BOOK II

Book 2 Chapter 1

The building which was still called MARNEY ABBEY, though remote from the

site of the ancient monastery, was an extensive structure raised at

the latter end of the reign of James the First, and in the stately and

picturesque style of that age. Placed on a noble elevation in the centre

of an extensive and well wooded park, it presented a front with two

projecting wings of equal dimensions with the centre, so that the form

of the building was that of a quadrangle, less one of its sides. Its

ancient lattices had been removed, and the present windows though

convenient accorded little with the structure; the old entrance door in

the centre of the building however still remained, a wondrous specimen

of fantastic carving: Ionic columns of black oak, with a profusion of

fruits and flowers, and heads of stags and sylvans. The whole of the

building was crowned with a considerable pediment of what seemed at the

first glance fanciful open work, but which examined more nearly offered

in gigantic letters the motto of the house of Marney. The portal opened

to a hall, such as is now rarely found; with the dais, the screen, the

gallery, and the buttery-hatch all perfect, and all of carved black oak.

Modern luxury, and the refined taste of the lady of the late lord, had

made Marney Abbey as remarkable for its comfort and pleasantness of

accommodation as for its ancient state and splendour. The apartments

were in general furnished with all the cheerful ease and brilliancy of

the modern mansion of a noble, but the grand gallery of the seventeenth

century was still preserved, and was used on great occasions as the

chief reception-room. You ascended the principal staircase to reach

it through a long corridor. It occupied the whole length of one of the

wings; was one hundred feet long, and forty-five feet broad, its walls

hung with a collection of choice pictures rich in history; while the

Axminster carpets, the cabinets, carved tables, and variety of easy

chairs, ingeniously grouped, imparted even to this palatian chamber a

lively and habitable air.

Lord Marney was several years the senior of Charles Egremont, yet still

a young man. He was handsome; there was indeed a general resemblance

between the brothers, though the expression of their countenances was

entirely different; of the same height and air, and throughout the

features a certain family cast; but here the likeness ceased. The

countenance of Lord Marney bespoke the character of his mind; cynical,

devoid of sentiment, arrogant, literal, hard. He had no imagination, had

exhausted his slight native feeling, but he was acute, disputatious,

and firm even to obstinacy. Though his early education had been very

imperfect, he had subsequently read a good deal, especially in French

literature. He had formed his mind by Helvetius, whose system he deemed

irrefutable, and in whom alone he had faith. Armed with the principles

of his great master, he believed he could pass through existence in

adamantine armour, and always gave you in the business of life the idea

of a man who was conscious you were trying to take him in, and rather

respected you for it, but the working of whose cold, unkind, eye defied

you.

There never had been excessive cordiality between the brothers even in

their boyish days, and shortly after Egremont’s entrance into life, they

had become estranged. They were to meet now for the first time since

Egremont’s return from the continent. Their mother had arranged their

reconciliation. They were to meet as if no misunderstanding had ever

existed between them; it was specially stipulated by Lord Marney, that

there was to be no “scene.” Apprised of Egremont’s impending arrival,

Lord Marney was careful to be detained late that day at petty sessions,

and entered the room only a few minutes before dinner was announced,

where he found Egremont not only with the countess and a young lady who

was staying with her, but with additional bail against any ebullition

of sentiment in the shape of the Vicar of Marney, and a certain Captain

Grouse, who was a kind of aide-de-camp of the earl; killed birds and

carved them; played billiards with him, and lost; had indeed every

accomplishment that could please woman or ease man; could sing, dance,

draw, make artificial flies, break horses, exercise a supervision

over stewards and bailiffs, and make every body comfortable by taking

everything on his own shoulders.

Lady Marney had received Egremont in a manner which expressed the

extreme satisfaction she experienced at finding him once more beneath

his brother’s roof. When he arrived indeed, he would have preferred

to have been shown at once to his rooms, but a message immediately

delivered expressed the wish of his sister-in-law at once to see him.

She received him alone and with great warmth. She was beautiful, and

soft as May; a glowing yet delicate face; rich brown hair, and large

blue eyes; not yet a mother, but with something of the dignity of the

matron blending with the lingering timidity of the girl.

Egremont was glad to join his sister-in-law again in the drawing-room

before dinner. He seated himself by her side; and in answer to her

enquiries was giving her some narrative of his travels; the Vicar who

was very low church, was shaking his head at Lady Marney’s young friend,

who was enlarging on the excellence of Mr Paget’s tales; while Captain

Grouse, in a very stiff white neck-cloth, very tight pantaloons, to show

his very celebrated legs, transparent stockings and polished shoes,

was throwing himself into attitudes in the back ground, and with a zeal

amounting almost to enthusiasm, teaching Lady Marney’s spaniel to

beg; when the door opened, and Lord Marney entered, but as if to make

security doubly sure, not alone. He was accompanied by a neighbour and

brother magistrate, Sir Vavasour Firebrace, a baronet of the earliest

batch, and a gentleman of great family and great estate.

“Well Charles!”

“How are you George?”

And the brothers shook hands.

‘Tis the English way; and if they had been inclined to fall into each

other’s arms, they would not probably have done more.

In a few minutes it was announced that dinner was served, and so,

secured from a scene, having a fair appetite, and surrounded by dishes

that could agreeably satisfy it, a kind of vague fraternal sentiment

began to stir the breast of Lord Marney: he really was glad to see

his brother again; remembered the days when they rode their poneys and

played cricket; his voice softened, his eyes sparkled, and he at length

exclaimed, “Do you know, old fellow, it makes me quite happy to see you

here again. Suppose we take a glass of wine.”

The softer heart and more susceptible spirit of Egremont were well

calculated to respond to this ebullition of feeling, however slight; and

truly it was for many reasons not without considerable emotion, that

he found himself once more at Marney. He sate by the side of his gentle

sister-in-law, who seemed pleased by the unwonted cordiality of her

husband, and anxious by many kind offices to second every indication of

good feeling on his part. Captain Grouse was extremely assiduous: the

vicar was of the deferential breed, agreed with Lady Marney on the

importance of infant schools, but recalled his opinion when Lord Marney

expressed his imperious hope that no infant schools would ever be found

in his neighbourhood. Sir Vavasour was more than middle aged, comely,

very gentlemanlike, but with an air occasionally of absence which hardly

agreed with his frank and somewhat hearty idiosyncracy; his clear brow,

florid complexion, and blue eye. But Lord Marney talked a good deal,

though chiefly dogmatical or argumentative. It was rather difficult for

him to find a sufficient stock of opposition, but he laid in wait and

seized every opening with wonderful alacrity. Even Captain Grouse could

not escape him; if driven to extremity Lord Marney would even question

his principles on fly-making. Captain Grouse gave up, but not too soon;

he was well aware that his noble friend’s passion for controversy was

equal to his love of conquest. As for Lady Marney, it was evident

that with no inconsiderable talents, and with an intelligence richly

cultivated, the controversial genius of her husband had completely cowed

her conversational charms. She never advanced a proposition that he did

not immediately bristle up, and she could only evade the encounter by a

graceful submission. As for the vicar, a frequent guest, he would fain

have taken refuge in silence, but the earl, especially when alone, would

what he called “draw him out,” and the game once unearthed, with so

skilled a pack there was but little fear of a bad run. When all were

reduced to silence, Lord Marney relinquishing controversy, assumed the

positive. He eulogized the new poor law, which he declared would be the

salvation of the country, provided it was “carried out” in the spirit in

which it was developed in the Marney Union; but then he would add

that there was no district except their union in which it was properly

observed. He was tremendously fierce against allotments and analysed

the system with merciless sarcasm, Indeed he had no inconsiderable

acquaintance with the doctrines of the economists, and was rather

inclined to carry them into practice in every instance, except that of

the landed proprietary, which he clearly proved “stood upon different

grounds” to that of any other “interest.” There was nothing he hated so

much as a poacher, except a lease; though perhaps in the catalogue

of his aversions, we ought to give the preference to his

anti-ecclesiastical prejudice: this amounted even to acrimony. Though

there was no man breathing who was possessed with such a strong

repugnance to subscriptions of any kind, it delighted Lord Marney to see

his name among the contributors to all sectarian institutions. The vicar

of Marney, who had been presented by himself, was his model of a priest:

he left every body alone. Under the influence of Lady Marney, the worthy

vicar had once warmed up into some ebullition of very low church zeal;

there was some talk of an evening lecture, the schools were to be

remodelled, certain tracts were actually distributed. But Lord Marney

soon stopped all this. “No priestcraft at Marney,” said this gentle

proprietor of abbey lands.

“I wanted very much to come and canvass for you,” said Lady Marney to

Egremont, “but George did not like it.”

“The less the family interfered the better,” said Lord Marney; “and for

my part, I was very much alarmed when I heard my mother had gone down.”

“Oh! my mother did wonders,” said Egremont: “we should have been beat

without her. Indeed, to tell the truth, I quite gave up the thing the

moment they started their man. Before that we were on velvet; but the

instant he appeared everything was changed, and I found some of my

warmest supporters, members of his committee.”

“You had a formidable opponent, Lord Marney told me,” said Sir Vavasour.

“Who was he?”

“Oh! a dreadful man! A Scotchman, richer than Croesus, one McDruggy,

fresh from Canton, with a million of opium in each pocket, denouncing

corruption, and bellowing free trade.”

“But they do not care much for free trade in the old borough?” said Lord

Marney.

“No, it was a mistake,” said Egremont, “and the cry was changed the

moment my opponent was on the ground. Then all the town was placarded

with ‘Vote for McDruggy and our young Queen,’ as if he had coalesced

with her Majesty.”

“My mother must have been in despair,” said Lord Marney.

“We issued our placard instantly of ‘Vote for our young Queen and

Egremont,’ which was at least more modest, and turned out more popular.”

“That I am sure was my mother,” said Lord Marney.

“No,” said Egremont; “it was the effusion of a far more experienced

mind. My mother was in hourly communication with head quarters, and Mr

Taper sent down the cry by express.”

“Peel, in or out, will support the Poor Law,” said Lord Marney, rather

audaciously, as he reseated himself after the ladies had retired. “He

must;” and he looked at his brother, whose return had in a great degree

been secured by crying that Poor Law down.

“It is impossible,” said Charles, fresh from the hustings, and speaking

from the card of Taper, for the condition of the people was a subject of

which he knew nothing.

“He will carry it out,” said Lord Marney, “you’ll see, or the land will

not support him.”

“I wish,” said Sir Vavasour, “we could manage some modification about

out-door relief.”

“Modification!” said Lord Marney; “why there has been nothing but

modification. What we want is stringency.”

“The people will never bear it,” said Egremont; “there must be some

change.”

“You cannot go back to the abuses of the old system,” said Captain

Grouse, making, as he thought, a safe observation.

“Better go back to the old system, than modify the new,” said Lord

Marney.

“I wish the people would take to it a little more,” said Sir Vavasour;

“they certainly do not like it in our parish.”

