IT IS ALL OWING TO LETTY.
Our history may wind itself up in comfort. The dark cloud which
fell on the happy home at Woodburn has thoroughly dispersed. Though
there is no longer such a cluster of young life there as made its
old shady rooms, and its garden alleys, and its pleasant fields ring
with laughter and merriment in the days of our great hayfield fête,
a sober happiness rests on that now familiar Grange. Mr. and Mrs.
Woodburn live a life of quiet enjoyment, only interrupted by frequent
invasions of children and friends that send a fresh tide of pleasure
around them, and make even the old times seem pale in comparison.
From the breezy hill of Cotmanhaye come Sir Henry and Lady
Clavering, from Bilts’ Farm walks down the sunny and sensible
Elizabeth, whilst George is ever to and fro, superintending both
farms at the same time. Every few days Letty Thorsby comes driving
over with her children. Children? Yes, did I not tell you that she
has a little fairy-like daughter, bright Ann Woodburn Thorsby, as
well as that sturdy growing Leonard, who is always wanting to go to
Fair Manor, to hear Tom Boddily play on that wonderful pipe and lark
whistle? and on Sundays, over comes Thorsby, and there is a life in
the house with the young people, and children and nurses, comers and
goers, that is better than any of the old times. Thorsby has always
some pleasant story of somebody or other to relate, and the other day
he was amusing them with an account of an old aunt of his, who says
it is a lucky thing her memory fails so. She had heard of a man who
had written a book about the pleasures of memory, but for her part
she thought it was a pleasure to forget. “It is a pleasure that old
age brings,” she says, “for then things come new again to us. It is
because people forget that they tell their old stories over again,
and read their old books. Not to forget would be to be poor; to
forget is to enjoy twice, and sometimes much oftener.”
But a word about Thorsby and forgetting. There are things that he
has not yet learned to forget, and they keep him sober. Cheerful and
even joyous, as he often seems in his own intimate circle of friends,
there are dark thoughts that often come across him; and at times he
is low, very low and desolate in heart, and it then requires all
Letty’s genial glow of nature’s and affection’s sunshine to keep him
up and keep him going. The days of his folly and his guilt come back
upon him, and he remembers the dark, estranged and even contemptuous
bearing of his most respected townsmen towards him; and he knows,
that if he had not had a Letty Woodburn for his wife, but some proud
and indignant dame who would have spurned the dust of his threshold
from her, and abandoned him to the more than seven devils that were
in his blood, he would now have been a lost man, lost body and soul
for ever.
It was because of this noble-heartedness of his wife, because she had
drawn him back, and soothed and attracted, instead of exasperating
him, and driving him headlong down the precipice of perdition on
which he was already staggering, that he felt the keenest shame and
remorse at his treatment of her. There was a time, he felt, when
a few words of just reproach from her would have stung him to a
ruinous desperation, and these words had never been spoken. Oh! in
those dreary winter days and nights at Tunckhannock in the far-off
American forests, how these thoughts had come in upon him, and
scorched and wrung him, and made him cry out aloud, “Fool! fool!”
And yet with the spring came the loving letter of that ever-faithful
wife, reminding him of the Redeemer’s heavenly words, “Gather up the
fragments, that nothing be lost!” Nothing, not even a fragment of
anything belonging to that immortal God-derived thing—the soul—was
to be lost, if any effort, any faith could save it; and Thorsby had
then made a vow, that he would devote his life, his strength, his
everything to make a recompense to God and to that faithful woman.
And he had kept it.
It was long before he could regain the favourable opinion of his
townsmen; and especially of those more noble-minded ones whose esteem
he especially coveted. Dark, cold looks, estranged faces, that did
not deign even a recognition: a leaving out and passing over him,
in all public and benevolent works and subscriptions in the town,
as if his very money were contamination. Yet his wife had prepared
the way for his reception at Woodburn, and had induced her father
and family to meet him in a friendly manner. In his own house in
Castleborough, there was always a bright look, and a pleasant word,
and a cheery hearth, and all the news of the place that could cast a
lively spell over the dinner or the tea-table was detailed in Letty’s
happiest manner. It was like stepping from winter to summer, out of
the streets where some bitter cut had been experienced, or where some
side-long glance of the passer by, had said plainly, “Oh, there goes
that abandoned Thorsby, and he dares to show his face here again!”
