The Squire of Sandal-Side, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [the reading list book TXT] 📗

/> what he had eaten himself. Then he told him to put the leather bags
beside the driver's feet, and into the carriage he got, and
laughed, and nodded, and away he went; and then Joe heard them say
he was Professor Sedgwick, a great jolly-jist. And Joe thinks it
would be a famous job if father could sell all of the stones on our
fell at five shillings a bagful, and a breakfast at odd times. And
would it not be so, Miss Sandal? But I'm not easy in my mind about
Joe changing the stones; though, as Joe says, one make of stone is
about the same as another.

"Sophia, you are sleepy now."

"Yes, a little. You can finish to-morrow."

Then she laid down the simple letter, and sat very still for a little while. Her heart was busy. There is a solitary place that girdles our life into which it is good to enter at the close of every day. There we may sit still with our own soul, and commune with it; and out of its peace pass easily into the shadowy kingdom of sleep, and find a little space of rest prepared. So Charlotte sat in quiet meditation until Sophia was fathoms deep below the tide of life. Sight, speech, feeling, where were they gone? Ah! when the door is closed, and the windows darkened, who can tell what passes in the solemn temple of mortality? Are we unvisited then? Unfriended? Uncounselled?


"Behold!
The solemn spaces of the night are thronged
By bands of tender dreams, that come and go
Over the land and sea; they glide at will
Through all the dim, strange realms of men asleep,
And visit every soul."



CHAPTER VI.


THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

"Still to ourselves in every place consigned.
Our own felicity we make or find."

"Catch, then, oh, catch the transient hour!
Improve each moment as it flies.
Life's a short summer, man a flower;
He dies, alas! how soon he dies!"

There are days which rise sadly, go on without sunshine, and pass into night without one gleam of color. Life, also, has these pallid, monotonous hours. A distrust of all things invades the soul, and physical inertia and mental languor make daily existence a simple weight. It was Christmas-time, but the squire felt none of the elation of the season. He was conscious that the old festal preparations were going on, but there was no response to them in his heart. Julius had arrived, and was helping Sophia to hang the holly and mistletoe. But Sandal knew that his soul shrank from the nephew he had called into his life; knew that the sound of his voice irritated him, that his laugh filled him with resentment, that his very presence in the house seemed to desecrate it, and to slay for him the very idea of home.

He was sitting in the "master's room," wondering how the change had come about. But he found nothing to answer the wonder, because he was looking for some palpable wrong, some distinctive time or cause. He was himself too simple-hearted to reflect that it is seldom a great fault which destroys liking for a person. A great fault can be forgiven. It is small personal offences constantly repeated; little acts of meanness, and, above all, the petty plans and provisions of a selfish nature. Besides which, the soul has often marvellous intuitions, unmasking men and things; premonitions, warnings, intelligences, that it cannot doubt and cannot explain.

Inside the house there was a pleasant air and stir of preparation; the rapid movements of servants, the shutting and opening of doors, the low laughter of gay hearts well contented with the time and the circumstances. Outside, the mesmerizing snow was falling with a soft, silent persistence. The squire looked sadly at the white hills, and the white park, and the branches bending under their load, and the sombre sky, gray upon darker gray.

Last Christmas the girls had relied entirely upon his help. He had found the twine, and driven the nails, and steadied the ladder when Sophia's light form mounted it in order to hang the mistletoe. They had been so happy. The echo of their voices, their snatches of Christmas carols, their laughter and merry badinage, was still in his heart. He remembered the impromptu lunch, which they had enjoyed so much while at work. He could see the mother come smiling in, with constant samples of the Christmas cheer fresh out of the oven. He had printed the verses and mottoes himself, spent all the afternoon over them, and been rather proud of his efforts. Charlotte had said, "they were really beautiful;" even Sophia had admitted that "they looked well among the greens." But to-day he had not been asked to assist in the decorations. True, he had said, in effect, that he did not wish to assist; but, all the same, he felt shut out from his old pre-eminence; and he could not help regarding Julius Sandal as a usurper.

These were drearisome Christmas thoughts and feelings; and they found their climax in a pathetic complaint, "I never thought Charlotte would have given me the go-by. All along she has taken my side, no matter what came up. Oh, my little lass!"

As if in answer to the heart-cry, Charlotte opened the door. She was dressed in furs and tweeds, and she had the squire's big coat and woollen wraps in her hand. Before he could speak, she had reached his chair, and put her arm across his shoulder, and said in her bright, confidential way, "Come, father, let you and me have a bit of pleasure by ourselves: there isn't much comfort in the house to-day."