“The people are very contented here, eh Slimsey?” said Lord Marney.

“Very,” said the vicar.

Hereupon a conversation took place, principally sustained by the

earl and the baronet, which developed all the resources of the great

parochial mind. Dietaries, bastardy, gaol regulations, game laws, were

amply discussed; and Lord Marney wound up with a declaration of the

means by which the country might be saved, and which seemed principally

to consist of high prices and low church.

“If the sovereign could only know her best friends,” said Sir Vavasour,

with a sigh.

Lord Marney seemed to get uneasy.

“And avoid the fatal mistakes of her predecessor,” continued the

baronet.

“Charles, another glass of claret,” said the earl.

“She might yet rally round the throne a body of men”--

“Then we will go to the ladies,” said the earl, abruptly disturbing his

guest.

Book 2 Chapter 2

There was music as they re-entered the drawing-room. Sir Vavasour

attached himself to Egremont.

“It is a great pleasure for me to see you again, Mr Egremont;” said

the worthy baronet. “Your father was my earliest and kindest friend. I

remember you at Firebrace, a very little boy. Happy to see you again,

Sir, in so eminent a position; a legislator--one of our legislators. It

gave me a sincere satisfaction to observe your return.”

“You are very kind, Sir Vavasour.”

“But it is a responsible position,” continued the baronet. “Think you

they’ll stand? A majority. I suppose, they have; but, I conclude, in

time; Sir Robert will have it in time? We must not be in a hurry; ‘the

more haste’--you know the rest. The country is decidedly conservative.

All that we want now is a strong government, that will put all things to

rights. If the poor king had lived--”

“He would have sent these men to the right-abouts;” said Egremont, a

young politician, proud of his secret intelligence.

“Ah! the poor king!” said Sir Vavasour, shaking his head.

“He was entirely with us,” said Egremont.

“Poor man” said Sir Vavasour.

“You think it was too late, then?” said his companion.

“You are a young man entering political life,” said the baronet, taking

Egremont kindly by the arm, and leading him to a sofa; “everything

depends on the first step. You have a great opportunity. Nothing can be

done by a mere individual. The most powerful body in this country wants

a champion.”

“But you can depend on Peel?” said Egremont.

“He is one of us: we ought to be able to depend on him. But I have

spoken to him for an hour, and could get nothing out of him.”

“He is cautious; but depend upon it, he will stand or fall by the land.”

“I am not thinking of the land,” said Sir Vavasour; “of something much

more important; with all the influence of the land, and a great deal

more besides; of an order of men who are ready to rally round the

throne, and are, indeed, if justice were done to them, its natural and

hereditary champions (Egremont looked perplexity); I am speaking,” added

Sir Vavasour, in a solemn voice, “I am speaking of the baronets.”

“The baronets! And what do they want?”

“Their rights; their long withheld rights. The poor king was with us. He

has frequently expressed to me and other deputies, his determination to

do us justice; but he was not a strong-minded man,” said Sir Vavasour,

with a sigh; “and in these revolutionary and levelling times, he had

a hard task perhaps. And the peers, who are our brethren, they were,

I fear, against us. But in spite of the ministers, and in spite of the

peers, had the poor king lived, we should at least have had the badge,”

added Sir Vavasour mournfully.

“The badge!”

“It would have satisfied Sir Grosvenor le Draughte,” said Sir Vavasour;

“and he had a strong party with him; he was for compromise, but d-- him,

his father was only an accoucheur.”

“And you wanted more?” inquired Egremont, with a demure look.

“All, or nothing,” said Sir Vavasour; “principle is ever my motto--no

expediency. I made a speech to the order at the Clarendon; there were

four hundred of us; the feeling was very strong.”

“A powerful party,” said Egremont.

“And a military order, sir, if properly understood. What could stand

against us? The Reform Bill could never have passed if the baronets had

been organized.”

“I have no doubt you could bring us in now,” said Egremont.

“That is exactly what I told Sir Robert. I want him to be brought in by

his own order. It would be a grand thing.”

“There is nothing like esprit de corps,” said Egremont.

“And such a body!” exclaimed Sir Vavasour, with animation. “Picture us

for a moment, to yourself going down in procession to Westminster for

example to hold a chapter. Five or six hundred baronets in dark green

costume,--the appropriate dress of equites aurati; each not only with

his badge, but with his collar of S.S.; belted and scarfed; his star

glittering; his pennon flying; his hat white with a plume of white

feathers; of course the sword and the gilt spurs. In our hand, the thumb

ring and signet not forgotten, we hold our coronet of two balls!”

Egremont stared with irrepressible astonishment at the excited being,

who unconsciously pressed his companion’s arm, as he drew this rapid

sketch of the glories so unconstitutionally withheld from him.

“A magnificent spectacle!” said Egremont.

“Evidently the body destined to save this country,” eagerly continued

Sir Vavasour. “Blending all sympathies: the crown of which they are the

peculiar champions; the nobles of whom they are the popular branch; the

people who recognize in them their natural leaders. But the picture is

not complete. We should be accompanied by an equal number of gallant

knights, our elder sons, who, the moment they come of age, have the

right to claim knighthood of their sovereign, while their mothers and

wives, no longer degraded to the nomenclature of a sheriff’s lady, but

resuming their legal or analogical dignities, and styled the ‘honourable

baronetess,’ with her coronet and robe, or the ‘honourable knightess,’

with her golden collar of S.S., and chaplet or cap of dignity, may

either accompany the procession, or ranged in galleries in a becoming

situation, rain influence from above.”

“I am all for their going in the procession,” said Egremont.

“The point is not so clear,” said Sir Vavasour solemnly; “and indeed,

although we have been firm in defining our rightful claims in our

petitions, as for ‘honorary epithets, secondary titles, personal

decorations, and augmented heraldic bearings.’ I am not clear if

the government evinced a disposition for a liberal settlement of the

question, I would not urge a too stringent adherence to every point. For

instance, I am prepared myself, great as would be the sacrifice, even

to renounce the claim of secondary titles for our eldest sons, if for

instance they would secure us our coronet.”

“Fie, fie, Sir Vavasour,” said Egremont very seriously, “remember

principle: no expediency, no compromise.”

“You are right,” said the baronet, colouring a little; “and do you

know, Mr Egremont, you are the only individual I have yet met out of

the Order, who has taken a sensible view of this great question, which,

after all, is the question of the day.”

Book 2 Chapter 3

The situation of the rural town of Marney was one of the most delightful

easily to be imagined. In a spreading dale, contiguous to the margin of

a clear and lively stream, surrounded by meadows and gardens, and backed

by lofty hills, undulating and richly wooded, the traveller on the

opposite heights of the dale would often stop to admire the merry

prospect, that recalled to him the traditional epithet of his country.

Beautiful illusion! For behind that laughing landscape, penury and

disease fed upon the vitals of a miserable population!

The contrast between the interior of the town and its external aspect,

was as striking as it was full of pain. With the exception of the dull

high street, which had the usual characteristics of a small agricultural

market town, some sombre mansions, a dingy inn, and a petty bourse,

Marney mainly consisted of a variety of narrow and crowded lanes formed

by cottages built of rubble, or unhewn stones without cement, and from

age, or badness of the material, looking as if they could scarcely hold

together. The gaping chinks admitted every blast; the leaning chimneys

had lost half their original height; the rotten rafters were evidently

misplaced; while in many instances the thatch, yawning in some parts

to admit the wind and wet, and in all utterly unfit for its original

purpose of giving protection from the weather, looked more like the top

of a dunghill than a cottage. Before the doors of these dwellings, and

often surrounding them, ran open drains full of animal and vegetable

refuse, decomposing into disease, or sometimes in their imperfect course

filling foul pits or spreading into stagnant pools, while a concentrated

solution of every species of dissolving filth was allowed to soak

through and thoroughly impregnate the walls and ground adjoining.

These wretched tenements seldom consisted of more than two rooms, in

one of which the whole family, however numerous, were obliged to

sleep, without distinction of age, or sex, or suffering. With the water

streaming down the walls, the light distinguished through the roof, with

no hearth even in winter, the virtuous mother in the sacred pangs of

childbirth, gives forth another victim to our thoughtless civilization;

surrounded by three generations whose inevitable presence is more

painful than her sufferings in that hour of travail; while the father of

her coming child, in another corner of the sordid chamber, lies stricken

by that typhus which his contaminating dwelling has breathed into his

veins, and for whose next prey is perhaps destined, his new-born child.

These swarming walls had neither windows nor doors sufficient to keep

out the weather, or admit the sun or supply the means of ventilation;

the humid and putrid roof of thatch exhaling malaria like all other

decaying vegetable matter. The dwelling rooms were neither boarded

nor paved; and whether it were that some were situate in low and damp

places, occasionally flooded by the river, and usually much below the

level of the road; or that the springs, as was often the case, would

burst through the mud floor; the ground was at no time better than so

much clay, while sometimes you might see little channels cut from

the centre under the doorways to carry off the water, the door itself

removed from its hinges: a resting place for infancy in its deluged

home. These hovels were in many instances not provided with the

commonest conveniences of the rudest police; contiguous to every

door might be observed the dung-heap on which every kind of filth was

accumulated, for the purpose of being disposed of for manure, so that,

when the poor man opened his narrow habitation in the hope of refreshing

it with the breeze of summer, he was met with a mixture of gases from

reeking dunghills.

This town of Marney was a metropolis of agricultural labour, for the

proprietors of the neighbourhood having for the last half century acted

on the system of destroying the cottages on their estates, in order to

become exempted from the maintenance of the population, the expelled

people had flocked to Marney, where, during the war, a manufactory had

afforded them some relief, though its wheels had long ceased to disturb

the waters of the Mar.

Deprived of this resource, they had again gradually spread themselves

over that land which had as it were rejected them; and obtained from

its churlish breast a niggardly subsistence. Their re-entrance into

the surrounding parishes was viewed with great suspicion; their renewed

settlement opposed by every ingenious contrivance; those who availed

themselves of their labour were careful that they should not become

dwellers on the soil; and though, from the excessive competition, there

were few districts in the kingdom where the rate of wages was more

depressed, those who were fortunate enough to obtain the scant

remuneration, had, in addition to their toil, to endure each morn and

even a weary journey before they could reach the scene of their labour,

or return to the squalid hovel which profaned the name of home. To that

home, over which Malaria hovered, and round whose shivering hearth were

clustered other guests besides the exhausted family of toil--Fever,

in every form, pale Consumption, exhausting Synochus, and trembling

Ague,--returned after cultivating the broad fields of merry England the

bold British peasant, returned to encounter the worst of diseases with

a frame the least qualified to oppose them; a frame that subdued by toil

was never sustained by animal food; drenched by the tempest could not

change its dripping rags; and was indebted for its scanty fuel to the

windfalls of the woods.

