CRAGS AND FRESH AIR.
My prayers with this I used to charge:
A piece of land not very large,
Wherein there should a garden be;
A clear spring flowing ceaselessly;
And where, to crown the whole, there should
A patch be found of growing wood.
All this and more the gods have sent.
--Horace: T. Martin.
The old town of Pebblesthwaite, in Yorkshire, slides down the side of a
hill into the hollow. Rocks overtop the town-hall, and birds flying from
the crags can look straight down into the greystone streets, and upon
the flat roofs of the squat houses. Pebblesthwaite lies in the heart of
Craven,--a country little known, and not yet within the tramp of the
feet of the legions. It is a district of fresh winds and rocky summits,
of thymy hill-sides, and of a quaint and arid sweetness. The rocks, the
birds, the fresh rush of the mountain streams as they dash over the
stones, strike Southerners most curiously. We contrast this pleasant
turmoil with the sleepy lap of our weed-laden waters, the dull
tranquillity of our fertile plains. If we did not know that we are but a
day's journey from our homes, we might well wonder and ask ourselves in
what unknown country we are wandering. Strange-shaped hills heave
suddenly from the plains; others, rising and flowing tumultuously, line
the horizon: overhead great clouds are advancing, heaped in massive
lines against a blue and solid sky. These clouds rise with the gusts of
a sudden wind that blows into Frank Raban's face as he comes jogging
through the old town on his way to the house, from which he had been
expelled seven years before, and to which he was now returning as
master. Smokethwaite is the metropolis of Pebblesthwaite, near which is
Ravensrick. The station is on a little branch line of rail, starting off
from the main line towards these rocks and crags of Craven.
Frank had come down with the Henleys, and seen them all driving off in
the carriages and carts that had come down to meet them from the Court.
Nothing had come for him, and he had walked to the inn and ordered the
trap.
'Where art goin'?' shouts a pair of leather-gaiters standing firm upon
the door-step of an old arched house opposite.
'Ravensrick Court,' says the driver.
''Tis a blustering day,' says old leather-gaiters.
The driver cracks his whip, and begins to do the honours of
Pebblesthwaite as the horse clatters over the stones. 'Do ye ken t'
shambles?' he says, pointing to an old arched building overtopped by a
great crag.
'I know it as well as you do,' says Frank, smiling.
Can it be seven years since he left? Raban looks about: every stone and
every pane of glass seems familiar. The town was all busy and awake. The
farmers, sturdy, crop-headed, with baskets on their arms, were
chattering and selling, standing in groups, or coming in and out of
shops and doorways, careful as any housewives over their purchases.
There were strange stores--shoes, old iron, fish, all heaped together;
seven years older than when the last market-day Frank was there, but
none the worse for that. There was the old auctioneer, in his tall,
battered hat, disposing of his treasures. He was holding up a horse's
yoke to competition. 'Three shillin'! four shillin'!' says he. The
people crowd and gape round. One fellow, in a crimson waistcoat, driving
past in a donkey-cart, stops short and stares hard at the trap and at
Raban. Frank knew him, and nodded with a smile. Two more stumpy
leather-gaiters, greeting each other, looked up as he drove by, and
grinned. He remembered them too. There was the old Quaker, in his white
neckcloth, standing at the door of his handsome old shop; and Squire
Anley, walking along to the bank, all dressed from head to foot in loose
grey clothes, with his bull-terrier at his heels. And then they drove
out into the straight country roads, under the bridge between stone
hedges, beyond which the late flames of summer green were still
gleaming,--the meadows still shone with spangling autumn flowers. Far
away in the hollow hung the smoke of the factory, with its many windows;
a couple of tall chimneys spouted blackness; a train was speeding
northward; close at hand a stream was dashing; the great trees seemed
full of birds. It was a different world from that in which he had been
basking. Frank already felt years younger as he drove along the
road,--the old boyish impulses seemed waiting at every turn. 'Why, there
goes old Brand,' he cried, leaning forward eagerly to look after an old
keeper, with a couple of dogs, walking off with a gun towards the hills.
