CHAPTER XVI.

PEACE TO CRANFORD 286

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS]

PAGE

Miss Matty _Frontispiece_

Heading to Preface v

Heading to Contents xxv

Heading to List of Illustrations xxvii

Heading to Chapter I. 1

‘A magnificent family red silk umbrella’ 3

‘Clattered home in their pattens’ 6

‘To see the Alderney’ 9

‘Sang out loud and joyfully’ 11

‘Coming out of church’ 12

‘The account of the “Swarry”’ 16

Tailpiece to Chapter I. 18

Heading to Chapter II. 19

‘Carrying her baked mutton and potatoes’ 20

‘No one could black his boots except himself’ 22

‘Miss Jenkyns’ 24

‘One with whom his lordship held conversation’ 26

‘And he shuddered at the recollection’ 31

‘He shook hands with Miss Jessie’ 38

Tailpiece to Chapter II. 41

Heading to Chapter III. 42

‘If you please, my love, will you call me Matilda?’ 44

‘So as to throw the shadow on the clock face’ 46

‘She "nudged" the major’ 51

‘How are you? how are you?’ 54

Tailpiece to Chapter III. 56

Heading to Chapter IV. 57

‘Requested her to fill the bowl’ 62

‘Or glimpse of distant upland pastures’ 64

‘He had begun a long poem’ 66

‘Here are the poems for you’ 68

‘God forbid that I should grieve any young hearts’ 73

Tailpiece to Chapter IV. 74

Heading to Chapter V. 75

‘When Martha brought in the lighted candle and tea’ 78

‘Preached before some judge’ 81

A Post Boy 86

‘Turning out of the volunteers’ 88

Tailpiece to Chapter V. 91

Heading to Chapter VI. 92

‘The little curtseys’ 95

‘Have you done enough, sir?’ 98

‘He and my father were such friends!’ 108

Heading to Chapter VII. 110

‘With bland satisfaction’ 111

Mrs. ffarringdon and Mr. ffoulkes 118

‘Hush, ladies! if you please, hush!’ 122

Tailpiece to Chapter VII. 125

Heading to Chapter VIII. 126

‘We sedulously talked together’ 130

Mr. Mulliner 132

Miss Pole and the brooches 135

‘In dignified surprise’ 141

Tailpiece to Chapter VIII. 146

Heading to Chapter IX. 147

‘Making such a graceful bow’ 151

‘Walk mincingly up the room’ 156

‘The Church smiling approval’ 160

Heading to Chapter X. 162

‘A regular expedition’ 163

‘Armed with a footstool’ 167

‘Called out valiantly’ 170

‘Speaking very ominously’ 173

‘To have her teeth examined’ 175

‘Implored the chairman’ 178

‘He was a sharp lad’ 181

‘Leading questions’ 183

Tailpiece to Chapter X. 185

Heading to Chapter XI. 186

‘Perplexed about the exact path’ 187

‘Riding over’ 189

‘Airing the Sedan Chair’ 191

‘In Darkness Lane’ 193

‘The boys who stole the apples’ 195

‘A diary in two columns’ 198

Heading to Chapter XII. 204

‘Miss Jenkyns used to say’ 207

‘It was too big for words’ 209

‘Bread and cheese’ 211

‘Lady Glenmire’ 213

‘Mr. Hoggins looked radiant’ 216

Tailpiece to Chapter XII. 218

Heading to Chapter XIII. 219

‘Each individual coin’ 221

‘Over the counter’ 225

‘The country people came in’ 226

‘Our neighbour’ 227

‘“Dang it!” said he’ 229

‘He hung back’ 232

‘The civil Mr. Johnson’ 234

‘The account-books’ 236

Heading to Chapter XIV. 239

‘Posting the letter’ 240

‘Don’t “but Martha” me’ 242

‘There!’ 247

‘He’s only Jem Hearn’ 250

‘Soothed by her lover’ 253

‘Mrs. Fitz-Adam’ 255

‘Drumming with his fingers upon it’ 263

Tailpiece to Chapter XIV. 266

Heading to Chapter XV. 267

‘All the smiling glory of his face’ 269

‘A complimentary speech’ 275

‘Absorbed in contemplation’ 278

‘Gleefully awaited the shower of comfits and lozenges’ 284

Tailpiece to Chapter XV. 285

Heading to Chapter XVI. 286

‘The Father of the Faithful’ 288

‘The proof sheet of a great placard’ 294

‘He had shot a cherubim!’ 296

‘Mrs. Jamieson on one side, and my lady, Mrs. Hoggins, on 298

the other’

[Illustration: Chapter 1: Our Society]

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the

holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women. If a married couple

come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is

either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford

evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his

ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great

neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a

railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not

at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his

round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a

surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers without a

weed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully

at the said flowers through the railings; for rushing out at the geese

that occasionally venture into the gardens if the gates are left open;

for deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling

themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear

and correct knowledge of everybody’s affairs in the parish; for keeping

their neat maidservants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat

dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good offices to each other

whenever they are in distress,—the ladies of Cranford are quite

sufficient. ‘A man,’ as one of them observed to me once, ‘is _so_ in the

way in the house!’ Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other’s

proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other’s opinions.

Indeed, as each has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity,

pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation;

but, somehow, goodwill reigns among them to a considerable degree.

The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spirted out

in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the head; just enough to

prevent the even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat. Their

dress is very independent of fashion; as they observe, ‘What does it

signify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us?’ And if

they go from home, their reason is equally cogent, ‘What does it signify

how we dress here, where nobody knows us?’ The materials of their

clothes are, in general, good and plain, and most of them are nearly as

scrupulous as Miss Tyler, of cleanly memory; but I will answer for it,

the last gigot, the last tight and scanty petticoat in wear in England,

was seen in Cranford—and seen without a smile.

[Illustration: ‘_A magnificent family red silk umbrella._’]

I can testify to a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which a

gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and sisters, used to

patter to church on rainy days. Have you any red silk umbrellas in

London? We had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in

Cranford; and the little boys mobbed it, and called it ‘a stick in

petticoats.’ It might have been the very red silk one I have described,

held by a strong father over a troop of little ones; the poor little

lady—the survivor of all—could scarcely carry it.

Then there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls; and they

were announced to any young people, who might be staying in the town,

with all the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were read once a

year on the Tinwald Mount.

‘Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your journey

to-night, my dear’ (fifteen miles in a gentleman’s carriage); ‘they will

give you some rest to-morrow, but the next day, I have no doubt, they

will call; so be at liberty after twelve—from twelve to three are our

calling-hours.’

Then, after they had called—

‘It is the third day; I daresay your mamma has told you, my dear, never

to let more than three days elapse between receiving a call and

returning it; and also, that you are never to stay longer than a quarter

of an hour.’

‘But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a quarter of an

hour has passed?’

‘You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow yourself

to forget it in conversation.’

As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received or paid

a call, of course no absorbing subject was ever spoken about. We kept

ourselves to short sentences of small talk, and were punctual to our

time.

I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor, and had

some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the

Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none of us

spoke of money, because that subject savoured of commerce and trade, and

though some might be poor, we were all aristocratic. The Cranfordians

had that kindly _esprit de corps_ which made them overlook all

deficiencies in success when some among them tried to conceal their

poverty. When Mrs. Forrester, for instance, gave a party in her

baby-house of a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the ladies on

the sofa by a request that she might get the tea-tray out from

underneath, every one took this novel proceeding as the most natural

thing in the world, and talked on about household forms and ceremonies

as if we all believed that our hostess had a regular servants’ hall,

second table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the one little

charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have been

strong enough to carry the tray upstairs if she had not been assisted in

private by her mistress, who now sat in state, pretending not to know

what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that

we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all

the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.

There were one or two consequences arising from this general but

unacknowledged poverty, and this very much acknowledged gentility, which

were not amiss, and which might be introduced into many circles of

society to their great improvement. For instance, the inhabitants of

Cranford kept early hours, and clattered home in their pattens, under

the guidance of a lantern-bearer, about nine o’clock at night; and the

whole town was abed and asleep by half-past ten. Moreover, it was

considered ‘vulgar’ (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything

expensive, in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening

entertainments. Wafer bread-and-butter and sponge-biscuits were all that

the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the late

Earl of Glenmire, although she did practise such ‘elegant economy.’