The eyes of this unhappy race might have been raised to the solitary

spire that sprang up in the midst of them, the bearer of present

consolation, the harbinger of future equality; but Holy Church at Marney

had forgotten her sacred mission. We have introduced the reader to the

vicar, an orderly man who deemed he did his duty if he preached

each week two sermons, and enforced humility on his congregation and

gratitude for the blessings of this life. The high Street and some

neighbouring gentry were the staple of his hearers. Lord and Lady Marney

came, attended by Captain Grouse, every Sunday morning with commendable

regularity, and were ushered into the invisible interior of a vast pew,

that occupied half of the gallery, was lined with crimson damask, and

furnished with easy chairs, and, for those who chose them, well-padded

stools of prayer. The people of Marney took refuge in conventicles,

which abounded; little plain buildings of pale brick with the names

painted on them, of Sion, Bethel, Bethesda: names of a distant land,

and the language of a persecuted and ancient race: yet, such is the

mysterious power of their divine quality, breathing consolation in the

nineteenth century to the harassed forms and the harrowed souls of a

Saxon peasantry.

But however devoted to his flock might have been the Vicar of Marney,

his exertions for their well being, under any circumstances, must have

been mainly limited to spiritual consolation. Married and a father he

received for his labours the small tithes of the parish, which secured

to him an income by no means equal to that of a superior banker’s clerk,

or the cook of a great loanmonger. The great tithes of Marney, which

might be counted by thousands, swelled the vast rental which was drawn

from this district by the fortunate earls that bore its name.

The morning after the arrival of Egremont at the Abbey, an unusual

stir might have been observed in the high Street of the town. Round

the portico of the Green Dragon hotel and commercial inn, a knot of

principal personages, the chief lawyer, the brewer, the vicar himself,

and several of those easy quidnuncs who abound in country towns, and who

rank under the designation of retired gentlemen, were in close and very

earnest converse. In a short time a servant on horseback in the Abbey

livery galloped up to the portico, and delivered a letter to the vicar.

The excitement apparently had now greatly increased. On the opposite

side of the way to the important group, a knot, larger in numbers

but very deficient in quality, had formed themselves, and remained

transfixed with gaping mouths and a curious not to say alarmed air. The

head constable walked up to the door of the Green Dragon, and though

he did not presume to join the principal group, was evidently in

attendance, if required. The clock struck eleven; a cart had stopped to

watch events, and a gentleman’s coachman riding home with a led horse.

“Here they are!” said the brewer.

“Lord Marney himself,” said the lawyer.

“And Sir Vavasour Firebrace, I declare. I wonder how he came here,” said

a retired gentleman, who had been a tallow-chandler on Holborn Hill.

The vicar took off his hat, and all uncovered. Lord Marney and his

brother magistrate rode briskly up to the inn and rapidly dismounted.

“Well, Snigford,” said his lordship, in a peremptory tone, “this is a

pretty business; I’ll have this stopped directly.”

Fortunate man if he succeed in doing so! The torch of the incendiary had

for the first time been introduced into the parish of Marney; and last

night the primest stacks of the Abbey farm had blazed a beacon to the

agitated neighbourhood.

Book 2 Chapter 4

“It is not so much the fire, sir,” said Mr Bingley of the Abbey farm

to Egremont, “but the temper of the people that alarms me. Do you know,

sir, there were two or three score of them here, and, except my own

farm servants, not one of them would lend a helping hand to put out

the flames, though, with water so near, they might have been of great

service.”

“You told my brother, Lord Marney, this?”

“Oh! it’s Mr Charles I’m speaking to! My service to you, sir; I’m glad

to see you in these parts again. It’s a long time that we have had that

pleasure, sir. Travelling in foreign parts, as I have heard say?”

“Something of that; but very glad to find myself at home once more, Mr

Bingley, though very sorry to have such a welcome as a blazing rick at

the Abbey farm.”

“Well, do you know, Mr Charles, between ourselves,” and Mr Bingley

lowered his tone, and looked around him, “Things is very bad here; I

can’t make out, for my part, what has become of the country. Tayn’t

the same land to live in as it was when you used to come to our moor

coursing, with the old lord; you remember that, I be sure, Mr Charles?”

“‘Tis not easy to forget good sport, Mr Bingley. With your permission, I

will put my horse up here for half an hour. I have a fancy to stroll to

the ruins.”

“You wunna find them much changed,” said the farmer, smiling. “They have

seen a deal of different things in their time! But you will taste our

ale, Mr Charles?”

“When I return.”

But the hospitable Bingley would take no denial, and as his companion

waived on the present occasion entering his house, for the sun had been

some time declining, the farmer, calling one of his labourers to take

Egremont’s horse, hastened into the house to fill the brimming cup.

“And what do you think of this fire?” said Egremont to the hind.

“I think ‘tis hard times for the poor, sir.”

“But rick-burning will not make the times easier, my good man.”

The man made no reply, but with a dogged look led away the horse to his

stable.

About half a mile from Marney, the dale narrowed, and the river took

a winding course. It ran through meads, soft and vivid with luxuriant

vegetation, bounded on either side by rich hanging woods, save where

occasionally a quarry broke the verdant bosom of the heights with its

rugged and tawny form. Fair stone and plenteous timber, and the current

of fresh waters, combined, with the silent and secluded scene screened

from every harsh and angry wind, to form the sacred spot that in

old days Holy Church loved to hallow with its beauteous and enduring

structures. Even the stranger therefore when he had left the town about

two miles behind him, and had heard the farm and mill which he had

since passed, called the Abbey farm and the Abbey mill, might have

been prepared for the grateful vision of some monastic remains. As for

Egremont, he had been almost born amid the ruins of Marney Abbey; its

solemn relics were associated with his first and freshest fancies; every

footstep was as familiar to him as it could have been to one of the

old monks; yet never without emotion could he behold these unrivalled

remains of one of the greatest of the great religious houses of the

North.

Over a space of not less than ten acres might still be observed the

fragments of the great abbey: these were, towards their limit, in

general moss-grown and mouldering memorials that told where once rose

the offices and spread the terraced gardens of the old proprietors; here

might still be traced the dwelling of the lord abbot; and there, still

more distinctly, because built on a greater scale and of materials still

more intended for perpetuity, the capacious hospital, a name that did

not then denote the dwelling of disease, but a place where all the

rights of hospitality were practised; where the traveller from the proud

baron to the lonely pilgrim asked the shelter and the succour that

never were denied, and at whose gate, called the Portal of the Poor,

the peasants on the Abbey lands, if in want, might appeal each morn and

night for raiment and for food.

But it was in the centre of this tract of ruins, occupying a space of

not less than two acres, that, with a strength that had defied time, and

with a beauty that had at last turned away the wrath of man, still rose

if not in perfect, yet admirable, form and state, one of the noblest

achievements of Christian art,--the Abbey church. The summer vault was

now its only roof, and all that remained of its gorgeous windows was

the vastness of their arched symmetry, and some wreathed relics of their

fantastic frame-work, but the rest was uninjured.

From the west window, looking over the transept chapel of the Virgin,

still adorned with pillars of marble and alabaster, the eye wandered

down the nave to the great orient light, a length of nearly three

hundred feet, through a gorgeous avenue of unshaken walls and columns

that clustered to the skies, On each side of the Lady’s chapel rose a

tower. One which was of great antiquity, being of that style which is

commonly called Norman, short and very thick and square, did not mount

much above the height of the western front; but the other tower was of

a character very different, It was tall and light, and of a Gothic style

most pure and graceful; the stone of which it was built, of a bright and

even sparkling colour, and looking as if it were hewn but yesterday.

At first, its turretted crest seemed injured; but the truth is, it was

unfinished; the workmen were busied on this very tower the day that old

Baldwin Greymount came as the king’s commissioner to inquire into the

conduct of this religious house. The abbots loved to memorise their

reigns by some public work, which should add to the beauty of their

buildings or the convenience of their subjects; and the last of the

ecclesiastical lords of Marney, a man of fine taste and a skilful

architect, was raising this new belfry for his brethren when the stern

decree arrived that the bells should no more sound. And the hymn was no

more to be chaunted in the Lady’s chapel; and the candles were no more

to be lit on the high altar; and the gate of the poor was to be closed

for ever; and the wanderer was no more to find a home.

The body of the church was in many parts overgrown with brambles and in

all covered with a rank vegetation. It had been a very sultry day, and

the blaze of the meridian heat still inflamed the air; the kine for

shelter, rather than for sustenance, had wandered through some broken

arches, and were lying in the shadow of the nave. This desecration of a

spot, once sacred, still beautiful and solemn, jarred on the feelings of

Egremont. He sighed and turning away, followed a path that after a

few paces led him into the cloister garden. This was a considerable

quadrangle; once surrounding the garden of the monks, but all that

remained of that fair pleasaunce was a solitary yew in its centre,

that seemed the oldest tree that could well live, and was, according

to tradition, more ancient than the most venerable walls of the Abbey.

Round this quadrangle was the refectory, the library and the kitchen,

and above them the cells and dormitory of the brethren. An imperfect

staircase, not without danger, led to these unroofed chambers; but

Egremont familiar with the way did not hesitate to pursue it, so that he

soon found himself on an elevation overlooking the garden, while

further on extended the vast cloisters of the monks, and adjoining was

a cemetery, that had once been enclosed, and communicated with the

cloister garden.

It was one of those summer days that are so still, that they seem as it

were a holiday of nature. The weary wind was sleeping in some grateful

cavern, and the sunbeams basking on some fervent knoll; the river

floated with a drowsy unconscious course: there was no wave in the

grass, no stir in the branches.

A silence so profound amid these solemn ruins, offered the perfection

of solitude; and there was that stirring in the mind of Egremont which

rendered him far from indisposed for this loneliness.

The slight words that he had exchanged with the farmer and the hind had

left him musing. Why was England not the same land as in the days of his

light-hearted youth? Why were these hard times for the poor? He stood

among the ruins that, as the farmer had well observed, had seen many

changes: changes of creeds, of dynasties, of laws, of manners. New

orders of men had arisen in the country, new sources of wealth had

opened, new dispositions of power to which that wealth had necessarily

led. His own house, his own order, had established themselves on the

ruins of that great body, the emblems of whose ancient magnificence and

strength surrounded him. And now his order was in turn menaced. And the

People--the millions of Toil, on whose unconscious energies during these

changeful centuries all rested--what changes had these centuries brought

to them? Had their advance in the national scale borne a due relation to

that progress of their rulers, which had accumulated in the treasuries

of a limited class the riches of the world; and made their possessors

boast that they were the first of nations; the most powerful and the

most free, the most enlightened, the most moral, and the most religious?

Were there any rick-burners in the times of the lord abbots? And if not,

why not? And why should the stacks of the Earls of Marney be destroyed,

and those of the Abbots of Marney spared?

Brooding over these suggestions, some voices disturbed him, and looking

round, he observed in the cemetery two men: one was standing beside a

tomb which his companion was apparently examining.