Nothing but this firm, fast, heart-strengthening anchorage of home
could have made Thorsby stand out this time of justly incurred
contempt and reproach. He knew that many said that Thorsby had no
ballast in him, and that some day he would break down again as
intolerably as ever. It was this consciousness, combined with his
sense of the love that had saved him, and that cared for no scorn,
no malicious misconstruction of her actions; no taunts that she
was trying to make a bulrush into a stable tree, so that she could
save him still, that made him resolve to stand firm by the help of
God, and thus give her the reward of a conquest so dearly and nobly
striven after.
Thorsby found that his affairs, under the careful and conscientious
management of Thomas Barnsdale and Letty, had flourished. The trade
in London had greatly expanded under the judicious control of the
agent whom Mr. Barnsdale had put there, and whom, in the days of
his folly, Thorsby would have dismissed, if the American crisis had
allowed him time. Since his return from New York, his business had
equally prospered in the hands of the new house with which he had
entrusted it. Worldly strength was, therefore, given to him to enable
him to persevere; and even whilst his own character was at a very
low estimate in his native town, he was busily engaged in schemes for
the safeguard of the character of others.
Whilst he was absent, and Letty attended the warehouse and
counting-house, she observed that in the lobby of the warehouse
there were continually people waiting, who were bringing in work,
or expecting it being given out. There was a considerable number
of young women amongst these, who had to remain there for hours
sometimes amongst men and youths, who did not appear the most
suitable companions for them. On speaking to Thomas Barnsdale about
this, he said that he had long thought they ought to do something
to amend this state of things. He had heard complaints from young
women of the language and conduct of some young men there, and had
dismissed one or two for their doings.
“But,” said Letty, “cannot we curtail this waiting by establishing
certain regulations, as to the bringing in and sending out work, at
least so far as relates to the town?”
Thomas Barnsdale thought, at first, this would be difficult of
accomplishment; but Letty went earnestly into the subject, and
soon showed him that by gradual management it might be done. In
the meantime she had a small room, adjoining the lobby, used as a
ware-room, cleared out, a good fire kept in it in winter, some books
laid on the table, and this was made the women’s waiting-room. The
plan gave immense satisfaction to the women, and was soon imitated
in other great establishments. Thorsby was extremely pleased with
this arrangement, and he proposed that a school should be opened for
the children of the work-people, who lived very much in one part of
the town. This was set on foot, and answered well. Mr. G. Dell had
built a very handsome and airy school for poor children, but Thorsby
persuaded him, and some other benevolent people, to join him in a
plan for opening day-schools in all parts of the town where the
working classes lived. A committee was formed for this purpose of
both gentlemen and ladies, who superintended the schools once set on
foot, each of their own sex. The same committee took upon them to
make visits to the houses of the workpeople, in order to see that
they were well drained, and otherwise kept clean and healthy. The
visit of the cholera at this time made both rich and poor acquiescent
in such visits of inspection. Thorsby’s purse was always liberally
open for all those purposes, and the earnest gravity and sound sense
with which he went about these social reforms, did much to restore
him to the good opinion of his most distinguished townsmen and
townswomen. They began to say, amongst themselves, “After all, Mrs.
Thorsby had more sense than we had. What a wonder this will be if
Thorsby holds on as he is acting now.”
But the foothold that he felt he was gaining made him more
determined than ever. He said to himself, “Rather than fall back
again, I would go off to the woods of Indiana and swing that sobering
hammer for another winter!” He projected a splendid building for a
people’s hall, and put down £4000 for his subscription to it. In
a while he saw this handsome house, with ample and airy rooms for
lectures, for popular public gatherings of the people, for a library,
and news and coffee-rooms, erected in a near suburb, and lighted and
warmed in winter in so comfortable a manner that it became the great
resort of the working men. He himself gave the first opening lecture
on the advantages of education and combination for mutual improvement
amongst the artisan classes; and others of his townsmen followed his
example, and kept up a weekly or fortnightly course of lectures on
suitable subjects. In all these plans he was joined cordially by Mr.
Dell and the son of William Fairfax, who was now coming forward in
all the popular works which had been advocated by his father, who was
now beginning to feel the desire of well-advanced years for rest.
Dr. Leroy was an ever-active coadjutor in the promotion of sanitary
plans, schools, and lectures. He invited the working men, in order
to lead them occasionally into the open air, to bring him plants,
stones, or other objects of nature, on which he gave them scientific
lectures descriptive of their places in Natural History, and their
uses. These became very popular.
