Evidently that gate is never opened; for the long grass and the great
hemlocks grow close against it; and if it were opened, it is so rusty
that the force necessary to turn to on its hinges would be likely to
pull down the square stone-built pillars, to the detriment of the two
stone lionesses which grin with a doubtful carnivorous affability
above a coat of arms surmounting each of the pillars. It would be easy
enough, by the aid of the nicks in the stone pillars, to climb over
the brick wall with its smooth stone coping; but by putting our eyes
close to the rusty bars of the gate, we can see the house well enough,
and all but the very corners of the grassy inclosure.
It is a very fine old place, of red brick, softened by a pale powdery
lichen, which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity, so as to
bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship with the
limestone ornaments surrounding the three gables, the windows, and the
door-place. But the windows are patched with wooden panes, and the
door, I think, is like the gate--it is never opened: how it would
groan and grate against the stone floor if it were! For it is a solid,
heavy, handsome door, and must once have been in the habit of shutting
with a sonorous bang behind a liveried lackey who had just seen his
master and mistress off the grounds in a carriage and pair.
But at present one might fancy the house in the early stage of a
chancery suit, and that the fruit from that grand double row of
walnut-trees on the right hand of the inclosure would fall and rot
among the grass; if it were not that we heard the booming bark of dogs
echoing from great buildings at the back. And now the half-weaned
calves that have been sheltering themselves in a gorse-built hovel
against the left-hand wall come out and set up a silly answer to that
terrible bark, doubtless supposing that it has reference to buckets of
milk.
Yes, the house must be inhabited, and we will see by whom; for
imagination is a licensed trespasser: it has no fear of dogs, but may
climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity. Put your face
to one of the glass panes in the right-hand window: what do you see? A
large open fireplace, with rusty dogs in it, and a bare boarded floor;
at the far end, fleeces of wool stacked up; in the middle of the
floor, some empty corn-bags. That is the furniture of the dining-room.
And what through the left-hand window? Several clothes-horses, a
pillion, a spinning-wheel, and an old box wide open, and stuffed full
of colored rags. At the edge of this box there lies a great wooden
doll, which so far as mutilation is concerned bears a strong
resemblance to the finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total
loss of its nose. Near it there is a little chair, and the butt-end of
a boy's leather long-lashed whip.
The history of the house is plain now. It was once the residence of a
country squire, whose family, probably dwindling down to mere
spinsterhood, got merged in the more territorial name of Donnithorne.
It was once the Hall; it is now the Hall Farm. Like the life in some
coast town that was once a watering-place, and is now a port, where
the genteel streets are silent and grass-grown, and the docks and
warehouses busy and resonant, the life at the Hall has changed its
focus, and no longer radiates from the parlor, but from the kitchen
and the farm-yard.
Plenty of life there! though this is the drowsiest time of the year,
just before hay harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day too,
for it is close upon three by the sun, and it is half-past three by
Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock. But there is always a stronger
sense of life when the sun is brilliant after rain; and now he is
pouring down his beams, and making sparkles among the wet straw, and
lighting up every patch of vivid green moss on the red tiles of the
cow-shed, and turning even the muddy water that is hurrying along the
channel to the drain into a mirror for the yellow-billed ducks, who
are seizing the opportunity of getting a drink with as much body in
it as possible. There is quite a concert of noises: the great
bull-dog, chained against the stables, is thrown into furious
exasperation by the unwary approach of a cock too near the mouth of
his kennel, and sends forth a thundering bark, which is answered by
two fox-hounds shut up in the opposite cow-house; the old top-knotted
hens, scratching with their chicks among the straw, set up a
sympathetic croaking as the discomfited cock joins them; a sow with
her brood, all very muddy as to the legs, and curled as to the tail,
throws in some deep staccato notes; our friends the calves are
bleating from the home croft; and under all, a fine ear discerns the
continuous hum of human voices.
For the great barn doors are thrown wide open, and men are busy there
mending the harness under the superintendence of Mr. Goby the
"whittaw," otherwise saddler, who entertains them with the latest
Treddleston gossip. It is certainly rather an unfortunate day that
Alick the shepherd has chosen for having the whittaws, since the
morning turned out so wet; and Mrs. Poyser has spoken her mind pretty
strongly as to the dirt which the extra number of men's shoes brought
into the house at dinner-time. Indeed, she has not yet recovered her
equanimity on the subject, though it is now nearly three hours since
dinner and the house floor is perfectly clean again; as clean as
everything else in that wonderful house-place, where the only chance
of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the
salt-coffer, and put your finger on the high mantel shelf on which the
glittering brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for
at this time of year of course every one goes to bed while it is yet
light, or at least light enough to discern the outline of objects
after you have bruised your shins against them. Surely nowhere else
could an oak clock-case and an oak table have got to such a polish by
the hand: genuine "elbow polish," as Mrs. Poyser called it, for she
thanked God she never had any of your varnished rubbish in her house.