The first was of lofty stature, and though dressed with simplicity,

had nothing sordid in his appearance. His garments gave no clue to

his position in life: they might have been worn by a squire or by his

gamekeeper; a dark velveteen dress and leathern gaiters. As Egremont

caught his form, he threw his broad-brimmed country hat upon the ground

and showed a frank and manly countenance. His complexion might in youth

have been ruddy, but time and time’s attendants, thought and passion,

had paled it: his chesnut hair, faded, but not grey, still clustered

over a noble brow; his features were regular and handsome, a well-formed

nose, the square mouth and its white teeth, and the clear grey eye which

befitted such an idiosyncracy. His time of vigorous manhood, for he was

much nearer forty than fifty years of age, perhaps better suited his

athletic form, than the more supple and graceful season of youth.

Stretching his powerful arms in the air, and delivering himself of

an exclamation which denoted his weariness, and which had broken the

silence, he expressed to his companion his determination to rest himself

under the shade of the yew in the contiguous garden, and inviting his

friend to follow him, he took up his hat and moved away.

There was something in the appearance of the stranger that interested

Egremont; and waiting till he had established himself in his pleasant

resting place, Egremont descended into the cloister garden and

determined to address him.

Book 2 Chapter 5

“You lean against an ancient trunk,” said Egremont, carelessly advancing

to the stranger, who looked up at him without any expression of

surprise, and then replied. “They say ‘tis the trunk beneath whose

branches the monks encamped when they came to this valley to raise their

building. It was their house, till with the wood and stone around them,

their labour and their fine art, they piled up their abbey. And then

they were driven out of it, and it came to this. Poor men! poor men!”

“They would hardly have forfeited their resting-place had they deserved

to retain it,” said Egremont.

“They were rich. I thought it was poverty that was a crime,” replied the

stranger in a tone of simplicity.

“But they had committed other crimes.”

“It may be so; we are very frail. But their history has been written by

their enemies; they were condemned without a hearing; the people rose

oftentimes in their behalf; and their property was divided with those on

whose reports it was forfeited.”

“At any rate, it was a forfeiture which gave life to the community,”

said Egremont; “the lands are held by active men and not by drones.”

“A drone is one who does not labour,” said the stranger; “whether he

wear a cowl or a coronet, ‘tis the same to me. Somebody I suppose must

own the land; though I have heard say that this individual tenure is not

a necessity; but however this may be, I am not one who would object to

the lord, provided he were a gentle one. All agree the Monastics were

easy landlords; their rents were low; they granted leases in those days.

Their tenants too might renew their term before their tenure ran out: so

they were men of spirit and property. There were yeomen then, sir: the

country was not divided into two classes, masters and slaves; there was

some resting-place between luxury and misery. Comfort was an English

habit then, not merely an English word.”

“And do you really think they were easier landlords than our present

ones?” said Egremont, inquiringly.

“Human nature would tell us that, even if history did not confess it.

The Monastics could possess no private property; they could save no

money; they could bequeath nothing. They lived, received, and expended

in common. The monastery too was a proprietor that never died and never

wasted. The farmer had a deathless landlord then; not a harsh guardian,

or a grinding mortgagee, or a dilatory master in chancery, all was

certain; the manor had not to dread a change of lords, or the oaks to

tremble at the axe of the squandering heir. How proud we are still in

England of an old family, though, God knows, ‘tis rare to see one now.

Yet the people like to say, We held under him, and his father and his

grandfather before him: they know that such a tenure is a benefit. The

abbot was ever the same. The monks were in short in every district a

point of refuge for all who needed succour, counsel, and protection; a

body of individuals having no cares of their own, with wisdom to guide

the inexperienced, with wealth to relieve the suffering, and often with

power to protect the oppressed.”

“You plead their cause with feeling,” said Egremont, not unmoved.

“It is my own; they were the sons of the People, like myself.”

“I had thought rather these monasteries were the resort of the younger

branches of the aristocracy?” said Egremont.

“Instead of the pension list;” replied his companion, smiling, but not

with bitterness. “Well, if we must have an aristocracy, I would sooner

that its younger branches should be monks and nuns, than colonels

without regiments, or housekeepers of royal palaces that exist only

in name. Besides see what advantage to a minister if the unendowed

aristocracy were thus provided for now. He need not, like a minister

in these days, entrust the conduct of public affairs to individuals

notoriously incompetent, appoint to the command of expeditions generals

who never saw a field, make governors of colonies out of men who never

could govern themselves, or find an ambassador in a broken dandy or

a blasted favourite. It is true that many of the monks and nuns were

persons of noble birth. Why should they not have been? The aristocracy

had their share; no more. They, like all other classes, were benefitted

by the monasteries: but the list of the mitred abbots when they were

suppressed, shows that the great majority of the heads of houses were of

the people.”

“Well, whatever difference of opinion may exist on these points,” said

Egremont, “there is one on which there can be no controversy: the monks

were great architects.”

“Ah! there it is,” said the stranger, in a tone of plaintiveness; “if

the world but only knew what they had lost! I am sure that not the

faintest idea is generally prevalent of the appearance of England before

and since the dissolution. Why, sir, in England and Wales alone, there

were of these institutions of different sizes; I mean monasteries, and

chantries and chapels, and great hospitals; considerably upwards of

three thousand; all of them fair buildings, many of them of exquisite

beauty. There were on an average in every shire at least twenty

structures such as this was; in this great county double that number:

establishments that were as vast and as magnificent and as beautiful as

your Belvoirs and your Chatsworths, your Wentworths and your Stowes. Try

to imagine the effect of thirty or forty Chatsworths in this county

the proprietors of which were never absent. You complain enough now

of absentees. The monks were never non-resident. They expended their

revenue among those whose labour had produced it. These holy men too

built and planted as they did everything else for posterity: their

churches were cathedrals; their schools colleges; their halls and

libraries the muniment rooms of kingdoms; their woods and waters, their

farms and gardens, were laid out and disposed on a scale and in a spirit

that are now extinct: they made the country beautiful, and the people

proud of their country.”

“Yet if the monks were such public benefactors, why did not the people

rise in their favour?”

“They did, but too late. They struggled for a century, but they

struggled against property and they were beat. As long as the monks

existed, the people, when aggrieved, had property on their side. And

now ‘tis all over,” said the stranger; “and travellers come and stare at

these ruins, and think themselves very wise to moralize over time. They

are the children of violence, not of time. It is war that created these

ruins, civil war, of all our civil wars the most inhuman, for it was

waged with the unresisting. The monasteries were taken by storm, they

were sacked, gutted, battered with warlike instruments, blown up with

gunpowder; you may see the marks of the blast against the new tower

here. Never was such a plunder. The whole face of the country for a

century was that of a land recently invaded by a ruthless enemy; it was

worse than the Norman conquest; nor has England ever lost this character

of ravage. I don’t know whether the union workhouses will remove it.

They are building something for the people at last. After an experiment

of three centuries, your gaols being full, and your treadmills losing

something of their virtue, you have given us a substitute for the

monasteries.”

“You lament the old faith,” said Egremont, in a tone of respect.

“I am not viewing the question as one of faith,” said the stranger.

“It is not as a matter of religion, but as a matter of right, that I am

considering it: as a matter, I should say, of private right and public

happiness. You might have changed if you thought fit the religion of the

abbots as you changed the religion of the bishops: but you had no right

to deprive men of their property, and property moreover which under

their administration so mainly contributed to the welfare of the

community.”

“As for community,” said a voice which proceeded neither from Egremont

nor the stranger, “with the monasteries expired the only type that we

ever had in England of such an intercourse. There is no community in

England; there is aggregation, but aggregation under circumstances which

make it rather a dissociating, than an uniting, principle.”

It was a still voice that uttered these words, yet one of a peculiar

character; one of those voices that instantly arrest attention: gentle

and yet solemn, earnest yet unimpassioned. With a step as whispering

as his tone, the man who had been kneeling by the tomb, had unobserved

joined his associate and Egremont. He hardly reached the middle height;

his form slender, but well proportioned; his pale countenance, slightly

marked with the small pox, was redeemed from absolute ugliness by

a highly-intellectual brow, and large dark eyes that indicated deep

sensibility and great quickness of apprehension. Though young, he was

already a little bald; he was dressed entirely in black; the fairness

of his linen, the neatness of his beard, his gloves much worn, yet

carefully mended, intimated that his very faded garments were the result

of necessity rather than of negligence.

“You also lament the dissolution of these bodies,” said Egremont.

“There is so much to lament in the world in which we live,” said the

younger of the strangers, “that I can spare no pang for the past.”

“Yet you approve of the principle of their society; you prefer it, you

say, to our existing life.”

“Yes; I prefer association to gregariousness.”

“That is a distinction,” said Egremont, musingly.

“It is a community of purpose that constitutes society,” continued the

younger stranger; “without that, men may be drawn into contiguity, but

they still continue virtually isolated.”

“And is that their condition in cities?”

“It is their condition everywhere; but in cities that condition is

aggravated. A density of population implies a severer struggle for

existence, and a consequent repulsion of elements brought into too close

contact. In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain.

They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to

the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of

neighbours. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as ourself;

modern society acknowledges no neighbour.”

“Well, we live in strange times,” said Egremont, struck by the

observation of his companion, and relieving a perplexed spirit by an

ordinary exclamation, which often denotes that the mind is more stirring

than it cares to acknowledge, or at the moment is capable to express.

“When the infant begins to walk, it also thinks that it lives in strange

times,” said his companion.

“Your inference?” asked Egremont.

“That society, still in its infancy, is beginning to feel its way.”

“This is a new reign,” said Egremont, “perhaps it is a new era.”

“I think so,” said the younger stranger.

“I hope so,” said the elder one.

“Well, society may be in its infancy,” said Egremont slightly smiling;

“but, say what you like, our Queen reigns over the greatest nation that

ever existed.”

“Which nation?” asked the younger stranger, “for she reigns over two.”

The stranger paused; Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly.

“Yes,” resumed the younger stranger after a moment’s interval. “Two

nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are

as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they

were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets;

who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are

ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.”

“You speak of--” said Egremont, hesitatingly.

“THE RICH AND THE POOR.”

At this moment a sudden flush of rosy light, suffusing the grey ruins,

indicated that the sun had just fallen; and through a vacant arch that

overlooked them, alone in the resplendent sky, glittered the twilight

star. The hour, the scene, the solemn stillness and the softening

beauty, repressed controversy, induced even silence. The last words

of the stranger lingered in the ear of Egremont; his musing spirit was

teeming with many thoughts, many emotions; when from the Lady Chapel

there rose the evening hymn to the Virgin. A single voice; but tones

of almost supernatural sweetness; tender and solemn, yet flexible and

thrilling.

Egremont started from his reverie. He would have spoken, but

he perceived that the elder of the strangers had risen from his

resting-place, and with downcast eyes and crossed arms, was on his

knees. The other remained standing in his former posture.

