“I wonder whether there is a more forlorn family in England than we are
now,” said Woodruffe, as he sat among his children, a few hours after
the funeral.
His children were glad to hear him speak, however gloomy might be his
tone. His silence had been so terrible that nothing that he could say
could so weigh upon their hearts. His words, however, brought out his
widowed daughter’s tears again. She was sewing—her infant lying in her
lap. As her tears fell upon its face, it moved and cried. Becky came and
took it up, and spoke cheerfully to it. The cheerfulness seemed to be
the worst of all. Poor Abby laid her forehead to the back of her chair,
and sobbed as if her heart would break.
“Ay, Abby,” said her father, “your heart is breaking, and mine too. You
and I can go to our rest, like those that have gone before us: but I
have to think what will become of these young things.”
“Yes, father,” said Becky gently, but with a tone of remonstrance, “you
must endeavour to live, and not make up your mind to dying, because life
has grown heavy and sad.”
“My dear, I am ill—very ill. It is not merely that life is grown
intolerable to me. I am sure I could not live long in such misery of
mind: but I am breaking up fast.”
The young people looked at each other in dismay. There was something
worse than the grief conveyed by their father’s words in the hopeless
daring—the despair—of his tone when he ventured to say that life was
unendurable.
Becky had the child on one arm; with the other hand she took down her
father’s plaid from its peg, and put it round his rheumatic shoulders,
whispering in his ear a few words about desiring that God’s will should
be done.
“My dear,” he replied, “it was I who taught you that lesson when you
were a child on my knee, and it would be strange if I forgot it when I
want so much any comfort that I can get. But I don’t believe (and if you
ask the clergyman, he will tell you that he does not believe), that it
is God’s will that we, or any other people, should be thrust into a
swamp like this, scarcely fit for the rats and the frogs to live in. It
is man’s doing, not God’s, that the fever makes such havoc as it has
made with us. The fever does not lay waste healthy places.”
“Then why are we here?” Allan ventured to say. “Father, let us go.”
“Go! I wonder how or where! I can’t go, or let any of you go. I have not
a pound in the world to spend in moving, or in finding new employment.
And if I had, who would employ me? Who would not laugh at a crippled old
man asking for work and wages?”
“Then, father, we must see what we can do here, and you must not forbid
us to say ‘God’s will be done!’ If we cannot go away, it must be His
will that we should stay, and have as much hope and courage as we can.”
Woodruffe threw himself back in his chair. It was too much to expect
that he would immediately rally; but he let the young people confer, and
plan, and cheer each other.
The first thing to be done, they agreed, was to move hither, whenever
the dismal rain would permit it, all Abby’s furniture that could not be
disposed of to her husband’s successors. It would fit up the lower room.
And Allan and Becky settled how the things could stand so as to make it
at once a bedroom and sitting-room. If, as Abby had said, she meant to
try to get some scholars, and keep a little school, room must be left to
seat the children.
“Keep a school?” exclaimed Woodruffe, looking round at Abby.
“Yes, father,” said Abby, raising her head. “That seems to be a thing
that I can do: and it will be good for me to have something to do. Becky
is the stoutest of us all, and....”
“I wonder how long that will last,” groaned the father.
“I am quite stout now,” said Becky; “and I am the one to help Allan with
the garden. Allan and I will work under your direction, father, while
your rheumatism lasts; and....”
“And what am I to do?” asked Moss, pushing himself in.
“You shall fetch and carry the tools,” said Becky; “that is, when the
weather is fine, and when your chilblains are not very bad. And you
shall be bird-boy when the sowing season comes on.”
“And we are going to put up a pent-house for you, in one corner, you
know, Moss,” said his brother. “And we will make it so that there shall
be room for a fire in it, where father and you may warm yourselves, and
always have dry shoes ready.”
“I wonder what our shoe leather will have cost us by the time the spring
comes,” observed Woodruffe. “There is not a place where we ever have to
take the cart or the barrow that is not all mire and ruts: not a path in
the whole garden that I call a decent one. Our shoes are all pulled to
pieces; while the frost, or the fog, or something or other, prevents our
getting any real work done. The waste is dreadful. Nothing should have
made me take a garden where none but summer crops are to be had, if I
could have foreseen such a thing. I never saw such a thing
before,—never—as market-gardening without winter and spring crops. Never
heard of such a thing!”