Meantime Mrs. Thorsby, Mrs. Heritage, Mrs. Leroy, and many other
ladies, were now, since Mrs. Leroy’s marriage, become a very strong
party, and were greatly employed in looking after the poor, seeing
that they sent their children to the schools, that they kept their
houses clean and sweet, and that they were provided with all proper
clothing for the winter months. They established homes for young
women who were out of place, and seeking new engagements, which were
also offices of inquiry for servants, which they found of great use,
in not only expediting the procurement of good domestics, but in
preventing much demoralisation during the intervals of services in
young women. Nor did they overlook the old. They found that there was
always a certain number of old, superannuated servants, who, unable
to save sufficient for their latter days, had no resource but the
workhouse, to which they looked with so much repugnance, that they
often continued to linger in wretched lodgings, and suffer incredible
misery and starvation rather than be compelled to go into one of
these last sad scenes of “waiting for death.” For these a suitable
home was opened, where a little maintained them; and where they were,
as far as they were able, employed in such sewing as was needed for
the Dorcas Society, &c.
In his explorations of the purlieus of the town in prosecution of
these popular objects, Thorsby observed how closely the dwellings
of the poor were jammed upon one another. Every little spot of a
back-yard was bought up for the building of a factory, and every day
the unhealthiness of this crowding was becoming more obvious. Asking
himself what was the remedy for this evil, he immediately remembered
that all round the higher part of the town, the very part most
adapted for building, the land was denied to this important object
by being town land. Every year till “Lammas-tide,” temporary fences
were put up, extremely ugly in themselves, being of hurdles or dead
thorns, the natural hedges being only in fragments, and after the hay
was cut, all these temporary fences were thrown down or withdrawn,
and the whole ground became a desolate, unsightly waste, over which
the rabble ranged in listless idleness, or engaged in boxing and
dog-fighting. The corporation, who deemed themselves most useful and
patriotic conservators of the rights of the freedmen, had maintained
the freedom of these lands from full inclosure most jealously; making
every man who became a member of the corporation take an oath never
to vote for an inclosure. Thorsby saw that whilst no one, except a
few butchers, derived any benefit from the keeping open of these
lands, the greatest evils were inflicted on the town by it; that the
whole of that side of the place was made hideous by it; there was no
longer the necessary room for the natural expansion of the town till
this obstruction was removed. He took his resolve at once.
At the next vacancy for a town councillor, he presented himself; he
was unanimously returned; and on the presentation of the usual oath
against an inclosure, he begged to decline the taking of it till he
had made a few remarks. The town clerk who offered the oath to him
was very peremptory, and told him he must take it or not take it,
without observation. But Thorsby was as positive, and prevailed. In
a few plain statements he showed to the council the severe injuries
which the town, its beauty, its trade, its health, suffered from
the want of land to extend itself upon; that it possessed the most
admirable ground for houses and gardens, for factories and streets
on these Lammas lands, which did no good to the freedmen, though a
suitable compensation for their right, properly invested, would do
them a permanent good. To the astonishment of the town, the whole
corporation voted for the measure at once. In less than a year
Thorsby had the satisfaction of seeing an act of parliament obtained
for that purpose; and in a few years the whole of those so long
desolated fields covered with handsome villas, gardens, airy streets,
and public edifices; schools, alms-houses for the decayed members of
different trades; a blind asylum in an open, healthy situation, under
the care of the principal ladies and gentlemen of the place, where
the children, under a wise system of instruction, presented one of
the most interesting sights that suffering humanity can offer to the
benevolent heart; and where they were preparing, too, for different
occupations, which such instructions alone made possible to them.
The success of this great scheme, and the serious and kindly zeal
with which Thorsby had carried it out, completed that regard of
his townsmen which had been gradually reviving towards him. The
steady decorum, the real wisdom of his deportment and life, and
the high regard in which they saw him held by the most eminent of
his townsmen, eminent as much for their virtues as their wealth,
raised Thorsby to a pitch of popularity with the masses which was
an enthusiasm. He was declared to be the pre-eminent friend of the
people, and they determined to send him to parliament. In this idea,
those, indeed, who could at that time send him to parliament,
happened to coincide. Thorsby had grown into a great authority in the
corporation. They saw that he sought nothing for himself, all his
proposals were for the good of the town at large, and had succeeded
wonderfully. But to this honour of representing his native place
Thorsby would not consent. He declared that he lived for his town and
his townspeople, but that he did not aspire to live for the nation.