The divine melody ceased; the elder stranger rose; the words were on the

lips of Egremont, that would have asked some explanation of this sweet

and holy mystery, when in the vacant and star-lit arch on which his

glance was fixed, he beheld a female form. She was apparently in the

habit of a Religious, yet scarcely could be a nun, for her veil, if

indeed it were a veil, had fallen on her shoulders, and revealed her

thick tresses of long fair hair. The blush of deep emotion lingered on

a countenance, which though extremely young, was impressed with a

character of almost divine majesty; while her dark eyes and long dark

lashes, contrasting with the brightness of her complexion and the

luxuriance of her radiant locks, combined to produce a beauty as rare as

it is choice; and so strange, that Egremont might for a moment have been

pardoned for believing her a seraph, that had lighted on this sphere,

or the fair phantom of some saint haunting the sacred ruins of her

desecrated fane.

Book 2 Chapter 6

“I understand, then,” said Lord Marney to his brother, as on the evening

of the same day they were seated together in the drawing-room, in close

converse “I understand then, that you have in fact paid nothing, and

that my mother will give you a thousand pounds. That won’t go very far.”

“It will hardly pay for the chairing,” said Egremont; “the restoration

of the family influence was celebrated on so great a scale.”

“The family influence must be supported,” said Lord Marney, “and my

mother will give you a thousand pounds; as I said, that will not do much

for you, but I like her spirit. Contests are very expensive things, yet

I quite approve of what you have done, especially as you won. It is a

great thing in these ten pound days to win your first contest, and

shows powers of calculation which I respect. Everything in this world is

calculation; there is no such thing as luck, depend upon it; and if you

go on calculating with equal exactness, you must succeed in life. Now

the question is, what is to be done with your election bills?”

“Exactly.”

“You want to know what I will do for you, or rather what I can do for

you; that is the point. My inclination of course is to do everything

for you; but when I calculate my resources, I may find that they are not

equal to my inclination.”

“I am sure, George, you will do everything, and more than everything you

ought.”

“I am extremely pleased about this thousand pounds of my mother,

Charles.”

“Most admirable of her! But she always is so generous!”

“Her jointure has been most regularly paid,” continued Lord Marney.

“Always be exact in your payments, Charles. There is no end to the good

it produces. Now if I had not been so regular in paying my mother her

jointure, she would not in all probability have been able to have given

you this thousand pounds; and, therefore, to a certain extent, you are

indebted for this thousand pounds to me.”

Egremont drew up a little, but said nothing.

“I am obliged to pay my mother her jointure, whether ricks are burnt or

not,” said Lord Marney. “It’s very hard, don’t you think so?”

“But these ricks were Bingley’s?”

“But he was not insured, and he will want some reduction in his rent,

and if I do not see fit to allow it him, which I probably shall not, for

he ought to have calculated on these things, I have ricks of my own, and

they may be burnt any night.”

“But you, of course, are insured?”

“No, I am not; I calculate ‘tis better to run the risk.”

“I wonder why ricks are burnt now, and were not in old days,” said

Egremont.

“Because there is a surplus population in the kingdom,” said Lord

Marney, “and no rural police in the county.”

“You were speaking of the election, George,” said Egremont, not without

reluctance, yet anxious, as the ice had been broken, to bring the matter

to a result. Lord Marney, before the election, had written, in reply

to his mother consulting him on the step a letter with which she was

delighted, but which Egremont at the time could have wished to have been

more explicit. However in the excitement attendant on a first contest,

and influenced by the person whose judgment always swayed, and, in

the present case, was peculiarly entitled to sway him, he stifled his

scruples, and persuaded himself that he was a candidate not only with

the sanction, but at the instance, of his brother. “You were speaking of

the election, George,” said Egremont.

“About the election, Charles. Well, the long and short of it is this:

that I wish to see you comfortable. To be harassed about money is one of

the most disagreeable incidents of life. It ruffles the temper, lowers

the spirits, disturbs the rest, and finally breaks up one’s health.

Always, if you possibly can, keep square. And if by any chance you do

find yourself in a scrape, come to me. There is nothing under those

circumstances like the advice of a cool-headed friend.”

“As valuable as the assistance of a cold-hearted one,” thought Egremont,

who did not fancy too much the tone of this conversation.

“But there is one thing of which you must particularly beware,”

continued Lord Marney, “there is one thing worse even than getting into

difficulties--patching them up. The patching-up system is fatal; it is

sure to break down; you never get clear. Now, what I want to do for you,

Charles, is to put you right altogether. I want to see you square and

more than square, in a position which will for ever guarantee you from

any annoyance of this kind.”

“He is a good fellow after all,” thought Egremont.

“That thousand pounds of my mother was very à propos,” said Lord Marney;

“I suppose it was a sop that will keep them all right till we have made

our arrangements.”

“Oh! there is no pressure of that kind,” said Egremont; “if I see my

way, and write to them, of course they will be quite satisfied.”

“Excellent,” said Lord Marney; “and nothing could be more convenient to

me, for, between ourselves, my balances are very low at this moment.

The awful expenditure of keeping up this place! And then such terrible

incumbrances as I came to!”

“Incumbrances, George! Why, I thought you had not any. There was not a

single mortgage.”

“No mortgages; they are nothing; you find them, you get used to them,

and you calculate accordingly. You quite forget the portions for younger

children.”

“Yes; but you had plenty of ready money for them.”

“I had to pay them though,” said Lord Marney. “Had I not, I might have

bought Grimblethorpe with the money; such an opportunity will never

occur again.”

“But you talked of incumbrances,” said Egremont.

“Ah! my dear fellow,” said Lord Marney, “you don’t know what it is to

have to keep up an estate like this; and very lucky for you. It is

not the easy life you dream of. There’s buildings--I am ruined in

buildings--our poor dear father thought he left me Marney without an

incumbrance; why, there was not a barn on the whole estate that was

weather-proof; not a farm-house that was not half in ruins. What I have

spent in buildings! And draining! Though I make my own tiles, draining,

my dear fellow, is a something of which you have not the least idea!”

“Well,” said Egremont, anxious to bring his brother back to the point,

“you think, then, I had better write to them and say--”

“Ah! now for your business,” said Lord Marney. “Now, I will tell you

what I can do for you. I was speaking to Arabella about it last night;

she quite approves my idea. You remember the De Mowbrays? Well, we are

going to stay at Mowbray Castle, and you are to go with us. It is the

first time they have received company since their great loss. Ah! you

were abroad at the time, and so you are behind hand. Lord Mowbray’s

only son, Fitz-Warene, you remember him, a deuced clever fellow, he died

about a year ago, in Greece, of a fever. Never was such a blow! His

two sisters, Lady Joan and Lady Maud, are looked upon as the greatest

heiresses in the kingdom; but I know Mowbray well; he will make an

eldest son of his eldest daughter. She will have it all; she is one of

Arabella’s dearest friends; and you are to marry her.”

Egremont stared at his brother, who patted him on the back with an

expression of unusual kindness, and adding, “You have no idea what

a load this has taken off my mind, my dear Charles; so great has my

anxiety always been about you, particularly of late. To see you lord of

Mowbray Castle will realize my fondest hopes. That is a position fit for

a man, and I know none more worthy of it than yourself, though I am your

brother who say so. Now let us come and speak to Arabella about it.”

So saying, Lord Marney, followed somewhat reluctantly by his brother,

advanced to the other end of the drawing-room, where his wife was

employed with her embroidery-frame, and seated next to her young friend,

Miss Poinsett, who was playing chess with Captain Grouse, a member of

the chess club, and one of the most capital performers extant.

“Well, Arabella,” said Lord Marney, “it is all settled; Charles agrees

with me about going to Mowbray Castle, and I think the sooner we go the

better. What do you think of the day after to-morrow? That will suit me

exactly, and therefore I think we had better fix on it. We will consider

it settled.”

Lady Marney looked embarrassed, and a little distressed. Nothing

could be more unexpected by her than this proposition; nothing more

inconvenient than the arrangement. It was very true that Lady Joan

Fitz-Warene had invited them to Mowbray, and she had some vague

intention, some day or other, of deliberating whether they should avail

themselves of this kindness; but to decide upon going, and upon going

instantly, without the least consultation, the least inquiry as to the

suitableness of the arrangement, the visit of Miss Poinsett abruptly

and ungraciously terminated, for example--all this was vexatious,

distressing: a mode of management which out of the simplest incidents

of domestic life contrived to extract some degree of perplexity and

annoyance.

“Do not you think, George,” said Lady Marney, “that we had better talk

it over a little?”

“Not at all,” said Lord Marney: “Charles will go, and it quite suits me,

and therefore what necessity for any consultation?”

“Oh! if you and Charles like to go, certainly.” said Lady Marney in a

hesitating tone; “only I shall be very sorry to lose your society.”

“How do you mean lose our society Arabella? Of course you must go with

us. I particularly want you to go. You are Lady Joan’s most intimate

friend; I believe there is no one she likes so much.”

“I cannot go the day after to-morrow,” said Lady Marney, speaking in a

whisper, and looking volumes of deprecation.

“I cannot help it,” said Lord Marney; “you should have told me this

before. I wrote to Mowbray to-day, that we should be with him the day

after to-morrow, and stay a week.”

“But you never mentioned it to me,” said Lady Marney, slightly blushing

and speaking in a tone of gentle reproach.

“I should like to know when I am to find time to mention the contents

of every letter I write,” said Lord Marney; “particularly with all the

vexatious business I have had on my hands to-day. But so it is; the more

one tries to save you trouble, the more discontented you get.”

“No, not discontented, George.”

“I do not know what you call discontented; but when a man has made every

possible arrangement to please you and every body, and all his plans are

to be set aside merely because the day he has fixed on does not exactly

suit your fancy, if that be not discontent, I should like very much to

know what is, Arabella.”

Lady Marney did not reply. Always sacrificed, always yielding, the

moment she attempted to express an opinion, she ever seemed to assume

the position not of the injured but the injurer.

Arabella was a woman of abilities, which she had cultivated. She had

excellent sense, and possessed many admirable qualities; she was far

from being devoid of sensibility; but her sweet temper shrank from

controversy, and Nature had not endowed her with a spirit which could

direct and control. She yielded without a struggle to the arbitrary will

and unreasonable caprice of a husband, who was scarcely her equal in

intellect, and far her inferior in all the genial qualities of our

nature, but who governed her by his iron selfishness.

Lady Marney absolutely had no will of her own. A hard, exact, literal,

bustling, acute being environed her existence; directed, planned,

settled everything. Her life was a series of petty sacrifices and

baulked enjoyments. If her carriage were at the door, she was never

certain that she would not have to send it away; if she had asked some

friends to her house, the chances were she would have to put them off;

if she were reading a novel, Lord Marney asked her to copy a letter; if

she were going to the opera, she found that Lord Marney had got seats

for her and some friend in the House of Lords, and seemed expecting the

strongest expressions of delight and gratitude from her for his unasked

and inconvenient kindness. Lady Marney had struggled against this

tyranny in the earlier days of their union. Innocent, inexperienced Lady

Marney! As if it were possible for a wife to contend against a selfish

husband, at once sharp-witted and blunt-hearted! She had appealed to

him, she had even reproached him; she had wept, once she had knelt.