Frank called after the keeper, but the wind carried away his voice. As
he drove along by each stile and corner that seemed to have awaited his
coming, he suddenly thought of his talk with Dorothea. She had been
cruelly hard to him, but he was glad to think now that he had followed
her advice about forgiveness of injuries, and made an advance to the
poor old people who were now gone. It would have been absurd to pretend
to any great sorrow for their death. They had lived their life and shown
him little kindness while it lasted. It was a chance now that brought
him back to Ravensrick again.
He had written an answer to his grandfather's letter and accepted his
offer, but the only answer which ever came to this was the telegram
summoning him to Harrogate. It had been delayed on the way; and as he
went down in the train, the first thing he saw was a paragraph in _The
Times_,--'At the Mitre Hotel, Harrogate, on the 28th instant, John
Raban, Esq., of Ravensrick, Pebblesthwaite, aged 86; and on the
following day, Antonia, widow of the above John Raban, Esq., aged 75.'
The old squire had gone to Harrogate for the benefit of his health, but
he had died quite suddenly; and the poor lady to whom he had left
everything, notwithstanding his injunctions and elaborate directions as
to her future disposal of it, sank the night after his death, unable to
struggle through the dark hours.
And then came confusion, undertakers, lawyers, and agents, in the midst
of which some one thought of sending for Frank. He was the old couple's
one grandson, and the old lady had left no will. So the tutor came in
for the savings of their long lives--the comfortable old house, the
money in the bank, the money in the funds, the ox and the ass, and the
man-servant and the maid-servant, who had had their own way for so many
years past, and preyed upon the old couple with much fidelity. They all
attended the funeral in new suits of mourning ordered by the agent.
Frank recognised many of them. There was the old housekeeper who used to
box his ears as a little boy; the butler who used to complain of him. He
was oppressed by all these yards of black cloth and these dozens of
white pocket-handkerchiefs; and he let them return alone to Ravensrick,
and followed in the course of a day or two.
There are harsh words and unkind judgments in life, but what a might of
nature, of oblivion and distraction is arrayed in battle against them;
daylight, lamplight, sounds of birds and animals come in between, and
turn the slander, the ill-spoken sentence and its fierce retort from its
path. What do harsh words matter that were spoken a week ago? Seven
days' sunshine have brightened since then. While I am railing at false
friends and harsh interpretations, the clematis' flowers have starred
the wavering curtain of green that shades my window from the light; the
old Norman steeple has clanged the blue hours, the distant flow of the
sea has reached me, with a sound of the twitter of birds in
accompaniment. Is it six months ago since A. judged B. unkindly? A. and
B., walking by the opal light of the distant horizon, are thinking no
more of coldness and unkindness, but of the fresh sweetness of the
autumnal sea.
As Frank comes driving along the well-known road, and the fresh
blustering winds blow into his face, past unkindness matters little,
every gust sends it farther away. He thinks, with a vague sense of pity,
of a poor little ghost that used to run hiding and shrinking away in
dark corners, a little fatalist doomed to break windows, slam doors, and
leave gates ajar, through which accusing geese, sheep, ponies would
straggle to convict him. He used to think they were all in one league
against him. Twice a week on an average he was led up into his
grandfather's study to be cross-examined and to criminate himself
hopelessly before that inexorable old judge:--a handsome old man with
flowing white locks and a grand manner and opinion upon every subject.
If old Mrs. Raban generally supplied the opinions, the language was the
Squire's own. Mrs. Raban had been a spoiled old beauty, rouged and
frizzed and rustling; she disliked every one who interfered with her own
importance. She adored her husband, and was jealous of him to the last.
Some chance speech had set her against the poor little 'heir' as some
one called him, and she had decreed that he was a naughty and stupid
little boy and was to be kept in his place. There rises Frank's little
doppelgaenger before him, hanging his head, convicted of having broken
the carriage-window, or some such offence; there sits the old judge in
his arm-chair by the library-table, dignified, stately, uttering
magnificent platitudes, to which the ancestor in the cauliflower wig is
listening with deep attention. Frank seems to hear the echo of his voice
and the rustle of his grandmother's dress as she leaves the room: but
the horse starts, a partridge scuffles across the road, and he comes
back to the present again.
