CHAPTER XXXIX.

GOOD-BYE TO LITTLE JACOB.

Little Jacob was in luck's way, for the day he left Wenderholme Cottage

the Colonel tipped him with a five-pound note. He had a private

interview, too, with Miss Edith, and there was quite a little scene

between the infantine lovers.

"Are you really going away to-day, Charley?" she said, using the name

she had given him.

"Yes; Mr. Prigley says he must go back on account of Shayton Church. It

will be Sunday to-morrow, you know."

"And when will you come back to us again?"

"I don't know. Perhaps never."

"Perhaps never!" exclaimed Miss Edith; "and aren't you very sorry?"

"Yes, very sorry. I have been very happy here."

"Well, then, you must come again. I wish you would. I like you very

much. You are a nice boy," and the frank young lady made him a small

present--a little gold pin with a turquoise in it. "Keep that; you must

never lose it, you know--it is a keepsake."

When little Jacob left with Mr. Prigley, Mrs. Stanburne was very kind to

him, and said he must come again some time. This cheered Edith's heart

considerably, but still there was a certain moisture in her eyes as she

bade farewell to her boy-friend.

And in the same way I, who write this, feel a sadness coming over me

which is not to be resisted. Children _never_ live long. When they are

not carried away in little coffins, and laid for ever in the silent

grave, they become transformed so rapidly that we lose them in another

way. The athletic young soldier or Oxonian, the graceful heroine of the

ball-room, may make proud the parental heart, but can they quite console

it for the eternal loss of the little beings who plagued and enlivened

the early years of marriage? A father may sometimes feel a legitimate

and reasonable melancholy as he contemplates the most promising of

little daughters, full of vivacity and health. How long will the dear

child remain to him? She will be altered in six months; in six years she

will be succeeded by a totally different creature--a creature new in

flesh and blood and bone, thinking other thoughts and speaking another

language. There is a sadness even in that change which is increase and

progression; for the glory of noon-day has destroyed the sweet delicacy

of the dewy Aurora, and the wealth of summer has obliterated the

freshness of the spring.

In saying good-bye to little Jacob and his friend Miss Edith, now, I am

like some father who, under the fierce sun of India, sends his children

away from him, that they may live. He expects to meet them again, yet

these children he will never meet. In their place he will see men and

women in the vigor of ripened adolescence. And when he quits the deck

before the ship sails, and the little arms cling round him for the last

time, and for the last time he hears the lisping voices, the dear

imperfect words, a great grief comes like ice upon his heart, and he

feels a void, and a loss, and a vain longing, only less painful than

what we feel at the grave's brink, when the earth clatters down on the

coffin, and the clergyman reads his farewell.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

AFTER LONG YEARS.

If the reader has ever been absent for many years from some neighborhood

where he has once lived--where many faces were familiar to him, and the

histories that belonged to the faces--where he once knew the complex

relations of the inhabitants towards each other, and was at least in

some measure cognizant of the causes which were silently modelling their

existence in the future, as masons build houses in which some of us will

have to live--if, after knowing the life of a neighborhood so intimately

as this, he has left that place for long years, and come back to it

again to visit it, that he may renew the old sensations, and revive his

half-forgotten ancient self, he has learned a lesson about human life

which no other experience can teach. The inhabitants who have never gone

away for long, the parson who preaches every Sunday in the church, the

attorney who goes to his office every day after breakfast, the

shop-keepers who daily see the faces of their customers across the

counter, perceive changes, but not change. To them every vicissitude has

the air of a particular accident, and it always seems that it might have

been avoided. But the great universal change has that in its aspect

which tells you that it cannot be avoided; and he who has once seen it

face to face knows that all things are moving and flowing, and that the

world travels fast in a sense other than the astronomical.

I have endeavored to enlist the reader's interest in a set of persons

who lived at Shayton and Sootythorn at the time of the establishment of

the militia. The first training of Colonel Stanburne's regiment took

place in the month of May, 1853--to be precise, it met for the first

time on the 23d of that month; and the 15th of the month following will

long be remembered in the neighborhood on account of the great fire at

Wenderholme Hall, which, as the reader is already aware, took place

under circumstances of the most exceptional publicity. It is probable

that on no occasion, from the times of the Tudors to our own, were so

many people collected in the park and garden of Wenderholme as on that

memorable night.

It is the misfortune of certain positions that the virtues which are

necessary to those who occupy them have to be translated into a money

outlay before they can be adequately appreciated. Colonel Stanburne was

not an extravagant man by nature; he was simple in all his habits and

tastes, liked to live quietly at his own house, hated London, and

indulged himself only in an innocent taste for tandem-driving, which

certainly did not cost him two hundred a-year. But this was John

Stanburne's character in his private capacity; as a leader of men--as

the head of a regiment--his nature was very different. Whether his

surroundings excited him, and so caused him to lose the mental balance

which is necessary to perfect prudence, or whether he acted at first in

ignorance of the wonderful accumulativeness of tradesmen's bills, and

afterwards went on from the force of established habit, it is certain

that from the 23d of May, 1853, when his regiment assembled for the

first time, Colonel Stanburne entered upon a new phase of his existence.

Hitherto he had lived strictly within his income, whilst from the year

1853 he lived within it no longer.

His whole style of living had been heightened and increased by his

position in the militia. The way he drove out was typical of every

thing else. Before his colonelcy he had been contented with a tandem,

and his tandem was horsed from the four ordinary carriage-horses which

were regularly kept at Wenderholme. But since it had seemed

convenient--nay, almost indispensably necessary--to have a commodious

vehicle of some kind, that he might convey his officers from Sootythorn

to Wenderholme every time he asked them to dinner--and since he had

naturally selected a drag as the proper thing to have, and the

pleasantest thing for himself to drive--there had been an increase in

his stable expenses, and a change in his habits, which lasted all the

year round. Besides, his natural kindliness and generosity of

disposition, which had formerly found a sufficing expression in a

general heartiness and good-nature, now began to express themselves in a

much more expensive way--namely, by more frequent and more profuse

hospitality.

In the year 1865 Colonel Stanburne was still at the head of his regiment

of militia, and during the annual trainings the Wenderholme coach has

never ceased to run. Wenderholme had become quite a famous place, and

tourists knowing in architecture came to see it from distant counties.

It is a perfect type now of a great Elizabethan mansion: the exterior,

especially the central mass over the porch, is enriched with elaborate

sculpture; there are great mullioned windows everywhere, and plenty of

those rich mouldings and copings which diversify the fronts of great

houses of that age, and crown their lofty walls. There are globes and

pinnacles on the completed gables, and at the intersections of the

roofing rise fantastic vanes of iron-work, gilded, and glittering in the

sunshine against the blue of the summer sky.

The interior has but one defect--it seems to require, in its

inhabitants, the costume of Sir Walter Raleigh and the great ladies of

his time. It has become like a poem or a dream, and one would hardly be

surprised to find Edmund Spenser there reading the "Faëry Queene" to the

noble Surrey, or imagining, in the solitude of one of its magnificent

rooms, some canto still to be written.

Let us pause here, and look at the place simply as in a picture, or

series of pictures, before the current of events hurries us on till we

have no time left to enjoy beautiful things, nor mental tranquillity

enough to feel in tune with this perfect peace.

It is noon in summer. Under every oak in the great avenues lies a dark

patch of shadow, and on the rich expanse of the open park the sunshine

glows and darkens as the thin white clouds sail slowly in the blue

aerial ocean. How rich and stately is the rounded foliage--how perfect

the fulness of the protected trees! In the midst of them stands the

house of Wenderholme, surrounded by soft margins of green lawn and wide

borders of gleaming flowers.

It is pleasant this hot day to enter the great cool hall, to walk on its

pavement of marble (white marble and black, in lozenges), and rest the

eye in the subdued light which reigns there, even at noon.

Under pretext of restoration, Wenderholme had been made a great deal

more splendid, and incomparably more comfortable, than it ever was in

the time of its pristine magnificence. In the wainscot and the furniture

the architect had lavishly used a great variety of strange and beautiful

woods, quite unknown to our ancestors; and not contented with the stones

and marbles of the British islands, he had brought varieties from

Normandy, and Sicily, and Spain, and the Mediterranean shores of Africa.

As for the arrangements that regarded comfort and convenience, John

Stanburne's architect had learned the extent of a rich Englishman's

exigence when he erected the mansions of five or six great

cotton-manufacturers, and, strong in this experience, had made

Wenderholme a model place for elaborately perfect housekeeping.

What had been done with the modern furniture that had been saved on the

night of the fire? We may learn this, and some other matters also, when

the Colonel comes in to lunch.

He crosses his great hall, and goes straight to the dining-room. The

twelve years that have passed by have aged him even more than so many

dozens of months ought to have done. His hair is getting prematurely

gray, and his step, though still firm and manly, has lost a good deal of

its elasticity, and something of its grace. The expression on his

countenance does not quite correspond with all the glory of the paradise

that is his, with the sunshine on the broad green park and vast

shade-bestowing trees, with the rich peace of these cool and silent

halls. When he is with other people, his face is very much as it used to

be; but when he is alone, as he is now, it looks weary and haggard, as

if to live were an effort and a care--as if some hateful anxiety haunted

him, and wore him hour after hour.

"Tell her ladyship that I have come in to lunch; and stay--you need not

wait upon us to-day."

Lady Helena comes with her scarcely audible little step, and quietly

takes her place at the table. _She_ is not very much changed by the

lapse of these last twelve years. She is still rather pretty, and she

looks as intelligent as ever, though not perhaps quite so lively. But as

for liveliness, she has nothing to encourage her vivacity just now, for

the Colonel eats his slice of cold beef in silence, and scarcely even

looks in her direction. When he looks up at all, it is at the

window,--not that there is any thing particular to be seen there--only

the sunny garden with the fountain, fed from the hills behind.

"My dear," said Lady Helena, "as the regiment is disbanded now, I

suppose we have no longer any reason to remain at Wenderholme? Suppose

we went up to town again for the end of the season? There are several

people that you promised to see, and didn't call upon before you came

away. There's old Lady Sonachan's ball on the 15th, and I think we

ought to do something ourselves in Grosvenor Square--you know we meant

to do, if the training of the regiment had not been a fortnight earlier

than we expected."

"I think it would be as well to stop quietly at Wenderholme."

"I'm afraid, dear," said Lady Helena, caressingly, "that you're losing

your good habits, and going back to the ideas you had many years ago,

before the militia began. You've been so very nice for a long time now

that it would be a pity to go back again to what you used to be before

you were properly civilized. For you know, dear, you were _not_ quite

civilized then--you were _sauvage_, almost a recluse; and now you like

society, and it does you good--doesn't it, dear? Everybody ought to go

into society--we all of us need it. _Do_ come with me to town, dear, and

after that I will go with you wherever you like."

"Helena," the Colonel answered, gravely, "that's the sort of game we

have been playing for many years. 'Do indulge me in my fancy, and then I

will indulge you in some fancy of your own.' It is time to put a stop to

that sort of thing."

"It would be a pity, I think. Have we not been very happy, my love, all

these years together?"

"Yes, no doubt, of course. But I'll tell you what it is, Helena--we made

a great mistake."

Lady Helena's face flushed, and her eyes filled. "A mistake! I am

grieved if you think your marriage was a mistake, John. I never think so

of mine."

"It isn't that; I don't mean the marriage. I mean something since the

marriage. But it's no use talking about that just now. I say, put your

shawl on and take a little walk with me, will you?"

They went in silence by the path that rose towards the moors behind the

house. When they came to the pond, the Colonel seemed to pause and

hesitate a little; then he said, "No, not here--on the open moor."

They came to the region of the heather, and the park of Wenderholme,

with all the estate around it, lay spread like a great map beneath them.

"Sit down here, Helena, and let us talk together quietly. It may be

better for both of us." Then came a long pause of silence, and when Lady

Helena looked in the Colonel's face, she perceived that his eyes were

wandering over the land from one field to another, with a strange

expression of lingering and longing and regret. Evidently he had

forgotten that she was with him.

"Dear," she said at last, "what was that great mistake you talked

about?"

He started and looked round at her suddenly. Then, laying his hand very

gently on her shoulder, said with strange tenderness, "You won't be

hurt, will you? It was mutual, you know."

"Do you recollect, Helena," he went on, after a little while, "the time

when I first began to drive four horses? You didn't approve of it--of

course I know you didn't--and there were a good many other things that

you didn't approve of either, and your opinion was plain enough in your

way with me. Well, then, there were some things that you either did or

wanted to do, you know, which didn't quite suit me, and seemed to me as

unnecessary as my fancy for driving four horses seemed to you. But I

found out that I could keep you in a good temper, and make you indulge

me in my fancies, by indulging you in corresponding fancies of your own.

