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

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"A sight to dream of, not to tell."


The service was followed by the conventional wedding-breakfast; the congratulations of friends, and the rattling away of the bridal-carriage to the "hurrahing" of the servants and the villagers; and the tin-tin-tabula of the wedding-peals. Before four o'clock the last guest had departed, and the squire stood with his wife and Charlotte weary and disconsolate amid the remains of the feast and the dying flowers; all of them distinctly sensitive to that mournful air which accomplished pleasures leave behind them.

The squire could say nothing to dispel it. He took his rod as an excuse for solitude, and went off to the fells. Mrs. Sandal was crying with exhaustion, and was easily persuaded to go to her room, and sleep. Then Charlotte called the servants, men and women, and removed every trace of the ceremony, and all that was unusual or extravagant. She set the simplest of meals; she managed in some way, without a word, to give the worried squire the assurance that all the folly and waste and hurryment were over for ever; and that his life was to fall back into a calm, regular, economical groove.

He drank his tea and smoked his pipe to this sense, and was happier than he had been for many a week.

"It is a middling good thing, Alice," he said, "that we have only one more daughter to marry. I should think a matter of three or four would ruin or kill a man, let alone a mother. Eh? What?"

"That is the blessed truth, William. And yet it is the pride of my heart to say that there never was such a bride or such a bridal in Sandal-Side before. Still, I am tired, and I feel just as if I had had a trouble. Come day, go day; at the long end, life is no better than the preacher called it--vanity."

"To be sure it is not. We laugh at a wedding, we cry at a burying, a christening brings us a feast. On the Sabbath we say our litany; and as for the rest of the year, one day marrows another."

"Well, well, William Sandal! Maybe we will both feel better after a night's sleep. To-morrow is untouched."

And the squire, looking into her pale, placid face, had not the heart to speak out his thought, which was, "Nay, nay; we have mortgaged to-morrow. Debt and fear, and the penalties of over-work and over-eating and over-feeling, will be dogging us for their dues by dayshine."


CHAPTER VIII.


THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSEHOLD.

"There is a method in man's wickedness,
It grows up by degrees."

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"

After the wedding, there were some weeks of that peaceful monotony which is the happiest vehicle for daily life,--weeks so uniform that Charlotte remembered their events as little as she did their particular weather. The only circumstance that cast any shadow over them related to Harry. His behavior had been somewhat remarkable, and the hope that time would explain it had not been realized at the end of August.

About three weeks before Sophia's marriage, Harry suddenly wrote to say that he had obtained a three months' furlough, in order to go to Italy with a sick friend. This letter, so utterly unexpected, caused some heart-burning and disappointment. Sophia had calculated upon Harry's fine appearance and splendid uniform as a distinct addition to her wedding spectacle. She also felt that the whole neighborhood would be speculating upon the cause of his absence, and very likely infer from it that he disapproved of Julius; and the bare suspicion of such a slight made her indignant.

Julius considered this to be the true state of the case, though he promised himself "to find out all about Mr. Harry's affairs" as soon as he had the leisure and opportunity.

"The idea of Harry going as sick-nurse with any friend or comrade is absurd, Sophia. However, we can easily take Florence into our wedding-trip, only we must not let Charlotte know of our intention. Charlotte is against us, Sophia; and you may depend upon it, Harry meant to insult us by his absence."

Insult or not to the bride and bridegroom, it was a great disappointment to Mrs. Sandal. To see, to speak to Harry was always a sure delight to her. The squire loved and yet feared his visits. Harry always needed money; and lately his father had begun to understand, and for the first time in his life, what a many-sided need it was. To go to his secretary, and to find no gold pieces in its cash-drawer; and to his bank-book, and find no surplus credit there, gave the squire a feeling of blank amazement and heart-sick perplexity. He felt that such a change as that might prefigure other changes still more painful and frightsome.

Charlotte inclined to the same opinion as Julius, regarding her brother's sudden flight to Florence. She concluded that he had felt it impossible to congratulate his sister, or to simulate any fraternal regard for Julius; and her knowledge of facts made her read for "sick friend" "fair friend." It was, indeed, very likely that the beautiful girl, whose likeness Harry carried so near his heart, had gone to Florence; and that he had moved heaven and earth to follow her there. And when his own love-affairs were pressing and important, how was it likely that he could care for those of Julius and Sophia?