'Yan goes,' says the driver, excitedly, standing up on his box. Then
they pass a little tumble-down village, and there at a turn of the road
rise the chimneys of Ravensrick, and Pen-y-ghent rearing its huge back
behind them, and the iron gates, and the old avenue, and the crows
flying, whirling, dancing, sliding in twos and threes and twenties--how
often the little doppelgaenger had watched their mystic dance. Had it
been going on for seven years?
'There's t' Court,' said Frank's companion--a good-humoured, talkative
man. 'T' owd Squire, he were respectit, but he let things go.' As he
spoke they were passing by a cottage with a broken roof and a generally
dilapidated, half-patched look; a ragged woman was standing at the door,
two wild-looking children were rolling in the dust; at the same time a
man on horseback, coming the contrary way, rode past them on the road.
The driver touched his cap, the woman disappeared into the house.
'That's Thomas Close, t' agent,' said Frank's companion.
Frank, looking back as the carriage turned, saw a curious little scene.
One of the children, who was standing in the road, suddenly stamped and
clenched his little fist at the agent as he passed. The man reined in
his horse, leant back, and cut at the child with his whip; the little
boy, howling, ran into the cottage.
Frank asked the driver what he knew of the people in the cottage.
The man shrugged his shoulders. 'Mary Styles she is queer in her ways,'
said he: 'i' t' habit o' snuffin' and drinkin'. Joe Styles he follows t'
Squire's cart; t' agent give him notice la-ast Monday--he wer' down at
our ya-ard wantin' work, poor chap,' said the man, with a crack of the
whip. 'Thomas Close he says he will have nought nor bachelors upon t'
farm. He's a----'
'Stop,' said Frank: 'I'll get down here: take my portmanteau to the
front door and tell them to pay you, and say that--a--I am coming.'
The man stared, and suddenly gave a low whistle as he drove off.
Meanwhile the new Squire walked up by the back way. He crossed the
kitchen-garden and got on to the terrace. How well he knew the way; the
lock of the gate was easier than it used to be--the walls were greener
and thicker with leaves and trellis. The old couple were coming back no
more, but the beds they had planted were bright with Michaelmas daisies
and lilies, and crimson and golden berries with purple leaves were
heaping the terrace, where a man was at work snipping at the overgrowth
of the box hedges. There was the iron scrolled gate through which you
could see the distant view of Pen-y-ghent. There was the old
summer-house, where he once kept a menagerie of snails, until they were
discovered by Miss Meal, his grandmother's companion. Coming out of the
garden he found himself face to face with the long rows of doors and of
windows--those deadly enemies of his youth; a big brown dog, like a fox,
with a soft skin and a friendly nose, came trotting up with a friendly
expression. It followed Frank along the back passage leading straight
into the hall: it was one of those huge stone halls such as people in
Yorkshire like. The man in armour stood keeping watch in his corner--the
lantern swung, every chair was in its place, and the old man's hat and
his dogskin gloves lay ready for him on the oak table.
Then Frank opened the dining-room door. It faced westward, and the light
came sliding upon the floors and walls and shining old mirrors, just as
he remembered it. There was the doctor of divinity in his gown and band,
who used to make faces at him as he sat at luncheon; there was the King
Charles's beauty, leaning her cheek upon her hand, and pensively
contemplating the door and watching her descendants pass through. This
one walks firm and quick; he does not come shuffling and with care;
though give him but time enough, and it may come to that. But,
meanwhile, the ancestry on canvas, the old chairs with their fat seats
and slim bandy legs, the old spoons curling into Queen Anne scrolls, the
books in the bookcases--all have passed out of the grasping old hands,
and Frank, who had been denied twenty pounds often when he was in need,
might help himself now, there was no one to oppose his right.