So whenever I resolved upon an extravagance, I stopped your criticisms

by some bribe; and the biggest bribe of all--the one that kept you

indulgent to me year after year--was that house in Grosvenor Square."

"It was your own proposing."

"That's just what I am saying. I proposed the house in town to keep you

quiet--to keep you from criticising me. You had got into a way of

criticising me about the time of the fire, and I hated being

criticised. So I thought, 'She shall have her own way if she'll only let

me have mine;' and it seems you thought something of the same kind, for

you became very indulgent with me. That has been our mistake, Helena."

"But _was_ it such a mistake after all, darling? Have we not been very

happy all these years? I remember we were not so happy just when the

militia began. You were not so nice with me as you have been since."

"Perhaps not--and you weren't as nice with me either, Helena; but we

were nearer being right then than we ever have been during the last few

years. I mean to say that, if we had said plainly to each other then--in

a kind sort of way, of course--what each was thinking, we should have

spared each other a great deal of suffering."

"We have suffered very little, love; we have been very happy."

"The punishment is yet to come. I've been punished, in my mind, for

years past, and said nothing about it to you, because I wanted partly to

spare you, and partly to screen myself, for I thought I could bring

things round again."

"Do you mean about money?"

"Yes."

"Well, but, dear, you always told me that there had been no diminution

in our income. Did you not tell me the truth?"

"All that was perfectly true. The income was not diminished, but the new

investments weren't as safe as the old ones. Don't you see, we had less

capital to get our income from, and our expenses were even heavier than

they used to be. So I invested at higher interest, to make up the

difference in our income, and I've been carrying that on to an extent

you know nothing about."

Lady Helena began to be alarmed. Nobody knew better than her ladyship

that the _prestige_ of aristocracy rested ultimately upon wealth, and

that she could no more keep up her station without a good income than

her strength without food. It had been a capital error of John

Stanburne's from the beginning, not to consult his wife on every detail

of his money transactions. She had always been perfectly prudent in not

letting current expenses go beyond income, although, as they had only

one child, there appeared to be no necessity for saving. She would have

advised him well if he had invited her to advise him; but though he had

always told her, with truth, that their income was four thousand a-year,

he had not told her the history of the capital sum from which this

income had, in consequence of some devices of his own, been drawn so

unfailingly. The restoration of Wenderholme had been a very costly

undertaking indeed. The whole outlay upon it John Stanburne had never

dared to calculate; but we, who have no reason for that nervous

abstinence from terrible totals, know that during the years immediately

succeeding the great fire, he did not, in the restoration and adornment

of his beautiful home, spend less than twenty-seven thousand pounds. The

result, no doubt, was worth even so large an outlay as this; nor was the

sum in itself very wildly extravagant, when one reflects that one of the

Sootythorn cotton-spinners laid out fully as much on an ugly new house

about half a mile beyond Chesnut Hill. But it diminished John

Stanburne's funded property by more than one-half, and it therefore

became necessary to invest the remainder more productively, to keep his

income up to its old level.

Whilst he is telling these things to Lady Helena in his own way, let us

narrate them somewhat more succinctly in ours. It had happened, about

three years after the fire--that is, in the year 1856--that a new bank

had been established in Sootythorn, called the Sootythorn District Bank,

and some of the capitalists both in the immediate locality and in the

neighboring country had invested in it rather largely. Amongst these was

our acquaintance, Mr. Joseph Anison of Arkwright Lodge, near Whittlecup,

who, not having a son to succeed him in his business, did not care to

extend it, and sought another investment for his savings which might as

nearly as possible approach in productiveness the ample returns of

commerce. Mr. Anison was one of the original founders of the new bank,

and if the idea had not positively its first source in his own mind, it

was he who brought it to a practicable shape, and finally made it a

reality. Colonel Stanburne had taken Joseph Anison into his confidence

about his money matters--at least so far as to show him the present

reduced state of his funded capital; and he added that, with his

diminished income, it had become necessary to economize by a determined

reduction of expenses, the most obvious means to which would be the

resignation of his commission in the militia--which, directly or

indirectly, cost him a clear thousand a-year--and the abandonment of the

house in town, which had then recently been established for the

gratification of Lady Helena, and furnished with the modern furniture

saved at the burning of Wenderholme. Mr. Anison strongly dissuaded the

Colonel from both these steps, urging upon him the popularity which he

enjoyed both in the regiment and at Sootythorn, and even certain

considerations of public duty to which an English gentleman is rarely

altogether insensible. The Colonel liked the regiment, he liked his

position, and it may even be said, without any exaggeration of his

merits, that, independently of the consideration which it procured him,

he felt an inward satisfaction in doing something which could be

considered useful. To resign his commission, then, would have been

difficult for another reason, if not altogether impossible. The

regiment, instead of coming to Sootythorn for a month's training in the

year, was on permanent garrison duty in Ireland, and he could not

gracefully leave it.

The other project--the abandonment of his house in London--might have

been agreeable enough to himself personally, but he was one of those

husbands who, from weakness or some other cause, find it impossible to

deprive a wife of any thing which she greatly cares for. This defect

was due in his case, as it is in many others, to an inveterate habit of

politeness towards all women, _even_ towards his wife; and just as no

gentleman would take possession of a chair or a footstool which a lady

happened to be using, so John Stanburne could not turn Lady Helena out

of that house in town which she liked so much, and which both of them

looked upon as peculiarly her own. It is easy for rough and brutal men

to do these things, but a gentleman will often get into money

embarrassments out of mere delicacy. I don't mean to imply that the

Colonel's way of dealing with his wife was the best way. It would have

been far better to be frank with her from the beginning; but then a

simple nature like John Stanburne's has such a difficulty in uniting the

gentleness and the firmness which are equally necessary when one has to

carry out measures which are sure to be disagreeable to a lady. The

_suaviter in modo_, &c., is, after all, a species of hypocrisy--at least

until it has become habitual; and when the Colonel was soft in manner,

which he always was with women, he was soft in the matter also. In a

word, though no one was better qualified to please a lady, he was

utterly incapable of governing one--an incapacity which perhaps he

shared with the majority of the sons of Adam.

As retrenchment had appeared impossible, or, at least, too difficult to

be undertaken so long as there was the alternative of a change of

investments, the Colonel begged Mr. Anison, as an experienced man of

business, to look out for something good in that way; and Mr. Anison,

who, with his brother capitalists, had just started the Sootythorn

District Bank, honestly represented to his friend that a better and a

safer investment was not likely to be found anywhere. As he preached not

merely by precept but by example, and showed that he had actually staked

every thing which he possessed on the soundness of the speculation--he,

the father of a family--Colonel Stanburne was easily persuaded, and

became one of the largest shareholders. The bank was soon in a very

flourishing condition--in fact it was really prosperous, and exceeded

the most sanguine hopes of its originators. The manager was both an

honorable man and a man of real ability as a financier. The dividends

were very large, and _not_ paid out of capital.

After five or six years of this prosperity, during which the Colonel's

aggregate income had been higher than it ever was during his best days

as a fund-holder, he began to conceive the idea of replacing, by

economy, the sum of £27,000, which had been withdrawn from his funded

capital for the restoration and embellishment of Wenderholme. To do this

he prudently began by saving the surplus of his income; but as this did

not seem to accumulate fast enough for his desires, he thought that,

without permanently alienating his estate, he might mortgage some

portion of it, and invest the money so procured at the higher interest

received by the shareholders of the Sootythorn District Bank. The mere

surplus of interest would of itself redeem the mortgage after a few

years, leaving the money borrowed in his own hands as a clear increase

of capital. In this way he mortgaged a great part of the estate of

Wenderholme to our friend Mr. Jacob Ogden of Milend.

All these things were done _clam Helenâ_--unknown to her ladyship. She

was not supposed to understand business, and probably the Colonel, from

the first, had apprehended her womanish fears of the glorious

uncertainties of speculation. His conscience, however, was perfectly at

ease. At the cost of a degree of risk which he set aside as too trifling

to be dwelt upon, he was gradually--nay, even rapidly--replacing the

money sunk in Wenderholme; and every day brought him nearer to the time

when he might live in his noble mansion without the tormenting thought

that it had been paid for out of his inherited capital. At the same

time, so far from withdrawing from the world's eyes into the obscurity

which is usually one of the most essential conditions of retrenchment,

he actually filled a higher place in the county than he had ever

occupied before. The taste for society grows upon us and becomes a

habit, so that the man who a year or two since bore solitude with

perfect ease, may to-morrow find much companionship a real want, though

an acquired one. The more sociable John Stanburne became, the more he

felt persuaded that the house in London was a proper thing to keep up,

and there came to be quite an admirable harmony between him and Lady

Helena. She had always loved him very much, but in the days when he had

a fancy for retirement, she had felt just a shade of contempt for the

rusticity of his tastes. As this rusticity wore off, her ladyship

respected her husband more completely; and the coolness which had

existed between them in the year 1853 was succeeded by an affectionate

indulgence on both sides, which was entirely satisfactory to Lady

Helena, and was only a little less so to the Colonel, because he knew it

to be a sacrifice of firmness.

He began to feel this very keenly at the time our story reopens, because

some very heavy misfortunes had befallen the Sootythorn District Bank,

and the Colonel began to doubt whether, after all, his financial

operations (successful as they had hitherto appeared) were quite so

prudent as he and Mr. Anison had believed. Mr. Stedman had been against

the enterprise from the very first, and had openly attempted to dissuade

both Mr. Anison and the Colonel from any participation in it; but then

Mr. Stedman, who had neither the expenses of a family nor the drain of a

high social position, could afford the utmost extremity of prudence, and

could literally have lived in his accustomed manner if his money had

been invested at one per cent. However, the Bank had kept up the

Colonel's position by giving him an easy income for several years; and

by enabling him to put by a surplus, had compensated, by the mental

satisfaction which is the reward of those who save, any little anxiety

which from time to time may have disturbed the tranquillity of his mind.

But now the anxiety was no longer a light one, to be compensated by

thinking about savings. A private meeting of the principal shareholders

had been held the day before, and it had become clear to them that the

position of the Sootythorn Bank (and consequently their own individual

position, for their liability was unlimited) was perilous in the

extreme. Immense sums had been advanced to cotton firms which were

believed to be sound, but which had gone down within the preceding

fortnight; and many other loans were believed to be very doubtful. Under

these circumstances, the chief shareholders--Colonel Stanburne amongst

the number--bound themselves by a mutual promise not to attempt to sell,

as any unusual influx of shares upon the market would at once provoke

their depreciation, and probably create a panic.

Whilst the Colonel had been telling all these things to Lady Helena, he

had not dared to look once upon her face; but when he had come to an

end, a silence followed--a silence so painful that he could not bear it,

and turned to her that she might speak to him. She was not looking in

his direction. She was not looking at Wenderholme, nor on any portion of

the fair estate around it; but her eyes were fixed on the uttermost line

of the far horizon. She was very pale; her lips were closely compressed,

and there was a tragic sternness and severity in her brow that John

Stanburne had never before seen.

For a whole minute--for sixty intolerable seconds--not one word escaped

her.

"Helena, speak to me!"

She turned slowly towards him, and rose to her feet. Then came

words--words that cut and chilled as if they were made of sharp steel

that had been sheathed in a scabbard of ice.

"You have been very imprudent and very weak. You are not fit to have the

management of your own affairs."

She said no more. She was intensely angry at her husband, but in her

strongest irritation she never said any thing not justified by the

circumstances--never put herself in the wrong by violence or

exaggeration. She had a great contempt for female volubility and

scolding; and the effect of her tongue, when she used it, was to the

effect of a scold's rattle what the piercing of a rapier is to the

cracking of a whip.

John Stanburne dreaded the severity of his wife's judgment more than he

would have dreaded the fury of an unreasonable woman. He had not a word

to offer in reply. He felt that it was literally and accurately true

that he had been "very imprudent and very weak, and was not fit to have

the management of his own affairs."

He covered his face with both hands in an agony of self-accusation, and

remained so for several minutes. Then he cried out passionately,

"Helena, dear Helena!" and again, "Helena! Helena!"

There was no answer. He lifted up his eyes. The place she had occupied

was vacant. She had noiselessly departed from his side.

CHAPTER II.

IN THE DINING-ROOM.

