JULIUS SANDAL.
"Variety's the very spice of life
That gives it all its flavor."
"Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall."
Life has a chronology quite independent of the almanac. The heart
divides it into periods. When the sheep-shearing had been forgotten by
all others, the squire often looked back to it with longing. It was a
boundary which he could never repass, and which shut him out forever
from the happy days of his daughters' girlhood,--the days when they had
no will but his will, and no pleasures but in his smile and
companionship. His son Harry had never been to him what Sophia and
Charlotte were. Harry had spent his boyhood in public schools, and, when
his education was completed, had defied all the Sandal traditions, and
gone into the army. At this time he was with his regiment,--the old
Cameronian,--in Edinburgh. And in other points, besides his choice of
the military profession, Harry had asserted his will against his
father's will. But the squire's daughters gave him nothing but delight.
He was proud of their beauty, proud of Charlotte's love of out-door
pleasures, proud of Sophia's love of books; and he was immeasurably
happy in their affection and obedience.
If Sandal had been really a wise man he would have been content with his
good fortune; and like the happy Corinthian have only prayed, "O
goddess, let the days of my prosperity continue!" But he had the
self-sufficiency and impatience of a man who is without peer in his own
small arena. He believed himself to be as capable of ordering his
daughters' lives as of directing his sheep "walks," or the change of
crops in his valley and upland meadows.
Suddenly it had been revealed to him, that Stephen Latrigg had found his
way into a life he thought wholly his own. Until that moment of
revelation he had liked Stephen; but he liked him no longer. He felt
that Stephen had stolen the privilege he should have asked for, and he
deeply resented the position the young man had taken. On the contrary,
Stephen had been guilty of no intentional wrong. He had simply grown
into an affection too sweet to be spoken of, too uncertain and immature
to be subjected to the prudential rules of daily life; yet, had the
question been plainly put to him, he would have gone at once to the
squire, and said, "I love Charlotte, and I ask for your sanction to my
love." He would have felt such an acknowledgment to be the father's most
sacred and evident right, and he was thinking of making it at the very
hour in which Sandal was feeling bitterly toward him for its omission.
And thus the old, old tragedy of mutual misunderstanding works to
sorrowful ends.
The night of the sheep-shearing the squire could not sleep. To lay awake
and peer into the future through the dark hours was a new experience,
and it made him full of restless anxieties. Of course he expected Sophia
and Charlotte to marry, but not just yet. He had so far persistently
postponed the consideration of this subject, and he was angry at Stephen
Latrigg for showing him that further delay might be dangerous to his own
plans.
"A presumptuous young coxcomb," he muttered. "Does he think that being
'top-shearer' gives him a right to make love to Charlotte Sandal?"
In the morning he wrote the following letter:--
NEPHEW JULIUS SANDAL,--I hear you are at Oxford, and I
should think you would wish to make the acquaintance of your
nearest relatives. They will be glad to see you at Seat-Sandal
during the vacation, if your liking leads you that way. To hear
soon from you is the hope of your affectionate uncle,
WILLIAM SANDAL, _of Sandal-Side_.
He finished the autograph with a broad flourish, and handed the paper to
his wife. "What do you think of that, Alice? Eh? What?"
There was a short silence, then Mrs. Sandal laid the note upon the
table. "I don't think over much of it, William. Good-fortune won't bear
hurrying. Can't you wait till events ripen naturally?"
"And have all my plans put out of the way?"
"Are you sure that your plans are the best plans?"
"They will be a bit better than any Charlotte and Stephen Latrigg have
made."
"I don't believe they have such a thing as a plan between them. But if
you think so, send Charlotte to her aunt Lockerby for a few months. Love
is just like fire: it goes out if it hasn't fuel."
"Nay, I want Charlotte here. After our Harry, Julius is the next heir,
and I'm set on him marrying one of the girls. If he doesn't like Sophia
he may like Charlotte. I have two chances then, and I'm not going to
throw one away for Steve Latrigg's liking or loving. Don't you see,
Alice? Eh? What?"