But Lord Marney looked upon these demonstrations as the disordered

sensibility of a girl unused to the marriage state, and ignorant of the

wise authority of husbands, of which he deemed himself a model. And

so, after a due course of initiation, Lady Marney invisible for days,

plunged in remorseful reveries in the mysteries of her boudoir, and her

lord dining at his club and going to the minor theatres; the countess

was broken in, and became the perfect wife of a perfect husband.

Lord Marney, who was fond of chess, turned out Captain Grouse, and very

gallantly proposed to finish his game with Miss Poinsett, which Miss

Poinsett, who understood Lord Marney as well as he understood chess,

took care speedily to lose, so that his lordship might encounter a

champion worthy of him. Egremont seated by his sister-in-law, and

anxious by kind words to soothe the irritation which he had observed

with pain his brother create, entered into easy talk, and after some

time, said, “I find you have been good enough to mould my destiny.”

Lady Marney looked a little surprised, and then said, “How so?”

“You have decided on I hear the most important step of my life.”

“Indeed you perplex me.”

“Lady Joan Fitz-Warene, your friend--”

The countess blushed; the name was a clue which she could follow, but

Egremont nevertheless suspected that the idea had never previously

occurred to her. Lady Joan she described as not beautiful; certainly not

beautiful; nobody would consider her beautiful, many would indeed think

her quite the reverse; and yet she had a look, one particular look when

according to Lady Marney, she was more than beautiful. But she was very

clever, very indeed, something quite extraordinary.

“Accomplished?”

“Oh! far beyond that; I have heard even men say that no one knew so

much.”

“A regular blue?”

“Oh! no; not at all a blue; not that kind of knowledge. But languages

and learned books; Arabic, and Hebrew, and old manuscripts. And then she

has an observatory, and was the first person who discovered the comet.

Dr Buckland swears by her; and she corresponds with Arago.”

“And her sister, is she the same?”

“Lady Maud: she is very religious. I do not know her so well.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Some people admire her very much.”

“I never was at Mowbray. What sort of a place is it?”

“Oh! it is very grand,” said Lady Marney; “but like all places in the

manufacturing districts, very disagreeable. You never have a clear sky.

Your toilette table is covered with blacks; the deer in the park seem

as if they had bathed in a lake of Indian ink; and as for the sheep, you

expect to see chimney-sweeps for the shepherds.”

“And do you really mean to go on Thursday?” said Egremont: “I think we

had better put it off.”

“We must go,” said Lady Marney, with a sort of sigh, and shaking her

head.

“Let me speak to Marney.”

“Oh! no. We must go. I am annoyed about this dear little Poinsett: she

has been to stay with me so very often, and she has only been here

three days. When she comes in again, I wish you would ask her to sing,

Charles.”

Soon the dear little Poinsett was singing, much gratified by being

invited to the instrument by Mr Egremont, who for a few minutes hung

over her, and then evidently under the influence of her tones, walked up

and down the room, and only speaking to beg that she would continue her

charming performances. Lady Marney was engrossed with her embroidery;

her lord and the captain with their game.

And what was Egremont thinking of? Of Mowbray be you sure. And of Lady

Joan or Lady Maud? Not exactly. Mowbray was the name of the town to

which the strangers he had met with in the Abbey were bound. It was the

only piece of information that he had been able to obtain of them; and

that casually.

When the fair vision of the starlit arch, about to descend to her two

companions, perceived that they were in conversation with a stranger,

she hesitated, and in a moment withdrew. Then the elder of the

travellers, exchanging a glance with his friend, bid good even to

Egremont.

“Our way perhaps lies the same,” said Egremont.

“I should deem not,” said the stranger, “nor are we alone.”

“And we must be stirring, for we have far to go,” said he who was

dressed in black.

“My journey is very brief,” said Egremont, making a desperate effort to

invite communication; “and I am on horseback!”

“And we on foot,” said the elder; “nor shall we stop till we reach

Mowbray;” and with a slight salute, they left Egremont alone. There

was something in the manner of the elder stranger which repressed the

possibility of Egremont following him. Leaving then the cloister garden

in another direction, he speculated on meeting them outside the abbey.

He passed through the Lady’s chapel. The beautiful Religious was not

there. He gained the west front; no one was visible. He took a rapid

survey of each side of the abbey; not a being to be recognized. He

fancied they must have advanced towards the Abbey Farm; yet they might

have proceeded further on in the dale. Perplexed, he lost time. Finally

he proceeded towards the farm, but did not overtake them; reached it,

but learned nothing of them; and arrived at his brother’s full of a

strange yet sweet perplexity.

Book 2 Chapter 7

In a commercial country like England, every half century developes some

new and vast source of public wealth, which brings into national notice

a new and powerful class. A couple of centuries ago, a Turkey merchant

was the great creator of wealth; the West Indian Planter followed him.

In the middle of the last century appeared the Nabob. These characters

in their zenith in turn merged in the land, and became English

aristocrats; while the Levant decaying, the West Indies exhausted, and

Hindostan plundered, the breeds died away, and now exist only in our

English comedies from Wycherly and Congreve to Cumberland and Morton.

The expenditure of the revolutionary war produced the Loanmonger,

who succeeded the Nabob; and the application of science to industry

developed the Manufacturer, who in turn aspires to be “large-acred,”

and always will, as long as we have a territorial constitution; a better

security for the preponderance of the landed interest than any corn law,

fixed or fluctuating.

Of all these characters, the one that on the whole made the largest

fortunes in the most rapid manner,--and we do not forget the marvels of

the Waterloo loan, or the miracles of Manchester during the continental

blockade--was the Anglo-East Indian about the time that Hastings was

first appointed to the great viceroyalty. It was not unusual for men in

positions so obscure that their names had never reached the public in

this country, and who yet had not been absent from their native land for

a longer period than the siege of Troy, to return with their million.

One of the most fortunate of this class of obscure adventurers was a

certain John Warren. A very few years before the breaking out of the

American war, he was a waiter at a celebrated club in St James’s Street:

a quick yet steady young fellow; assiduous, discreet, and very civil.

In this capacity, he pleased a gentleman who was just appointed to the

government of Madras, and who wanted a valet. Warren, though prudent,

was adventurous; and accepted the opening which he believed fortune

offered him. He was prescient. The voyage in those days was an affair

of six months. During this period, Warren still more ingratiated himself

with his master. He wrote a good hand, and his master a very bad one.

He had a natural talent for accounts; a kind of information which was

useful to his employer. He arrived at Madras, no longer a valet, but a

private secretary.

His master went out to make a fortune; but he was indolent, and had

indeed none of the qualities for success, except his great position.

Warren had every quality but that. The basis of the confederacy

therefore was intelligible; it was founded on mutual interests and

cemented by reciprocal assistance. The governor granted monopolies to

the secretary, who apportioned a due share to his sleeping partner.

There appeared one of those dearths not unusual in Hindostan; the

population of the famished province cried out for rice; the stores of

which, diminished by nature, had for months mysteriously disappeared. A

provident administration it seems had invested the public revenue in its

benevolent purchase; the misery was so excessive that even pestilence

was anticipated, when the great forestallers came to the rescue of the

people over whose destinies they presided; and at the same time fed and

pocketed millions.

This was the great stroke of the financial genius of Warren. He was

satisfied. He longed once more to see St James’s Street, and to become

a member of the club, where he had once been a waiter. But he was

the spoiled child of fortune, who would not so easily spare him. The

governor died, and had appointed his secretary his sole executor. Not

that his excellency particularly trusted his agent, but he dared not

confide the knowledge of his affairs to any other individual. The estate

was so complicated, that Warren offered the heirs a good round sum

for his quittance, and to take the settlement upon himself. India so

distant, and Chancery so near--the heirs accepted the proposition.

Winding up this estate, Warren avenged the cause of plundered provinces;

and the House of Commons itself, with Burke and Francis at its head,

could scarcely have mulcted the late governor more severely.

A Mr Warren, of whom no one had ever heard except that he was a nabob,

had recently returned from India and purchased a large estate in the

north of England, was returned to Parliament one of the representatives

of a close borough which he had purchased: a quiet, gentlemanlike,

middle-aged man, with no decided political opinions; and, as parties

were then getting very equal, of course very much courted. The throes of

Lord North’s administration were commencing. The minister asked the new

member to dine with him, and found the new member singularly free from

all party prejudices. Mr Warren was one of those members who announced

their determination to listen to the debates and to be governed by the

arguments. All complimented him, all spoke to him. Mr Fox declared that

he was a most superior man; Mr Burke said that these were the men who

could alone save the country. Mrs Crewe asked him to supper; he was

caressed by the most brilliant of duchesses.

At length there arrived one of those fierce trials of strength, which

precede the fall of a minister, but which sometimes from peculiar

circumstances, as in the instances of Walpole and Lord North, are

not immediate in their results. How would Warren vote? was the great

question. He would listen to the arguments. Burke was full of confidence

that he should catch Warren. The day before the debate there was a

levee, which Mr Warren attended. The sovereign stopped him, spoke to

him, smiled on him, asked him many questions: about himself, the House

of Commons, how he liked it, how he liked England. There was a flutter

in the circle; a new favourite at court.

The debate came off, the division took place. Mr Warren voted for the

minister. Burke denounced him; the king made him a baronet.

Sir John Warren made a great alliance, at least for him; he married the

daughter of an Irish earl; became one of the king’s friends; supported

Lord Shelburne, threw over Lord Shelburne, had the tact early to

discover that Mr Pitt was the man to stick to, stuck to him. Sir John

Warren bought another estate, and picked up another borough. He was

fast becoming a personage. Throughout the Indian debates he kept himself

extremely quiet; once indeed in vindication of Mr Hastings, whom he

greatly admired, he ventured to correct Mr Francis on a point of fact

with which he was personally acquainted. He thought that it was safe,

but he never spoke again. He knew not the resources of vindictive genius

or the powers of a malignant imagination. Burke owed the Nabob a turn

for the vote which had gained him a baronetcy. The orator seized the

opportunity and alarmed the secret conscience of the Indian adventurer

by his dark allusions, and his fatal familiarity with the subject.

Another estate however and another borough were some consolation for

this little misadventure; and in time the French Revolution, to Sir

John’s great relief, turned the public attention for ever from Indian

affairs. The Nabob from the faithful adherent of Mr Pitt had become even

his personal friend. The wits indeed had discovered that he had been a

waiter; and endless were the epigrams of Fitzpatrick and the jokes of

Hare; but Mr Pitt cared nothing about the origin of his supporters. On

the contrary, Sir John was exactly the individual from whom the minister

meant to carve out his plebeian aristocracy; and using his friend as

a feeler before he ventured on his greater operations, the Nabob one

morning was transformed into an Irish baron.