The next room is the library, and his heart beats a little as he opens
the door. There is no one sitting there. The place is empty and in
order; the chair is put against the wall; the oracle is silent; there is
nothing to be afraid of any more.
Frank, as he stands in the torture chamber, makes a vow to remember his
own youth, if, as time goes on, he should ever be tempted to be hard
upon others. Then he walks across to the fire-place and rings the bell.
It jangles long and loud; it startles all the respectable old servants,
who are drinking hot beer, in their handsome mourning, in the
housekeeper's room. Frank has to ring again before anybody finds courage
to come.
Perrin, the butler, refusing to move, two of the housemaids appear at
last, hand in hand. They peep in at the door, and give a little shriek
when they see the window open and Frank standing there. They are
somewhat reassured when a very civil young master, with some odd
resemblance to the old eagle-faced Squire, requests them to light a fire
and show him to a room.
'I came in the back way,' he said. 'I am Mr. Raban.'
Frank declines the Squire's room, the great four-post bedstead, and the
mahogany splendour, and chooses a more modest apartment on the stairs,
with a pretty view of the valley.
He came down to a somewhat terrible and solitary meal in the great
dining-room; more than once he looked up at his ancestor, now too
well-mannered to make faces at the heir. All that evening Frank was busy
with Mr. Close. He said so little, and seemed so indifferent, that the
agent began to think that another golden age was come, and that, with a
little tact and patience, he might be able to rule the new Squire as
completely as he had ruled the old one. Close was a vulgar, ambitious
man, of a lower class than is usual in his profession. He had begun life
as a house-agent. Most of the Squire's property consisted in houses; he
had owned a whole street in Smokethwaite, as well as a couple of mills
let out to tenants.
'I daresay you won't care to be troubled with all these details,' said
the agent, taking up his books as he said good-night.
'You may as well leave them,' said Frank, sleepily. 'They will be quite
safe if you leave them there, Mr. Close. I will just look them over once
more.'
And Mr. Close rather reluctantly put them down, and set out on his
homeward walk.
It was very late. Frank threw open the window when he was alone, and
stood on the step looking into the cool blackness; hazy and peaceful, he
could just distinguish the cows in the fields, just hear the rush of the
torrent at the bridge down below. He could see the dewy, veiled flash of
the lights overhead. From all this he turned away to Mr. Close's books
again. Until late into the night he sat adding and calculating and
comparing figures. He had taken a prejudice against the agent, but he
wanted to be sure of the facts before he questioned him about their
bearing. It was Frank's habit to be slow, and to take his time. About
one o'clock, as he was thinking of going to bed, something came
scratching at the window, which opened down to the ground. It was the
brown dog Pixie, who came in, and springing up into the Squire's empty
chair, went fast asleep. When Frank got up to go to bed, Pixie jumped
down, shook himself, and trotted upstairs at his heels.
Frank took a walk early next morning. What he saw did not give him much
satisfaction. He first went to the little farm near the bridge. He
remembered it trim and well kept. Many a time he had come to the kitchen
door and poured out his troubles to kind Mrs. Tanner, the farmer's wife.
But the farmer's wife was dead, and the farm had lost its trim, bright
look. The flowers were in the garden, the torrent foamed, but the place
looked forlorn; there was a bad smell from a drain; there was a gap in
the paling, a general come-down-in-the-world look about the stables; and
yet it was a pretty place, even in its present neglect. A stableman was
clanking about the yard, where some sheep were penned. A girl with gipsy
eyes and a faded yellow dress stood at the kitchen-door. She made way
for Frank to pass. Tanner himself, looking shrunken, oldened, and worn
out, was smoking his pipe by the hearth. He had been out in the fields,
and was come in to rest among his old tankards and blackened pipes.
Frank was disappointed by the old man's dull recognition. He stared at
him and tapped his pipe.
'Ay, sir,' he said, 'I know you, why not? Joe Sturt from t' "Ploo" told
me you bed com'. Foalks com's and go's. T' owd Squire he's gone his way.