"No: I never was one to see beyond the horizon. But if you must have
to-morrow in to-day, why then send off your letter. I would let 'well'
alone. When change comes to the door, it is time enough to ask it over
the threshold. We are very happy now, William, and every happy day is so
much certain gain in life."
"That is a woman's way of talking. A man looks for the future."
"And how seldom does he get what he looks for. But I know you, William
Sandal. You will take your own way, be it good or bad; and what is more,
you will make others take it with you."
"I am inviting my own nephew, Alice. Eh? What?"
"You know nothing about it. There are kin that are not kindred. You are
inviting you know not who or what. But,"--and she pushed the letter
towards him, with a gesture which seemed to say, "I am not responsible
for the consequences."
The squire after a moment's thought accepted them. He went into the
yard, humming a strain of "The Bay of Biscay," and gave the letter to a
groom, with orders to take it at once to the post-office. Then he called
Charlotte from the rose-walk. "The horses are saddled," he said, "and I
want you to trot over to Dalton with me."
Mrs. Sandal had gone to her eldest daughter. She was in the habit of
seeking Sophia's advice; or, more strictly speaking, she liked to
discuss with her the things she had already determined to do. Sophia was
sitting in the coolest and prettiest of gowns, working out with
elaborate care a pencil drawing of Rydal Mount. She listened to her
mother with the utmost respect and attention, and her fine color
brightened slightly at the mention of Julius Sandal; but she never
neglected once to change an F or an H pencil for a B at the precise
stroke the change was necessary.
"And so you see, Sophia, we may have a strange young man in the house
for weeks, and where to put him I can't decide. And I wanted to begin
the preserving and the raspberry vinegar next week, but your father is
as thoughtless as ever was; and I am sure if Julius is like _his_ father
he'll be no blessing in a house, for I have heard your grandmother speak
in such a way of her son Tom."
"I thought uncle Tom was grandmother's favorite."
"I mean of his high temper and fine ways, and his quarrels with his
eldest brother Launcelot."
"Oh! What did they quarrel about?"
"A good many things; among the rest, about the Latriggs. There was more
than one pretty girl at Up-Hill then, and the young men all knew it. Tom
and his mother were always finger and thumb. He was her youngest boy,
and she fretted after him all her life."
"And uncle Launcelot, did she not fret for him?"
"Not so much. Launcelot was the eldest, and very set in his own way: she
couldn't order him around."
"The eldest? Then father would not have been squire of Sandal-Side if
Launcelot had lived?"
"No, indeed. Launcelot's death made a deal of difference to your father
and me. Father was very solemn and set about his brother's rights; and
even after grandfather died, he didn't like to be called 'squire' until
every hope was long gone. But I would as soon have thought of poor
Launcie coming back from the dead as of Tom's son visiting here; and it
is inconvenient right now, exceedingly so; harvesting coming on, and
preserving time, and none of the spare rooms opened since the spring
cleaning."
"It is trying for you, mother, but perhaps Julius may not be very much
trouble. He'll be with father all the time, and he'll make a change."
"Change! That is just what I dread. Young people are always for change.
They are certain that every change must be a gain. Old people know that
changes mean loss of some kind or other. After one is forty years old,
Sophia, the seasons bring change enough."
"I dare say they do, mother. I don't care much for change, even at my
age. Have you told Charlotte?"
"No, I haven't told her yet. I think she is off to Dalton. Father said
he was going this morning, and he never would go without her."
Indeed, the squire and his younger daughter were at that moment
cantering down the valley, mid the fresh green of the fields, and the
yellow of the ripening wheat, and the hazy purple of mountains holding
the whole landscape in their solemn shelter except in front, where the
road stretched to the sea, amid low hills overgrown with parsley-fern
and stag's-horn-moss. They had not gone very far before they met Stephen
Latrigg. He was well mounted and handsomely dressed; and, as he bowed to
the squire and Charlotte, his happy face expressed a delight which
Sandal in his present mood felt to be offensive. Evidently Steve
intended to accompany them as far as their roads were identical; but the
squire pointedly drew rein, and by the cool civility of his manner made
the young man so sensible of his intrusion, that he had no alternative
but to take the hint. He looked at Charlotte with eyes full of tender
reproach, and she was too unprepared for such a speedy termination to
their meeting to oppose it. So Stephen was galloping at headlong speed
in advance, before she realized that he had been virtually refused their
company.