One of the most strange and painful things about ruin is, that for days,

and even weeks, after it has actually come upon a man, his outward life

remains in all its details as it was before; so that in the interval

between the loss of fortune and the abandonment of his habitual way of

living he leads a double life, just as a ghost would do if it were

condemned to simulate the earthly existence it led before death amongst

the dear familiar scenes. For there are two sorts of separation. You get

into a railway train, and take ship, and emigrate to some distant colony

or some alien empire, and see no more the land which gave you birth, nor

the house which sheltered you, nor the faces of your friends. This

separation is full of sadness; but there is another separation which, in

its effect upon the mind, is incomparably more to be dreaded, whose pain

is incomparably more poignant. I mean, that terrible separation which

divides you from the persons with whom you are still living, from the

house you have never quitted, from the horses in the stable, from the

dog upon the hearth, from the bed you lie in, from the chair you sit

upon, from the very plate out of which you eat your daily food! The man

who, still in his old house, knows that he has become insolvent, feels

this in a thousand subtly various tortures, that succeed each other

without intermission. A curse has fallen on every thing that he sees, on

every thing that he touches--a wonderful and magical curse, devised by

the ingenuity of Plutus, the arch-enchanter! The wildest fairy tale

narrates no deeper sorcery than this. Every thing shall remain,

materially, exactly as it was; but when you go into your library you

shall not be able to read, in your dining-room the food shall choke you,

and you shall toss all night upon your bed.

And thus did it come to pass that from this hour all the beauties, and

the luxuries, and all the accumulated objects and devices that made up

the splendor of Wenderholme, became so many several causes of torture to

John Stanburne. And by another effect of the same curse, he was

compelled to torture himself endlessly with these things, as a man when

he is galvanized finds that his fingers contract involuntarily round the

brass cylinders through which flows the current that shatters all his

nerves with agony.

The first bell rings for dinner, and the Colonel, from long habit,

leaves his little den, and is half-way up the grand staircase before he

knows that he is moving. That great staircase had been one of the

favorite inventions in new Wenderholme. It was panelled with rich old

yew, and in the wainscot were inserted a complete series of magnificent

Italian tapestries, in which was set forth the great expedition of the

Argonauts. There was the sowing of the poisoned grain, the consequent

pestilence of Thebes, the flight of Phryxus and Helle on the winged ram

with the golden fleece, the fall of poor Helle in the dark Hellespont,

the sacrifice of the ram at Colchis, the murder of Phryxus. Above all,

there was the glorious embarkation in the good ship Argo, when Jason and

the Grecian princes came down to the shore, with a background of the

palaces they left. And in another great tapestry the ship Argo sailed in

the open sea, her great white sail curving before the wind, and the blue

waves dancing before her prow, whilst the warriors stood quaintly upon

the deck, with all their glittering arms. Then there was the storm on

the coast of Thrace, and the famous ploughing-scene with the

golden-horned bulls, and the sowing of the dragon's teeth.

Dragon's teeth! John Stanburne paused long before that tapestry. Had he

not likewise been a sower of dragon's teeth, and were not the armed men

rising, terrible, around him?

Who will help him as Medea helped Jason? Who will pass him through all

his dangers in a day?

It will not be his wife--it will not be Lady Helena. She is coming up

the great staircase too, whilst he is vacantly staring at the tapestry.

He does not know that she is there till the rustle of her draperies

awakens him. She passes in perfect silence, slowly, in the middle of the

broad carpeted space, between the margins of white stone.

They met again that evening at dinner. So long as the men waited they

talked about this thing and that. But when the dessert was on the table,

and the men were gone, the Colonel handed the following letter to Lady

Helena:--

"MY DEAR COLONEL STANBURNE,--As you have been aware for

some time of the precarious position of the Bank, the bad

news I have to communicate will not find you altogether

unprepared. We have been obliged to stop payment, and it

will require such a large sum to meet the liabilities of

the company that both you and I and many other shareholders

must consider ourselves ruined men. God grant us fortitude

to bear it! When I advised you to embark in this

speculation, God knows I did so honestly, and you have the

proof of it in the fact that I am ruined along with you. It

will be hard for you to descend from a station you were

born for and are accustomed to, and it is hard for me to

see the fruits of a life of hard work swept away just as I

am beginning to be an old man. Pray think charitably of me,

Colonel Stanburne. I did what I believed to be best, and

though my heart is heavy, my conscience is clear still. May

Heaven give strength to both of us, and to all others who

are involved in the same ruin!

"Yours truly,

JOSEPH ANISON."

Lady Helena read the letter from beginning to end, and then returned it

to her husband without a word. Her face wore an expression of the most

complete indifference.

"Why, Helena!" said John Stanburne, "you haven't a word to say to me.

It's far more my misfortune than my fault, and I think you might be

kinder, under the circumstances, than you are."

"_Que voulez-vous que je vous dise?_"

CHAPTER III.

IN THE DRAWING-ROOM.

Coffee having been announced, the Colonel, who had been sitting alone

with his burgundy, and perhaps drinking a little more of it than usual,

followed her ladyship into the drawing-room. That drawing-room was the

most delicately fanciful room in the whole house. It was wainscoted with

cedar to the height of eight feet, where the panels terminated in a

beautiful little carved arcade running all round the noble room, and

following the wall everywhere into its quaint recesses. Heraldic

decoration, used so profusely in the great hall and elsewhere, was here

limited to John Stanburne's own conjugal shield, in which the arms of

Stanburne were impaled with those of Basenthorpe.

If the Colonel could only have drunk his cup of coffee in silence, or

made a commonplace remark or two, and then gone straight to bed, or into

his own den, it might have been better for them both; but he was stung

to the quick by her ladyship's unsympathizing manner, and he had

absorbed so much burgundy in the dining-room as to have lost altogether

that salutary fear of his wife's keen little observations which usually

kept him in restraint. It was a great pity, too, that they were alone

together in the drawing-room that evening, and that Miss Stanburne had

left Wenderholme two days before on a brief visit to a country house at

a distance.

His heart yearned for Helena's sympathy and support, and of this she was

perfectly aware; but, with that rashness which is peculiarly feminine,

and which makes women play their little game of withholding what men's

hearts want, even in moments of the utmost urgency and peril, she

determined to give him no help until he had properly and sufficiently

humiliated himself and confessed his sins before her. The woman who

_could_ withhold her tenderness in such an hour as this diminished, in

doing so, the value of that tenderness itself; and every minute that

passed whilst it was still withheld made such a large deduction from it,

that if this coldness lasted for an hour longer, John Stanburne felt

that no subsequent kindness could atone for it. As the slow, miserable

minutes went by whilst Lady Helena sat yards away from him at a little

table in a great oriel window, saying not one word, not even looking

once in his direction, John Stanburne's brain, already in a state of

intense excitement in consequence of the miseries of the day, began to

suffer from an almost insane irritability and impatience on account of

the silence and calm that surrounded him. It was a most peaceful and

beautiful summer evening, and the sun, as he declined towards the west,

sent rich warm rays into the noble room, glowing on the cedar panels,

and on the quaintly elegant furniture, with its pervading expression of

luxury and ease. This luxury maddened John Stanburne, the soft carpet

was hateful to his feet, the easy-chair irritating to his whole body; he

hated the great clusters of flowers in the _jardinières_, and the white

delicate webs that were the summer curtains. Considering the present

temper of his mind, and his horror of every thing that had cost him

money, the drawing-room was the worst place he could have been in.

If her ladyship would just have left that interesting bit of plain

hemming that she was engaged upon (and whereby she was effecting an

economy of about twopence a-day), and gone to her husband and said one

kind word to him, merely his name even, and given him one caress, one

kiss, their fate would have been incomparably easier to endure. They

would have supported each other under the pressure of calamity, and the

material loss might have been balanced by a moral gain.

But she sat there silently, persistently, doing that farthing's worth of

plain needlework.

"Helena!" at last the Colonel broke out, "I say, Helena, I wonder what

the devil we are to do?"

"You need not swear at me, sir."

"Swear at you!--who swears at you? I didn't. But if I did swear at you,

it wouldn't be without provocation. You are the most provoking woman I

ever knew in my life; upon my word you are--you are, by God, Helena!"

"You are losing your temper, Colonel Stanburne. Pray remember whom you

are speaking to. I am not to be sworn at like your grooms."

"You never lose _your_ temper. Now, I say that as you are such a

mistress of yourself under all circumstances, it's your own fault that

you don't make yourself more agreeable."

"I regret that you don't think me agreeable, Colonel Stanburne."

"Well, now, _are_ you, Helena? Here am I under the blow of a tremendous

calamity, and you haven't a word to say to me. If Fyser knew what had

happened, he'd be more sorry than you are."

"What would you have me say to you? If I said all you deserve, would you

listen to it? You appear to forget that you have as yet expressed no

sympathy for me, whom you have ruined by your folly, whereas you are

angry because I have said little to you."

"_You_ ruined, Helena!" said John Stanburne, with a bitter laugh; "_you_

ruined--why, you never had any thing to lose! Your father allows you six

hundred a-year, and he'll continue your allowance, I suppose. You never

owned a thousand pounds in your life. But it's different with me. I'm

losing all I was born to."

The answer to this was too obvious for Lady Helena to condescend to

make it. She remained perfectly silent, which irritated the Colonel more

than any imaginable answer could have irritated him.

He certainly was wrong so far as this, that any one who _asks_ for

sympathy puts himself in a false position. Condolence must be freely

given, or it is worthless. And any disposition which her ladyship may

have felt towards a more wifely frame of mind was effectually checked by

his advancing these claims of his. She was not to be scolded into

amiability.

"Hang it, Helena!" he broke out, "I didn't think there was a woman in

England that would behave as you are behaving under such circumstances.

The thing doesn't seem to make the least impression upon you. There you

sit, doing your confounded sewing, just as if nothing had happened, you

do. You won't sit there doing your sewing long. The bailiffs will turn

you out. They'll be here in a day or two."

"You are becoming very coarse, sir; your language is not fit for a woman

to hear."

"It's the plain truth, it is. But women won't hear the plain truth. They

don't like it--they never do. But your ladyship must be made to

understand that this cannot go on. We cannot stop here, at Wenderholme.

The place will be sold, and every thing in it. Now, I should just like

to know what your ladyship proposes to do. If my way of asking your

ladyship this question isn't polite enough, please do me the favor to

instruct me in the necessary forms."

"If you could speak without oaths, that would be something gained."

"Answer me my question, can't you? Where do you mean to go--what do you

mean to do?"

"I intend to go to my father's."

"Well, that's plain. Why couldn't you tell me that sooner? You mean to

go to old Adisham's. But I'll be hanged if I'll go there, to be

patronized as a beggarly relation."

"Very well."

"Very well, is it? It's very well that you are to live in one place, and

I in another."

"A distance sufficient to protect me from your rudeness would certainly

be an advantage."

"Would it, indeed? You really think so, do you? Well, if you think so,

it shall be so."

"Very well."

She spoke with a calmness that was perfectly exasperating, and John

Stanburne's brain was too much overwrought by the terrible trial of that

day for him to bear things with any patience. He was half insane

temporarily; he could not bear to see that calm little woman sitting

there, with her jarring self-control.

"I say, Lady Helena, if you mean to go to old Adisham's, the sooner you

go the better. All this house is crumbling over our heads as if it were

rotten."

Lady Helena rose quietly from her seat, took up her work, and walked

towards the door. Just as she was opening it, she turned towards the

Colonel, and pronounced with the clearest possible articulation the

following sentences:--

"You will please remember, Colonel Stanburne, that it was you who turned

me out of your house, and the sort of language you used in doing so. _I_

shall always remember it."

Then the door closed quietly upon her--the great heavy door, slowly

moving on its smooth hinges.

CHAPTER IV.

ALONE.

It happened that the hall-door was open, as it usually was in the fine

weather, and John Stanburne, without knowing it, went out upon the lawn.

The balmy evening air, fragrant from the sweet breath of innumerable

flowers, caressed his hot flushed face. He became gradually calmer as he

walked in a purposeless way about the garden, and, looking at his

mansion from many a different point of view, began to feel a strange,

dreamy, independent enjoyment of its beauty, as if he had been some

tourist or visitor for whom the name of Wenderholme had no painful

associations. Then he passed out into the park, down the rich dark

avenues whose massive foliage made a premature night, and wandered

farther and farther, till, by pure accident, he came upon the

carriage-drive.