He's com' oop again a young squire. T' owd farmer maybe will foller
next. T' young farmer is a wa-aiting to step into his clogs.'
Old Tanner turned a surly back upon Frank.
'Well, good-by,' said the young landlord at last. 'If Mrs. Tanner had
been alive she would have been more friendly than you have been.'
This plain-speaking seemed to suit the old farmer, who turned stiffly
and looked over his shoulder.
'She wer' kind to all,' said he; 'even to gra-aspin' landlords that
bring ruin on the farmer, and think nought o' doublin' t' rent. I wo-ant
leave t' owd pla-ace,' said Tanner. 'Ye ca-ant turn me out. I know ye
would like to thraw it into t' pa-ark, but I'll pay t' la-ast farthin'.
Close he wer' here again a-spyin', and he tould me ye had given him the
lease. D---- him.'
'Don't swear, Tanner,' said Frank, laughing. 'Who wants your farm? what
is it all about?' And then it all came out. 'There is some mistake; I
will speak to Close,' Frank said, walking off abruptly to hide his
annoyance.
'T' cold-blooded fella,' said old Tanner, settling down to his pipe
again; but somehow it had a better flavour than before.
Close had not been prepared for Frank's early walk, and the new lease he
was bringing for the new landlord to sign was already on its way to the
Court. The old Squire had refused to turn Tanner out, but the lease was
up, and year by year the agent had added to the rent. It was a pretty
little place, capable of being made into a comfortable dwelling-house,
where Mr. Close felt he could end his days in peace. Old Tanner was past
his work, it was absurd of him to cling on. There had been a battle
between the two, and poor old Tanner had been going to the wall.
Presently Frank forgot his indignation, for he met an old friend down
the steep lane that led to the moor.
James Brand was a picturesque figure, advancing between the hedges this
bright September morning. He had heavy gaiters, a gun was slung across
his shoulders, and a lurcher was leaping at his heels. The old fellow
was straight and active, with two blue eyes like pools, and a face as
seamed and furrowed as the rocks among which he lived.
'Thought ye wer' ne'er coomin', Mr. Frank,' said he, quietly; 't'wife
she sent me to look,' and he held out a horny hand.
He was very quiet: he turned silently and led the way back to the little
stone house built against the slope of the hill. The two trudged
together: the keeper went a little ahead. Every now and then he looked
over his shoulder with a glance of some satisfaction. Frank followed,
stooping under the low doorway that led into the old familiar stone
kitchen, with the long strings of oat-cake hanging to dry, its oak
cupboard and deep window-sills, the great chimney, where Mrs. Brand was
busied. Frank remembered everything: the guns slung on the walls, the
framed almanack, the stuffed wild-fowl, the gleam of the mountain lake
through the deep window, the face of his old nurse as she came to meet
him. People who have been through trouble, and who have been absorbed in
their own interests, sometimes feel ashamed when time goes on and they
come back to some old home and discover what faithful remembrance has
followed them all along, and love, to which, perhaps, they never gave a
thought. If old things have a charm, old love and old friendship are
like old wine with a special gentle savour of their own.
Frank had always remembered the Brands with kindness once or twice at
Christmas he had sent his old nurse a little remembrance, but that was
all; he had never done anything to deserve such affection as that which
he read written upon her worn face. Her eyes were full of tears as she
welcomed him. She said very little, but she took his hand and looked at
him silently, and then almost immediately began to busy herself,
bringing out oat-cake and wine from an oak chest that stood in the
window.
'There is the old oak chest,' said Frank, looking about, 'why, nothing
is changed, James!'
'We do-ant change,' said James, looking about, with a silent sort of
chuckle. Neither he, nor the old dame, nor the stout-built stone lodge
were made to change. It was piled up with heavy stones; winter storms
could not shake it, nor summer heats penetrate the stout walls.