"Father, why did you do that?"
"Do what, Charlotte? Eh? What?"
"Send Steve away. I am sure I do not know what to make of you doing such
a thing. Poor Steve!"
"Well, then, I had my reason for it. Did you see the way he looked at
you? Eh? What?"
"Dear me! A cat may look at a king. Did you send Steve away for a look?
You have put me about, father."
"There's looks and other looks, my lass. Cats don't look at kings the
way Steve looked at you. Now, then, I want no love-making between you
and Steve Latrigg."
"What nonsense! Steve hasn't said a word of love-making, as you call
it."
"I thought you had all your woman-senses, Charlotte. Bethink you of the
garden walk last night."
"We were talking all the time of the sweetbrier and hollyhocks,--and
things like that."
"You might have talked of the days of the week or the
multiplication-table: one kind of words was just as good as another. Any
thing Steve said last night could have been spelled with four letters."
"Four letters?"
"To be sure. L-o-v-e."
"You used to like Stephen."
"I like all bright, honest, good lads; but when they want to make love
to Miss Charlotte Sandal, they think one thing, and I think another.
There has been ill-luck with love-making between the Sandals and the
Latriggs. My brothers Launcie and Tom quarrelled about one of Barf
Latrigg's daughters, and mother lost them both through her. There is no
love-line between the two houses, or if there is nothing can make it run
straight. Don't you try to, Charlotte; neither the dead nor the living
will like it or have it."
He intended then to tell her about Julius Sandal, but a look at her face
checked him. He had a wise perception about women; and he reflected
that he had very seldom repented of speaking too little to them, but
very often repented of speaking too much. So he dropped Stephen, and
dropped Julius; and began to talk about the fish in the becks and tarns,
and the new breed of sheep he was trying in the lower "walks." Ere long
they came into the rich valley of Furness; and he made her notice the
difference between it and the vale of Esk and Duddon, with its dreary
waste of sullen moss and unfruitful solitudes.
"Those old Cistercian monks that built Furness Abbey knew how to choose
a bit of good land, Charlotte. Eh? What?"
"I suppose so. What did they do with it?"
"Let it out."
"I wonder who would want to come here seven hundred years ago."
"You don't know what you are saying, Charlotte. There were great men
here then, and great deeds doing. King Stephen kept things very lively;
and the Scots were always running over the Border for cattle and sheep,
and any thing else they could lay their hands on. And the monks had
great flocks, so they rented their lands to companies of four fighting
men; and one of the four was to be ready day and night to protect the
sheep, and the Scots kept them busy. Eh? What?"
"The Musgraves and Armstrongs and Netherbys, I know," and the cloud
passed from her face; and to the clatter of her horse's hoofs, she
lilted merrily a stanza of an old border song:--
"The mountain sheep were sweeter,
But the valley sheep were fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a force, and quelled it;
We took a strong position,
And killed the men who held it."
And the squire, who knew the effort it cost her, fell readily into her
mood of forced gayety until the simulated feeling became a real one; and
they entered Dalton neck and neck together, after a mile's hard race.
In the mean time the letter which was to summon Fate sped to its
destination. When it arrived in Oxford, Julius had left Oxford for
London, and it followed him there. He was sitting in his hotel the
ensuing night, when it was delivered into his hands; and as it happened,
he was in a mood most favorable to its success. He had been down the
river on a picnic, had found his company very tedious; and early in the
day the climate had shown him what it was capable of, even at
mid-summer. As he sat cowering before the smoky fire, the rain plashed
in the muddy streets, and dripped mournfully down the dim window-panes.
He was wondering what he must do with himself during the long vacation.
He was tired of the Continent, he was lonely in England; and the United
States had not then become the great playground for earth's weary or
curious children.