So, at intervals, they wondered a little about Harry's peculiar movement, and tried hard to find something definite below the surface words of his short letters. Otherwise, a great peace had settled over Seat-Sandal. Its hall-doors stood open all day long, and the August sunshine and the garden scents drifted in with the lights and shadows. Life had settled down into such simple ways, that it seemed to be always at rest. The hours went and came, and brought with them their little measure of duty and pleasure, both so usual and easy, that they took nothing from the feelings or the strength, and gave an infinite sense of peace and contentment.

One August evening they were in the garden; there had been several hot, clear days, and the harvesters were making the most of every hour. The squire had been in the field until near sunset, and now he was watching anxiously for the last wain. "We have the earliest shearing in Sandal-Side," he said. "The sickle has not been in the upper meadows yet, and if they finish to-night it will be a good thing. It's a fine moon for work. A fine moon, God bless her! Hark! There is the song I have been waiting for, and all's well, Charlotte." And they stood still to listen to the rumble of the wagon, and the rude, hearty chant that at intervals accompanied it:--


"Blest be the day that Christ was born!
The last sheaf of Sandal corn
Is well bound, and better shorn.
Hip, hip, hurrah!"


"Good-evening, squire." The speaker had come quickly around one of the garden hedges, and his voice seemed to fall out of mid-air. Charlotte turned, with eyes full of light, and a flush of color that made her exceedingly handsome.

"Well-a-mercy! Good-evening, Stephen. When did you get home? Nobody had heard tell. Eh? What?"

"I came this afternoon, squire; and as there is a favor you can do us, I thought I would ask it at once."

"Surely, Stephen. What can I do? Eh? What?"

"I hear your harvest is home. Can you spare us a couple of men? The wheat in Low Barra fields is ready for the sickle."

"Three men, four, if you want them. You cannot have too many sickles. Cut wheat while the sun shines. Eh? What? How is the lady at Up-Hill?"

"Mother is middling well, I'm obliged to you. I think she has failed though, since grandfather died."

"It is likely. She has been too much by herself. You should stay at home, Stephen Latrigg. A man's duty is more often there than anywhere else. Eh?"

"I think you are right now, squire." And then he blundered into the very statement that he ought to have let alone. "And I am not going to build the mill, squire,--not yet, at least. I would not do any thing to annoy you for the world."

The information was pleasant to Sandal; but he had already heard it, in its least offensive way, through Ducie and Charlotte. Steve's broad relinquishment demanded some acknowledgment, and appeared to put him under an obligation which he did not feel he had any right to acknowledge. He considered the building of a mill so near his own property a great social wrong, and why should he thank Stephen Latrigg for not committing it?

So he answered coldly, "You must take your own way, Stephen. I am an old man. I have had my say in my generation, maybe I haven't any right to meddle with yours. New men, new times." Then being conscious that he was a little ungenerous he walked off to Mrs. Sandal, and left the lovers together. Steve would have forgiven the squire a great deal more for such an opportunity, especially as a still kinder after-thought followed it. For he had not gone far before he turned, and called back, "Bring Steve into the house, Charlotte. He will stay, and have a bit of supper with us, no doubt." Perhaps the lovers made the way into the house a little roundabout. But Sandal was not an unjust man; and having given them the opportunity, he did not blame them for taking it. Besides he could trust Charlotte. Though the heavens fell, he could trust Charlotte.

During supper the conversation turned again to Stephen's future plans. Whether the squire liked to admit the fact or not, he was deeply interested in them; and he listened carefully to what the young man said.

"If I am going to trust to sheep, squire, then I may as well have plenty to trust to. I think of buying the Penghyll 'walk,' and putting a thousand on it."

"My song, Stephen!"

"I can manage them quite well. I shall get more shepherds, and there are new ways of doing things that lighten labor very much. I have been finding out all about them. I think of taking three thousand fleeces, at the very least, to Bradford next summer."

"Two hundred years ago somebody thought of harnessing a flock of wild geese for a trip to the moon. They never could do it. Eh? What?"

Stephen laughed a little uncomfortably. "That was nonsense, squire."

"It was 'almighty youth,' Stephen. The young think they can do every thing. In a few years they do what they can and what they may. It is a blessed truth that the mind cannot stay long in a bree. It gets tired of ballooning, and comes down to hands and feet again. Eh? What?"

"I think you mean kindly, squire."

The confidence touched him. "I do, Steve. Don't be in a hurry, my lad. There are some things in life that are worth a deal more than money,--things that money cannot buy. Let money take a backward place." Then he voluntarily asked about the processes of spinning and weaving wool, and in spite of his prejudices was a little excited over Stephen's startling statements and