This part of Craven country flows in strange and abrupt waves to the
east and to the west. Rocks heap among the heather, winds come blowing
across the moors, that lie grey and purple at mid-day, and stern and
sweet in the evening and morning; rivers flow along their rocky beds,
hawks fly past, eagles sometimes swoop down into this quaint world of
stones and flowers.
Frank, standing at the door of the keeper's lodge, could look across to
the court and to the hills beyond where the woods were waving; some
natural feeling of exultation he may have felt, thinking that all this
had come to him when he least expected it; well, he would do his best,
and use it for the best; he thought of one person who might have told
him what to do, with whom, if fate had been propitious, he would gladly
have shared these sweet moors and wild-flowers, these fresh winds and
foaming torrents, but she had failed him, and sent him away with harsh
words that haunted him still.
James, when they started again, brought him a light for his pipe, and
the two trudged off together. James still went ahead. The dogs followed
baying.
'So t' Squoire's in his grave,' said James. 'He were a good friend to
us,' he said. 'I'm glad no strangers coom t' fore. Ye should a' cottoned
oop t' old man, Mr. Frank.'
'What could I do, James?' said Frank, after a moment's silence. 'He
forbade me the house. I am only here now by a chance. If there had been
a will, I should probably have been far away.'
'T'wer' no cha-ance,' said old James. 'He ne'er thought o' disinheritin'
ye; he were a proud ma-an. T'wer' a moonth sin' I last saw t'ould man.
He said, "Wall! I'm a-going from Pebblesthwaite. Ye'll hav' another
master, James, afore long; tell him t' thin the Walden wood, and tak'
Mr. Fra-ank down t' hollow whar t' covers lie." He took on sorely ne'er
seeing ye, sir.'
Frank turned very red. 'I wish I had known it sooner, James.'
Frank came home from his talk with his keeper in a softened and grateful
mind. The thought that no injustice had been meant, that his grandfather
had been thinking of him with kindness, touched him, and made him
ashamed of his long rancour. Now he could understand it all, for he felt
that in himself were the germs of this same reticence and difficulty of
expression. The letter he had thought so unkind had only meant kindness.
It was too late now to regret what was past, and yet the thought of the
dead man's good-will made him happier than he could have supposed
possible. The whole place looked different, more home-like, less
bristling with the past; the lonely little ghost of his childhood was
exorcised, and no longer haunted him at every turn.
Frank, notwithstanding his outward calm, was apt to go to extremes when
roused, and, after a few mornings spent over accounts with Mr. Close, he
gave that gentleman very plainly to understand that, although he did not
choose to criticise what had passed, he wished his affairs to be
conducted, in future, in an entirely different manner. The cottages were
in a shameful state of disrepair; the rents were exorbitantly high for
the accommodation given....
Mr. Close stared at Frank. The young Squire must be a little touched in
the head. When Raban, carried away by his vexation, made him a little
speech about the duties of a country gentleman and his agent, Mr. Close
said, 'Very true, sir. Indeed, sir? Jest so.' But he did not understand
one word of it, and Frank might just as well have addressed one of the
fat oxen grazing in the field outside.
'You will find I have always studied your interests, sir,' said Mr.
Close, rubbing his hands, 'and I shall continue to do so. Perhaps you
will allow me to point out that the proposed improvements will amount to
more than you expect. You will have heavy expenses, sir. Some parties
let their houses for a time: I have an offer from a wealthy gentleman
from Manchester,' said the irrepressible Close.
Frank shortly answered that he did not wish to let the house, and that
he must arrange for the improvements. A domestic revolution was the
consequence, for when the new master proposed to reduce the
establishment, the butler gasped, choked, and finally burst into tears.
He could not allow such aspersions upon his character. What would his
old master and mistress have said? His little savings were earned by
faithful service, and sooner than see two under-footmen dismissed, he
should wish to leave.
Mrs. Roper, the housekeeper, also felt that the time was come for rest
and a private bar. She had been used to three in the kitchen, and she
should not be doing her duty by herself if she said she could do with
less.