Hetty Sorrel often took the opportunity, when her aunt's back was
turned, of looking at the pleasing reflection of herself in those
polished surfaces, for the oak table was usually turned up like a
screen, and was more for ornament than for use; and she could see
herself sometimes in the great round pewter dishes that were ranged on
the shelves above the long deal dinner-table, or in the hobs of the
grate, which always shone like jasper.
Everything was looking at its brightest at this moment, for the sun
shone right on the pewter dishes, and from their reflecting surfaces
pleasant jets of light were thrown on mellow oak and bright
brass;--and on a still pleasanter object than these; for some of the
rays fell on Dinah's finely molded cheek, and lit up her pale-red hair
to auburn, as she bent over the heavy household linen which she was
mending for her aunt. No scene could have been more peaceful, if Mrs.
Poyser, who was ironing a few things that still remained from the
Monday's wash, had not been making a frequent clinking with her iron,
and moving to and fro whenever she wanted it to cool; carrying the
keen glance of her blue-gray eye from the kitchen to the dairy, where
Hetty was making up the butter, and from the dairy to the back
kitchen, where Nancy was taking the pies out of the oven. Do not
suppose however that Mrs. Poyser was elderly or shrewish in her
appearance; she was a good-looking woman, not more than
eight-and-thirty, of fair complexion and sandy hair, well-shapen,
light-footed; the most conspicuous article in her attire was an ample
checkered linen apron, which almost covered her skirt; and nothing
could be plainer or less noticeable than her cap and gown, for there
was no weakness of which she was less tolerant than feminine vanity,
and the preference of ornament to utility. The family likeness between
her and her niece Dinah Morris, with the contrast between her keenness
and Dinah's seraphic gentleness of expression, might have served a
painter as an excellent suggestion for a Martha and Mary. Their eyes
were just of the same color, but a striking test of the difference in
their operation was seen in the demeanor of Trip, the black-and-tan
terrier, whenever that much-suspected dog unwarily exposed himself to
the freezing arctic ray of Mrs. Poyser's glance. Her tongue was not
less keen than her eye, and whenever a damsel came within earshot,
seemed to take up an unfinished lecture, as a barrel organ takes up a
tune, precisely at the point where it had left off.
The fact that it was churning day was another reason why it was
inconvenient to have the whittaws, and why, consequently, Mrs. Poyser
should scold Molly the housemaid with unusual severity. To all
appearance Molly had got through her after-dinner work in an exemplary
manner, had "cleaned herself" with great dispatch, and now came to ask
submissively if she should sit down to her spinning till milking-time.
But this blameless conduct, according to Mrs. Poyser, shrouded a
secret indulgence of unbecoming wishes, which she now dragged forth
and held up to Molly's view with cutting eloquence.
"Spinning, indeed! It isn't spinning as you'd be at, I'll be bound,
and let you have your own way. I never knew your equals for
gallowsness. To think of a gell o' your age wanting to go and sit with
half-a-dozen men! I'd ha' been ashamed to let the words pass over my
lips if I'd been you. And you, as have been here ever since last
Michaelmas, and I hired you at Treddles'on stattits, without a bit o'
character--as I say, you might be grateful to be hired in that way to
a respectable place; and you knew no more o' what belongs to work when
you come here than the mawkin i' the field. As poor a two-fisted thing
as ever I saw, you know you was. Who taught you to scrub a floor, I
should like to know? Why, you'd leave the dirt in heaps i' the
corners--anybody 'ud think you'd never been brought up among
Christians. And as for spinning, why you've wasted as much as your
wage i' the flax you've spoiled learning to spin. And you've a right
to feel that, and not to go about as gaping and as thoughtless as if
you was beholding to nobody. Comb the wool for the whittaws, indeed!
That's what you'd like to be doing, is it? That's the way with
you--that's the road you'd all like to go, headlongs to ruin. You're
never easy till you've got some sweetheart as is as big a fool as
yourself: you think you'll be finely off when you're married, I dare
say, and have got a three-legged stool to sit on, and never a blanket
to cover you, and a bit o' oat-cake for your dinner, as three children
are a-snatching at."
"I'm sure I donna want t' go wi' the whittaws," said Molly,
whimpering, and quite overcome by this Dantean picture of her future;
"on'y we allays used to comb the wool for 'n at Mester Ottley's, an'
so I just asked ye. I donna want to set eyes on the whittaws again; I
wish I may never stir if I do."