[Illustration: ‘_Clattered home in their pattens._’]

‘Elegant economy!’ How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of

Cranford! There, economy was always ‘elegant,’ and money-spending always

‘vulgar and ostentatious’; a sort of sour grapism which made us very

peaceful and satisfied. I never shall forget the dismay felt when a

certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about

his being poor—not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and

windows being previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud

military voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a

particular house. The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning

over the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. He was

a half-pay Captain, and had obtained some situation on a neighbouring

railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little

town; and if, in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection

with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being

poor—why, then, indeed, he must be sent to Coventry. Death was as true

and as common as poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in

the streets. It was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite. We had

tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of

visiting equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything

that they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it was because the

night was _so_ fine, or the air _so_ refreshing, not because sedan

chairs were expensive. If we wore prints, instead of summer silks, it

was because we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded

ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very

moderate means. Of course, then, we did not know what to make of a man

who could speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace. Yet, somehow,

Captain Brown made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon,

in spite of all resolutions to the contrary. I was surprised to hear his

opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a

year after he had settled in the town. My own friends had been among the

bitterest opponents of any proposal to visit the Captain and his

daughters only twelve months before; and now he was even admitted in the

tabooed hours before twelve. True, it was to discover the cause of a

smoking chimney, before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown

walked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the

room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the house. He had

been blind to all the small slights, and omissions of trivial

ceremonies, with which he had been received. He had been friendly,

though the Cranford ladies had been cool; he had answered small

sarcastic compliments in good faith; and with his manly frankness had

overpowered all the shrinking which met him as a man who was not ashamed

to be poor. And, at last, his excellent masculine common sense, and his

facility in devising expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had

gained him an extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford

ladies. He himself went on in his course, as unaware of his popularity

as he had been of the reverse; and I am sure he was startled one day

when he found his advice so highly esteemed as to make some counsel

which he had given in jest to be taken in sober, serious earnest.

It was on this subject: An old lady had an Alderney cow, which

she looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the short

quarter-of-an-hour call without being told of the wonderful milk or

wonderful intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly

regarded Miss Betsy Barker’s Alderney; therefore great was the sympathy

and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled into a

limepit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but

meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair, and came out looking

naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody pitied the animal,

though a few could not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance.

Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was

said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was

recommended by some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the

proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain

Brown’s decided ‘Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma’am,

if you wish to keep her alive. But my advice is, kill the poor creature

at once.’

[Illustration: ‘_To see the Alderney._’]

Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she

set to work, and by and by all the town turned out to see the Alderney

meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark gray flannel. I have watched

her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in gray flannel in

London?

Captain Brown had taken a small house on the outskirts of the town,

where he lived with his two daughters. He must have been upwards of

sixty at the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had left

it as a residence. But he had a wiry, well-trained, elastic figure, a

stiff military throw-back of his head, and a springing step, which made

him appear much younger than he was. His eldest daughter looked almost

as old as himself, and betrayed the fact that his real was more than his

apparent age. Miss Brown must have been forty; she had a sickly, pained,

careworn expression on her face, and looked as if the gaiety of youth

had long faded out of sight. Even when young she must have been plain

and hard-featured. Miss Jessie Brown was ten years younger than her

sister, and twenty shades prettier. Her face was round and dimpled. Miss

Jenkyns once said, in a passion against Captain Brown (the cause of

which I will tell you presently), ‘that she thought it was time for Miss

Jessie to leave off her dimples, and not always to be trying to look

like a child.’ It was true there was something childlike in her face;

and there will be, I think, till she dies, though she should live to a

hundred. Her eyes were large blue wondering eyes, looking straight at

you; her nose was unformed and snub, and her lips were red and dewy; she

wore her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which heightened this

appearance. I do not know whether she was pretty or not; but I liked her

face, and so did everybody, and I do not think she could help her

dimples. She had something of her father’s jauntiness of gait and

manner; and any female observer might detect a slight difference in the

attire of the two sisters—that of Miss Jessie being about two pounds per

annum more expensive than Miss Brown’s. Two pounds was a large sum in

Captain Brown’s annual disbursements.

[Illustration: ‘_Sang out loud and joyfully._’]

Such was the impression made upon me by the Brown family when I first

saw them all together in Cranford Church. The Captain I had met

before—on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had cured by some

simple alteration in the flue. In church, he held his double eye-glass

to his eyes during the Morning Hymn, and then lifted up his head erect

and sang out loud and joyfully. He made the responses louder than the

clerk—an old man with a piping feeble voice, who, I think, felt

aggrieved at the Captain’s sonorous bass, and quavered higher and higher

in consequence.

[Illustration: ‘_Coming out of church._’]

On coming out of church, the brisk Captain paid the most gallant

attention to his two daughters. He nodded and smiled to his

acquaintances; but he shook hands with none until he had helped Miss

Brown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her prayer-book, and

had waited patiently till she, with trembling nervous hands, had taken

up her gown to walk through the wet roads.

I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their

parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no

gentleman to be attended to, and to find conversation for, at the

card-parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the

evenings; and, in our love for gentility and distaste of mankind, we had

almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be ‘vulgar’; so that

when I found my friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, was going to have a

party in my honour, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited, I

wondered much what would be the course of the evening. Card-tables, with

green-baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as usual; it was the

third week in November, so the evenings closed in about four. Candles

and clean packs of cards were arranged on each table. The fire was made

up; the neat maidservant had received her last directions; and there we

stood, dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands,

ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in

Cranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated

as they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as three had

arrived, we sat down to ‘Preference,’ I being the unlucky fourth. The

next four comers were put down immediately to another table; and

presently the tea-trays, which I had seen set out in the storeroom as I

passed in the morning, were placed each on the middle of a card-table.

The china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered

with polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description.

While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the Miss Browns came

in; and I could see that, somehow or other, the Captain was a favourite

with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows were smoothed, sharp voices

lowered at his approach. Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to

gloom. Miss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her

father. He immediately and quietly assumed the man’s place in the room;

attended to every one’s wants, lessened the pretty maidservant’s labour

by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it

all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a

matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a

true man throughout. He played for threepenny points with as grave an

interest as if they had been pounds; and yet, in all his attention to

strangers, he had an eye on his suffering daughter—for suffering I was

sure she was, though to many eyes she might only appear to be irritable.

Miss Jessie could not play cards, but she talked to the sitters-out,

who, before her coming, had been rather inclined to be cross. She sang,

too, to an old cracked piano, which I think had been a spinnet in its

youth. Miss Jessie sang ‘Jock o’ Hazeldean’ a little out of tune; but we

were none of us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by

way of appearing to be so.

It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a

little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown’s

unguarded admission (_à propos_ of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle,

her mother’s brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns

tried to drown this confession by a terrible cough—for the Honourable

Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and

what would she say or think if she found out she was in the same room

with a shopkeeper’s niece! But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we

all agreed the next morning) _would_ repeat the information, and assure

Miss Pole she could easily get her the identical Shetland wool required,

‘through my uncle, who has the best assortment of Shetland goods of any

one in Edinbro’.’ It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths,

and the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music;

so I say again, it was very good of her to beat time to the song.

When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a

quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards, and talking

over tricks; but by and by Captain Brown sported a bit of literature.

‘Have you seen any numbers of _The Pickwick Papers_?’ said he. (They

were then publishing in parts.) ‘Capital thing!’

Now Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford; and, on

the strength of a number of manuscript sermons, and a pretty good

library of divinity, considered herself literary, and looked upon any

conversation about books as a challenge to her. So she answered and

said, ‘Yes, she had seen them; indeed, she might say she had read them.’

‘And what do you think of them?’ exclaimed Captain Brown. ‘Aren’t they

famously good?’

So urged, Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.

‘I must say, I don’t think they are by any means equal to Dr. Johnson.

Still, perhaps, the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows

what he may become if he will take the great Doctor for his model.’ This

was evidently too much for Captain Brown to take placidly; and I saw the

words on the tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had finished her

sentence.

‘It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam,’ he began.

[Illustration: ‘_The account of the “swarry._”’]

‘I am quite aware of that,’ returned she. ‘And I make allowances,

Captain Brown.’

‘Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month’s number,’ pleaded

he. ‘I had it only this morning, and I don’t think the company can have

read it yet.’

‘As you please,’ said she, settling herself with an air of resignation.

He read the account of the ‘swarry’ which Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some

of us laughed heartily. _I_ did not dare, because I was staying in the

house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient gravity. When it was ended, she

turned to me, and said, with mild dignity—

‘Fetch me _Rasselas_, my dear, out of the book-room.’

When I brought it to her she turned to Captain Brown—

‘Now allow _me_ to read you a scene, and then the present company can

judge between your favourite, Mr. Boz, and Dr. Johnson.’

She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac, in a

high-pitched majestic voice; and when she had ended she said, ‘I imagine

I am now justified in my preference of Dr. Johnson as a writer of

fiction.’ The Captain screwed his lips up, and drummed on the table, but

he did not speak. She thought she would give a finishing blow or two.

‘I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to publish

in numbers.’

‘How was _The Rambler_ published, ma’am?’ asked Captain Brown, in a low

voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.

‘Dr. Johnson’s style is a model for young beginners. My father

recommended it to me when I began to write letters—I have formed my own

style upon it; I recommend it to your favourite.’

‘I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such

pompous writing,’ said Captain Brown.

Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which the

Captain had not dreamed. Epistolary writing she and her friends

considered as her _forte_. Many a copy of many a letter have I seen

written and corrected on the slate, before she ‘seized the half-hour

just previous to post-time to assure’ her friends of this or of that;

and Dr. Johnson was, as she said, her model in these compositions. She

drew herself up with dignity, and only replied to Captain Brown’s last

remark by saying, with marked emphasis on every syllable, ‘I prefer Dr.

Johnson to Mr. Boz.’

It is said—I won’t vouch for the fact—that Captain Brown was heard to

say, _sotto voce_, ‘D——n Dr. Johnson!’ If he did, he was penitent

afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns’s armchair,

and endeavouring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing

subject. But she was inexorable. The next day she made the remark I have

mentioned about Miss Jessie’s dimples.

[Illustration: Chapter 1: tailpiece]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: Chapter 2: The Captain]

It was impossible to live a month at Cranford and not know the daily

habits of each resident; and long before my visit was ended I knew much

concerning the whole Brown trio. There was nothing new to be discovered

respecting their poverty; for they had spoken simply and openly about

that from the very first. They made no mystery of the necessity for

their being economical. All that remained to be discovered was the

Captain’s infinite kindness of heart, and the various modes in which,

unconsciously to himself, he manifested it. Some little anecdotes were

talked about for some time after they occurred. As we did not read much,

and as all the ladies were pretty well suited with servants, there was a

dearth of subjects for conversation. We therefore discussed the

circumstance of the Captain taking a poor old woman’s dinner out of her

hands one very slippery Sunday. He had met her returning from the

bakehouse as he came from church, and noticed her precarious footing;

and, with the grave dignity with which he did everything, he relieved

her of her burden, and steered along the street by her side, carrying

her baked mutton and potatoes safely home. This was thought very

eccentric; and it was rather expected that he would pay a round of

calls, on the Monday morning, to explain and apologise to the Cranford

sense of propriety: but he did no such thing; and then it was decided

that he was ashamed, and was keeping out of sight. In a kindly pity for

him we began to say, ‘After all, the Sunday morning’s occurrence showed

great goodness of heart,’ and it was resolved that he should be

comforted on his next appearance amongst us; but, lo! he came down upon

us, untouched by any sense of shame, speaking loud and bass as ever, his

head thrown back, his wig as jaunty and well-curled as usual, and we

were obliged to conclude he had forgotten all about Sunday.

[Illustration: ‘_Carrying her baked mutton and potatoes._’]

Miss Pole and Miss Jessie Brown had set up a kind of intimacy on the

strength of the Shetland wool and the new knitting stitches; so it

happened that when I went to visit Miss Pole I saw more of the Browns

than I had done while staying with Miss Jenkyns, who had never got over

what she called Captain Brown’s disparaging remarks upon Dr. Johnson as

a writer of light and agreeable fiction. I found that Miss Brown was

seriously ill of some lingering incurable complaint, the pain occasioned

by which gave the uneasy expression to her face that I had taken for

unmitigated crossness. Cross, too, she was at times, when the nervous

irritability occasioned by her disease became past endurance. Miss

Jessie bore with her at these times, even more patiently than she did

with the bitter self-upbraidings by which they were invariably

succeeded. Miss Brown used to accuse herself, not merely of hasty and

irritable temper, but also of being the cause why her father and sister

were obliged to pinch, in order to allow her the small luxuries which

were necessaries in her condition. She would so fain have made

sacrifices for them, and have lightened their cares, that the original

generosity of her disposition added acerbity to her temper. All this was

borne by Miss Jessie and her father with more than placidity—with

absolute tenderness. I forgave Miss Jessie her singing out of tune, and

her juvenility of dress, when I saw her at home. I came to perceive that

Captain Brown’s dark Brutus wig and padded coat (alas! too often

threadbare) were remnants of the military smartness of his youth, which

he now wore unconsciously. He was a man of infinite resources, gained in

his barrack experience. As he confessed, no one could black his boots to

please him except himself: but, indeed, he was not above saving the

little maidservant’s labours in every way—knowing, most likely, that his

daughter’s illness made the place a hard one.

[Illustration: ‘_No one could black his boots except himself._’]

He endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns, soon after the memorable

dispute I have named, by a present of a wooden fire-shovel (his own

making), having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one

annoyed her. She received the present with cool gratitude, and thanked

him formally. When he was gone, she bade me put it away in the

lumber-room; feeling, probably, that no present from a man who preferred

Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.

[Illustration: ‘_Miss Jenkyns._’]

Such was the state of things when I left Cranford and went to Drumble. I

had, however, several correspondents who kept me _au fait_ as to the

proceedings of the dear little town. There was Miss Pole, who was

becoming as much absorbed in crochet as she had been once in knitting,

and the burden of whose letter was something like, ‘But don’t you forget

the white worsted at Flint’s’ of the old song; for at the end of every

sentence of news came a fresh direction as to some crochet commission

which I was to execute for her. Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did not mind

being called Miss Matty when Miss Jenkyns was not by) wrote nice, kind,

rambling letters, now and then venturing into an opinion of her own; but

suddenly pulling herself up, and either begging me not to name what she

had said, as Deborah thought differently, and _she_ knew, or else

putting in a postscript to the effect that, since writing the above, she

had been talking over the subject with Deborah, and was quite convinced

that, etc.—(here probably followed a recantation of every opinion she

had given in the letter). Then came Miss Jenkyns—Debōrah, as she liked

Miss Matty to call her, her father having once said that the Hebrew name

ought to be so pronounced. I secretly think she took the Hebrew

prophetess for a model in character; and, indeed, she was not unlike the

stern prophetess in some ways, making allowance, of course, for modern

customs and difference in dress. Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a

little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a

strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of

women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior.

But to return to her letters. Everything in them was stately and grand,

like herself. I have been looking them over (dear Miss Jenkyns, how I

honoured her!), and I will give an extract, more especially because it

relates to our friend Captain Brown——

The Honourable Mrs. Jamieson has only just quitted me; and, in the

course of conversation, she communicated to me the intelligence that she

had yesterday received a call from her revered husband’s quondam friend,

Lord Mauleverer. You will not easily conjecture what brought his

lordship within the precincts of our little town. It was to see Captain

Brown, with whom, it appears, his lordship was acquainted in the “plumed

wars,” and who had the privilege of averting destruction from his

lordship’s head, when some great peril was impending over it, off the

misnomered Cape of Good Hope. You know our friend the Honourable Mrs.

Jamieson’s deficiency in the spirit of innocent curiosity; and you will

therefore not be so much surprised when I tell you she was quite unable

to disclose to me the exact nature of the peril in question. I was

anxious, I confess, to ascertain in what manner Captain Brown, with his

limited establishment, could receive so distinguished a guest; and I

discovered that his lordship retired to rest, and, let us hope, to

refreshing slumbers, at the Angel Hotel; but shared the Brunonian meals

during the two days that he honoured Cranford with his august presence.

Mrs. Johnson, our civil butcher’s wife, informs me that Miss Jessie

purchased a leg of lamb; but, besides this, I can hear of no preparation

whatever to give a suitable reception to so distinguished a visitor.

Perhaps they entertained him with “the feast of reason and the flow of

soul”; and to us, who are acquainted with Captain Brown’s sad want of

relish for “the pure wells of English undefiled,” it may be matter for

congratulation that he has had the opportunity of improving his taste by

holding converse with an elegant and refined member of the British

aristocracy. But from some mundane failings who is altogether free?’

[Illustration: ‘_One with whom his lordship held conversation.’_]

Miss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to me by the same post. Such a piece of

news as Lord Mauleverer’s visit was not to be lost on the Cranford

letter-writers; they made the most of it. Miss Matty humbly apologised

for writing at the same time as her sister, who was so much more capable

than she to describe the honour done to Cranford; but, in spite of a

little bad spelling, Miss Matty’s account gave me the best idea of the

commotion occasioned by his lordship’s visit, after it had occurred;

for, except the people at the Angel, the Browns, Mrs. Jamieson, and a

little lad his lordship had sworn at for driving a dirty hoop against

the aristocratic legs, I could not hear of any one with whom his

lordship had held conversation.

My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither

births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in

the same house, and wore pretty nearly the same well-preserved

old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was, that the Miss Jenkynses

had purchased a new carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss

Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams, as they fell in an afternoon

right down on this carpet through the blindless window! We spread

newspapers over the places, and sat down to our book or our work; and

lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved, and was blazing away on a

fresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of

the newspapers. We were very busy, too, one whole morning, before Miss

Jenkyns gave her party, in following her directions, and in cutting out

and stitching together pieces of newspaper so as to form little paths to

every chair set for the expected visitors, lest their shoes might dirty

or defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every

guest to walk upon in London?

Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns were not very cordial to each other. The

literary dispute, of which I had seen the beginning, was a ‘raw,’ the

slightest touch on which made them wince. It was the only difference of

opinion they had ever had; but that difference was enough. Miss Jenkyns

could not refrain from talking _at_ Captain Brown; and, though he did

not reply, he drummed with his fingers, which action she felt and

resented as very disparaging to Dr. Johnson. He was rather ostentatious

in his preference of the writings of Mr. Boz; would walk through the

streets so absorbed in them that he all but ran against Miss Jenkyns;

and though his apologies were earnest and sincere, and though he did

not, in fact, do more than startle her and himself, she owned to me she

had rather he had knocked her down, if he had only been reading a higher

style of literature. The poor, brave Captain! he looked older, and more

worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and

cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter’s health.

‘She suffers a great deal, and she must suffer more; we do what we can

to alleviate her pain;—God’s will be done!’ He took off his hat at these

last words. I found, from Miss Matty, that everything had been done, in

fact. A medical man, of high repute in that country neighbourhood, had

been sent for, and every injunction he had given was attended to,

regardless of expense. Miss Matty was sure they denied themselves many

things in order to make the invalid comfortable; but they never spoke

about it; and as for Miss Jessie!—‘I really think she’s an angel,’ said

poor Miss Matty, quite overcome. ‘To see her way of bearing with Miss

Brown’s crossness, and the bright face she puts on after she’s been

sitting up a whole night and scolded above half of it, is quite

beautiful. Yet she looks as neat and as ready to welcome the Captain at

breakfast-time as if she had been asleep in the Queen’s bed all night.

My dear! you could never laugh at her prim little curls or her pink bows

again if you saw her as I have done.’ I could only feel very penitent,

and greet Miss Jessie with double respect when I met her next. She

looked faded and pinched; and her lips began to quiver, as if she was

very weak, when she spoke of her sister. But she brightened, and sent

back the tears that were glittering in her pretty eyes, as she said—

‘But, to be sure, what a town Cranford is for kindness! I don’t suppose

any one has a better dinner than usual cooked, but the best part of all

comes in a little covered basin for my sister. The poor people will

leave their earliest vegetables at our door for her. They speak short

and gruff, as if they were ashamed of it; but I am sure it often goes to

my heart to see their thoughtfulness.’ The tears now came back and

overflowed; but after a minute or two she began to scold herself, and

ended by going away the same cheerful Miss Jessie as ever.

‘But why does not this Lord Mauleverer do something for the man who

saved his life?’ said I.

‘Why, you see, unless Captain Brown has some reason for it, he never

speaks about being poor; and he walked along by his lordship looking as

happy and cheerful as a prince; and as they never called attention to

their dinner by apologies, and as Miss Brown was better that day, and

all seemed bright, I daresay his lordship never knew how much care there

was in the background. He did send game in the winter pretty often, but

now he is gone abroad.’

I had often occasion to notice the use that was made of fragments and

small opportunities in Cranford: the rose-leaves that were gathered ere

they fell to make into a pot-pourri for some one who had no garden; the

little bundles of lavender-flowers sent to strew the drawers of some

town-dweller, or to burn in the chamber of some invalid. Things that

many would despise, and actions which it seemed scarcely worth while to

perform, were all attended to in Cranford. Miss Jenkyns stuck an apple

full of cloves, to be heated and smell pleasantly in Miss Brown’s room;

and as she put in each clove she uttered a Johnsonian sentence. Indeed,

she never could think of the Browns without talking Johnson; and, as

they were seldom absent from her thoughts just then, I heard many a

rolling three-piled sentence.

Captain Brown called one day to thank Miss Jenkyns for many little

kindnesses, which I did not know until then that she had rendered. He

had suddenly become like an old man; his deep bass voice had a quavering

in it, his eyes looked dim, and the lines on his face were deep. He did

not—could not—speak cheerfully of his daughter’s state, but he talked

with manly, pious resignation, and not much. Twice over he said, ‘What

Jessie has been to us, God only knows!’ and after the second time, he

got up hastily, shook hands all round without speaking, and left the

room.

That afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening

with faces aghast to some tale or other. Miss Jenkyns wondered what

could be the matter for some time before she took the undignified step

of sending Jenny out to inquire.

Jenny came back with a white face of terror. ‘Oh, ma’am! oh, Miss

Jenkyns, ma’am! Captain Brown is killed by them nasty cruel railroads!’

and she burst into tears. She, along with many others, had experienced

the poor Captain’s kindness.

‘How?—where—where? Good God! Jenny, don’t waste time in crying, but tell

us something.’ Miss Matty rushed out into the street at once, and

collared the man who was telling the tale.

[Illustration: ‘_And he shuddered at the recollection._’]

‘Come in—come to my sister at once,—Miss Jenkyns, the rector’s daughter.

Oh, man, man!—say it is not true,’ she cried, as she brought the

affrighted carter, sleeking down his hair, into the drawingroom, where

he stood with his wet boots on the new carpet, and no one regarded it.

‘Please, mum, it is true. I seed it myself,’ and he shuddered at the

recollection. ‘The Captain was a-reading some new book as he was deep

in, a-waiting for the down train; and there was a little lass as wanted

to come to its mammy, and gave its sister the slip, and came toddling

across the line. And he looked up sudden, at the sound of the train

coming, and seed the child, and he darted on the line and cotched it up,

and his foot slipped, and the train came over him in no time. Oh Lord,

Lord! Mum, it’s quite true—and they’ve come over to tell his daughters.

The child’s safe, though, with only a bang on its shoulder, as he threw

it to its mammy. Poor Captain would be glad of that, mum, wouldn’t he?

God bless him!’ The great rough carter puckered up his manly face, and

turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss Jenkyns. She looked very

ill, as if she were going to faint, and signed to me to open the window.

‘Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me,

if ever I have spoken contemptuously to the Captain!’

Miss Jenkyns arrayed herself to go out, telling Miss Matilda to give the

man a glass of wine. While she was away Miss Matty and I huddled over

the fire, talking in a low and awestruck voice. I know we cried quietly

all the time.

Miss Jenkyns came home in a silent mood, and we durst not ask her many

questions. She told us that Miss Jessie had fainted, and that she and

Miss Pole had had some difficulty in bringing her round; but that, as

soon as she recovered, she begged one of them to go and sit with her

sister.

‘Mr. Hoggins says she cannot live many days, and she shall be spared

this shock,’ said Miss Jessie, shivering with feelings to which she

dared not give way.

‘But how can you manage, my dear?’ asked Miss Jenkyns; ‘you cannot bear

up, she must see your tears.’

‘God will help me—I will not give way—she was asleep when the news came;

she may be asleep yet. She would be so utterly miserable, not merely at

my father’s death, but to think of what would become of me; she is so

good to me.’ She looked up earnestly in their faces with her soft true

eyes, and Miss Pole told Miss Jenkyns afterwards she could hardly bear

it, knowing, as she did, how Miss Brown treated her sister.

However, it was settled according to Miss Jessie’s wish. Miss Brown was

to be told her father had been summoned to take a short journey on

railway business. They had managed it in some way—Miss Jenkyns could not

exactly say how. Miss Pole was to stop with Miss Jessie. Mrs. Jamieson

had sent to inquire. And this was all we heard that night; and a

sorrowful night it was. The next day a full account of the fatal

accident was in the county paper which Miss Jenkyns took in. Her eyes

were very weak, she said, and she asked me to read it. When I came to

the ‘gallant gentleman was deeply engaged in the perusal of a number of

_Pickwick_, which he had just received,’ Miss Jenkyns shook her head

long and solemnly, and then sighed out, ‘Poor, dear, infatuated man!’

The corpse was to be taken from the station to the parish church, there

to be interred. Miss Jessie had set her heart on following it to the

grave; and no dissuasives could alter her resolve. Her restraint upon

herself made her almost obstinate; she resisted all Miss Pole’s

entreaties and Miss Jenkyns’s advice. At last Miss Jenkyns gave up the

point; and after a silence, which I feared portended some deep

displeasure against Miss Jessie, Miss Jenkyns said she should accompany

the latter to the funeral.

‘It is not fit for you to go alone. It would be against both propriety

and humanity were I to allow it.’

Miss Jessie seemed as if she did not half like this arrangement; but her

obstinacy, if she had any, had been exhausted in her determination to go

to the interment. She longed, poor thing, I have no doubt, to cry alone

over the grave of the dear father to whom she had been all in all, and

to give way, for one little half-hour, uninterrupted by sympathy and

unobserved by friendship. But it was not to be. That afternoon Miss

Jenkyns sent out for a yard of black crape, and employed herself busily

in trimming the little black silk bonnet I have spoken about. When it

was finished she put it on, and looked at us for approbation—admiration

she despised. I was full of sorrow, but, by one of those whimsical

thoughts which come unbidden into our heads, in times of deepest grief,

I no sooner saw the bonnet than I was reminded of a helmet; and in that

hybrid bonnet, half-helmet, half-jockey cap, did Miss Jenkyns attend

Captain Brown’s funeral, and, I believe, supported Miss Jessie with a

tender indulgent firmness which was invaluable, allowing her to weep her

passionate fill before they left.

Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and I, meanwhile, attended to Miss Brown: and

hard work we found it to relieve her querulous and never-ending

complaints. But if we were so weary and dispirited, what must Miss

Jessie have been! Yet she came back almost calm, as if she had gained a

new strength. She put off her mourning dress, and came in, looking pale

and gentle, thanking us each with a soft long pressure of the hand. She

could even smile—a faint, sweet, wintry smile—as if to reassure us of

her power to endure: but her look made our eyes fill suddenly with

tears, more than if she had cried outright.

It was settled that Miss Pole was to remain with her all the watching

livelong night; and that Miss Matty and I were to return in the morning

to relieve them, and give Miss Jessie the opportunity for a few hours of

sleep. But when the morning came, Miss Jenkyns appeared at the

breakfast-table, equipped in her helmet-bonnet, and ordered Miss Matty

to stay at home, as she meant to go and help to nurse. She was evidently

in a state of great friendly excitement, which she showed by eating her

breakfast standing, and scolding the household all round.

No nursing—no energetic strong-minded woman could help Miss Brown now.

There was that in the room as we entered which was stronger than us all,

and made us shrink into solemn awestruck helplessness. Miss Brown was

dying. We hardly knew her voice, it was so devoid of the complaining

tone we had always associated with it. Miss Jessie told me afterwards

that it, and her face too, were just what they had been formerly, when

her mother’s death left her the young anxious head of the family, of

whom only Miss Jessie survived.

She was conscious of her sister’s presence, though not, I think, of

ours. We stood a little behind the curtain: Miss Jessie knelt with her

face near her sister’s, in order to catch the last soft awful whispers.

‘Oh, Jessie! Jessie! How selfish I have been! God forgive me for letting

you sacrifice yourself for me as you did! I have so loved you—and yet I

have thought only of myself. God forgive me!’

‘Hush, love! hush!’ said Miss Jessie, sobbing.

‘And my father! my dear, dear father! I will not complain now, if God

will give me strength to be patient. But, oh, Jessie! tell my father how

I longed and yearned to see him at last, and to ask his forgiveness. He

can never know now how I loved him—oh! if I might but tell him, before I

die! What a life of sorrow his has been, and I have done so little to

cheer him!’

A light came into Miss Jessie’s face. ‘Would it comfort you, dearest, to

think that he does know?—would it comfort you, love, to know that his

cares, his sorrows——’ Her voice quivered, but she steadied it into

calmness,—‘Mary! he has gone before you to the place where the weary are

at rest. He knows now how you loved him.’

A strange look, which was not distress, came over Miss Brown’s face. She

did not speak for some time, but then we saw her lips form the words,

rather than heard the sound—‘Father, mother, Harry, Archy;’—then, as if

it were a new idea throwing a filmy shadow over her darkened mind—‘But

you will be alone, Jessie!’

Miss Jessie had been feeling this all during the silence, I think; for

the tears rolled down her cheeks like rain at these words, and she could

not answer at first. Then she put her hands together tight, and lifted

them up, and said—but not to us—

‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.’

In a few moments more Miss Brown lay calm and still—never to sorrow or

murmur more.

After this second funeral, Miss Jenkyns insisted that Miss Jessie should

come to stay with her rather than go back to the desolate house, which,

in fact, we learned from Miss Jessie, must now be given up, as she had

not wherewithal to maintain it. She had something above twenty pounds

a-year, besides the interest of the money for which the furniture would

sell; but she could not live upon that: and so we talked over her

qualifications for earning money.

‘I can sew neatly,’ said she, ‘and I like nursing. I think, too, I could

manage a house, if any one would try me as housekeeper; or I would go

into a shop as saleswoman, if they would have patience with me at

first.’

Miss Jenkyns declared, in an angry voice, that she should do no such

thing; and talked to herself about ‘some people having no idea of their

rank as a captain’s daughter,’ nearly an hour afterwards, when she

brought Miss Jessie up a basin of delicately-made arrow-root, and stood

over her like a dragoon until the last spoonful was finished: then she

disappeared. Miss Jessie began to tell me some more of the plans which

had suggested themselves to her, and insensibly fell into talking of the

days that were past and gone, and interested me so much I neither knew

nor heeded how time passed. We were both startled when Miss Jenkyns

reappeared, and caught us crying. I was afraid lest she would be

displeased, as she often said that crying hindered digestion, and I knew

she wanted Miss Jessie to get strong; but, instead, she looked queer and

excited, and fidgeted round us without saying anything. At last she

spoke.

‘I have been so much startled—no, I’ve not been at all startled—don’t

mind me, my dear Miss Jessie—I’ve been very much surprised—in fact, I’ve

had a caller, whom you knew once, my dear Miss Jessie——’

Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet, and looked eagerly at

Miss Jenkyns.

‘A gentleman, my dear, who wants to know if you would see him.’

‘Is it?—it is not——’ stammered out Miss Jessie—and got no farther.

‘This is his card,’ said Miss Jenkyns, giving it to Miss Jessie; and

while her head was bent over it, Miss Jenkyns went through a series of

winks and odd faces to me, and formed her lips into a long sentence, of

which, of course, I could not understand a word.

‘May he come up?’ asked Miss Jenkyns at last.

[Illustration: ‘_He shook hands with Miss Jessie._’]

‘Oh yes! certainly!’ said Miss Jessie, as much as to say, this is your

house, you may show any visitor where you like. She took up some

knitting of Miss Matty’s and began to be very busy, though I could see

how she trembled all over.

Miss Jenkyns rang the bell, and told the servant who answered it to show

Major Gordon upstairs; and, presently, in walked a tall, fine,

frank-looking man of forty or upwards. He shook hands with Miss Jessie;

but he could not see her eyes, she kept them so fixed on the ground.

Miss Jenkyns asked me if I would come and help her to tie up the

preserves in the store-room; and, though Miss Jessie plucked at my gown,

and even looked up at me with begging eye, I durst not refuse to go

where Miss Jenkyns asked. Instead of tying up preserves in the

store-room, however, we went to talk in the dining-room; and there Miss

Jenkyns told me what Major Gordon had told her;—how he had served in the

same regiment with Captain Brown, and had become acquainted with Miss

Jessie, then a sweet-looking blooming girl of eighteen; how the

acquaintance had grown into love on his part, though it had been some

years before he had spoken; how, on becoming possessed, through the will

of an uncle, of a good estate in Scotland, he had offered and been

refused, though with so much agitation and evident distress that he was

sure she was not indifferent to him; and how he had discovered that the

obstacle was the fell disease which was, even then, too surely

threatening her sister. She had mentioned that the surgeons foretold

intense suffering; and there was no one but herself to nurse her poor

Mary, or cheer and comfort her father during the time of illness. They

had had long discussions; and on her refusal to pledge herself to him as

his wife when all should be over, he had grown angry, and broken off

entirely, and gone abroad, believing that she was a cold-hearted person

whom he would do well to forget. He had been travelling in the East, and

was on his return home when, at Rome, he saw the account of Captain

Brown’s death in _Galignani_.

Just then Miss Matty, who had been out all the morning, and had only

lately returned to the house, burst in with a face of dismay and

outraged propriety.

‘Oh, goodness me!’ she said. ‘Deborah, there’s a gentleman sitting in

the drawing-room with his arm round Miss Jessie’s waist!’ Miss Matty’s

eyes looked large with terror.

Miss Jenkyns snubbed her down in an instant.

‘The most proper place in the world for his arm to be in. Go away,

Matilda, and mind your own business.’ This from her sister, who had

hitherto been a model of feminine decorum, was a blow for poor Miss

Matty, and with a double shock she left the room.

The last time I ever saw poor Miss Jenkyns was many years after this.

Mrs. Gordon had kept up a warm and affectionate intercourse with all at

Cranford. Miss Jenkyns, Miss Matty, and Miss Pole had all been to visit

her, and returned with wonderful accounts of her house, her husband, her

dress, and her looks. For, with happiness, something of her early bloom

returned; she had been a year or two younger than we had taken her for.

Her eyes were always lovely, and, as Mrs. Gordon, her dimples were not

out of place. At the time to which I have referred, when I last saw Miss

Jenkyns, that lady was old and feeble, and had lost something of her

strong mind. Little Flora Gordon was staying with the Misses Jenkyns,

and when I came in she was reading aloud to Miss Jenkyns, who lay feeble

and changed on the sofa. Flora put down _The Rambler_ when I came in.

‘Ah!’ said Miss Jenkyns, ‘you find me changed, my dear. I can’t see as I

used to do. If Flora were not here to read to me, I hardly know how I

should get through the day. Did you ever read _The Rambler_? It’s a

wonderful book—wonderful! and the most improving reading for Flora’

(which I daresay it would have been if she could have read half the

words without spelling, and could have understood the meaning of a

third), ‘better than that strange old book, with the queer name, poor

Captain Brown was killed for reading—that book by Mr. Boz, you know—_Old

Poz_; when I was a girl—but that’s a long time ago—I acted Lucy in _Old

Poz_.’ She babbled on long enough for Flora to get a good long spell at

_The Christmas Carol_, which Miss Matty had left on the table.