Raban let them all go, with a couple of years' wages. For the present he
only wanted to be left alone. He stayed on with a groom and a couple of
countrywomen sent in by Mrs. Brand. They clattered about the great
kitchen, and their red shock heads might be seen half a mile off. Of
course the neighbours talked: some few approved; old friends who had
known him before troubled themselves but little; the rest loudly blamed
his proceedings. He was a screw: he had lived on a crust, and he now
grudged every halfpenny. He was cracked (this was Mr. Close's version);
he had been in a lunatic asylum; he had murdered his first wife.
When the county began to call in friendly basket-carriages and
waggonettes, it would be shown in by Betty and Becky to the library and
the adjoining room, in which Mr. Raban lived. Frank had brought the
lurcher away from the keeper's lodge; it had made friends with the foxy
terrier, and the two dogs would follow him about, or lie comfortably on
the rug while he sat at work upon his papers. The periwigged ancestor
looked on from the wall, indifferently watching all these changes. One
table in the window was piled with business papers, leases,
cheque-books, lawyers' letters in bundles. A quantity of books that
Frank had sent for from London stood in rows upon the floor. After the
amenities and regularities of the last few years, this easy life came as
a rest and reinvigoration. He did not want society. Frank was so taken
up with schemes for sweeping clean with his new broom, that he was glad
to be free for a time, and absolved from the necessity of dressing, of
going out to dinner, and making conversation. He would open his windows
wide on starry nights. The thymy wind would sough into his face: clear
beam the solemn lights; the woods shiver softly. Does a thought come to
him at such times of a sick woman in an old house far away, of a girl
with dark brows and a tender smile, watching by her bedside?
People who had been used to the pale and silent college tutor in his
stuff-gown, might scarcely have recognised Frank riding about from farm
to farm in the new and prosperous character of a country gentleman,
be-gaitered and be-wideawaked. The neighbours who exclaimed at the
shabbiness of Mr. Frank's indoor establishment might also, and with more
reason, exclaim at the regiment of barrows and men at work, at the
drains digging, roofs repairing, fences painting. The melancholy
outside, tumble-down looking houses were smartening up. The people stood
at their doors watching with some interest and excitement the works as
they hammered on.
Frank superintended it all himself. He was up to his waist in a ditch
one day when the Henley party drove past in the break on their way to
call at Ravensrick. They left a heap of cards--Sir Thomas and Lady
Henley, Mr. Jonah Anley, Captain Boswarrick--and an invitation for him
to dine and sleep the following day. The red-headed girls took the cards
in, and grinned at the fine company; the fine company grinned in return
at Sukey.
'Why, what sort of society can he have been used to?' cried little Mrs.
Boswarrick. She was the eldest daughter: a pretty, plump little woman,
very much spoilt by her husband, and by her father, too, whose favourite
she was.
'He has evidently not been used to associate with butlers and footmen,'
said Mr. Anley.
'Hulloh!' shouted Sir Thomas, as he drove out at the park-gates. 'Look
there, Anley! he is draining Medmere, and there is a new window to the
schools. By Jove!'
'Foolish young man!' said Mr. Anley, 'wasting his substance, draining
cottages and lighting school-rooms!' and he looked out with some
interest.
'Then, Uncle Jonah, you are foolish yourself,' said Bell.
'Are you turned philanthropist, Uncle Jonah?' said Mrs. Boswarrick. 'I
wish some one would take me and Alfred up. What have you been doing?'
I make it a rule never to do anything at the time that can be put off
till the morrow,' said Mr. Anley, apologetically. 'My cottages were
tumbling down, my dear, so I was obliged to prop them up.'
'He bought them from papa,' said Bell. 'I can't think why.'
'It is all very well for bachelors like you and Raban to amuse
yourselves with rebuilding,' said Sir Thomas, joining in from his box in
an aggravated tone; 'if you were a married man, Anley, with a wife and
daughters and milliners bills, you would see how much was left at the
end of the year for improvements.'
'To hear them talk, one oughtn't to exist at all,' says Mrs. Boswarrick,
with a laugh.