"Mr. Ottley's, indeed! It's fine talking o' what you did at Mr.
Ottley's. Your missis there might like her floors dirted wi' whittaws
for what I know. There's no knowing what people _wonna_ like--such
ways as I've heard of! I never had a gell come into my house as seemed
to know what cleaning was; I think people live like pigs, for my part.
And as to that Betty as was dairymaid at Trent's before she come to
me, she'd ha' left the cheeses without turning from week's end to
week's end; and the dairy thralls, I might ha' wrote my name on 'em,
when I come down-stairs after my illness, as the doctor said it was
inflammation--it was a mercy I got well of it. And to think o' your
knowing no better, Molly, and been here a-going i' nine months, and
not for want o' talking to, neither;--and what are you stanning there
for, like a jack as is run down, instead o' getting your wheel out?
You're a rare un for sitting down to your work a little while after
it's time to put by."
"Munny, my iron's twite told; pease put it down to warm."
The small chirruping voice that uttered this request came from a
little sunny-haired girl between three and four, who, seated on a high
chair at the end of the ironing-table, was arduously clutching the
handle of a miniature iron with her tiny fat fist, and ironing rags
with an assiduity that required her to put her little red tongue out
as far as anatomy would allow.
"Cold, is it, my darling? Bless your sweet face!" said Mrs. Poyser,
who was remarkable for the facility with which she could relapse from
her official objurgatory to one of fondness or of friendly converse.
"Never mind! Mother's done her ironing now. She's going to put the
ironing things away."
"Munny, I tould 'ike to do into de barn to Tommy, to see de whittawd."
"No, no, no; Totty 'ud get her feet wet," said Mrs. Poyser, carrying
away her iron. "Run into the dairy and see Cousin Hetty make the
butter."
"I tould 'ike a bit of pum-take," rejoined Totty, who seemed to be
provided with several relays of requests; at the same time taking the
opportunity of her momentary leisure to put her fingers into a bowl of
starch and drag it down so as to empty the contents with tolerable
completeness on to the ironing-sheet.
"Did ever anybody see the like?" screamed Mrs. Poyser, running towards
the table when her eye had fallen on the blue stream. "The child's
allays i' mischief if your back's turned a minute. What shall I do to
you, you naughty, naughty gell?"
Totty, however, had descended from her chair with great swiftness, and
was already in retreat towards the dairy with a sort of waddling run,
and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck which made her look like
the metamorphosis of a white sucking pig.
The starch having been wiped up by Molly's help, and the ironing
apparatus put by, Mrs. Poyser took up her knitting, which always lay
ready at hand and was the work she liked best, because she could carry
it on automatically as she walked to and fro. But now she came and sat
down opposite Dinah, whom she looked at in a meditative way, as she
knitted her gray worsted stocking.
"You look th' image o' your Aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing.
I could almost fancy it was thirty years back, and I was a little gell
at home, looking at Judith as she sat at her work after she'd done the
house up; only it was a little cottage, father's was, and not a big
rambling house as gets dirty i' one corner as fast as you clean it in
another; but for all that I could fancy you was your Aunt Judith, only
her hair was a deal darker than yours, and she was stouter and broader
i' the shoulders. Judith and me allays hung together, though she had
such queer ways, but your mother and her never could agree. Ah! your
mother little thought as she'd have a daughter just cut out after the
very pattern o' Judith, and leave her an orphan too, for Judith to
take care on, and bring up with a spoon when _she_ was in the
grave-yard at Stoniton. I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear a
pound weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And she
was just the same from the first o' my remembering her; it made no
difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists,
only she talked a bit different, and wore a different sort o' cap; but
she'd never in her life spent a penny on herself more than keeping
herself decent."
"She was a blessed woman," said Dinah: "God had given her a loving,
self-forgetting nature, and he perfected it by grace. And she was very
fond of you too, Aunt Rachel. I've often heard her talk of you in the
same sort of way. When she had that bad illness, and I was only eleven
years old, she used to say, 'You'll have a friend on earth in your
Aunt Rachel, if I'm taken from you; for she has a kind heart;' and I'm
sure I've found it so."
