Produced by Daniel Fromont
Susan Warner, 1819-1885 & Anna Warner 1824-1915, Wych Hazel
(1876), Putnam's edition 1888
_Wych Hazel_ seen by _The Atlantic monthly_, Volume 38, Issue 227,
September 1876, pp. 368-369
"It may well be questioned whether the authors of the _Wide,
Wide World_ have added to their fame by this new novel. In the
first place, the story it tells is one of no marked merit or
originality, and the way in which it is told is in the highest
degree crabbed and unintelligible. There is such an air of
pertness about every one of the speakers, and the story is
told almost entirely by means of conversations, that the
reader gets the impression that all the characters are
referring to jests known only to themselves, as if he were
overhearing private conversations. As may be imagined, this
scrappy way of writing soon becomes very tiresome from the
difficulty the reader has in detecting the hidden meaning of
these curt sentences. The book tells the love of Rollo for
Wych Hazel, and indulges in gentle satire against parties,
round dances, etc. The love-story is made obscure, Rollo's
manners are called Spanish, and he is in many ways a peculiar
young man. We seem to be dealing much more with notes for a
novel than with the completed product."
WORKS BY
SUSAN AND ANNA WARNER.
WYCH HAZEL. Large 12mo, cloth extra $1 75
"If more books of this order were produced, it would elevate
the tastes and increase the desire for obtaining a higher
order of literature." --_The Critic_.
"We can promise every lover of fine fiction a wholesome feast
in the book." --_Boston Traveller_.
THE GOLD OF CHICKAREE. Large 12mo, cloth extra $1 75
"It would be impossible for these two sisters to write
anything the public would not care to read." --_Boston
Transcript_.
"The plot is fresh, and the dialogue delightfully vivacious."
--_Detroit Free Press_.
DIANA. 12mo, cloth $1 75
"For charming landscape pictures, and the varied influences of
nature, for analysis of character, and motives of action, we
have of late seen nothing like it." --_The Christian Register_.
" 'Diana' will be eagerly read by the author's large circle of
admirers, who will rise from its perusal with the feeling that
it is in every prospect worthy of her reputation." --_Boston
Traveller_.
WYCH HAZEL
BY
SUSAN AND ANNA WARNER
AUTHORS OF "WIDE, WIDE WORLD," "DIANA," "THE GOLD OF
CHICKAREE," ETC.
NEW YORK & LONDON
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press
1888
COPYRIGHT BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1876
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. MR. FALKIRK
CHAPTER II. BEGINNING A FAIRY TALE
CHAPTER III. CORNER OF A STAGE-COACH
CHAPTER IV. FELLOW-TRAVELLERS
CHAPTER V. IN THE FOG
CHAPTER VI. THE RED SQUIRREL
CHAPTER VII. SMOKE
CHAPTER VIII. THE MILL FLOOR
CHAPTER IX. CATS
CHAPTER X. CHICKAREE
CHAPTER XI. VIXEN
CHAPTER XII. AT DR. MARYLAND'S
CHAPTER XIII. THE GREY COB
CHAPTER XIV. HOLDING COURT
CHAPTER XV. TO MOSCHELOO
CHAPTER XVI. FISHING
CHAPTER XVII. ENCHANTED GROUND
CHAPTER XVIII. COURT IN THE WOODS
CHAPTER XIX. SELF-CONTROL
CHAPTER XX. BOUQUETS
CHAPTER XXI. MOONSHINE
CHAPTER XXII. A REPORT
CHAPTER XXIII. KITTY FISHER
CHAPTER XXIV. THE LOSS OF ALL THINGS
CHAPTER XXV. IN THE GERMAN
CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE ROCKAWAY
CHAPTER XXVII. THE GERMAN AT OAK HILL
CHAPTER XXVIII. BREAKFAST FOR THREE
CHAPTER XXIX. JEANNIE DEANS
CHAPTER XXX. THE WILL
CHAPTER XXXI. WHOSE WILL?