The new Baron figured in his patent as Lord Fitz-Warene, his Norman

origin and descent from the old barons of this name having been

discovered at Herald’s college. This was a rich harvest for Fitzpatrick

and Hare; but the public gets accustomed to everything, and has an easy

habit of faith. The new Baron cared nothing for ridicule, for he was

working for posterity. He was compensated for every annoyance by the

remembrance that the St James’s Street waiter was ennobled, and by his

determination that his children should rank still higher in the proud

peerage of his country. So he obtained the royal permission to resume

the surname and arms of his ancestors, as well as their title.

There was an ill-natured story set afloat, that Sir John owed this

promotion to having lent money to the minister; but this was a calumny.

Mr Pitt never borrowed money of his friends. Once indeed, to save his

library, he took a thousand pounds from an individual on whom he had

conferred high rank and immense promotion: and this individual, who

had the minister’s bond when Mr Pitt died, insisted on his right,

and actually extracted the 1,000 l. from the insolvent estate of his

magnificent patron. But Mr Pitt always preferred an usurer to a friend;

and to the last day of his life borrowed money at fifty per cent.

The Nabob departed this life before the Minister, but he lived long

enough to realize his most aspiring dream. Two years before his death

the Irish baron was quietly converted into an English peer; and without

exciting any attention, all the squibs of Fitzpatrick, all the jokes of

Hare, quite forgotten, the waiter of the St James’s Street club took his

seat in the most natural manner possible in the House of Lords.

The great estate of the late Lord Fitz-Warene was situated at Mowbray, a

village which principally belonged to him, and near which he had raised

a gothic castle, worthy of his Norman name and ancestry. Mowbray was one

of those places which during the long war had expanded from an almost

unknown village to a large and flourishing manufacturing town; a

circumstance, which, as Lady Marney observed, might have somewhat

deteriorated the atmosphere of the splendid castle, but which had

nevertheless doubled the vast rental of its lord. He who had succeeded

to his father was Altamont Belvidere (named after his mother’s family)

Fitz-Warene, Lord Fitz-Warene. He was not deficient in abilities,

though he had not his father’s talents, but he was over-educated for his

intellect; a common misfortune. The new Lord Fitz-Warene was the

most aristocratic of breathing beings. He most fully, entirely, and

absolutely believed in his pedigree; his coat of arms was emblazoned

on every window, embroidered on every chair, carved in every corner.

Shortly after his father’s death he was united to the daughter of a

ducal house, by whom he had a son and two daughters, christened by names

which the ancient records of the Fitz-Warenes authorised. His son, who

gave promise of abilities which might have rendered the family really

distinguished, was Valence; his daughters, Joan and Maud. All that

seemed wanting to the glory of the house was a great distinction of

which a rich peer, with six seats in the House of Commons, could not

ultimately despair. Lord Fitz-Warene aspired to rank among the earls

of England. But the successors of Mr Pitt were strong; they thought the

Fitz-Warenes had already been too rapidly advanced; it was whispered

that the king did not like the new man; that his majesty thought him

pompous, full of pretence, in short, a fool. But though the successors

of Mr Pitt managed to govern the country for twenty years and were

generally very strong, in such an interval of time however good their

management or great their luck, there were inevitably occasions

when they found themselves in difficulties, when it was necessary to

conciliate the lukewarm or to reward the devoted. Lord Fitz-Warene well

understood how to avail himself of these occasions; it was astonishing

how conscientious and scrupulous he became during Walcheren expeditions,

Manchester massacres, Queen’s trials. Every scrape of the government was

a step in the ladder to the great borough-monger. The old king too had

disappeared from the stage; and the tawdry grandeur of the great Norman

peer rather suited George the Fourth. He was rather a favourite at the

Cottage; they wanted his six votes for Canning; he made his terms; and

one of the means by which we got a man of genius for a minister, was

elevating Lord Fitz-Warene in the peerage, by the style and title of

Earl de Mowbray of Mowbray Castle.

Book 2 Chapter 8

We must now for a while return to the strangers of the Abbey ruins. When

the two men had joined the beautiful Religious, whose apparition had so

startled Egremont, they all three quitted the Abbey by a way which led

them by the back of the cloister garden, and so on by the bank of the

river for about a hundred yards, when they turned up the winding glen of

a dried-up tributary stream. At the head of the glen, at which they soon

arrived, was a beer-shop, screened by some huge elms from the winds that

blew over the vast moor, which, except in the direction of Mardale, now

extended as far as the eye could reach. Here the companions stopped, the

beautiful Religious seated herself on a stone bench beneath the trees,

while the elder stranger calling out to the inmate of the house to

apprise him of his return, himself proceeded to a neighbouring shed,

whence he brought forth a very small rough pony with a rude saddle, but

one evidently intended for a female rider.

“It is well,” said the taller of the men “that I am not a member of a

temperance society like you, Stephen, or it would be difficult to reward

this good man for his care of our steed. I will take a cup of the drink

of Saxon kings.” Then leading up the pony to the Religious, he placed

her on its back with gentleness and much natural grace, saying at the

same time in a subdued tone, “And you--shall I bring you a glass of

nature’s wine?”

“I have drank of the spring of the Holy Abbey,” said the Religious, “and

none other must touch my lips this eve.”

“Come, our course must be brisk,” said the elder of the men as he gave

up his glass to their host and led off the pony, Stephen walking on its

other side.

Though the sun had fallen, the twilight was still glowing, and even on

this wide expanse the air was still. The vast and undulating surface of

the brown and purple moor, varied occasionally by some fantastic rocks,

gleamed in the shifting light. Hesperus was the only star that yet was

visible, and seemed to move before them and lead them on their journey.

“I hope,” said the Religious, turning to the elder stranger, “that if

ever we regain our right, my father, and that we ever can save by the

interposition of divine will seems to me clearly impossible, that you

will never forget how bitter it is to be driven from the soil; and that

you will bring back the people to the land.”

“I would pursue our right for no other cause,” said the father. “After

centuries of sorrow and degradation, it should never be said, that we

had no sympathy with the sad and the oppressed.”

“After centuries of sorrow and degradation,” said Stephen, “let it

not be said that you acquired your right only to create a baron or a

squire.”

“Nay, thou shalt have thy way, Stephen,” said his companion, smiling,

“if ever the good hour come. As many acres as thou choosest for thy new

Jerusalem.”

“Call it what you will, Walter,” replied Stephen; “but if I ever gain

the opportunity of fully carrying the principle of association into

practice, I will sing ‘Nunc me dimittas.’”

“‘Nunc me dimittas,’” burst forth the Religious in a voice of thrilling

melody, and she pursued for some minutes the divine canticle. Her

companions gazed on her with an air of affectionate reverence as she

sang; each instant the stars becoming brighter, the wide moor assuming a

darker hue.

“Now, tell me, Stephen,” said the Religious, turning her head and

looking round with a smile, “think you not it would be a fairer lot to

bide this night at some kind monastery, than to be hastening now to that

least picturesque of all creations, a railway station.”

“The railways will do as much for mankind as the monasteries did,” said

Stephen.

“Had it not been for the railway, we should never have made our visit to

Marney Abbey,” said the elder of the travellers.

“Nor seen its last abbot’s tomb,” said the Religious. “When I marked

your name upon the stone, my father;--woe is me, but I felt sad indeed,

that it was reserved for our blood to surrender to ruthless men that

holy trust.”

“He never surrendered,” said her father. “He was tortured and hanged.”

“He is with the communion of saints,” said the Religious.

“I would I could see a communion of Men,” said Stephen, “and then there

would be no more violence, for there would be no more plunder.”

“You must regain our lands for us, Stephen,” said the Religious;

“promise me my father that I shall raise a holy house for pious women,

if that ever hap.”

“We will not forget our ancient faith,” said her father, “the only old

thing that has not left us.”

“I cannot understand,” said Stephen, “why you should ever have lost

sight of these papers, Walter.”

“You see, friend, they were never in my possession; they were never

mine when I saw them. They were my father’s; and he was jealous of all

interference. He was a small yeoman, who had risen in the war time, well

to do in the world, but always hankering after the old tradition that

the lands were ours. This Hatton got hold of him; he did his work well,

I have heard;--certain it is my father spared nothing. It is twenty-five

years come Martinmas since he brought his writ of right; and though

baffled, he was not beaten. But then he died; his affairs were in great

confusion; he had mortgaged his land for his writ, and the war prices

were gone. There were debts that could not be paid. I had no capital for

a farm. I would not sink to be a labourer on the soil that had once been

our own. I had just married; it was needful to make a great exertion. I

had heard much of the high wages of this new industry; I left the land.”

“And the papers?”

“I never thought of them, or thought of them with disgust, as the cause

of my ruin. Then when you came the other day, and showed me in the

book that the last abbot of Marney was a Walter Gerard, the old feeling

stirred again; and I could not help telling you that my fathers fought

at Azincourt, though I was only the overlooker at Mr Trafford’s mill.”

“A good old name of the good old faith,” said the Religious; “and a

blessing be on it.”

“We have cause to bless it,” said Gerard. “I thought it then something

to serve a gentleman; and as for my daughter, she, by their goodness,

was brought up in holy walls, which have made her what she is.”

“Nature made her what she is,” said Stephen in a low voice, and speaking

not without emotion. Then he continued, in a louder and brisker tone,

“But this Hatton--you know nothing of his whereabouts?”

“Never heard of him since. I had indeed about a year after my father’s

death, cause to enquire after him; but he had quitted Mowbray, and none

could give me tidings of him. He had lived I believe on our law-suit,

and vanished with our hopes.”

After this, there was silence; each was occupied with his thoughts,

while the influence of the soft night and starry hour induced to

contemplation.

“I hear the murmur of the train,” said the Religious.

“‘Tis the up-train,” said her father. “We have yet a quarter of an hour;

we shall be in good time.”

So saying, he guided the pony to where some lights indicated the station

of the railway, which here crossed the moor. There was just time to

return the pony to the person at the station from whom it had been

borrowed, and obtain their tickets, when the bell of the down-train

sounded, and in a few minutes the Religious and her companions were on

their way to Mowbray, whither a course of two hours carried them.

It was two hours to midnight when they arrived at Mowbray station, which

was about a quarter of a mile from the town. Labour had long ceased; a

beautiful heaven, clear and serene, canopied the city of smoke and toil;

in all directions rose the columns of the factories, dark and defined

in the purple sky; a glittering star sometimes hovering by the crest of

their tall and tapering forms.

The travellers proceeded in the direction of a suburb and approached the

very high wall of an extensive garden. The moon rose as they reached it,

tipped the trees with light, and revealed a lofty and centre portal,

by the side of it a wicket at which Gerard rang. The wicket was quickly

opened.

“I fear, holy sister,” said the Religious, “that I am even later than I

promised.”

“Those that come in our lady’s name are ever welcome,” was the reply.

“Sister Marion,” said Gerard to the porteress, “we have been to visit a

holy place.”

“All places are holy with holy thoughts, my brother.”