Becky glanced towards Allan, to see if he had nothing to propose. If
they could neither mend the place nor leave it, it did seem a hard case.
Allan was looking into the fire, musing. When Moss announced that the
rain was over, Allan started, and said he must be fetching some of
Abby’s things down, if it was fair. Becky really meant to help him: but
she also wanted opportunity for consultation, as to whether it could
really be God’s will that they should neither be able to mend their
condition nor to escape from it. As they mounted the long flight of
steps, they saw Mr. Nelson issue from the Station, looking about him to
ascertain if the rain was over, and take his stand on the embankment,
followed by a gentleman who had a roll of paper in his hand. As they
stood, the one was seen to point with his stick, and the other with his
roll of paper, this way and that. Allan set off in that direction,
saying to his sister, as he went,
“Don’t you come. That gentleman is so rude, he will make you cry. Yes, I
must go; and I won’t get angry; I won’t indeed. He may find as much
fault as he pleases; I must show him how the water is standing in our
furrows.”
“Hallo! what do you want here?” was Mr. Nelson’s greeting, when, after a
minute or two, he saw Allan looking and listening. “What business have
you here, hearkening to what we are saying?”
“I wanted to know whether anything is going to be done below there. I
thought, if you wished it, I could tell you something about it.”
“You! what, a dainty little fellow like you?—a fellow that wears his
Sunday clothes on a Tuesday, and a rainy Tuesday too! You must get
working clothes and work.”
“I shall work to-morrow, Sir. My mother and my brother-in-law were
buried to-day.”
“Lord bless me! You should have told me that. How should I know that
unless you told me?” He proceeded in a much gentler tone, however,
merely remonstrating with Allan for letting the wet stand in the
furrows, in such a way as would spoil any garden. Allan had a good ally,
all the while, in the stranger, who seemed to understand everything
before it was explained. The gentleman was, in fact, an agricultural
surveyor—one who could tell, when looking abroad from a height, what was
swamp and what meadow; where there was a clean drain, and where an
uneven ditch; where the soil was likely to be watered, and where flooded
by the winter rains; where genially warmed, and where fatally baked by
the summer’s sun. He had seen, before Allan pointed it out, how the
great ditch cut across between the cultivated grounds and the little
river into which those grounds should be drained: but he could not know,
till told by Allan, who were the proprietors and occupiers of the
parcels of land lying on either side the ditch. Mr. Nelson knew little
or nothing under this head, though he contradicted the lad every minute;
was sure such an one did not live here, nor another there: told him he
was confusing Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown: did not believe a word of Mr.
Taylor having bought yonder meadow, or Mrs. Scott now renting that
field. All the while, the surveyor went on setting down the names as
Allan told them; and then observed that they were not so many but that
they might combine, if they would, to drain their properties, if they
could be relieved of the obstruction of the ditch—if the surveyor of
highways would see that the ditch were taken in hand. Mr. Nelson
pronounced that there should be no difficulty about the ditch, if the
rest could be managed: and then, after a few whispered words between the
gentlemen, Allan was asked first, whether he was sure that he knew where
every person lived whose name was down in the surveyor’s book; and next,
whether he would act as guide to-morrow. For a moment he thought he
should be wanted to move Abby’s things: but, remembering the vast
importance of the plan which seemed now to be fairly growing under his
eye, he replied that he would go: he should be happy to make it his
day’s work to help, ever so little, towards what he wished above
everything in the world.
“What makes you in such a hurry to suppose we want to get a day’s work
out of you for nothing?” asked Mr. Nelson. He thrust half-a-crown into
the lad’s waistcoat pocket, saying that he must give it back again, if
he led the gentleman wrong. The gentleman had no time to go running
about the country on a fool’s errand; Allan must mind that. As Allan
touched his hat, and ran down the steps, Mr. Nelson observed that boys
with good hearts did not fly about in that way, as if they were merry,
on the day of their mother’s funeral.
“Perhaps he is rather thinking of saving his father,” observed the
surveyor.
“Well; save as many of them as you can. They seem all going to pot as it
is.”