[Illustration]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: Chapter 3: A Love Affair of Long Ago.]

I thought probably my connection with Cranford would cease after Miss

Jenkyns’s death; at least, that it would have to be kept up by

correspondence, which bears much the same relation to personal

intercourse that the books of dried plants I sometimes see (‘Hortus

Siccus,’ I think they call the thing) do to the living and fresh flowers

in the lanes and meadows. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by

receiving a letter from Miss Pole (who had always come in for a

supplementary week after my annual visit to Miss Jenkyns) proposing that

I should go and stay with her; and then, in a couple of days after my

acceptance, came a note from Miss Matty, in which, in a rather

circuitous and very humble manner, she told me how much pleasure I

should confer if I could spend a week or two with her, either before or

after I had been at Miss Pole’s; ‘for,’ she said, ‘since my dear

sister’s death I am well aware I have no attractions to offer; it is

only to the kindness of my friends that I can owe their company.’

Of course I promised to come to dear Miss Matty as soon as I had ended

my visit to Miss Pole; and the day after my arrival at Cranford I went

to see her, much wondering what the house would be like without Miss

Jenkyns, and rather dreading the changed aspect of things. Miss Matty

began to cry as soon as she saw me. She was evidently nervous from

having anticipated my call. I comforted her as well as I could; and I

found the best consolation I could give was the honest praise that came

from my heart as I spoke of the deceased. Miss Matty slowly shook her

head over each virtue as it was named and attributed to her sister; and

at last she could not restrain the tears which had long been silently

flowing, but hid her face behind her handkerchief, and sobbed aloud.

‘Dear Miss Matty!’ said I, taking her hand—for indeed I did not know in

what way to tell her how sorry I was for her, left deserted in the

world. She put down her handkerchief, and said—

‘My dear, I’d rather you did not call me Matty. _She_ did not like it;

but I did many a thing she did not like, I’m afraid—and now she’s gone!

If you please, my love, will you call me Matilda?’

I promised faithfully, and began to practise the new name with Miss Pole

that very day; and, by degrees, Miss Matilda’s feeling on the subject

was known through Cranford, and we all tried to drop the more familiar

name, but with so little success that by and by we gave up the attempt.

[Illustration: ‘_If you please, my love, will you call me Matilda?_’]

My visit to Miss Pole was very quiet. Miss Jenkyns had so long taken the

lead in Cranford that, now she was gone, they hardly knew how to give a

party. The Honourable Mrs. Jamieson, to whom Miss Jenkyns herself had

always yielded the post of honour, was fat and inert, and very much at

the mercy of her old servants. If they chose that she should give a

party, they reminded her of the necessity for so doing; if not, she let

it alone. There was all the more time for me to hear old-world stories

from Miss Pole, while she sat knitting, and I making my father’s shirts.

I always took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford; for, as we did not

read much, or walk much, I found it a capital time to get through my

work. One of Miss Pole’s stories related to a shadow of a love affair

that was dimly perceived or suspected long years before.

Presently, the time arrived when I was to remove to Miss Matilda’s

house. I found her timid and anxious about the arrangements for my

comfort. Many a time, while I was unpacking, did she come backwards and

forwards to stir the fire, which burned all the worse for being so

frequently poked.

‘Have you drawers enough, dear?’ asked she. ‘I don’t know exactly how my

sister used to arrange them. She had capital methods. I am sure she

would have trained a servant in a week to make a better fire than this,

and Fanny has been with me four months.’

[Illustration: ‘_So as to throw the shadow on the clock face._’]

This subject of servants was a standing grievance, and I could not

wonder much at it; for if gentlemen were scarce, and almost

unheard of in the ‘genteel society’ of Cranford, they or their

counterparts—handsome young men—abounded in the lower classes. The

pretty neat servant-maids had their choice of desirable

‘followers’; and their mistresses, without having the sort of

mysterious dread of men and matrimony that Miss Matilda had, might

well feel a little anxious lest the heads of their comely maids

should be turned by the joiner, or the butcher, or the gardener,

who were obliged, by their callings, to come to the house, and

who, as ill-luck would have it, were generally handsome and

unmarried. Fanny’s lovers, if she had any—and Miss Matilda

suspected her of so many flirtations that, if she had not been

very pretty, I should have doubted her having one—were a constant

anxiety to her mistress. She was forbidden, by the articles of her

engagement, to have ‘followers’; and though she had answered,

innocently enough, doubling up the hem of her apron as she spoke,

‘Please, ma’am, I never had more than one at a time,’ Miss Matty

prohibited that one. But a vision of a man seemed to haunt the

kitchen. Fanny assured me that it was all fancy, or else I should

have said myself that I had seen a man’s coat-tails whisk into the

scullery once, when I went on an errand into the store-room at

night; and another evening, when, our watches having stopped, I

went to look at the clock, there was a very odd appearance,

singularly like a young man squeezed up between the clock and the

back of the open kitchen door; and I thought Fanny snatched up the

candle very hastily, so as to throw the shadow on the clock face,

while she very positively told me the time half an hour too early,

as we found out afterwards by the church clock. But I did not add

to Miss Matty’s anxieties by naming my suspicions, especially as

Fanny said to me, the next day, that it was such a queer kitchen

for having odd shadows about it, she really was almost afraid to

stay; ‘for you know, miss,’ she added,‘I don’t see a creature from

six o’clock tea till Missus rings the bell for prayers at ten.’

However, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave; and Miss Matilda begged

me to stay and ‘settle her’ with the new maid; to which I consented,

after I had heard from my father that he did not want me at home. The

new servant was a rough, honest-looking country girl, who had only lived

in a farm place before; but I liked her looks when she came to be hired;

and I promised Miss Matilda to put her in the ways of the house. The

said ways were religiously such as Miss Matilda thought her sister would

approve. Many a domestic rule and regulation had been a subject of

plaintive whispered murmur to me during Miss Jenkyns’s life; but now

that she was gone, I do not think that even I, who was a favourite,

durst have suggested an alteration. To give an instance: we constantly

adhered to the forms which were observed, at meal times, in ‘my father,

the rector’s house.’ Accordingly, we had always wine and dessert; but

the decanters were only filled when there was a party, and what remained

was seldom touched, though we had two wine glasses apiece every day

after dinner, until the next festive occasion arrived, when the state of

the remainder wine was examined into in a family council. The dregs were

often given to the poor; but occasionally, when a good deal had been

left at the last party (five months ago, it might be), it was added to

some of a fresh bottle, brought up from the cellar. I fancy poor Captain

Brown did not much like wine, for I noticed he never finished his first

glass, and most military men take several. Then, as to our dessert, Miss

Jenkyns used to gather currants and gooseberries for it herself, which I

sometimes thought would have tasted better fresh from the trees; but

then, as Miss Jenkyns observed, there would have been nothing for

dessert in summer-time. As it was, we felt very genteel with our two

glasses apiece, and a dish of gooseberries at the top, of currants and

biscuits at the sides, and two decanters at the bottom. When oranges

came in, a curious proceeding was gone through. Miss Jenkyns did not

like to cut the fruit; for, as she observed, the juice all ran out

nobody knew where; sucking (only I think she used some more recondite

word) was in fact the only way of enjoying oranges; but then there was

the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone through by

little babies; and so, after dessert, in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and

Miss Matty used to rise up, possess themselves each of an orange in

silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in

sucking oranges.

I had once or twice tried, on such occasions, to prevail on Miss Matty

to stay, and had succeeded in her sister’s lifetime. I held up a screen,

and did not look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the noise very

offensive; but now that she was left alone, she seemed quite horrified

when I begged her to remain with me in the warm dining-parlour, and

enjoy her orange as she liked best. And so it was in everything. Miss

Jenkyns’s rules were made more stringent than ever, because the framer

of them was gone where there could be no appeal. In all things else Miss

Matilda was meek and undecided to a fault. I have heard Fanny turn her

round twenty times in a morning about dinner, just as the little hussy

chose; and I sometimes fancied she worked on Miss Matilda’s weakness in

order to bewilder her, and to make her feel more in the power of her

clever servant. I determined that I would not leave her till I had seen

what sort of a person Martha was; and, if I found her trustworthy, I

would tell her not to trouble her mistress with every little decision.

Martha was blunt and plain-spoken to a fault; otherwise she was a brisk,

well-meaning, but very ignorant girl. She had not been with us a week

before Miss Matilda and I were astounded one morning by the receipt of a

letter from a cousin of hers, who had been twenty or thirty years in

India, and who had lately, as we had seen by the ‘Army List,’ returned

to England, bringing with him an invalid wife who had never been

introduced to her English relations. Major Jenkyns wrote to propose that

he and his wife should spend a night at Cranford, on his way to

Scotland—at the inn, if it did not suit Miss Matilda to receive them

into her house; in which case they should hope to be with her as much as

possible during the day. Of course, it _must_ suit her, as she said; for

all Cranford knew that she had her sister’s bedroom at liberty; but I am

sure she wished the major had stopped in India and forgotten his cousins

out and out.