Many times the idea of seeking out his own relations occurred to him. He
had promised his father to do so. But, as a rule, people haven't much
enthusiasm about unknown relations; and Julius regarded his promise more
in the light of a duty to be performed than as the realization of a
pleasure. Still, on that dreary night, in the solitary dulness of his
very respectable inn, the Sandals, Lockerbys, and Piersons became three
possible sources of interest. While his thoughts were drifting in this
direction, the squire's letter was received; and the young man, who was
something of a fatalist, accepted it as the solution of a difficulty.
"Sandal turns the new leaf for me," he murmured; "the new leaf in the
book of life. I wonder what story will be written in it."
He answered the invitation while the enthusiasm of its reception swayed
him, and he promised to follow the letter immediately. The squire
received this information on Saturday night, as he was sitting with his
wife and daughters. "Your nephew Julius Sandal, from Calcutta, is coming
to pay us a visit, Alice," he said; and his air was that of a man who
thinks he is communicating a piece of startling intelligence. But the
three women had already exchanged every possible idea on the subject,
and felt no great interest in its further discussion.
"When is he coming?" asked Mrs. Sandal without enthusiasm; and Sophia
supplemented the question by remarking, "I suppose he has nowhere else
to go."
"I wouldn't say such things, Sophia; I would not."
"He has been in England some months, father."
"Well, then, he was only waiting till he was asked to come. I'm sure
that was a proper thing. If there is any blame between us, it is my
fault. I sent him a word of welcome last Wednesday morning, and it is
very likely he will be here to-morrow. I'm sure he hasn't let any grass
grow under his feet. Eh? What?"
Charlotte looked up quickly. "_Wednesday morning_." She was quite
capable of putting this and that together, and by a momentary mental
process she arrived at an exceedingly correct estimate of her father's
invitation. Her blue eyes scintillated beneath her dropped lids; and,
though she went calmly on tying the feather to the fishing-fly she was
making, she said, in a hurried and unsteady voice, "I know he will be
disagreeable, and I have made up my mind to dislike him."
Julius Sandal arrived the next morning when the ladies were preparing
for church. He had passed the night at Ambleside, and driven over to
Sandal in the first cool hours of the day. The squire was walking about
the garden, and he saw the carriage enter the park gates. He said
nothing to any one, but laid down his pipe, and went to meet it. Then
Julius made the first step towards his uncle's affection,--he left the
vehicle when they met, and insisted upon walking by his side.
When they reached the house, his valet was attending to the removal of
his luggage, and they entered the great hall together. At that moment
Mistress Charlotte's remarkable likeness seemed to force itself upon the
squire's attention. He was unable to resist the impulse which made him
lead his nephew up to it. "Let me introduce you, first of all, to your
father's mother. I greet you in her name as well as in my own." As he
spoke, the squire lifted his hat, and Julius did the same. It was a
sudden, and to both men a quite unexpected, ceremonial; and it gave an
air, touching and unusual, to his welcome.
And if that man is an ingrate who does not love his native land, how
much more _immediate_, tender, and personal must the feeling be for the
_home_ of one's own race. That stately lady, who seemed to meet him at
the threshold, was only the last of a long, shadowy line, whose hands
were stretched out to him, even from the dark, forgotten days in which
Lögberg Sandal laid the foundations of it. Julius was sensitive, and
full of imagination: he felt his heart beat quick, and his eyes grow dim
to the thought; and he loitered up the wide, low steps, feeling very
like a man going up the phantom stairway of a dream.
The squire's cheery voice broke the spell. "We shall be ready for church
in a quarter of an hour, Julius; will you remain at home, or go with
us?"
"I should like to go with you."
"That's good. It is but a walk through the park: the church is almost at
its gates."
When he returned to the hall, the family were waiting for him; Mrs.
Sandal and her daughters standing together in a little group, the squire
walking leisurely about with his hands crossed behind his back. It would
have been to some men a rather trying ordeal to descend the long flight
of stairs, with three pairs of ladies' eyes watching him; but Julius
knew that he had a striking personal appearance, and that every
appointment of his toilet was faultless. He knew also the value of the
respectable middle-aged valet following him, and felt that his
irreproachable manner of serving his hat and gloves was a satisfactory
reflection of his own importance.