"You say right, Charlotte; you do so, my dear. Where shall we go? Eh? Where?"

"Wherever you like best. There is no snow to hamper us yet. Some of the servants are down from Up-Hill. Ducie has sent mother a great spice-loaf and a fine Christmas cheese."

"Ducie is a kind woman. I have known Ducie ever since I knew myself. Could we climb the fell-breast, Charlotte? Eh? What?"

"I think we could. Ducie will miss it, if you don't go and wish her 'a merry Christmas.' You never missed grandfather Latrigg. Old friends are best, father."

"They are that. Is Steve at home?"

"He isn't coming home this Christmas. I wasn't planning about Steve, father. Don't think such a thing as that of me."

"I don't, Charlotte. I don't think of Charlotte Sandal and of any thing underhand at the same time. I'm a bit troubled and out of sorts this morning, my dear."

She kissed him affectionately for answer. She not only divined what a trial Julius had become, but she knew also that his heart was troubled in far greater depths than Julius had any power to stir. Harry Sandal was really at the root of every bitter moment. For Harry had not taken the five hundred pounds with the creditable contrite humiliation of the repenting prodigal. It was even yet doubtful whether he would respond to his parents' urgent request to spend Christmas at Seat-Sandal. And when there is one rankling wrong, which we do not like to speak of, it is so natural to relieve the heart by talking a great deal about those wrongs which we are less inclined to disguise and deny.

In the great hall a sudden thought struck the squire; and he stood still, and looked in Charlotte's face. "You are sure that you want to go, my dear? Won't you be missed? Eh? What?"

She clasped his hand tighter, and shook her head very positively. "They don't want me, father. I am in the way."

He did not answer until they had walked some distance; then he asked meaningly, "Has it come to that? Eh? What?"

"Yes, it has come to that."

"I am very glad it isn't you. And I'm nettled at myself for ever showing him a road to slight you, Charlotte."

"If there is any slight between Julius and me, father, I gave it; for he asked me to marry him, and I plainly told him no."

"Hear--you--but. I am glad. You refused him? Come, come, that's a bit of pleasure I would have given a matter of five pounds to have known a day or two since. It would have saved me a few good ratings. Eh? What?"

"Why, father! Who has been rating you?"

"Myself, to be sure. You can't think what set-downs I have given William Sandal. Do you mind telling me about that refusal, Charlotte? Eh? What?"

"Not a bit. It was in the harvest-field. He said he loved me, and I told him gentlemen did not talk that way to girls who had never given them the least encouragement; and I said I did not love him, and never, never could love him. I was very firm, father, perhaps a little bit cross; for I did not like the way he spoke. I don't think he admires me at all now."

"I dare be bound he doesn't. 'Firm and a little bit cross.' It wouldn't be a nice five minutes for Julius. He sets a deal of store by himself;" and then, as if he thought it was his duty not to show too much gratification, he added, "I hope you were very civil, Charlotte. A good asker should have a good nay-say. And you refused him? Well, I am pleased. Mother never heard tell of it? Eh? What?"

"Oh, no; I have told no one but you. At the long end you always get at my secrets, father."

"We've had a goodish few together,--fishing secrets, and such like; but I must tell mother this one, eh? She will go on about it. In the harvest-field, was it? I understand now why he walked himself off a day or two before the set day. And he is all for Sophia now, is he? Well, I shouldn't wonder if Sophia will 'best' him a little on every side. You have given me a turn, Charlotte. I didn't think of a son-in-law yet,--not just yet. Dear me! How life does go on! Ever since the sheep-shearing it has been running away with me. Life is a road on which there is no turning round, Charlotte. Oh, if there only were! If you could just run back to where you made the wrong turning! If you could only undo things that you have done! Eh? What?"

"Not even God can make what has been, not to have been. When a thing is done, if it is only the taking of a walk, the walk is taken to all eternity."

At the word "eternity," they stood on the brow of the hill which they had been climbing, and the squire said it again very solemnly. "Eternity! How dreadful to spend it in repentance which can undo nothing! That is the most awful conception of the word 'eternity.' Eh? What?"

They were silent a moment, then Sandal turned and looked westward. "It is mizzling already, Charlotte; the snow will turn into rain, and we shall have a downpour. Had we not better go home?"

But Charlotte painted in such glowing colors Ducie's fireside, and the pipe, and the cosey, quiet dinner they would be sure to get there, that the