He would unite with them in selecting the most suitable man to
represent them in the national council, but he would never go there
himself. He felt that he could do little in that national assembly,
as then constituted, but that he could do much in constant work for
the prosperity, improvement, and enlightenment of his own town and
neighbourhood. Beyond that he had no ambition, or rather he knew of
no higher ambition than to prosecute the interests and the happiness
of eighty thousand people, who relied on, and responded to his
exertions.
Thorsby, once the very black sheep of Castleborough, and hanging by
his torn and mud-drenched fleece over an unfathomable abyss, gently
seized and stoutly withdrawn by a loving hand, is now the most
popular man of a great and busy community. He stands a monument of
what may be done by seeking in order to save, rather than by the
exercise of a bitter though not causeless resentment; and still, as
he goes on his way, planning and diffusing benefits to others, he
says in his own soul, “What can I do in retribution of my faults, in
recompense of a deathless and redeeming love?” By his side he still
sees that gentle embodiment of unpretending wisdom and domestic
sunshine, whose kind glance, if he is low, re-inspires him; if he
is ready, in some momentary flush of his once excitable spirits,
to say or do anything too prominent, steadies and sobers him. With
such a pilot and such a sheet-anchor, we will venture to predict a
safe voyage of life to his mortal bark, and that never again will
the sunshine of peace now lying on Woodburn, on Cotmanhaye Manor, on
Bilts’ Farm, and on Fair Manor be disturbed on his account. And may
the heavens, blue and fair, shine out with their softest sunshine:
may the larks carol above, the flowers wave in the breeze, and the
brooks sing on below, around that little peaceful Arcadia where we
have so many friends, through many and many long years as now,—long,
indeed, after the whole town of Castleborough shall follow in deepest
mourning the remains of their greatest reformer and benefactor to
their honoured resting place—follow the ashes of a great and good
man, who, but for the gentle wisdom of a heart inspired by the
sublime power of devoted conjugal love, would, years ago, have sunk
into a dishonoured grave, burying all this host of blessings with him.
Oh, woman! woman! what strength is concealed in thy weakness—what
victories are engemmed in thy gentleness! what miracles conferred
on thy truth! As the giant oak lies coiled in the little, brown,
burnished acorn that we pick up and pitch lightly into the thicket;
as the Titan of the winds lies dreaming and poetising in the zephyr;
as the little limpid, sun-bright brooklets inherit the fulness of
the ocean, with its illimitable breadth and stupendous force; as the
clouds and the rivers enshrine themselves in the diamond drops of
morning dew, so in the light and sportive life of girlhood lie powers
that can direct the course of human destiny more effectually than
the little rudder can direct the colossal ship; which can shape the
condition and the fortunes of society, and evoke revolutions more
beneficent or portentous than all the conspirations or parliaments
that ever existed.
At the root of the tree, buried in unambitious silence, lie the
life-forces, that elaborate and evolve all the pillared and ramified
glories above. In the bosom of the family live the feminine
instincts and harmonies which send forth the masculine majesty of
deeds and doctrines which rule the universe.
Tears that have wet the floor of solitary dungeons, still more bitter
but for the consciousness of the deathless sympathy of one faithful
bosom somewhere; crimes, arrested by the persuasive voice of woman;
wrongs, goaded to madness but for her soothing whispers; poverty,
pitiless and intolerable, but for her acts and her patient labours;
darkness, unpierced, but by the light of one heaven-kindled smile;
hopes, kept alive only by the eloquence of feminine truth; strength,
born of the weakness of never-vanquished faith; despair, scattered
by the words of one God-inspired bosom, stand forth and testify to
the unproclaimed achievements of the mother-half of mankind! Great
Mother! not only of men and women, but of the energies, hopes,
virtues and triumphs that bloom out of them and their generations,
stand forth! Be the herald of that immortal recognition of this
great truth, which shall have its fullest acknowledgement in that
region of perfect recompense, where sits our Divine Master on the
crystalline throne of immaculate justice, and says to every advancing
hero and heroine who has—
Done good by stealth and blushed to find it fame—
“For as much as thou hast done it to the very least of these little
ones, thou hast done it unto Me. Enter into the joy of thy Lord!”