A man whose mind is quite absent, and who is wandering without purpose,

will, when he comes upon a road, infallibly follow it in one direction

or another, not merely because it is plain before the feet, but from a

deep instinct in our being which impels us to prefer some human guidance

to the wilderness of nature. It happened that the Colonel went in the

direction which led him away from the house, perhaps because the road

sloped invitingly that way.

Suddenly he heard a noise behind him, and had barely time to get out of

the way when a carriage dashed passed him at full speed, with two great

glittering lamps. He caught no glimpse of its occupant, but he knew the

carriage--Lady Helena's.

For a few seconds he stood immovable. Then, bounding forward, he cried

aloud, "Helena! Helena!" and again and again, "Helena!"

Too late! The swift high-spirited horses were already on the public

road, hurrying to catch the last train at the little station ten miles

off. The sudden impulse of tenderness which drew John Stanburne's heart

after her, as she passed, had no magnetism to arrest her fatal course.

They had parted now, and for ever.

He would have passed that night more easily if he could have gone at

once to the Cottage, and unburdened his wretchedness to his mother, and

become, for his hour of weakness, a little child again in her dear

presence. But he dreaded to inflict upon her the blow which in any event

would only come too soon, and he resolved to leave her whatever hours

might yet remain to her of peace.

Somehow he went back to the Hall, and got to his own den. The place was

more supportable to him than any other in the house, being absolutely

devoid of splendor. A poor man might feel himself at home _there_. He

rang the bell.

"Fyser, her ladyship has been obliged to go away this evening for an

absence of some days, and I mean to live here. Make up my camp-bed, will

you, in that corner?"

It was not the first time that the Colonel had retreated in this manner

to his den; for when there were no guests in the house, and her ladyship

was away, he found himself happier there than in the great

reception-rooms. I think, perhaps, in his place I should have preferred

something between the two, and would have allowed myself a couple of

tolerably large rooms in a pleasant part of the house; but his mind

seems to have needed the reaction from the extreme splendor of new

Wenderholme to a simplicity equally extreme. Here, in his den, it must

be admitted that he had passed many of his happiest hours, either in

making artificial flies, or in reading the sort of literature that

suited him; and though the place was so crammed with things that the

occupant could hardly stir, and in such a state of apparent disorder

that no woman would have stayed in it ten minutes, he here found all he

wanted, ready to his hand.

This night, however, not even the little camp-bed that he loved could

give him refreshing sleep; and the leathern cylindrical pillow, on which

his careless head had passed so many hours of perfect oblivion, became

as hard to him morally as it certainly was materially. He found it

utterly impossible to get rest; and after rolling and tossing an hour or

two, and vainly trying to read, finished by getting up and dressing

himself.

It was only one o'clock in the morning, but the Colonel determined to go

out. Unfastening a side door, he was soon in the fresh cool air.

He followed the path behind the house that led to the spot where he had

made his confession to Lady Helena. A strange attraction drew him to it,

and once there, he could not get away. There was no moon, and the

details of the scene before him were not visible in the clear starlight,

but dark mysterious shades indicated the situation of the Hall and its

shrubberies, and the long avenues that led away from it.

And here, in the solitude of the hill, under the silent stars, came upon

John Stanburne the hour and crisis of his agony. Until now he had not

realized the full extent of his misery, and of the desolation that lay

before him. He had _known_ it since five o'clock in the afternoon, but

he felt it now for the first time. As some terrible bodily disease lays

hold of us at first with gentle hands, and causes us little suffering,

but afterwards rages in us, and tears us with intolerable anguish, so it

had been with this man's affliction.

His brain was in a state of unnatural lucidity, casting an electric

light upon every idea that suggested itself. In ordinary life a man of

common powers, he possessed for this hour the insight and the intensity

of genius. He reviewed his life with Lady Helena,--the twenty

years--for it was twenty years!--that they had eaten at the same table,

and lived under the same roof. And in all that long space of a thousand

weeks of marriage, he could not remember a single instance in which she

had been clearly in the wrong. On her side, it now seemed to him, there

had always been intelligence and justice; on his side, a want of

capacity to understand her, and of justice to recognize her merits.

Having now, as I have said, for one hour of excitement, the clear

perceptions of genius, it was plain to him where he had erred; and this

perception so humbled him that he no longer dared to admit the faults

which Lady Helena really had, her constant severity and her lasting

_rancune_. Then came the bitterest hour of all, that of remorse for his

own folly, for his want of conjugal trust in Lady Helena, for his fatal

ambition and pride. How different their life might have been if he had

understood her better from the first! how different if he had lived

within his means! Had he lived within his means, that great foolish

_fête_ would never have been given at Wenderholme, the house would not

have been burned down, the money lavished on its restoration would still

have been in the Funds, and John Stanburne would have kept out of that

fatal Sootythorn Bank. All his ruin was clearly traceable to that fatal

entertainment, and to his expensive ways as a colonel of militia. He saw

now quite clearly that there had never been any real necessity for the

profuse manner in which he had thought it obligatory to do the honor of

his rank. There were rich colonels and there were colonels not so

rich--he might have done things well enough without going beyond his

means. "If I alone suffered from it!" he cried aloud; "but Helena, and

Edith, and my mother!"

CHAPTER V.

THE TWO JACOBS.

The twelve years that have passed since we had the pleasure of seeing

Mrs. Ogden have not deducted from her charms. The reader has doubtless

observed that, notwithstanding the law of change which governs all

sublunary persons and things, there are certain persons, as there are

certain things, which, relatively at least to the rest of their species,

have the enviable privilege of permanence. Mrs. Ogden was like those

precious gems that are found in the sarcophagi of ancient kings, and

which astonish us by their freshness and brilliance, when all around

them bears the impress of death and of decay. One would be tempted to

exclaim, "May my old age be like hers!" were it not that advancing

years, whilst deducting so little from her physical or mental vigor,

have not enriched her mind with a single new idea, or corrected one of

her ancient prejudices. However, though intellectual people may think

there is little use in living unless life is an intellectual advance,

such people as Mrs. Ogden are not at all of that way of thinking, but

seem to enjoy life very well in their own stationary way. There are

intellectual policemen who are always telling us to "keep moving;" but

what if I find a serener satisfaction in standing still? Then, if we

stand still, we are to be insulted, and told that we are rusty, or that

we are getting the "blue-mould." _Et après?_ Suppose we _are_ getting

the blue-mould, what then? So far as may be ascertained by the study of

such instances as Mrs. Ogden, the blue-mould is a great comfort and a

great safeguard to the system--it is moral flannel. Would she have

lasted as she has done without it? I say, it is a solace, amidst the

rapid changes of the body politic, and the new-fangled ideas which take

possession of the heads of ministers, to feel that there is one

personage in these realms who will live on in vigor undiminished, yet

never advance one inch. And when the British Constitution shall be

finally swept away, and the throne itself no more, it will be something

amidst the giddiness of universal experiment to know that in Mrs. Ogden

this country will still possess an example that all is not given over to

mutability.

"Now, young un," said Uncle Jacob, one day at dinner at Milend, "I

reckon you've been writing no letters to that lass at Wendrum; and if

you've written nout, there's no 'arm done. It isn't a match for such a

young felly as you, as 'll have more brass nor Stanburne iver had in his

best days. We 'st 'ave no weddin' wi' bankrupts' dorthers."

"Bankrupts, indeed!" said Mrs. Ogden. "I reckon nout o' bankrupts!

Besides, Stanburne had no need to be a bankrupt if he hadn't been such a

fool. And foolishness runs i' th' blood. Like father, like dorther. Th'

father's been a wastril with his money, and it 's easy to see 'at the

dorther 'ud be none so kerfle."

"Who shalln't have th' chance o' spendin' none o' my brass," said Uncle

Jacob. "Do you yer that, young un? Stanburne dorther shall spend none o'

_my_ brass. If you wed her, yer father 'll 'ave to keep both on ye, an'

all yer chilther beside. He's worth about five hundred a-year, is your

father; and I'm worth--nobody knows what I 'm worth."

Young Jacob knew both his uncle and his grandmother far too intimately

to attempt discussion with either of them; but the news of Colonel

Stanburne's bankruptcy, which in their view had put an end to the dream

of a possible alliance with his daughter, wore a very different aspect

to the young lover. An attachment existed between himself and Edith

Stanburne, of which both were perfectly conscious, and yet nothing had

been said about it openly on either side. Young Jacob Ogden had felt

every year more and more keenly the width of the social gulf which

separated them, though his education at Eton and Oxford and his

constantly increasing prospects of future riches had already begun to

build a bridge across the gulf. Even in his best days Colonel Stanburne

had not been what in Lancashire is considered a rich man; in his best

days, he had been poorer than the leading manufacturers of Sootythorn;

and Jacob Ogden's mill had of itself cost more money than any squire of

Wenderholme had ever possessed, whilst Jacob Ogden had property of many

kinds besides his mill, and a huge lump of money lying by ready for

immediate investment. The superiority in money had therefore for some

years been entirely on the side of the Ogdens; but, although aristocracy

in England is in reality based on wealth, it has a certain poetic sense

which delights also in antiquity and honors. Jacob Ogden and his money

might have been agreeable to the matter-of-fact side of English

aristocratic feeling, but they were unsatisfying to its poetic sense.

Young Jacob was clearly aware of this, and so indeed, in a cruder form,

was his uncle. So long therefore as the Colonel was prosperous, or

apparently prosperous, the Ogdens knew that the obstacles in the way of

a marriage were all but insurmountable, and no proposal had ever been

made. The Colonel's ruin changed the relative situation very

considerably; and, if young Jacob Ogden could have permitted himself to

rejoice in an event so painful to one who had always been kind to him,

he would have rejoiced now. He did, indeed, feel a degree of hope about

Edith Stanburne to which he had been a stranger for some years.

As young Jacob had said nothing in answer to his uncle and his

grandmother, they both gave him credit for a prudent abandonment of his

early dream. There existed, however, between him and his father a much

closer confidence and friendship; and Isaac Ogden (who, notwithstanding

the errors of his earlier life, had the views and feelings of a

gentleman, as well as an especial loyalty and attachment to his

unfortunate friend, the Colonel) encouraged his son in his fidelity. The

materials were thus accumulating for a war in the Ogden family; and

whenever that war shall be declared, we may rely upon it that it will be

prosecuted with great vigor on both sides, for the Ogdens are wilful

people, all of them.

Mr. Isaac has been enjoying excellent health for these last twelve

years, thanks to his vow of total abstinence, to which he still

courageously adheres. A paternal interest in the education of his son

has gradually filled many of the voids in his own education, so that,

without being aware of it himself, he has become really a well-informed

man. His solitary existence at Twistle Farm has been favorable to the

habit of study, and, like all men who have acquired the love of

knowledge, he sees that life may have other aims and other satisfactions

than the interminable accumulation of wealth. Small as may have been his

apparent worldly success, Isaac Ogden has raised himself to a higher

standpoint than his brother Jacob is likely ever to attain. Amongst the

many expressions of sympathy which reached Colonel Stanburne after his

disaster, few pleased him more than the following letter from Twistle

Farm:--

"MY DEAR COLONEL STANBURNE,--I am truly grieved to hear

that the failure of the Sootythorn Bank has involved you in

misfortune. I would have come to Wenderholme to say this

personally, but it seemed that, under present

circumstances, you might wish to be alone with your family.

I hardly know how to say what I wish to say in addition to

this. For some years I have spent very little, and,

although my income is small, I find there is a considerable

balance in my favor with Messrs. ----. If this could be of

any use to you, pray do not scruple to draw upon my

bankers, who will be forewarned that you may possibly do

so. Up to £1,000 you will occasion me no inconvenience,

and, though this is not much, it might be of temporary

service.

"Yours most faithfully, I. OGDEN."

To this letter the Colonel returned the following reply:--

"MY DEAR OGDEN,--Your kind letter gave me great pleasure. I

am greatly obliged by your friendly offer of help, which I

accept as one brother officer may from another. If, as is

probable, I find myself in urgent need of a little ready

money, I will draw upon your bankers, but, of course, not

to such an extent as would go beyond a reasonable

probability of repayment.

"At the last meeting of creditors and shareholders, it

appeared that, although we are likely to save nothing from

the wreck, the Bank will probably pay nineteen shillings in

the pound. This is a great satisfaction.

"Yours most truly, J. STANBURNE."

CHAPTER VI.

THE SALE.

The Colonel would not expose himself even to the appearance of flight,

but remained in the neighborhood manfully, and went personally to

Manchester, before the court of bankruptcy, through which he passed very

easily. His name then appeared in the Manchester papers, and in the

"Sootythorn Gazette," in the list of bankrupts.