‘Oh! how must I manage?’ asked she helplessly. ‘If Deborah had been

alive she would have known what to do with a gentleman-visitor. Must I

put razors in his dressing-room? Dear! dear! and I’ve got none. Deborah

would have had them. And slippers, and coat-brushes?’ I suggested that

probably he would bring all these things with him. ‘And after dinner,

how am I to know when to get up and leave him to his wine? Deborah would

have done it so well; she would have been quite in her element. Will he

want coffee, do you think?’ I undertook the management of the coffee,

and told her I would instruct Martha in the art of waiting—in which, it

must be owned, she was terribly deficient—and that I had no doubt Major

and Mrs. Jenkyns would understand the quiet mode in which a lady lived

by herself in a country town. But she was sadly fluttered. I made her

empty her decanters and bring up two fresh bottles of wine. I wished I

could have prevented her from being present at my instructions to

Martha, for she frequently cut in with some fresh direction, muddling

the poor girl’s mind, as she stood open-mouthed, listening to us both.

‘Hand the vegetables round,’ said I (foolishly, I see now—for it was

aiming at more than we could accomplish with quietness and simplicity);

and then, seeing her look bewildered, I added, ‘Take the vegetables

round to people, and let them help themselves.’

‘And mind you go first to the ladies,’ put in Miss Matilda. ‘Always go

to the ladies before gentlemen when you are waiting.’

‘I’ll do it as you tell me, ma’am,’ said Martha; ‘but I like lads best.’

We felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this speech of Martha’s, yet I

don’t think she meant any harm; and, on the whole, she attended very

well to our directions, except that she ‘nudged’ the major when he did

not help himself as soon as she expected to the potatoes, while she was

handing them round.

[Illustration: ‘_She “nudged” the major.’_]

The major and his wife were quiet, unpretending people enough when they

did come; languid, as all East Indians are, I suppose. We were rather

dismayed at their bringing two servants with them, a Hindoo body-servant

for the major, and a steady elderly maid for his wife; but they slept at

the inn, and took off a good deal of the responsibility by attending

carefully to their master’s and mistress’s comfort. Martha, to be sure,

had never ended her staring at the East Indian’s white turban and brown

complexion, and I saw that Miss Matilda shrunk away from him a little as

he waited at dinner. Indeed, she asked me, when they were gone, if he

did not remind me of Blue Beard? On the whole, the visit was most

satisfactory, and is a subject of conversation even now with Miss

Matilda; at the time it greatly excited Cranford, and even stirred up

the apathetic and Honourable Mrs. Jamieson to some expression of

interest, when I went to call and thank her for the kind answers she had

vouchsafed to Miss Matilda’s inquiries as to the arrangement of a

gentleman’s dressing-room—answers which, I must confess, she had given

in the wearied manner of the Scandinavian prophetess—

Leave me, leave me to repose.

And _now_ I come to the love affair.

It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had

offered to Miss Matty long ago. Now this cousin lived four or five miles

from Cranford on his own estate; but his property was not large enough

to entitle him to rank higher than a yeoman; or rather, with something

of the ‘pride which apes humility,’ he had refused to push himself on,

as so many of his class had done, into the ranks of the squires. He

would not allow himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, _Esq._; he even

sent back letters with this address, telling the postmistress at

Cranford that his name was _Mr._ Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected

all domestic innovations; he would have the house-door stand open in

summer and shut in winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant.

The closed fist or the knob of the stick did this office for him if he

found the door locked. He despised every refinement which had not its

root deep down in humanity. If people were not ill, he saw no necessity

for moderating his voice. He spoke the dialect of the country in

perfection, and constantly used it in conversation; although Miss Pole

(who gave me these particulars) added, that he read aloud more

beautifully and with more feeling than any one she had ever heard,

except the late rector.

‘And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?’ asked I.

‘Oh, I don’t know. She was willing enough, I think; but you know cousin

Thomas would not have been enough of a gentleman for the rector and Miss

Jenkyns.’

‘Well! but they were not to marry him,’ said I impatiently.

‘No; but they did not like Miss Matty to marry below her rank. You know

she was the rector’s daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter

Arley: Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that.’

‘Poor Miss Matty!’ said I.

‘Nay, now, I don’t know anything more than that he offered and was

refused. Miss Matty might not like him—and Miss Jenkyns might never have

said a word—it is only a guess of mine.’

‘Has she never seen him since?’ I inquired.

‘No, I think not. You see Woodley, cousin Thomas’s house, lies half-way

between Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made Misselton his

market-town very soon after he had offered to Miss Matty; and I don’t

think he has been into Cranford above once or twice since—once, when I

was walking with Miss Matty, in High Street, and suddenly she darted

from me, and went up Shire Lane. A few minutes after I was startled by

meeting cousin Thomas.’

‘How old is he?’ I asked, after a pause of castle-building.

‘He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,’ said Miss Pole, blowing up

my castle, as if by gunpowder, into small fragments.

[Illustration: ‘_How are you? how are you?_’]

Very soon after—at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda—I had the

opportunity of seeing Mr. Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter

with his former love, after thirty or forty years’ separation. I was

helping to decide whether any of the new assortment of coloured silks

which they had just received at the shop would do to match a gray and

black mousseline-de-laine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin,

Don Quixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woollen gloves.

I had never seen the person (who was rather striking) before, and I

watched him rather attentively while Miss Matty listened to the shopman.

The stranger wore a blue coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and

gaiters, and drummed with his fingers on the counter until he was

attended to. When he answered the shop-boy’s question, ‘What can I have

the pleasure of showing you to-day, sir?’ I saw Miss Matilda start, and

then suddenly sit down; and instantly I guessed who it was. She had made

some inquiry which had to be carried round to the other shopman.

‘Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsenet two-and-twopence the yard;’ and

Mr. Holbrook had caught the name, and was across the shop in two

strides.

‘Matty—Miss Matilda—Miss Jenkyns! God bless my soul! I should not have

known you. How are you? how are you?’ He kept shaking her hand in a way

which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as

if to himself, ‘I should not have known you!’ that any sentimental

romance which I might be inclined to build was quite done away with by

his manner.

However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and

then waving the shopman with the unpurchased gloves on one side, with

‘Another time, sir! another time!’ he walked home with us. I am happy to

say my client, Miss Matilda, also left the shop in an equally bewildered

state, not having purchased either green or red silk. Mr. Holbrook was

evidently full with honest loud-spoken joy at meeting his old love

again; he touched on the changes that had taken place; he even spoke of

Miss Jenkyns as ‘Your poor sister! Well, well! we have all our faults;’

and bade us good-bye with many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matty

again. She went straight to her room, and never came back till our early

tea-time, when I thought she looked as if she had been crying.

[Illustration: Chapter 3: tailpiece]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: Chapter 4: A Visit to An Old Bachelor.]

A few days after, a note came from Mr. Holbrook, asking us—impartially

asking both of us—in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at

his house—a long June day—for it was June now. He named that he had also

invited his cousin, Miss Pole; so that we might join in a fly, which

could be put up at his house.

I expected Miss Matty to jump at this invitation; but, no! Miss Pole and

I had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to go. She thought it

was improper; and was even half annoyed when we utterly ignored the idea

of any impropriety in her going with two other ladies to see her old

lover. Then came a more serious difficulty. She did not think Deborah

would have liked her to go. This took us half a day’s good hard talking

to get over; but, at the first sentence of relenting, I seized the

opportunity, and wrote and despatched an acceptance in her name—fixing

day and hour, that all might be decided and done with.

The next morning she asked me if I would go down to the shop with her;

and there, after much hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent

home and tried on, that the most becoming might be selected to take with

us on Thursday.

She was in a state of silent agitation all the way to Woodley. She had

evidently never been there before; and, although she little dreamt I

knew anything of her early story, I could perceive she was in a tremor

at the thought of seeing the place which might have been her home, and

round which it is probable that many of her innocent girlish

imaginations had clustered. It was a long drive there, through paved

jolting lanes. Miss Matilda sat bolt upright, and looked wistfully out

of the windows as we drew near the end of our journey. The aspect of the

country was quiet and pastoral. Woodley stood among fields; and there

was an old-fashioned garden where roses and currant-bushes touched each

other, and where the feathery asparagus formed a pretty background to

the pinks and gilly-flowers; there was no drive up to the door. We got

out at a little gate, and walked up a straight box-edged path.

‘My cousin might make a drive, I think,’ said Miss Pole, who was afraid

of ear-ache, and had only her cap on.