CHAPTER XXXII. CAPTAIN LANCASTER'S TEAM
CHAPTER XXXIII. HITS AT CROQUET
CHAPTER XXXIV. FRIENDLY TONGUES
CHAPTER XXXV. FIGURES AND FAVOURS
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE RUNAWAY
CHAPTER XXXVII. IN A FOG
CHAPTER XXXVIII. DODGING
CHAPTER XXXIX. A COTTON MILL
CHAPTER XL. SOMETHING NEW
CHAPTER XLI. A LESSON
CHAPTER XLII. STUDY
CHAPTER I.
MR. FALKIRK.
"We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing."
When one has in charge a treasure which one values greatly,
and which, if once made known one is pretty sure to lose, I
suppose the impulse of most men would be towards a hiding-
place. So, at any rate, felt one of the men in this history.
Schools had done their secluding work for a time; tutors and
governors had come and gone under an almost Carthusian vow of
silence, except as to their lessons; and now with seventeen
years of inexperience on his hands, Mr. Falkirk's sensations
were those of the man out West, who wanted to move off
whenever another man came within twenty miles of him.
Thus, in the forlorn hope of a retreat which yet he knew must
prove useless, Mr. Falkirk let the first March winds blow him
out of town; and at this present time was snugly hid away in a
remote village which nobody ever heard of, and where nobody
ever came.
So far so good: Mr. Falkirk rested and took breath.
Nevertheless the spring came, even there; and following close
in her train, the irrepressible conflict. Whoever succeeded in
running away from his duties--or his difficulties? There was a
flutter of young life within doors as without, and Mr. Falkirk
knew it: there were a hundred rills of music, a thousand
nameless flowers to which he could not close his senses. There
was a soft, indefinable stir and sweetness, that told of the
breaking of Winter bonds and the coming of Summer glories; and
he could not stay the progress of things in the one case more
than in the other.
Mr. Falkirk had always taken care of this girl--the few years
before his guardianship were too dim to look back to much.
From the day when she, a suddenly orphaned child, stood
frightened and alone among strangers, and he came in and took
her on his knee, and bade her "be a woman, and be brave." That
was his ideal of womanhood,--to that combination of strength
and weakness he had tried to bring Wych Hazel.
Yet though she had grown up in Mr. Falkirk's company, she
never thoroughly understood him: nature and circumstances had
made him a reserved man,--and her eyes were young. Of a piece
with his reserve was the peculiar fence of separation which he
built up between all his own concerns and those of his ward.
He was poor--she had a more than ample fortune; yet no
persuading would make him live with her. Had he been rich,
perhaps she might have lived with him; but as it was, unless
when lodgings were the rule, they lived in separate houses;
only his was always close at hand. Even when his ward was a
little child, living at Chickaree with her nurses and
housekeeper, Mr. Falkirk never spent a night in the house. He
formally bought and paid for a tiny cottage on the premises,
and there he lived: nothing done without his knowledge,
nothing undone without his notice. Not a creature came or went
unperceived by Mr. Falkirk. And yet this supervision was
generally pleasant. As he wrought, nothing had the air of
espionage--merely of care; and so I think, Wych Hazel liked it,
and felt all the more free for all sorts of undertakings,
secured against consequences. Sometimes, indeed, his quick
insight was so astonishing to the young mischief-maker, that
she was ready to cry out treachery!--and the suspected person
in this case was always Gotham. Yet when she charged upon
Gotham some untimely frost which had nipped her budding plans,
Gotham always replied--
'No, Miss 'Azel. I trust my 'onor is sufficient in his
respect.'
She and Gotham had a singular sort of league,--defensive of Mr.
Falkirk, offensive towards each other. She teased him, and
Gotham bore it mastiff-wise; shaking his head, and wincing,
and when he could bear it no longer going off. Wych Hazel?--
yes, she was that.
And how did she win her name? Well, in the first place, "the
nut-browne mayd" and she were near of kin. But whether her
parents, as they looked into the baby's clear dark eyes, saw
there anything weird or elfish,--or whether the name 'grew,'--of
that there remains no record. She had been a pretty quiet
witch hitherto; but now--
"Once git a scent o' musk into a drawer,
And it clings hold, like precerdents in law!"
--not Mr. Falkirk could get it out.