Bailiffs were in possession of the house and estate of Wenderholme, and

Mr. Jacob Ogden foreclosed his mortgages, by which he became owner of a

fair portion of the land.

Finally, Wenderholme Hall and the remainder of the estate, including the

Cottage, in which Mrs. Stanburne still resided, were sold by auction in

the large room at the Thorn Inn at Sootythorn--the very place which the

Colonel's regiment of militia was accustomed to use as a mess-room.

Little had John Stanburne or his officers foreseen, whilst there

consuming Mr. Garley's substantial dinners, that the hammer of the

auctioneer would one day there transfer Wenderholme from the name of

Stanburne to another name--to what name?

The room was crowded. The sale was known all over Lancashire and

Yorkshire. Competitors had come even from distant counties. Wenderholme

had been a famous place since the fire, and the magnificent restoration

which had succeeded to the fire. Drawings of it had appeared in the

"Illustrated London News," and, since the failure of the Sootythorn

Bank, the creditors had cunningly caused a volume to be made in which

the whole place was fully illustrated and described. This volume they

had widely circulated.

The sale had been announced for eight o'clock in the evening, and at ten

minutes after eight precisely the auctioneer mounted his rostrum. He

made a most elaborate speech, in which (with the help of the volume

above mentioned) he went over every room in the house, describing, with

vulgar magniloquence, all those glories which had cost John Stanburne so

dear.

There was one person present to whom the description can hardly have

been very agreeable. John Stanburne himself, from anxiety to know the

future possessor, and the amount realized, had quietly entered the room

unperceived, for every one was looking at the auctioneer. He had

stationed himself near the wall, and there bore the infliction of this

torture, his hat over his eyes.

At length all this eloquence had run dry, and the business of the

evening began. The place was put up at £30,000, and no bid was to be

made of less than £1,000 over its predecessor. The first two or three

bids were made by persons with whom this history has no concern, but

that for £35,000 was made by our friend Mr. John Stedman. Some one

present called out "thirty-six," on which Mr. Stedman replied

"thirty-seven," and there he ceased to bid. He knew that this was the

value of the remaining estate;[20] he did not want the house. Philip

Stanburne whispered something in his ear, after which he cried

"forty-two," the last bid having been forty-one. After that he made no

further offer, and Philip Stanburne's countenance fell.

The bidding hitherto had been strictly of the nature of investment, but

now the seekers after an eligible investment retired from the field,

except one or two dealers in estates who intended to sell the place

again, at a profit, by private contract, and who looked upon its

architectural and other beauties as marketable qualities. These men went

on to £47,000. The place had now reached what was called a "fancy

price."

There was a man of rather short stature, with fair hair, a closely

shaven face, a greasy cap on his head, a velveteen jacket on his back,

and the rest of his person clothed in old corduroy. Fluffs of cotton

were sticking about him, and he presented the general appearance of a

rather respectable operative. He stood immediately before Philip

Stanburne, who did not see his face, and was rather surprised to hear

him call out, "Forty-eight."

"Forty-eight, gentlemen!" cried the auctioneer; "going at forty-eight

thousand--forty-nine? Forty-nine--going at forty-nine! Come, who says

fifty?--we must round the number, you know, gentlemen--who says fifty?

Going, going--forty-nine--only forty-nine, going--going"--

The man in the greasy cap said, "Fifty," and the auctioneer, after the

usual delays, hearing no other voice amidst the breathless silence of

the room, struck the decisive blow with his little hammer, and

Wenderholme was sold.

Then the auctioneer beckoned to him the man in the greasy cap, and said

in broad Lancashire, and in a tone of somewhat contemptuous familiarity,

"You mun go and tell them as sent you here as they'll have to pay hup

one-third as deposit-money. One-third o' fifty thousand pound is sixteen

thousand six hundred and sixty-six pound, thirteen and four-pence, and

that's what them as sent you here has got to pay hup. You can recklect

that. It's all sixes, nobbut the one to start wi' and th' odd

shillings."

The man in the greasy cap smiled quietly, and took out an old

pocket-book. "You've got a pen and ink?"

"I'll write it down for ye, if ye like. And stop--tell me th' name o'

them as sent ye."

"There's no need; you'll know it soon enough." And the man in the greasy

cap took out a cheque-book, wrote a cheque, filled it, signed it,

crossed it, and handed it to the auctioneer. The name signed was "Jacob

Ogden," now owner of Wenderholme.

When the auctioneer perceived his error (for the name of Ogden was now

mighty in the land), he was covered with confusion, and profuse in

perspiration and apology. Jacob affected to forgive him, but in truth he

had little to forgive, for no incident could have been more exquisitely

agreeable to his feelings. To stand there in public, and in the dress he

usually wore at the mill, to sign a heavy cheque, to buy a fine estate,

to feel himself the most important man in the room, to be, in his greasy

cap and velveteen jacket, the envied man, the observed of all observers,

was for him a triumph sweeter than is the triumph of some fair lady,

who, in her diamonds and her lace, and her exquisite cleanliness, shines

in some great assembly with the purity of a lily and the splendor of a

star.

CHAPTER VII.

A FRUGAL SUPPER.

Mrs. Ogden was sitting up for her son Jacob that night, and she had

prepared him a little supper of toasted cheese. She had no positive

knowledge of the object of his journey to Sootythorn. She was aware that

Wenderholme would be sold by auction one of these days, but she did not

know exactly whether her son intended to bid for it. There was not much

talk generally between the two about the great financial matters--their

money-talk ran chiefly upon minutiæ, such as the wages of a servant or

the purchase of a cow.

Notwithstanding the great increase of their riches, the mother and son

still lived at Milend in their old simple manner. Mrs. Ogden still made

all Jacob's shirts and stockings, and still did a great deal of the

cooking. The habits of her life had been formed many years before, and

she could not endure to depart from them, even when the departure would

have been an increase to her comfort. Thus she continued to keep only

one girl as a servant, and did most of the work of the house with her

own hands. Her happiness depended upon abundance and regularity of

occupation; and she acted much more wisely in keeping up the activity of

her habits, even though these habits may have been in themselves

somewhat inconsistent with her pecuniary position, than she would have

done if she had exposed herself to the certain _ennui_ of attempting to

play the fine lady.

The girl was gone to bed when Jacob Ogden came back from Sootythorn, and

his mother was seated by the kitchen-fire, darning one of his stockings

and superintending the toasted cheese. The kitchen at Milend was a clean

and spacious room, with stone floor nicely sanded, and plenty of hams

and oat-cakes hanging from the ceiling. There was a great clock too in

one corner, with shining case, and a rubicund figure above the dial, by

which were represented the phases of the moon.

The old lady had laid out a small supper-table in the kitchen, and when

Jacob came back she told him he was to have his supper there, "for th'

fire 'ad gone out i' th' parlor."

So he sat down to eat his toasted cheese, which was a favorite supper of

his, and whilst he was eating, his mother took a little oatmeal-porridge

with treacle. She rather feared the effects of toasted cheese, believing

porridge to be more easily digested.

Neither one nor the other said any thing about the object of the journey

to Sootythorn during supper, and there was nothing in Jacob's face to

indicate either extraordinary news or unusual elation. In fact, so

accustomed was Jacob Ogden to purchasing estates, that he had little of

the feeling of elation which attends the young beginner; and after that

momentary triumph at Garley's Hotel, any excitement which he may have

felt had subsided, and left in his mind no other feeling than the old

spirit of calculation. It was the very first time in his life that he

had gone beyond the principle of investment, and paid something over and

above for the mere gratification of his fancy or his pride, and his

reflections were not of unmixed self-congratulation. "Anyhow," he said

to himself, "it'll be Ogden of Wendrum, J.P."

However late Jacob Ogden took his supper, he must necessarily smoke his

pipe after it (one pipe), and drink his glass of grog. His mother

usually went to bed as soon as the water boiled, but this evening she

kept moving about in the kitchen, first finding one little thing to set

to rights, and then another. At last she stood still in the middle of

the floor, and said,--

"Our Jacob!"

"What, mother?"

"Wherestabeen?"[21]

"Why, you knoan that weel enough, I reckon. I'n been Sootythorn road."

"And what 'as ta been doin'?"

"Nowt nobbut what's reet."[22]

"What 'as there been at Sootythorn?"

"There's been a sale."

"'An[23] they been sellin' a mill?"

"Noah."

"And what _'an_ they been sellin'?"

"Wendrum 'All."

"And who's bout it?"

"I have."

"And what 'an ye gin for't?"

"Fifty thousand."

"Why, it's ta mich by th' 'auve!"

"'Appen."

Notwithstanding the laconic form of the conversation, Mrs. Ogden felt a

strong desire to talk over the matter rather more fully, and to that end

seated herself on the other side the kitchen-fire.

"Jacob," she said, as she looked him steadily in the face, "I never knew

thee part wi' thy brass b'out five pussent. How will ta get five pussent

out o' Wendrum 'All for the fifty thousand?"

"Why, mother, there's investments for brass, and there's investments for

pasition. I dunnot reckon to get so much interest out o' Wendrum, but

it'll be Ogden o' Wendrum, J.P."

"Well, now, Jacob, that's what I call spendin' your money for pride!"

Mrs. Ogden said this solemnly, and in as pure English as she could

command.

"Why, and what if it is? There's plenty more where that coom from. What

signifies?"

"And shall you be going to live at Wendrum 'All, Jacob? _I_ willn't go

there--indeed I willn't; I'll stop at Milend. Why, you'll require ever

so many servants. They tell me there's twenty fires to light! And what

will become o' the mill when you're over at Wendrum?"

Mrs. Ogden's face wore an expression of trouble and dissatisfaction. Her

eyebrows rose higher than usual, and her forehead displayed more

wrinkles. But Jacob knew that this was her way, and that in her inmost

soul she was not a little gratified at the idea of being the Lady of

Wenderholme. For as an ambitious ecclesiastic, promoted to the episcopal

throne, rejoices not openly, but affects a decent unwillingness and an

overwhelming sense of the responsibilities of his office, so Mrs. Ogden,

at every advance in her fortunes, sang her own little _nolumus

episcopari_.

"Why, it's thirty miles off, is Wendrum," she went on, complainingly;

"and there's no railway; and you'll never get there and back in a day.

One thing's plain, you'll never manage the mill and the estate too."

"All the land between this 'ere mill and Wendrum 'All is mine," said

Jacob, with conscious dignity; "and I mean to make a road, mother,

across the hill from the mill to Wendrum 'All. It'll be nine mile

exactly. And I'll have a telegraph from th' countin'-house to my

sittin'-room at Wendrum. And I shall take little Jacob into partnership,

and when one Jacob's i' one spot t'other Jacob 'll be i' t'other spot.

Recklect there's two Jacobs, mother."

"Well, I reckon you'll do as you like, whatever _I_ say. But _I_'ll go

non to Wendrum. I'll stop 'ere at Shayton while I live (it 'appen

willn't be for long)--I'm a Shayton woman bred and born."

"Nonsense, mother. You'll go to Wendrum, and ride over to Milend in your

carriage!"

Mrs. Ogden's face assumed an expression of unfeigned amazement.

"A cayridge! a cayridge! Why, what is th' lad thinkin' about now! I

think we shall soon be ridin' into prison. Did ever anybody hear the

like?"

There is a curious superstition about carriage-keeping which Mrs. Ogden

fully shared. It is thought to be the most extravagant, though the most

respectable, way of spending money; and an annual outlay which, if

dissipated in eating and drinking, or Continental tours, would excite no

remark, is considered extravagance if spent on a comfortable vehicle to

drive about in one's own neighborhood. Thus Mrs. Ogden considered her

son's proposition as revolutionary--as an act of secession from the

simplicity of faith and practice which had been their rule of life and

the tradition of their family. In short, it produced much the same

effect upon her mind as if the Shayton parson had proposed to buy a

gilded dalmatic and chasuble.

"There's folk," said Mrs. Ogden, with the air of an oracle--"there's

folk as are foolish when they are young, and grow wiser as they advance

in years. But there's other folk that is wise in their youth, to be

foolish and extravagant at an age when they ought to know better." She

evidently was losing her faith in the prudence of her son Jacob. When

they had parted for the night, and Mrs. Ogden got into her bed, the last

thing she uttered as she stood with her night-cap on, in her long white

night-gown, was the following brief ejaculation:--

"A cayridge! a cayridge! What are we comin' to now!"