When Allan burst in, carrying nothing of Abby’s, but having a little
colour in his cheeks for once, his father sat up in his chair, the baby
suddenly stopped crying, and Moss asked where he had been. At first, his
father disappointed him by being listless—first refusing to believe
anything good, and then saying that any good that could happen now was
too late; and Abby could not help crying all the more because this was
not thought about a year sooner. It was her poor husband that had made
the stir; and now they were going to take his advice the very day that
he was laid in his grave. They all tried to comfort her, and said how
natural it was that she should feel it so; yet, amidst all their
sympathy, they could not help being cheered that something was to be
done at last.
By degrees, and not slow degrees, Woodruffe became animated. It was
surprising how many things he desired Allan to be sure not to forget to
point out to the surveyor, and to urge upon those he was to visit. At
last he said he would go himself. It was a very serious business, and he
ought to make an effort to have it done properly. It was a great effort,
but he would make it. Not rheumatism, nor anything else, should keep him
at home. Allan was glad at heart to see such signs of energy in his
father, though he might feel some natural disappointment at being left
at home, and some perplexity as to what, in that case, he ought to do
about the half-crown, if Mr. Nelson should be gone home. The morning
settled this, however. The surveyor was in his gig. If Allan could hang
on, or keep up with it, it would be very well, as he would be wanted to
open the gates, and to lead the way in places too wet for his father,
who was not worth such a pair of patent waterproof tall boots as the
surveyor had on.
The circuit was not a very wide one; yet it was dark before they got
home. There are always difficulties in arrangements which require
combined action. Here there were different levels in the land, and
different tempers and views among the occupiers. Mr. Brown had heard
nothing about the matter, and could not be hurried till he saw occasion.
Mr. Taylor liked his field best, wet—would not have it drier on any
account, for fear of the summer sun. When assured that drought took no
hold on well-dried land in comparison with wet land, he shook with
laughter, and asked if they expected him to believe that. Mrs. Scott,
whose combination with two others was essential to the drainage of three
portions, would wait another year. They must go on without her; and
after another year, she would see what she would do. Another had drained
his land in his own way long ago, and did not expect that anybody would
ask him to put his spade into another man’s land, or to let any other
man put his spade into his. These were all the obstructions. Everybody
else was willing, or at least, not obstructive. By clever management, it
was thought that the parties concerned could make an island of Mrs.
Scott and her field, and win over Mr. Brown by the time he was wanted,
and show Mr. Taylor that, as his field could no longer be as wet as it
had been, he might as well try the opposite condition—they promising to
flood his field as often and as thoroughly as he pleased, if he found it
the worse for being drained. They could not obtain all they wished,
where every body was not as wise as could be wished; but so much was
agreed upon as made the experienced surveyor think that the rest would
follow; enough, already, to set more labourers to work than the place
could furnish. Two or three stout men were sent from a distance; and
when they had once cut a clear descent from the ditch to the river, and
had sunk the ditch to seven feet deep, and made the bottom even, and
narrowed it to three feet, it was a curious thing to see how ready the
neighbours became to unite their drains with it. It used to be said,
that here—however it might be elsewhere—the winter was no time for
digging: but that must have meant that no winter-digging would bring a
spring crop; and that therefore it was useless. Now, the sound of the
spade never ceased for the rest of the winter; and the labourers thought
it the best winter they had ever known for constant work. Those who
employed the labour hoped it would answer—found it expensive—must trust
it was all right, and would yield a profit by and by. As for the
Woodruffes, they were too poor to employ labourers. But some little hope
had entered their hearts again, and brought strength, not only to their
hearts, but to their very limbs. They worked like people beginning the
world. As poor Abby could keep the house and sew, while attending to her
little school, Becky did the lighter parts (and some which were far from
light) of the garden work, finding easy tasks for Moss; and Allan worked
like a man at the drains. They had been called good drains before; but
now, there was an outfall for deeper ones; and deeper they must be made.
Moreover, a strong rivalry arose among the neighbours about their
respective portions of the combined drainage; and under the stimulus of
ambition, Woodruffe recovered his spirits and the use of his limbs
wonderfully. He suffered cruelly from his rheumatism; and in the
evenings felt as if he could never more lift a spade; yet, not the less
was he at work again in the morning, and so sanguine as to the
improvement of his ground, that it was necessary to remind him, when
calculating his gains, that it would take two years, at least, to prove
the effects of his present labours.