“Dear father, good night,” said the Religious; “the blessings of all the

saints be on thee,--and on thee, Stephen, though thou dost not kneel to

them.”

“Good night, mine own child,” said Gerard.

“I could believe in saints when I am with thee,” murmured Stephen; “Good

night,--SYBIL.”

Book 2 Chapter 9

When Gerard and his friend quitted the convent they proceeded at a brisk

pace, into the heart of the town. The streets were nearly empty; and

with the exception of some occasional burst of brawl or merriment from

a beer-shop, all was still. The chief street of Mowbray, called

Castle Street after the ruins of the old baronial stronghold in its

neighbourhood, was as significant of the present civilization of this

community as the haughty keep had been of its ancient dependence. The

dimensions of Castle Street were not unworthy of the metropolis: it

traversed a great portion of the town, and was proportionately wide; its

broad pavements and its blazing gas-lights indicated its modern order

and prosperity; while on each side of the street rose huge warehouses,

not as beautiful as the palaces of Venice, but in their way not less

remarkable; magnificent shops; and here and there, though rarely, some

ancient factory built among the fields in the infancy of Mowbray by some

mill-owner not sufficiently prophetic of the future, or sufficiently

confident in the energy and enterprise of his fellow-citizens, to

foresee that the scene of his labours would be the future eye-sore of a

flourishing posterity.

Pursuing their course along Castle Street for about a quarter of a mile,

Gerard and Stephen turned down a street which intersected it, and so

on, through a variety of ways and winding lanes, till they arrived at an

open portion of the town, a district where streets and squares and even

rows, disappeared, and where the tall chimneys and bulky barrack-looking

buildings that rose in all directions, clustering yet isolated,

announced that they were in the principal scene of the industry of

Mowbray. Crossing this open ground they gained a suburb, but one of

a very different description to that in which was situate the convent

where they had parted with Sybil. This one was populous, noisy, and

lighted. It was Saturday night; the streets were thronged; an infinite

population kept swarming to and fro the close courts and pestilential

cul-de-sacs that continually communicated with the streets by narrow

archways, like the entrance of hives, so low that you were obliged to

stoop for admission: while ascending to these same streets, from their

dank and dismal dwellings by narrow flights of steps the subterraneous

nation of the cellars poured forth to enjoy the coolness of the summer

night, and market for the day of rest. The bright and lively shops were

crowded; and groups of purchasers were gathered round the stalls, that

by the aid of glaring lamps and flaunting lanthorns, displayed their

wares.

“Come, come, it’s a prime piece,” said a jolly looking woman, who was

presiding at a stall which, though considerably thinned by previous

purchasers, still offered many temptations to many who could not

purchase.

“And so it is widow,” said a little pale man, wistfully.

“Come, come, it’s getting late, and your wife’s ill; you’re a good soul,

we’ll say fi’pence a pound, and I’ll throw you the scrag end in for

love.”

“No butcher’s meat to-morrow for us, widow,” said the man.

“And why not, neighbour? With your wages, you ought to live like a

prize-fighter, or the mayor of Mowbray at least.”

“Wages!” said the man, “I wish you may get ‘em. Those villains, Shuffle

and Screw, have sarved me with another bate ticket: and a pretty figure

too.”

“Oh! the carnal monsters!” exclaimed the widow. “If their day don’t

come, the bloody-minded knaves!”

“And for small cops, too! Small cops be hanged! Am I the man to send up

a bad-bottomed cop, Widow Carey?”

“You sent up for snicks! I have known you man and boy John Hill these

twenty summers, and never heard a word against you till you got into

Shuffle and Screw’s mill. Oh! they are a bad yarn, John.”

“They do us all, widow. They pretends to give the same wages as the

rest, and works it out in fines. You can’t come, and you can’t go, but

there’s a fine; you’re never paid wages, but there’s a bate ticket. I’ve

heard they keep their whole establishment on factory fines.”

“Soul alive, but those Shuffle and Screw are rotten, snickey, bad

yarns,” said Mistress Carey. “Now ma’am, if you please; fi’pence

ha’penny; no, ma’am, we’ve no weal left. Weal, indeed! you look very

like a soul as feeds on weal,” continued Mrs Carey in an under tone as

her declining customer moved away. “Well, it gets late,” said the widow,

“and if you like to take this scrag end home to your wife neighbour

Hill, we can talk of the rest next Saturday. And what’s your will, sir?”

said the widow with a stern expression to a youth who now stopped at her

stall.

He was about sixteen, with a lithe figure, and a handsome, faded,

impudent face. His long, loose, white trousers gave him height; he had

no waistcoat, but a pink silk handkerchief was twisted carelessly round

his neck, and fastened with a very large pin, which, whatever were

its materials, had unquestionably a very gorgeous appearance. A loose

frock-coat of a coarse white cloth, and fastened by one button round his

waist, completed his habiliments, with the addition of the covering to

his head, a high-crowned dark-brown hat, which relieved his complexion,

and heightened the effect of his mischievous blue eye.

“Well, you need not be so fierce, Mother Carey,” said the youth with an

affected air of deprecation.

“Don’t mother me,” said the jolly widow with a kindling eye; “go to your

own mother, who is dying in a back cellar without a winder, while you’ve

got lodgings in a two pair.”

“Dying; she’s only drunk,” said the youth.

“And if she is only drunk,” rejoined Mrs Carey in a passion, “what makes

her drink but toil; working from five o’clock in the morning to seven

o’clock at night, and for the like of such as you.”

“That’s a good one,” said the youth; “I should like to know what my

mother ever did for me, but give me treacle and laudanum when I was a

babby to stop my tongue and fill my stomach; by the token of which,

as my gal says, she stunted the growth of the prettiest figure in all

Mowbray.” And here the youth drew himself up, and thrust his hands in

the side pockets of his pea-jacket.

“Well, I never,” said Mrs Carey. “No; I never heard a thing like that!”

“What, not when you cut up the jackass and sold it for veal cutlets,

mother.”

“Hold your tongue, Mr Imperence,” said the widow. “It’s very well known

you’re no Christian, and who’ll believe what you say?”

“It’s very well known that I’m a man what pays his way,” said the boy,

“and don’t keep a huckster’s stall to sell carrion by star-light; but

live in a two pair, if you please, and has a wife and family, or as

good.”

“O! you aggravating imp!” exclaimed the widow in despair, unable to

wreak her vengeance on one who kept in a secure position, and whose

movements were as nimble as his words.

“Why, Madam Carey, what has Dandy Mick done to thee?” said a

good-humoured voice, it came from one of two factory girls who were

passing her stall and stopped. They were gaily dressed, a light

handkerchief tied under the chin, their hair scrupulously arranged; they

wore coral neck-laces and earrings of gold.

“Ah! is it you, my child,” said the widow, who was a good-hearted

creature. “The dandy has been giving me some of his imperence.”

“But I meant nothing, dame,” said Mick. “It was a joke,--only a joke.”

“Well, let it pass,” said Mrs Carey. “And where have you been this long

time, my child; and who’s your friend?” she added in a lower tone.

“Well, I have left Mr Trafford’s mill,” said the girl.

“That’s a bad job,” said Mrs Carey; “for those Traffords are kind to

their people. It’s a great thing for a young person to be in their

mill.”

“So it is,” said the girl, “but then it was so dull. I can’t stand a

country life, Mrs Carey. I must have company.”

“Well, I do love a bit of gossip myself,” said Mrs Carey, with great

frankness.

“And then I’m no scholar,” said the girl, “and never could take to

learning. And those Traffords had so many schools.”

“Learning is better than house and land,” said Mrs Carey; “though I’m

no scholar myself; but then, in my time, things was different. But young

persons--”

“Yes,” said Mick; “I don’t think I could get through the day, if it

wurno’ for our Institute.”

“And what’s that?” asked Mrs Carey with a sneer.

“The Shoddy-Court Literary and Scientific, to be sure,” said Mick; “we

have got fifty members, and take in three London papers; one ‘Northern

Star’ and two ‘Moral Worlds.’”

“And where are you now, child?” continued the widow to the girl.

“I am at Wiggins and Webster’s,” said the girl; “and this is my partner.

We keep house together; we have a very nice room in Arbour Court, No.

7, high up; it’s very airy. If you will take a dish of tea with us

to-morrow, we expect some friends.”

“I take it kindly,” said Mrs Carey; “and so you keep house together! All

the children keep house in these days. Times is changed indeed!”

“And we shall be happy to see you, Mick; and Julia, if you are not

engaged;” continued the girl; and she looked at her friend, a pretty

demure girl, who immediately said, but in a somewhat faultering tone,

“Oh! that we shall.”

“And what are you going to do now, Caroline?” said Mick.

“Well, we had no thoughts; but I said to Harriet, as it is a fine night,

let us walk about as long as we can and then to-morrow we will lie in

bed till afternoon.”

“That’s all well eno’ in winter time with plenty of baccy,” said Mick,

“but at this season of the year I must have life. The moment I came out

I bathed in the river, and then went home and dressed,” he added in a

satisfied tone; “and now I am going to the Temple. I’ll tell you what,

Julia has been pricked to-day with a shuttle, ‘tis not much, but she

can’t go out; I’ll stand treat, and take you and your friend to the

Temple.”

“Well, that’s delight,” said Caroline. “There’s no one does the handsome

thing like you, Dandy Mick, and I always say so. Oh! I love the Temple!

‘Tis so genteel! I was speaking of it to Harriet last night; she

never was there. I proposed to go with her--but two girls alone,--you

understand me. One does not like to be seen in these places, as if one

kept no company.”

“Very true,” said Mick; “and now we’ll be off. Good night, widow.”

“You’ll remember us to-morrow evening,” said Caroline. “To-morrow

evening! The Temple!” murmured Mrs Carey to herself. “I think the world

is turned upside downwards in these parts. A brat like Mick Radley to

live in a two pair, with a wife and family, or as good as he says;

and this girl asks me to take a dish of tea with her and keeps house!

Fathers and mothers goes for nothing,” continued Mrs Carey, as she took

a very long pinch of snuff and deeply mused. “‘tis the children gets the

wages,” she added after a profound pause, “and there it is.”

Book 2 Chapter 10

In the meantime Gerard and Stephen stopped before a tall, thin, stuccoed

house, ballustraded and friezed, very much lighted both within and

without, and, from the sounds that issued from it, and the persons who

retired and entered, evidently a locality of great resort and bustle. A

sign, bearing the title of the Cat and Fiddle, indicated that it was a

place of public entertainment, and kept by one who owned the legal name

of John Trottman, though that was but a vulgar appellation, lost in his

well-earned and far-famed title of Chaffing Jack.

The companions entered the spacious premises; and making their way to

the crowded bar, Stephen, with a glance serious but which indicated

intimacy, caught the eye of a comely lady, who presided over the

mysteries, and said in a low voice, “Is he here?”

“In the Temple, Mr Morley, asking for you and your friend more than

once. I think you had better go up. I know he wishes to see you.”