But the last thing uncle Jacob thought, as he settled his head on his

lonely pillow, was, "It'll be Ogden of Wendrum, J.P."

CHAPTER VIII.

AT CHESNUT HILL.

We return to Garley's Hotel at the conclusion of the sale.

Philip Stanburne had recognized the Colonel, and gone up to him to shake

hands. He had not seen him before since the downfall of the Sootythorn

Bank, though he had written a very feeling letter, in which he had

begged his friend to make use of Stanithburn Peel so long as he might

care to remain in Yorkshire. Indeed the Colonel had received many such

letters.

Mr. Stedman, on looking about for Philip, saw him with the Colonel, and

joined them.

"Where are you staying, Colonel Stanburne?" asked Mr. Stedman.

"I have been staying with my mother lately at Wenderholme Cottage. I

have persuaded her to remain there. It is better, I think, that an old

lady should not be obliged to change all her habits. I hope the new

owner will allow her to remain. She will have very good neighbors in the

Prigleys. I gave the living of Wenderholme to Mr. Prigley when the old

vicar died, about three months since. He used to be the incumbent of

Shayton."

"It will be a great advance for Mr. Prigley. Shayton was a poor living,

but I have heard that Wenderholme is much better."

"Wenderholme is worth seven hundred a-year. The Prigleys have been very

poor for many years, with their numerous family and the small income

they had at Shayton. I am very glad," the Colonel added, with rather a

melancholy smile, "that I was able to do this for them before my own

ill-luck overtook me. A few months later I should have missed the

chance."

"Do you return to Wenderholme to-night? It is late, is it not?"

"No; I mean to sleep here in the hotel."

"Would you accept a bed at Chesnut Hill, Colonel Stanburne? Philip is

staying with me."

The Colonel was only too glad to spend the rest of his evening with two

real friends, and they were soon in the comfortable dining-room at

Chesnut Hill. The Colonel had often met Mr. Stedman, who had stayed once

or twice for a night or two at Wenderholme; and he had dined a few times

at Chesnut Hill, and had stayed all night, so that the house was not

altogether strange to him; though, since he had repeatedly met with Mr.

Stedman at Sootythorn and at Stanithburn Peel (where during the last

twelve years he had been a frequent visitor), he knew the owner of the

mansion much more intimately than the mansion itself.

Ever since the death of poor Alice, a warm friendship had united her

father and Philip Stanburne--a friendship which had been beneficial to

them both. Each was still sincerely attached to his own convictions, but

the great sorrow which they had suffered in common had drawn them

together, and Mr. Stedman considered the younger man as nearly related

to him as if the intended marriage had actually taken place. Their loss

had been of that kind which time may enable us to accept as an

inevitable void in our existence, but which no amount of habit can ever

obliterate from the memory. Philip still remembered that conversation

with Alice in which she had begged him not to desert her father in his

old age; and Mr. Stedman, on his part, felt that every kindness which he

could show to the man whom his daughter had loved was a kindness to

Alice herself. So there was a paternal and filial tie between these two;

and though, after Alice's death, Philip had resumed his solitary

existence at Stanithburn, and Mr. Stedman continued his business as a

cotton manufacturer (for he felt the need of some binding occupation),

they made use of each other's houses, as is done by the nearest

relatives; and Mr. Stedman spent many a summer day in botanizing about

Stanithburn, whilst his friend, when on duty in the militia, always

billeted himself at Chesnut Hill.

"What is the last news about our poor friend Anison?" the Colonel asked,

when the three were comfortably seated in Mr. Stedman's easy-chairs.

"It cannot be very good news, but it is as good as can be expected. His

works and Arkwright Lodge were sold by auction three days since, at

Whittlecup."

"And who bought them?"

"The same man, Colonel Stanburne, who purchased Wenderholme this

evening--Jacob Ogden of Shayton."

"They must be rich, those Ogdens. I know his brother Isaac very well,

and his nephew is a great friend of mine, but I really know nothing of

this Jacob."

"He is the only rich one in the family, but he _is_ a rich one. He made

a great bargain at Whittlecup. He gave twenty thousand for Anison's

works, with every thing in them in working order; and to my certain

knowledge, Joseph Anison had a capital of thirteen thousand sunk in

copper rollers alone.[24] He paid four thousand for Arkwright Lodge.

It's dirt cheap. The house alone cost more than that, and there's thirty

acres of excellent land. I wish I'd bought it myself. I missed it by not

going to that sale; but Philip and I wanted to bid for Wenderholme, and

we stayed away from Whittlecup so as to keep out of temptation."

"And what do you think Mr. Anison will do?"

"He asked Jacob Ogden to let him remain at Whittlecup and manage the

works for a very moderate salary, but Jacob declined; and in doing so he

did what I never heard of him doing before--he acted directly against

his own interest. He'll never get such a manager as Anison would have

been, but he refused him out of spite. Twelve years ago Madge Anison

jilted Jacob Ogden, just when my daughter died. He made her pay up a

thousand for breach of promise. She's an old maid now, or something very

like one, for she's over thirty-three; but Jacob Ogden hasn't forgiven

her for jiltin' him, and never will. Last news I had of Joseph Anison,

he was seeking a situation in Manchester, and his three girls 'll have

to seek situations too. It 's a bad job there isn't one of 'em

married--they were as fine lasses as a man need set his eyes on, and in

their father's good time they'd scores of offers, but either they looked

too high or else they were very difficult to suit, for they never hooked

on, somehow."

Philip Stanburne knew rather more about Madge Anison by this time than

Mr. Stedman did, and could have enlightened his friends concerning her

had he been so minded. The young lady had thrown Jacob Ogden over, as

the reader is already aware, for no other purpose than to leave herself

free for Philip Stanburne on his return from the Continent after the

death of Alice. When he visited his friends at Arkwright Lodge, Miss

Anison had not had the degree of prudence necessary to conceal her

designs, and Philip (to his intense disgust, for all his thoughts were

with the gentle creature he had so recently lost) perceived that he was

the object which Margaret had in view. A young lady can scarcely commit

a greater mistake than to make advances to a man so saddened as Philip

was then; for in such a condition of mind he has not the buoyancy of

spirit necessary for a flirtation, and it is only through a flirtation

that he can be led to pay his addresses in earnest. Poor Margaret had

fatally under-estimated the duration of Philip Stanburne's sorrow, and

also the keenness of his perceptions. For instead of his being less

observant and easier to manage than he had been before that episode in

his life, it had so wrought upon his intellect and his feelings as to be

equivalent to the experience of years. In a word, her project had ended

in total failure, and the sense of this failure gave a certain petulance

and irritability to her manner, and lent a sharpness of sarcasm to her

tongue, which did not induce other gentlemen to aspire to that happiness

which Philip had refused. So she was Margaret Anison still, and at the

present period of our story was trying, not very successfully, to obtain

a situation in Manchester.

It was Mr. Stedman's custom, as in Lancashire it is the custom of his

class, to have a little supper about nine or ten o'clock--a pleasant and

sociable meal, though not always quite suitable to persons of feeble

digestion. Colonel Stanburne, on the other hand, according to the custom

of _his_ class, dined substantially at seven, and took nothing later

except tobacco-smoke. This evening, however, he was in a position to

conform to the custom of Chesnut Hill; for though he had dined at Mr.

Garley's an hour before the time fixed for the sale, he had felt so

melancholy about it, and so anxious to know who would be the future

possessor of his home, that he had eaten a very poor dinner indeed. But

now that the thing was decided, and that he found himself with two such

kind and faithful friends (whose manner to him was exactly the same as

it had been in the days of his prosperity), John Stanburne's naturally

powerful appetite reasserted itself at the expense of Mr. Stedman's cold

roast-beef, which, with plenty of pickles and mashed potatoes, formed

the staple of the repast.

The Colonel was already beginning to learn the great art of miserable

men--the art which enables them to gain in hours of comparative

happiness the energy and elasticity necessary for future times of

trial--the art of laying unhappiness aside like a pinching boot, and of

putting their weary feet into the soft slippers of a momentary

contentment. Wenderholme was sold--it belonged to Mr. Jacob Ogden; why

think of Wenderholme any more? The Colonel actually succeeded in

dismissing the matter from his thoughts for at least five minutes at a

time, till a sort of pang would come upon his heart, and he rapidly

asked himself what the pang meant, and then he knew that it meant

Wenderholme.

One very curious consequence of the great event of that day was this,

that whereas the last time he had been to Chesnut Hill (in the days of

his prosperity) the place had seemed to him both vulgar and unenviable,

he now appreciated certain qualities about the place which before had

been by him altogether imperceptible. For example, when he was rich,

mere comfort had never been one of his objects. Having the power to

create it wherever he might happen to be, he had often done very well

without it, and his rooms in barracks, or his den in his own mansion,

had been often very destitute thereof. But now that it had become highly

probable that comfort would soon be beyond his reach, he began to awaken

to a perception of it. The warm red flock-paper on Mr. Stedman's

dining-room wall, the good carpet on the floor, the clean white

table-cloth, the comfortable morocco-covered chairs--all these things

began to attract his attention in quite a novel and remarkable manner.

And yet hitherto he had continued to live like a gentleman, therefore,

what will it be, I wonder, when he is reduced a good deal lower in the

world?

When they had done supper, and were drinking the inevitable grog, Mr.

Stedman said to the Colonel,--

"I hope you will forgive me if I am guilty of any indiscretion, Colonel

Stanburne, but you know you are with sincere friends. May I ask what

your own plans are?"

Mr. Stedman's age, and his evident good-will, made the question less an

indiscretion than an acceptable proof of kindness, and the Colonel took

it in that way. "My dear Mr. Stedman," he said in answer, "you know a

position like mine is very embarrassing. I am getting on in life--I mean

I am getting oldish; I never had a profession by which money could be

earned, you know, though I have been in the army, but that 's not a

trade to live by. As to the colonelcy of the militia, the

lord-lieutenant has my resignation. No, I can't see any thing very

clearly just now. The only thing I'm fit for is driving a public coach."

Philip Stanburne said, "Why did you refuse to come and live at the Peel?

You would have been very welcome--you would be welcome still." It was

already publicly understood that the Colonel and Lady Helena were

separated, and that Miss Stanburne would either follow her ladyship to

Lord Adisham's, or remain with her old grandmother.

"My dear Philip," the Colonel said, very sadly and affectionately,

laying his hand on Philip's hand--"my dear Philip, if I were quite old

and done for, I would have no false pride. I would come to the Peel and

live with you, and you should buy me a suit of clothes once every two

years, and give me a little tobacco, and a sovereign or two for

pocket-money. I would take all this from you. But you see, Philip,

though I'm not a clever man, and though I really have no profession,

still my bodily health and strength are left to me, thank God; and so

long as I have these, I think it is my duty to try in some way

to earn my living for myself. You know that Helena and I are

separated--everybody seems to know it now. Well, I got a letter from her

father this morning, in which--but stop, I'll show you the letter

itself. Will you read it, Mr. Stedman?"

"DEAR SIR,--My daughter Helena desires me to say to you,

that as you shared your means with her in the time of your

prosperity, so it is her desire that you should share her

income now in your adversity. A sum of three hundred a-year

will therefore be paid to your credit at any banker's you

may be pleased to name.

"Your obedient servant, ADISHAM."

"Well," said Mr. Stedman, "you may still live very comfortably as a

single man on such an income as three hundred a-year. It is a great deal

of money."

"I have accepted Lady Helena's offer, but not for myself. I will not

touch one penny of Lord Adisham's allowance. I have told the banker to

pay it over to my mother, whom I have ruined. She has not a penny in the

world. However, you see Helena is provided for, since she is living at

Lord Adisham's (a very good house to live in), and my mother is provided

for, and between them they will keep Edith till I can do something for

her; so my mind is easy about these three ladies, and I 've nobody to

provide for but myself. Any man with a sound constitution ought to be

able to earn his bread. You see, Philip, my mind is made up. There is

still, notwithstanding my misfortune, a spirit of independence in me

which will not permit me to live upon the kindness of my friends. But I

am very greatly obliged both to you and others--to you more especially."

"Well, Colonel, haven't I a right to offer you some assistance? Are we

not relations?"

The Colonel looked at Philip with tender affection, and gently pressed

his hand. Then he said to Mr. Stedman: "This young friend of yours never

called me a relation of his when I was prosperous, but now when I am a

poor man he claims me. Isn't he an eccentric fellow, to lay claim to a

poor relation?"

The next morning at breakfast-time the Colonel did not appear. The

servant said he had risen very early, and left a note.