"I don't know how, child; anybody 'ud be cunning to do anything for
you, I think; you're like the birds o' th' air, and live nobody knows
how. I'd ha' been glad to behave to you like a mother's sister, if
you'd come and live i' this country, where there's some shelter and
victual for man and beast, and folks don't live on the naked hills,
like poultry a-scratching on a gravel bank. And then you might get
married to some decent man, and there'd be plenty ready to have you,
if you'd only leave off that preaching, as is ten times worse than
anything your Aunt Judith ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede,
as is a poor wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a
penny beforehand, I know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very
like a cow, for he's allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all
they're poor, and made 'em welcome to the house; and 'ud do for you,
I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do for Hetty, though she's his own
niece. And there's linen in the house as I could well spare you, for
I've got lots o' sheeting, and table-clothing, and toweling, as isn't
made up. There's a piece o' sheeting I could give you as that
squinting Kitty spun--she was a rare girl to spin, for all she
squinted and the children couldn't abide her; and you know the
spinning's going on constant, and there's new linen wove twice as fast
as the old wears out. But where's the use o' talking, if ye wonna be
persuaded, and settle down like any other woman in her senses, i'stead
o' wearing yourself out with walking and preaching, and giving away
every penny you get, so as you've nothing saved against sickness; and
all the things you've got i' the world, I verily believe, 'ud go into
a bundle no bigger nor a double cheese. And all because you've got
notions i' your head about religion more nor what's i' the Catechism
and the Prayer-book."
"But not more than what's in the Bible, Aunt," said Dinah.
"Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter," Mrs. Poyser rejoined rather
sharply; "else why shouldn't them as know best what's in the
Bible--the parsons and people as have got nothing to do but learn
it--do the same as you do? But for the matter o' that, if everybody
was to do like you, the world must come to a standstill; for if
everybody tried to do without house and home, and with poor eating and
drinking, and was allays talking as we must despise the things o' the
world, as you say, I should like to know where the pick o' the stock,
and the corn, and the best new-milk cheeses 'ud have to go. Everybody
'ud be wanting bread made o' tail ends, and everybody 'ud be running
after everybody else to preach to 'em, istead o' bringing up their
families, and laying by against a bad harvest. It stands to sense as
that can't be the right religion."
"Nay, dear Aunt, you never heard me say that all people are called to
forsake their work and their families. It's quite right the land
should be plowed and sowed, and the precious corn stored, and the
things of this life cared for, and right that people should rejoice
in their families, and provide for them; so that this is done in the
fear of the Lord, and that they are not unmindful of the soul's wants
while they are caring for the body. We can all be servants of God
wherever our lot is cast, but he gives us different sorts of work,
according as he fits us for it and calls us to it. I can no more help
spending my life in trying to do what I can for the souls of others,
than you could help running if you heard little Totty crying at the
other end of the house; the voice would go to your heart, you would
think the dear child was in trouble or in danger, and you couldn't
rest without running to help her and comfort her."
"Ah," said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door, "I know
it 'ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for hours. You'd make
me the same answer, at th' end. I might as well talk to the running
brook, and tell it to stan' still."
The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now for Mrs.
Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was going on in
the yard, the gray worsted stocking making a steady progress in her
hands all the while. But she had not been standing there more than
five minutes before she came in again, and said to Dinah in rather a
flurried, awe-stricken tone:--
"If there isn't Captain Donnithorne and Mr. Irwine a-coming into the
yard! I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your preaching on
the Green, Dinah; it's you must answer 'em, for I'm dumb. I've said
enough a'ready about your bringing such disgrace upo' your uncle's
family. I wouldn't ha' minded if you'd been Mr. Poyser's own
niece--folks must put up wi' their own kin, as they put up wi' their
own noses; it's their own flesh and blood. But to think of a niece o'
mine being cause o' my husband's being turned out of his farm, and me
brought him no fortin but my savins--"
"Nay, dear Aunt Rachel," said Dinah gently, "you've no cause for such
fears. I've strong assurance that no evil will happen to you and my
uncle and the children from anything I've done. I didn't preach
without direction."
"Direction! I know very well what you mean by direction," said Mrs.
Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner. "When there's a
bigger maggot than usial in your head you call it 'direction'; and
then nothing can stir you--you look like the statty o' the outside o'
Treddles'on church, a-starin' and a-smilin' whether it's fair weather
or foul. I hanna common patience with you."
By this time the two gentlemen had reached the palings and had got
down from their horses: it was plain they meant to come in. Mrs.
Poyser advanced to the door to meet them, curtseying low, and
trembling between anger with Dinah and anxiety to conduct herself with
perfect propriety on the occasion. For in those days the keenest of
bucolic minds felt a whispering awe at the sight of the gentry, such
as of old men felt when they stood on tiptoe to watch the gods passing
by in tall human shape.
"Well, Mrs. Poyser, how are you after this stormy morning?" said Mr.
Irwine with his stately cordiality. "Our feet are quite dry; we shall
not soil your beautiful floor."
