, Charlotte Brontë [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

master only just what was absolutely necessary to the progress of business, but looked at him a good deal out of the corners of his eyes, frequently came to poke the countinghouse fire for him, and once, as he was locking up for the day (the mill was then working short time, owing to the slackness of trade), observed that it was a grand evening, and he “could wish Mr. Moore to take a bit of a walk up th’ Hollow. It would do him good.”

At this recommendation Mr. Moore burst into a short laugh, and after demanding of Joe what all this solicitude meant, and whether he took him for a woman or a child, seized the keys from his hand, and shoved him by the shoulders out of his presence. He called him back, however, ere he had reached the yard-gate.

“Joe, do you know those Farrens? They are not well off, I suppose?”

“They cannot be well off, sir, when they’ve not had work as a three month. Ye’d see yoursel’ ’at William’s sorely changed⁠—fair paired. They’ve selled most o’ t’ stuff out o’ th’ house.”

“He was not a bad workman?”

“Ye never had a better, sir, sin’ ye began trade.”

“And decent people⁠—the whole family?”

“Niver dacenter. Th’ wife’s a raight cant body, and as clean⁠—ye mught eat your porridge off th’ house floor. They’re sorely comed down. I wish William could get a job as gardener or summat i’ that way; he understands gardening weel. He once lived wi’ a Scotchman that tached him the mysteries o’ that craft, as they say.”

“Now, then, you can go, Joe. You need not stand there staring at me.”

“Ye’ve no orders to give, sir?”

“None, but for you to take yourself off.”

Which Joe did accordingly.

Spring evenings are often cold and raw, and though this had been a fine day, warm even in the morning and meridian sunshine, the air chilled at sunset, the ground crisped, and ere dusk a hoar frost was insidiously stealing over growing grass and unfolding bud. It whitened the pavement in front of Briarmains (Mr. Yorke’s residence), and made silent havoc among the tender plants in his garden, and on the mossy level of his lawn. As to that great tree, strong-trunked and broad-armed, which guarded the gable nearest the road, it seemed to defy a spring-night frost to harm its still bare boughs; and so did the leafless grove of walnut-trees rising tall behind the house.

In the dusk of the moonless if starry night, lights from windows shone vividly. This was no dark or lonely scene, nor even a silent one. Briarmains stood near the highway. It was rather an old place, and had been built ere that highway was cut, and when a lane winding up through fields was the only path conducting to it. Briarfield lay scarce a mile off; its hum was heard, its glare distinctly seen. Briar Chapel, a large, new, raw Wesleyan place of worship, rose but a hundred yards distant; and as there was even now a prayer-meeting being held within its walls, the illumination of its windows cast a bright reflection on the road, while a hymn of a most extraordinary description, such as a very Quaker might feel himself moved by the Spirit to dance to, roused cheerily all the echoes of the vicinage. The words were distinctly audible by snatches. Here is a quotation or two from different strains; for the singers passed jauntily from hymn to hymn and from tune to tune, with an ease and buoyancy all their own:⁠—

“Oh! who can explain
This struggle for life,
This travail and pain,
This trembling and strife?
Plague, earthquake, and famine,
And tumult and war,
The wonderful coming
Of Jesus declare!

“For every fight
Is dreadful and loud:
The warrior’s delight
Is slaughter and blood,
His foes overturning,
Till all shall expire:
And this is with burning,
And fuel, and fire!”

Here followed an interval of clamorous prayer, accompanied by fearful groans. A shout of “I’ve found liberty!” “Doad o’ Bill’s has fun’ liberty!” rang from the chapel, and out all the assembly broke again.

“What a mercy is this!
What a heaven of bliss!
How unspeakably happy am I!
Gathered into the fold,
With Thy people enrolled,
With Thy people to live and to die!

“Oh, the goodness of God
In employing a clod
His tribute of glory to raise;
His standard to bear,
And with triumph declare
His unspeakable riches of grace!

“Oh, the fathomless love
That has deigned to approve
And prosper the work of my hands.
With my pastoral crook
I went over the brook,
And behold I am spread into bands!

“Who, I ask in amaze,
Hath begotten me these?
And inquire from what quarter they came.
My full heart it replies,
They are born from the skies,
And gives glory to God and the Lamb!”

The stanza which followed this, after another and longer interregnum of shouts, yells, ejaculations, frantic cries, agonized groans, seemed to cap the climax of noise and zeal.

“Sleeping on the brink of sin,
Tophet gaped to take us in;
Mercy to our rescue flew,
Broke the snare, and brought us through.

“Here, as in a lion’s den,
Undevoured we still remain,
Pass secure the watery flood,
Hanging on the arm of God.

“Here⁠—”

(Terrible, most distracting to the ear, was the strained shout in which the last stanza was given.)

“Here we raise our voices higher,
Shout in the refiner’s fire,
Clap our hands amidst the flame,
Glory give to Jesus’ name!”

The roof of the chapel did not fly off, which speaks volumes in praise of its solid slating.

But if Briar Chapel seemed alive, so also did Briarmains, though certainly the mansion appeared to enjoy a quieter phase of existence than the temple. Some of its windows too were aglow; the lower casements opened upon the lawn; curtains concealed the interior, and partly obscured the ray of the candles which lit it, but they did not entirely muffle the sound of voice and laughter. We are privileged to enter that front door, and to penetrate to the domestic sanctum.

It is not