"MY DEAR AND KIND FRIENDS,--I came to a decision in the

middle of the night, but will not just now tell you what it

is. The decision having been come to, I am determined to

act upon it at once, and leave Chesnut Hill to catch the

early train. Pray excuse this, and believe me, with much

gratitude for all your kindness,

"Yours most truly, JOHN STANBURNE."

CHAPTER IX.

OGDEN OF WENDERHOLME.

The Ogdens did not go to live at Wenderholme for a long time, indeed

Mrs. Ogden did not even go to see the place; but her son Jacob went over

one day in a gig, and, in the course of his stay of a few hours, settled

more points of detail than a country gentleman would have settled in a

month. He planted an agent there, and took on several of Colonel

Stanburne's outdoor servants, including all his gamekeepers, but for the

present did not seem inclined to make any use of Wenderholme as a

residence. He had been present at the sale of the furniture, where he

had bought every thing belonging to the principal rooms, except a few

old cabinets and chairs, and other odd matters, of which the reader may

hear more in a future chapter.

It had always been a characteristic of the Ogdens not to be in a hurry

to enjoy. They would wait, and wait, for any of the good things of this

world--perhaps to prolong the sweet time of anticipation, perhaps simply

because the habit of saving, so firmly ingrained in their natures, is

itself a habit of waiting and postponing enjoyment in favor of ulterior

aims. But in the case of Wenderholme, the habit of postponing a pleasure

was greatly helped by an especial kind of pride. Both Jacob Ogden and

his mother were proud to a degree which may sometimes have been

equalled, but can never have been surpassed, by the proudest chiefs of

the aristocracy. Their pride, as I have said, was of a peculiar kind,

and consisted far more in an intense satisfaction with themselves and

their own ways, than in any ambition to be thought, or to become,

different from what they were. Now, it would not have been possible to

imagine any thing more exquisitely agreeable to this pride of theirs

than that Wenderholme Hall should be _treated as an appendage to

Milend_, that the great kitchen-gardens at Wenderholme should supply

vegetables, and the hothouse grapes, to the simple table in the little

plain house at Shayton. It was delightful to Mrs. Ogden to be able to

say, in a tone of assumed indifference or semi-disapproval, "Since our

Jacob bought Wenderholme, he's always been wishin' me to go to see

it--and they say it's a very fine place--but I don't want to go to see

it; Milend is good enough for me." If the hearer expressed a natural

degree of astonishment, Mrs. Ogden was inwardly delighted, but showed no

sign of it on her countenance. On the contrary, her eyebrows would go

up, and the wrinkles upon her forehead would assume quite a melancholy

appearance, and her stony gray eyes would look out drearily into

vacancy. In short, the impression which both Jacob Ogden and his mother

wished to produce upon all their friends and acquaintances after the

purchase of Wenderholme was, that the mansion and estate of the

Stanburnes could add nothing to the importance of the family at Milend.

So pleasant was it to Mrs. Ogden to be able to say that she had never

been to Wenderholme that, although she burned with curiosity to behold

its magnificence, she restrained herself month after month. Meanwhile

her son Jacob was getting forward very rapidly with a project he had

entertained for twelve years--that is, ever since the idea of purchasing

Wenderholme had first shaped itself in his mind--the road from his mills

in Shayton to the house at Wenderholme, direct across the moors. He set

about this with the energy of a little Napoleon (Emerson tells us that

the natural chiefs of our industrial classes are all little Napoleons),

and in a few weeks the road existed. Posts were set up on the side of

it, and a telegraphic wire connected the counting-house at Ogden's mill

with a certain little room in Wenderholme Hall, which he destined for

his private use.

Even already, though Jacob Ogden is still quietly living at Milend, he

knows incomparably more about the Wenderholme property than John

Stanburne ever knew, or any of John Stanburne's ancestors before him. He

knows the precise condition of every field, or part of a field, and what

is to be done to it. Even in such a matter as gardening, the gardener

finds him uncheatable, though how he acquired that knowledge is a

mystery, for you can hardly call that a "garden" at Milend.

It follows, from all these valuable qualifications of Mr. Jacob Ogden,

that he was likely to be an excellent Mentor for such a youth as his

nephew, destined to have to support the cares, and see his way through

the perplexities, of property. And he took him seriously in hand about

this time, with the consent of the lad's father, who was well aware that

without experience in affairs his boy's education could not (in any but

the narrow sense of the word, as it is used by pedagogues) be considered

to be complete.

Young Jacob had to get up regularly at five in the morning and accompany

his uncle to the mill, where he saw the hands enter. After this, his

time was divided between the counting-house and overlooking; but his

duty at the mill was very frequently broken by orders from his uncle to

go and inspect the improvements which were in progress on his various

estates, especially, at this particular time, the road from Shayton to

Wenderholme. The youth made these journeys on horseback, and, being

uncommonly well mounted, accomplished them more rapidly than his uncle

Jacob, with all his shrewdness, ever calculated upon. In this way the

inspection of the new road permitted very frequent visits to Wenderholme

Cottage, where, for the present, Miss Edith resided with her

grandmother.

CHAPTER X.

YOUNG JACOB AND EDITH.

The state of affairs between Edith and young Jacob was this. Nothing had

been said of marriage, but their attachment was as perfectly understood

between them as if it had been openly expressed. The misfortune of their

situation had been, that although many circumstances had been decidedly

favorable to them, it had never been possible to unite all the favorable

circumstances together at the same time, so as to get themselves

formally engaged. In the days of Colonel Stanburne's splendor and

prosperity the Milend influence had been openly encouraging, but Lady

Helena had warned Edith in such a decided way against allowing herself

to form a plebeian attachment, the allusion to young Jacob being (as it

was intended to be) as intelligible as if she had named him, that it had

been considered prudent by both the lovers to refrain from compromising

the future by precipitation, and they had waited in the hope that, by

the pressure of constantly increasing riches, her ladyship's opposition

might finally be made to give way. If Colonel Stanburne had continued

prosperous, the Milend influence was so strongly, even eagerly, in favor

of the alliance, that it would have subsidized its candidate very

largely; and as its power of subsidizing increased every day, it was

evident that, by simply waiting, his prospects would steadily improve.

But the Colonel's ruin, utter and hopeless as it was, had set the Milend

influence on the other side; and nobody who knew the obstinacy of Jacob

Ogden in opposition, and the relentless lengths to which he would go to

get himself obeyed, or to inflict punishment on those who had opposed

him, could doubt that, if his nephew refused compliance in this

instance, it would be equivalent to a total renunciation of his

prospects.

Edith Stanburne had inherited much of her mother's perspicacity, with

the Colonel's frank and genial manner. Some people, Mrs. Prigley amongst

the number, disapproved of Edith's manner, and considered her a "bold

girl," because she looked people straight in the face, and had not yet

learned the necessity for dissimulating her sentiments. But what

experienced man of the world would not give half his subtlety for that

boldness which comes from the perfect harmony of our nature with its

surroundings? Why, that is simply a definition of happiness itself! When

we have learned to be careful, it is because we have perceived that

between our real selves and the world around us there is so little

harmony that they would clash continually, so we invent a false

artificial self that may be in harmony with the world, and make it live

our outward life for us, talk for us in drawing-rooms and at the

dinner-table, and go through the weary round of public pleasures and

observances.

It is the worst possible sign of approaching unhappiness when courage

begins to give way, and this hour had come for Edith. Young Jacob,

relying upon the speed of his horse, had, on one or two occasions,

prolonged his visits to Wenderholme Cottage long enough to excite his

uncle's suspicions. Jacob Ogden inquired whether Miss Stanburne was with

her mother at Lord Adisham's, or with her grandmother at Wenderholme.

The young man said he "believed" she was with her grandmother.

"Oh, you 'believe,' do you, young un? Cannot you tell me for certain?"

Young Jacob was no match for his keen-eyed relations at Milend, who saw

through the whole matter in a minute.

"That horse o' yours is a fast un, little Jacob, but it isn't quite

sharp enough to make up for three hours' courtin' at Wendrum."

The next day young Jacob was sent to look over works in a totally

opposite direction; and as he had a good many measurements to take,

there was no chance of getting any time to himself. Twenty-four hours

later Miss Stanburne received the following letter:--

"MADAM,--I have discovered that my nephew has been idling

his time away at Wenderholme Cottage. You may, perhaps,

know how he was occupied. Excuse me if I say that, if my

nephew idles his time away at Wenderholme Cottage, _he will

never be a rich man_.

"Yours truly, JACOB OGDEN."

The note was very intelligible, and the consequence of it was, that

Edith resolved to sacrifice herself. "I love him too much," she said,

"to ruin him."

The reader may remember one Jerry Smethurst whom Isaac Ogden met at

Whittlecup when on duty in the militia, and with whom he got drunk for

the last time. It is twelve years since then, a long interval in any

place, but an especially long interval in Shayton, where _delirium

tremens_ carries off the mature males with a rapidity elsewhere unknown.

There had been hundreds of deaths from drinking in that township since

1853; and of all the jolly companions who used to meet at the Red Lion,

the only one remaining was the proprietor of Twistle Farm. James

Hardcastle, the innkeeper, was dead; Seth Schofield was in Shayton

churchyard, and so was Jerry Smethurst. A new generation was drinking

itself to death in that parlor, served by another landlord.

Most of these worthies had ruined themselves in fortune as in health.

Men cannot spend their time in public-houses without their business

feeling the effects of it; and they cannot fuddle their intellects with

beer and brandy and preserve their clearness for arithmetic. So, as the

prosperity of a society is the prosperity of the individuals composing

it, Shayton was not a very prosperous locality, and, in comparison with

Sootythorn, lagged wofully behindhand in the race. A few men, however,

managed somehow to reconcile business and the brandy-bottle, and the

most successful conciliator of pleasure and affairs had been the notable

Jerry Smethurst. He managed it by never drinking any thing before the

mill was closed; drink, to him, was the reward of the labors of the day,

and not their accompaniment. His constitution had been strong enough to

resist this double strain of laborious days and convivial evenings for a

much longer time than Dr. Bardly ever expected; and when the end came,

which it did by a single attack of _delirium tremens_, succeeded by a

fit of apoplexy (the patient had always apprehended apoplexy), Mr.

Smethurst's affairs were found to be in admirable order, and his only

daughter, then a fine girl of fourteen, became heiress to an extensive

mill and a quantity of building land, as well as many shops and

tenements in the interior of the town which would infallibly increase in

value. In a word, Sarah Smethurst was worth forty thousand now, and

would be worth a hundred thousand in twenty years; so that, as the

charms of her youth faded, the man fortunate enough to win her might

count upon a progressive compensation in the increase of her estate.

Jacob Ogden, senior, was very accurately acquainted with Miss

Smethurst's property, and could calculate its future value to a nicety.

He had the best opportunities for knowing these matters, being one of

Jerry Smethurst's trustees. When Colonel Stanburne was a rich man, Jacob

Ogden would have preferred Miss Stanburne for his nephew to any girl in

Sally Smethurst's position; for though nobody could love and appreciate

money more than Jacob did, he wished to see his nephew take a higher

place in society than money of itself would be able to procure for him.

As in mixing a glass of grog the time comes when we want no more spirit,

but turn our attention to the sugar-basin, although there can be no

doubt that the spirit is the main thing (since without it the glass

would be nothing but _eau sucrée_), so, when we want to make that

composite of perfections, a gentleman, there is a time when money is no

longer needed, though that is the main element of his strength, and we

turn our attention to the sugar-basin of the _comme il faut_. When Jacob

Ogden, senior, was favorable to the Wenderholme match, it was not so

much on account of Miss Stanburne's money as on account of her decided

position as a young lady of the aristocracy; and when the Colonel was

ruined, he did not disapprove of the match because Miss Stanburne would

have no fortune, but because her position as member of a county family

had been upset by her father's bankruptcy.

Well, if the lad could not marry like a gentleman, he should marry like

a prince among cotton-spinners, and contract alliance with a princess of

his own order. Sally Smethurst was such a princess. Therefore it was

decided that young Jacob should espouse Sally Smethurst.

And a very nice lass she was, too--a nice fat lass, with cheeks like a

milkmaid, that anybody might have been glad to kiss. Mrs. Ogden invited

her to stop at Milend, and young Jacob saw her every day. But the effect

of this acquaintance was precisely contrary to uncle Jacob's plans and

intentions. Sally had never been out of Shayton in her life, except to a

school at Lytham, and she had not a word to say. Neither was her

deportment graceful. A good lass enough, and well to do, but not the

woman with whom an intelligent man would be anxious to pass his

existence.