It is the women of a family that give the tone and place to it. One
glance at his aunt and cousins satisfied Julius. Mrs. Sandal was stately
and comely, and had the quiet manners of a high-bred woman. Sophia, in
white mull, with a large hat covered with white drooping feathers, and a
glimmer of gold at her throat and wrists, was at least picturesque. Of
Charlotte, he saw nothing in the first moments of their meeting but a
pair of bright blue eyes, and a face as sweet and fresh as if it had
been made out of a rose. He took his place between the girls, and the
squire and his wife walked behind them. Sophia, being the eldest, took
the initiative, talking softly and thoughtfully, as it was proper to do
upon a Sunday morning.
The sods under their feet were thick and green; the oaks and sycamores
above them had the broad shadows of many centuries. The air was balmy
with emanations from the woods and fields, and full of the expanding
melody of church-bells travelling from hill to hill. Julius was
conscious of every thing; even of the proud, shy girl who walked on his
left hand, and whose attitude impressed him as slightly antagonistic.
They soon reached the church, a very ancient one, built in the bloody
days of the Plantagenets by the two knights whose grim effigies kept
guard within the porch. It was dim and still when they entered: the
congregation all kneeling at the solemn confession; the clergyman's
voice, low and pathetic, intensifying silence to which it only added
mortal minors of lament and entreaty. He was a small, spare man, with a
face almost as white as the vesture of his holy office. Julius glanced
up at him, and for a few minutes forgot all his dreamy philosophies,
aggressive free thought, and shallow infidelities. He could not resist
the influences around him; and when the people rose, and the organ
filled the silence with melody, and a young sweet voice chanted
joyfully,--
_"O come let us sing unto the Lord: let us heartily rejoice
in the strength of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving:
and shew ourselves glad in him with Psalms,"--_
he turned round, and looked up to the singer, with a heart beating to
every triumphant note. Then he saw it was Charlotte Sandal; and he did
not wonder at the hearty way in which the squire joined in the melodious
invocation, nor at his happy face, nor at his shining eyes; and he said
to himself with a sigh, "That is a Psalm one could sing oftener than
once in seven days."
He had not noticed Charlotte much as they went to church: he amended his
error as he returned to the "seat." And he thought that the old sylvan
goddesses must have been as she was; must have had just the same fresh
faces, and bright brown hair; just the same tall, erect forms and light
steps; just the same garments of mingled wood-colors and pale green.
The squire had a very complacent feeling. He looked upon Julius as a
nephew of his own discovering, and he felt something of a personal pride
in all that was excellent in the young man. He watched impatiently for
his wife to express her satisfaction, but Mrs. Sandal was not yet sure
that she had any good reason to express it.
"Is he not handsome, Alice?"
"Some people would think so, William. I like a face I can read."
"I'm sure it is a long way better to keep yourself to yourself. Say what
you will, I am sure he will have plenty of good qualities. Eh? What?"
"For instance, a great deal of money."
"Treat him fair, Alice; treat him fair. You never were one to be unfair,
and I don't think you'll begin with my nephew."
"No, I'll never be unfair, not as long as I live; and I'll take up for
Julius Sandal as soon as I am half sure he deserves it."
"You can't think what a pleasure it would be to me if he fancied one of
our girls. I've planned it this many a long day, Alice."
"Well, then, William, if you have a wish as strong as that, it is
something more than a wish, it is a kind of right; and I'll never go
against you in any fair matter."
"And though you spoke scornful of money, it is a good thing; and the
girl Julius marries will be a rich woman. Eh? What?"
"Perhaps; but it is the happiness and not the riches of her child that
is a good mother's reward, and a good father's too. Eh, William?"
"Certainly, Alice, certainly." But his unspoken reflection was, "women
are that short sighted, they cannot put up with a small evil to prevent
a big one."
He had forgotten that "the wise One" and the "Counsellor" thought one
day's joys and sorrows "sufficient" for the heart to bear.