‘I think it is very pretty,’ said Miss Matty, with a soft plaintiveness

in her voice, and almost in a whisper, for just then Mr. Holbrook

appeared at the door, rubbing his hands in very effervescence of

hospitality. He looked more like my idea of Don Quixote than ever, and

yet the likeness was only external. His respectable housekeeper stood

modestly at the door to bid us welcome; and, while she led the elder

ladies upstairs to a bedroom, I begged to look about the garden. My

request evidently pleased the old gentleman, who took me all round the

place, and showed me his six and twenty cows, named after the different

letters of the alphabet. As we went along, he surprised me occasionally

by repeating apt and beautiful quotations from the poets, ranging easily

from Shakespeare and George Herbert to those of our own day. He did this

as naturally as if he were thinking aloud, and their true and beautiful

words were the best expression he could find for what he was thinking or

feeling. To be sure he called Byron ‘my Lord Byrron,’ and pronounced the

name of Goethe strictly in accordance with the English sound of the

letters—‘As Goethe says, “Ye ever-verdant palaces,”’ etc. Altogether, I

never met with a man, before or since, who had spent so long a life in a

secluded and not impressive country, with ever-increasing delight in the

daily and yearly change of season and beauty.

When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the

kitchen—for so I suppose the room ought to be called, as there were oak

dressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the fireplace,

and only a small Turkey carpet in the middle of the flag-floor. The room

might have been easily made into a handsome dark oak dining-parlour by

removing the oven and a few other appurtenances of a kitchen, which were

evidently never used, the real cooking-place being at some distance. The

room in which we were expected to sit was a stiffly-furnished, ugly

apartment; but that in which we did sit was what Mr. Holbrook called the

counting-house, when he paid his labourers their weekly wages at a great

desk near the door. The rest of the pretty sitting-room—looking into the

orchard, and all covered over with dancing tree-shadows—was filled with

books. They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the

table. He was evidently half-ashamed and half-proud of his extravagance

in this respect. They were of all kinds—poetry and wild weird tales

prevailing. He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own

tastes, not because such and such were classical or established

favourites.

‘Ah!’ he said, ‘we farmers ought not to have much time for reading; yet

somehow one can’t help it.’

‘What a pretty room!’ said Miss Matty, _sotto voce_.

‘What a pleasant place!’ said I aloud, almost simultaneously.

‘Nay! if you like it,’ replied he; ‘but can you sit on these great

black-leather three-cornered chairs? I like it better than the best

parlour; but I thought ladies would take that for the smarter place.’

It was the smarter place, but, like most smart things, not at all

pretty, or pleasant, or home-like; so, while we were at dinner, the

servant-girl dusted and scrubbed the counting-house chairs, and we sat

there all the rest of the day.

We had pudding before meat; and I thought Mr. Holbrook was going to make

some apology for his old-fashioned ways, for he began—

‘I don’t know whether you like new-fangled ways.’

‘Oh, not at all!’ said Miss Matty.

‘No more do I,’ said he. ‘My housekeeper _will_ have these in her new

fashion; or else I tell her that, when I was a young man, we used to

keep strictly to my father’s rule, “No broth, no ball; no ball, no

beef;” and always began dinner with broth. Then we had suet puddings,

boiled in the broth with the beef; and then the meat itself. If we did

not sup our broth, we had no ball, which we liked a deal better; and the

beef came last of all, and only those had it who had done justice to the

broth and the ball. Now folks begin with sweet things, and turn their

dinners topsy-turvy.’

When the ducks and green peas came, we looked at each other in dismay;

we had only two-pronged black-handled forks. It is true the steel was as

bright as silver; but what were we to do? Miss Matty picked up her peas,

one by one, on the point of the prongs, much as Aminé ate her grains of

rice after her previous feast with the Ghoul. Miss Pole sighed over her

delicate young peas as she left them on one side of her plate untasted,

for they _would_ drop between the prongs. I looked at my host: the peas

were going wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large

round-ended knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived! My friends, in spite

of my precedent, could not muster up courage enough to do an ungenteel

thing; and, if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily hungry, he would

probably have seen that the good peas went away almost untouched.

[Illustration: ‘_Requested her to fill the bowl._’]

After dinner a clay pipe was brought in, and a spittoon; and, asking us

to retire to another room, where he would soon join us, if we disliked

tobacco-smoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matty, and requested her to

fill the bowl. This was a compliment to a lady in his youth; but it was

rather inappropriate to propose it as an honour to Miss Matty, who had

been trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in utter

abhorrence. But if it was a shock to her refinement, it was also a

gratification to her feelings to be thus selected; so she daintily

stuffed the strong tobacco into the pipe, and then we withdrew.

‘It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,’ said Miss Matty softly, as

we settled ourselves in the counting-house. ‘I only hope it is not

improper; so many pleasant things are!’

‘What a number of books he has!’ said Miss Pole, looking round the room.

‘And how dusty they are!’

‘I think it must be like one of the great Dr. Johnson’s rooms,’ said

Miss Matty. ‘What a superior man your cousin must be!’

‘Yes!’ said Miss Pole, ‘he’s a great reader; but I am afraid he has got

into very uncouth habits with living alone.’

‘Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call him eccentric; very

clever people always are!’ replied Miss Matty.

When Mr. Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in the fields; but the

two elder ladies were afraid of damp and dirt, and had only very

unbecoming calashes to put on over their caps; so they declined, and I

was again his companion in a turn which he said he was obliged to take

to see after his men. He strode along, either wholly forgetting my

existence, or soothed into silence by his pipe—and yet it was not

silence exactly. He walked before me, with a stooping gait, his hands

clasped behind him; and, as some tree or cloud, or glimpse of distant

upland pastures, struck him, he quoted poetry to himself, saying it out

loud in a grand sonorous voice, with just the emphasis that true feeling

and appreciation give. We came upon an old cedar-tree, which stood at

one end of the house—

The cedar spreads his dark-green layers of shade.

‘Capital term—“layers!” Wonderful man!’ I did not know whether he was

speaking to me or not; but I put in an assenting ‘wonderful,’ although I

knew nothing about it, just because I was tired of being forgotten, and

of being consequently silent.

[Illustration: ‘_Or glimpse of distant upland pastures._’]

He turned sharp round. ‘Ay! you may say “wonderful.” Why, when I saw the

review of his poems in _Blackwood_, I set off within an hour, and walked

seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in the way) and

ordered them. Now, what colour are ash-buds in March?’

Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote.

‘What colour are they, I say?’ repeated he vehemently.

‘I am sure I don’t know, sir,’ said I, with the meekness of ignorance.

‘I knew you didn’t. No more did I—an old fool that I am!—till this young

man comes and tells me. Black as ash-buds in March. And I’ve lived all

my life in the country; more shame for me not to know. Black: they are

jet-black, madam.’ And he went off again, swinging along to the music of

some rhyme he had got hold of.

When we came back, nothing would serve him but he must read us the poems

he had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal, I

thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful reading, of which

she had boasted; but she afterwards said it was because she had got to a

difficult part of her crochet, and wanted to count her stitches without

having to talk. Whatever he had proposed would have been right to Miss

Matty; although she did fall sound asleep within five minutes after he

had begun a long poem, called ‘Locksley Hall,’ and had a comfortable

nap, unobserved, till he ended; when the cessation of his voice wakened

her up, and she said, feeling that something was expected, and that Miss

Pole was counting—

‘What a pretty book!’

‘Pretty, madam! it’s beautiful! Pretty, indeed!’

‘Oh yes! I meant beautiful!’ said she, fluttered at his disapproval of

her word. ‘It is so like that beautiful poem of Dr. Johnson’s my sister

used to read—I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?’ turning to

me.

‘Which do you mean, ma’am? What was it about?’

‘I don’t remember what it was about, and I’ve quite forgotten what the

name of it was; but it was written by Dr. Johnson, and was very

beautiful, and very like what Mr. Holbrook has just been reading.’

‘I don’t remember it,’ said he reflectively. ‘But I don’t know Dr.

Johnson’s poems well. I must read them.’

[Illustration: ‘_He had begun a long poem._’]

As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr. Holbrook say he

should call on the ladies soon, and inquire how they got home; and this

evidently pleased and fluttered Miss Matty at the time he said it; but

after we had lost sight of the old house among the trees her sentiments

towards the master of it were gradually absorbed into a distressing

wonder as to whether Martha had broken her word, and seized on the

opportunity of her mistress’s absence to have a ‘follower.’ Martha

looked good, and steady, and composed enough, as she came to help us

out; she was always careful of Miss Matty, and to-night she made use of

this unlucky speech—

‘Eh! dear ma’am, to think of your going out in an evening in such a thin

shawl! It’s no better than muslin. At your age, ma’am, you should be

careful.’

‘My age!’ said Miss Matty, almost speaking crossly, for her, for she was

usually gentle—‘my age! Why, how old do you think I am, that you talk

about my age?’

‘Well, ma’am, I should say you were not far short of sixty: but folks’

looks is often against them—and I’m sure I meant no harm.’