The image of Miss Stanburne, already somewhat idealized by absence, was

elevated to the divine by this contrast. There is no surer way of making

a noble youth worship some noble maiden, than by presenting to him a

virgin typical of the commonplace, and ordering him to marry her. Edith

became henceforth the object of young Jacob's ardent and chivalrous

adoration. Two fortunes--his uncle's and Sally Smethurst's--making in

the aggregate a prodigious heap of money, were offered to him as the

reward of infidelity, and the higher the bribe rose, the higher rose his

spirit of resistance.

Sally had come to Milend on a Wednesday. She was to stay Sunday over,

and go to Shayton Church with the Ogdens. On Saturday night, at

tea-time, young Jacob declared his intention of going to Twistle Farm.

"Why, and willn't ye stop Sunday with us and Miss Smethurst, and go to

Shayton Church?"

"I haven't seen my father for a fortnight."

"Then, all that I've got to say," observed Mrs. Ogden, "is, that it's

your father's own wickedness that's the cause of it. If he came

regularly to church, as he ought to do, you'd be sure to see him

to-morrow, and every Sunday as well, and you'd have no need to go up to

Twistle Farm. I could like to drag him to Shayton Church by the hair of

his head, that I could!" Here Mrs. Ogden paused and sipped her tea--then

she resumed,--

"I declare I _will not have_ you goin' up to Twistle Farm and missin'

church in that way. It's awful to think of! You miss church many a

Sunday to go and stop with your father, who should know better, and set

you a better example."

The lad drank his scalding tea, and rose from the table. He was not a

boor, however; and, offering his hand to Miss Smethurst, he said; very

courteously, "I am sorry, Miss Smethurst, not to have the pleasure of

going to church with you to-morrow; it looks rude of me, but many things

trouble me just now, and I must talk them over, both with my father and

somebody else." And with that, and a simple good-night to the elder

people, he left the room.

The owner of Twistle Farm had become a great recluse since he gave up

drinking, except during his weeks of active duty in the militia, and

occasional visits to his brother officers. In fact, a Shayton man, not

in business, must either be a drunkard or a recluse; and Ogden, by his

own experience, had learned to prefer the latter. Young Jacob, however,

had a friend in Shayton who did not lead quite such a retired life, and

whose opinion on the present crisis it might be worth while to ask for.

Need I say that this friend was the worthy doctor, Mr. Bardly?

So, when the young gentleman rode through the town on his way to Twistle

Farm, he turned into the Doctor's yard.

The twelve years that have passed since we saw the Doctor have rather

aged him, but they have certainly deducted nothing from the vigor of his

mind. He received his young friend with his old heartiness of manner,

and made him promise to stop supper with him. "You'll ride up to Twistle

Farm after supper; your father willn't be gone to bed--he sits up

reading till one o'clock in the morning. I wish he wouldn't. I'm sure

he's injuring his eyes."

Young Jacob laid the perplexities of his case before his experienced

friend. The Doctor heard him for nearly an hour with scarcely a word of

comment. Then he began:--

"I'll tell you what it is, little Jacob; you're not independent, because

you haven't got a profession, don't you see? You've had a fine

education, but it's worth nothing to live by, unless you turn

schoolmaster; and in England, education is altogether in the hands o'

them parsons. Your father isn't rich enough to keep a fine gentleman

like you, never talk o' keepin' a fine wife. That's how it is as you're

dependent on them at Milend, and they know it well enough. You'll always

be same as a childt for your uncle and your grandmother, and you'll 'ave

to do just as they bid you. As long as your uncle lives you'll be a

minor. I know him well enough. He governs everybody he can lay his hands

on, and your grandmother's exactly one o' th' same sort; she's a

governin' woman, is your grandmother--a governin' woman. There's a

certain proportion of women as is made to rule folk, and she's one on

'em."

"Well, but, Doctor, what would you advise me to do?"

"I'm comin' to that, lad. There's two courses before you, and you mun

choose one on 'em, and follow it out. You mun either just make up your

mind to submit to them at Milend"--

"And desert Edith?"

"Yes, to be sure, and wed Sally Smethurst beside, and be manager of

Ogden's mills, and collect his cottage-rents, and dun poor folk, and be

cowed for thirty years by your uncle, and have to render 'count to him

of every hour of every day--for he'll live thirty years, will your

uncle; or else you mun learn a profession, and be independent on him."

"Independence would be a fine thing certainly, but it is not every

profession that would suit the aristocratic prejudices of Lady Helena. I

think it very likely the Colonel would give his consent, for he has

always treated me very kindly, and he must have seen that I was thinking

of Edith, but with Lady Helena the case is different. She was never

encouraging. She might give way before a large fortune like my uncle's,

and the prospect of reinstating Edith at Wenderholme, but if I were a

poor man in a profession all her aristocratic prejudices would be active

against me. Besides, there are only two professions which the

aristocracy really recognizes, the army and the church. The army is not

a trade to live by, and the church"--

"Nay, never turn parson, lad, never be a parson!"

Young Jacob smiled at the Doctor's sudden earnestness, and soon

reassured him. "I have no vocation for the church," he said quietly but

decidedly, "and shall certainly never take orders." Then he went on,

half talking to himself and half addressing the Doctor. "There is no

other profession by which an income may be earned that Lady Helena would

be likely to tolerate. People like her look down upon attorneys

and--and"--

"And Doctors!" added Bardly, laughing, "except when they think there's

summat wrong i' their insides, and then they're as civil as civil."

"I cannot see my way at all, for if I please my uncle I am not to think

of Edith, and if I displease him I am to have no money, so that it will

be no use thinking about Edith."

"Are you sure of the young woman herself? D'ye think she would have you

if you had just a decent little income from a profession such as

doctorin'? It strikes me 'at if th' lass herself is o' your side, who'll

bring her feyther to her way o' thinkin', an' her feyther'll find ways

o' makin' his wife listen to him."

Young Jacob's eyes sparkled, and his heart beat. "I believe she would,

Doctor, I do really believe she would."

"Tell her then as you'll be Shayton doctor. It's worth £500 a-year to

me; and you might increase it, an active young fellow like you. Come and

learn doctorin' wi' me. I'll allow you £250 a-year to start wi', if you

get wed to Miss Stanburne; your father will do as much,--that'll be

£500; and you may live on that, if you live quietly. And then when

there's chilther, there'll be more brass."

Young Jacob's eyes moistened. "I'd take help from you, sir, sooner than

from anybody else, but I cannot accept half your income."

"Half my income, young man! Do you know who you are speaking to? You're

speaking to one of the Shayton capitalists, sir. I've never been much of

a spender, and have had neither wife nor child to spend for me. I can

live well enough on the interest of my railway shares, young gentleman,

and yet I've other investments. I can say like your Uncle Jacob that

nobody knows what I'm worth. How can they know, if I never told 'em?"

Here the Doctor gave a very knowing wink and a grin, and shook young

Jacob very heartily by the hand.

CHAPTER XI.

EDITH'S DECISION.

Such was young Jacob's piety, that rather than remain all the Sunday at

Twistle Farm with that heterodox father of his, he rode over to

Wenderholme in order to attend divine service there.

He got to church in very good time; and when he took his seat in Mrs.

Stanburne's pew, the ladies had not yet arrived. Indeed, even the

Prigleys had not taken their places, so that young Jacob had something

to interest him in watching the gradual arrival of the members of the

congregation.

The reader may remember that Mrs. Stanburne had a small pew of her own

appertaining to the Cottage, whereas there was a large pew appertaining

to the Hall. Mrs. Stanburne still remained faithful to her little pew,

and the great comfortable enclosure (a sort of drawing-room without

ceiling, and with walls only four feet high) had been empty since the

departure of the Colonel and Lady Helena.

The congregation gradually constituted itself; the Prigleys soon filled

the pew belonging to the vicarage; the principal farmers on the

Wenderholme estate penned themselves like sheep (Mr. Prigley's sheep) in

their narrow wooden partitions; and lastly came Mrs. Stanburne and

Edith. When people meet in a pew at church, their greetings are

considerably abridged; and if Edith's face was more than usually sad,

her lover might, if he liked, attribute the expression to religious

seriousness.

Young Jacob kneeled whilst Mr. Prigley read the general confession, and

when he got up again his eyes wandered over the pews before him, before

they settled again upon his prayer-book.

He gave a start of astonishment. In the great Wenderholme pew, quietly

in one corner of it, sat the present owner of the estate!

Young Jacob's heart beat. He knew that the plot was thickening, and that

a great struggle was at hand. But he was in a better position to meet

his uncle to-day than he had been yesterday. Yesterday he had been

undecided, and though inwardly rebellious, had had no plans; to-day he

was resolved, and _had_ plans. The conversation with the Doctor had been

succeeded by another conversation with his father, and the consequence

was that young Jacob was resolved that, rather than give up Edith, he

would go to the length of a rupture with the authorities at Milend.

Mr. Prigley preached one of his best sermons that day, but neither of

the two Jacob Ogdens paid very much attention to it, I am afraid. They

were polishing their weapons for the combat. Each was taking the gravest

resolutions, each was resolving upon the sacrifice of long-cherished

hopes; for, notwithstanding the hardness of the manufacturer's nature,

he had still rather tender feelings about "little Jacob," as he still

habitually called him, and it was painful to think that a youth in all

respects so perfectly the gentleman should not succeed to a splendid

position for which he had been expressly and elaborately prepared. On

the other hand, the manufacturer could not endure that anybody should

thwart his will and not be sufficiently punished for it; and if little

Jacob persisted in marrying in opposition to the authorities at Milend,

the only punishment adequate to an offence so heinous was the extreme

one of disinheritance.

Both the hostile parties were made aware that the service was at an end

by the general movement of the congregation. Jacob Ogden left his pew

before anybody else, and walked straight to that of Mrs. Stanburne. He

bowed slightly to the ladies, and beckoned to young Jacob, who came to

the pew-door. Then he whispered in his ear,--

"Come and have your dinner with me at Wendrum 'All."

"I cannot, uncle. I've promised to lunch at the Cottage."

"You'd better have your dinner with me. If you stop at the Cottage,

it'll be worse for you and it'll be worse for 'er."

"Do what you like, sir; my mind is made up."

"Very well; you'll rue it."

And the owner of Wenderholme walked alone across the park, and dined

alone in the great dining-room. During dinner (an extravagance very rare

at all times with him, and in solitude unprecedented), he ordered a

bottle of champagne.

Meanwhile young Jacob lunched with the two ladies at the Cottage. Mrs.

Stanburne saw that there was something wrong, some cause of trouble and

anxiety, so she did her best to remove the burden which seemed to

oppress the minds of the young people. Old Mrs. Stanburne had great

powers of conversation, and _made_ young Jacob talk. She made him talk

about Oxford, and then she made him talk about his present occupations,

and of the transition from one to the other. Finally she asked him how

he liked the life of a cotton-manufacturer.

"Not much, Mrs. Stanburne. But it signifies very little whether I liked

it or not, for I have left it."

"Left it! Well, but is not that very imprudent? When gentlemen have a

great deal of property in factories, they ought to know all about it,

and I have always heard that the only way to do that is to pass a year

or two in the trade."

"Very true. But then I shall never have any property in factories, so

there is no occasion for me to learn the trade."

Mrs. Stanburne was much astonished, but her good-breeding struggled

against curiosity. Edith did not seem to be paying any attention to what

was going forward; she looked out of the window, and it was evident that

she was mentally absent.

"Edith," Mrs. Stanburne said at last, "do you hear what Jacob says? He

says he has left business. I think it is very imprudent; and when I say

so, he tells me that he will never have any factories."

Edith lent the most languid attention to her grandmother's piece of

information. Her whole conduct was just the reverse of her usual way of

behaving. Formerly she had taken the liveliest interest in every thing

that concerned her lover, so, to _make_ her listen, he blurted out the

truth suddenly in one sentence.

"My uncle has disinherited me. I am going to be a doctor. I am going to

learn the profession with Mr. Bardly in Shayton."

Mrs. Stanburne was more surprised by this news than Edith was. "But

_why_?" she asked, emphatically; "_why_ has he disinherited you? I

thought you were on the best possible terms. He spoke to you to-day as

he was going out of church."

Young Jacob was silent for a minute. Mrs. Stanburne came back to the

charge. "But _why_, I say--_why_?"

"My uncle wants me to marry a girl of his own choosing, called Sally

Smethurst."