"Oh, sir, don't mention it," said Mrs. Poyser. "Will you and the
captain please to walk into the parlor?"
"No, indeed, thank you, Mrs. Poyser," said the captain, looking
eagerly round the kitchen, as if his eye were seeking something it
could not find. "I delight in your kitchen. I think it is the most
charming room I know. I should like every farmer's wife to come and
look at it for a pattern."
"Oh, you're pleased to say so, sir. Pray take a seat," said Mrs.
Poyser, relieved a little by this compliment and the captain's evident
good-humor, but still glancing anxiously at Mr. Irwine, who she saw
was looking at Dinah and advancing towards her.
"Poyser is not at home, is he?" said Captain Donnithorne, seating
himself where he could see along the short passage to the open dairy
door.
"No, sir, he isn't; he's gone to Rosseter to see Mr. West, the factor,
about the wool. But there's father i' the barn, sir, if he'd be of any
use."
"No, thank you; I'll just look at the whelps and leave a message about
them with your shepherd. I must come another day and see your husband;
I want to have a consultation with him about horses. Do you know when
he's likely to be at liberty?"
"Why, sir, you can hardly miss him, except it's o' Treddles'on
market-day--that's of a Friday, you know. For if he's anywhere on the
farm we can send for him in a minute. If we'd got rid of the
Scantlands we should have no outlying fields; and I should be glad of
it, for if ever anything happens he's sure to be gone to the
Scantlands. Things allays happen so contrairy, if they've a chance;
and it's an unnat'ral thing to have one bit o' your farm in one county
and all the rest in another."
"Ah, the Scantlands would go much better with Choyce's farm,
especially as he wants dairy land and you've got plenty. I think yours
is the prettiest farm on the estate, though; and do you know, Mrs.
Poyser, if I were going to marry and settle, I should be tempted to
turn you out, and do up this fine old house, and turn farmer myself."
"Oh, sir," said Mrs. Poyser, rather alarmed, "you wouldn't like it at
all. As for farming, it's putting money into your pocket wi' your
right hand and fetching it out wi' your left. As fur as I can see,
it's raising victual for other folks, and just getting a mouthful for
yourself and your children as you go along. Not as you'd be like a
poor man as wants to get his bread: you could afford to lose as much
money as you liked i' farming; but it's poor fun losing money, I
should think, though I understan' it's what the great folks i' London
play at more than anything. For my husband heard at market as Lord
Dacey's eldest son had lost thousands upo' thousands to the Prince o'
Wales, and they say my lady was going to pawn her jewels to pay for
him. But you know more about that than I do, sir. But as for farming,
sir, I canna think as you'd like it; and this house--the draughts in
it are enough to cut you through, and it's my opinion the floors
up-stairs are very rotten, and the rats i' the cellar are beyond
anything."
"Why, that's a terrible picture, Mrs. Poyser. I think I should be
doing you a service to turn you out of such a place. But there's no
chance of that. I'm not likely to settle for the next twenty years,
till I'm a stout gentleman of forty; and my grandfather would never
consent to part with such good tenants as you."
"Well, sir, if he thinks so well o' Mr. Poyser for a tenant, I wish
you could put in a word for him to allow us some new gates for the
Five Closes, for my husband's been asking and asking till he's tired;
and to think o' what he's done for the farm; and's never had a penny
allowed him, be the times bad or good. And as I've said to my husband
often and often, I'm sure if the captain had anything to do with it,
it wouldn't be so. Not as I wish to speak disrespectful o' them as
have got the power i' their hands, but it's more than flesh and blood
'ull bear sometimes, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down
late, and hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as the
cheese may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the wheat may
grow green again i' the sheaf--and after all, at th' end o' the year,
it's like as if you'd been cooking a feast and had got the smell of it
for your pains."
Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed along
without any check from her preliminary awe of the gentry. The
confidence she felt in her own powers of exposition was a motive force
that overcame all resistance.
"I'm afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were to speak
about the gates, Mrs. Poyser," said the captain; "though I assure you
there's no man on the estate I would sooner say a word for than your
husband. I know his farm is in better order than any other within ten
miles of us; and as for the kitchen," he added, smiling, "I don't
believe there's one in the kingdom to beat it. By-the-by, I've never
seen your dairy: I must see your dairy, Mrs. Poyser."
"Indeed, sir, it's not fit for you to go in, for Hetty's in the middle
o' making the butter, for the churning was thrown late, and I'm quite
ashamed." This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and believing that the
captain was really interested in her milkpans, and would adjust his
opinion of her to the appearance of her dairy.
"Oh, I've no doubt it's in capital order. Take me in," said the
captain, leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.