THE WINDING-UP.
Yes, reader, we must settle accounts now. I have only briefly to narrate
the final fates of some of the personages whose acquaintance we have
made in this narrative, and then you and I must shake hands, and for the
present separate.
Let us turn to the curates--to the much-loved, though long-neglected.
Come forward, modest merit! Malone, I see, promptly answers the
invocation. He knows his own description when he hears it.
No, Peter Augustus; we can have nothing to say to you. It won't do.
Impossible to trust ourselves with the touching tale of your deeds and
destinies. Are you not aware, Peter, that a discriminating public has
its crotchets; that the unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain
facts will not digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig
is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were I to give the
catastrophe of your life and conversation, the public would sweep off in
shrieking hysterics, and there would be a wild cry for sal-volatile and
burnt feathers. "Impossible!" would be pronounced here; "untrue!" would
be responded there; "inartistic!" would be solemnly decided. Note well.
Whenever you present the actual, simple truth, it is, somehow, always
denounced as a lie--they disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish;
whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer
fiction, is adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly natural--the
little, spurious wretch gets all the comfits, the honest, lawful
bantling all the cuffs. Such is the way of the world, Peter; and as you
are the legitimate urchin, rude, unwashed, and naughty, you must stand
down.
Make way for Mr. Sweeting.
Here he comes, with his lady on his arm--the most splendid and the
weightiest woman in Yorkshire--Mrs. Sweeting, formerly Miss Dora Sykes.
They were married under the happiest auspices, Mr. Sweeting having been
just inducted to a comfortable living, and Mr. Sykes being in
circumstances to give Dora a handsome portion. They lived long and
happily together, beloved by their parishioners and by a numerous circle
of friends.
There! I think the varnish has been put on very nicely.
Advance, Mr. Donne.
This gentleman turned out admirably--far better than either you or I
could possibly have expected, reader. He, too, married a most sensible,
quiet, lady-like little woman. The match was the making of him. He
became an exemplary domestic character, and a truly active parish priest
(as a pastor he, to his dying day, conscientiously refused to act). The
outside of the cup and platter he burnished up with the best
polishing-powder; the furniture of the altar and temple he looked after
with the zeal of an upholsterer, the care of a cabinet-maker. His little
school, his little church, his little parsonage, all owed their erection
to him; and they did him credit. Each was a model in its way. If
uniformity and taste in architecture had been the same thing as
consistency and earnestness in religion, what a shepherd of a Christian
flock Mr. Donne would have made! There was one art in the mastery of
which nothing mortal ever surpassed Mr. Donne: it was that of begging.
By his own unassisted efforts he begged all the money for all his
erections. In this matter he had a grasp of plan, a scope of action
quite unique. He begged of high and low--of the shoeless cottage brat
and the coroneted duke. He sent out begging-letters far and wide--to old
Queen Charlotte, to the princesses her daughters, to her sons the royal
dukes, to the Prince Regent, to Lord Castlereagh, to every member of the
ministry then in office; and, what is more remarkable, he screwed
something out of every one of these personages. It is on record that he
got five pounds from the close-fisted old lady Queen Charlotte, and two
guineas from the royal profligate her eldest son. When Mr. Donne set out
on begging expeditions, he armed himself in a complete suit of brazen
mail. That you had given a hundred pounds yesterday was with him no
reason why you should not give two hundred to-day. He would tell you so
to your face, and, ten to one, get the money out of you. People gave to
get rid of him. After all, he did some good with the cash. He was
useful in his day and generation.
Perhaps I ought to remark that on the premature and sudden vanishing of
Mr. Malone from the stage of Briarfield parish (you cannot know how it
happened, reader; your curiosity must be robbed to pay your elegant love
of the pretty and pleasing), there came as his successor another Irish
curate, Mr. Macarthey. I am happy to be able to inform you, _with
truth_, that this gentleman did as much credit to his country as Malone
had done it discredit. He proved himself as decent, decorous, and
conscientious as Peter was rampant, boisterous, and---- This last
epithet I choose to suppress, because it would let the cat out of the
bag. He laboured faithfully in the parish. The schools, both Sunday and
day schools, flourished under his sway like green bay trees. Being
human, of course he had his faults. These, however, were proper,
steady-going, clerical faults--what many would call virtues. The
circumstance of finding himself invited to tea with a Dissenter would
unhinge him for a week. The spectacle of a Quaker wearing his hat in the
church, the thought of an unbaptized fellow-creature being interred with
Christian rites--these things could make strange havoc in Mr.
Macarthey's physical and mental economy. Otherwise he was sane and
rational, diligent and charitable.
I doubt not a justice-loving public will have remarked, ere this, that I
have thus far shown a criminal remissness in pursuing, catching, and
bringing to condign punishment the would-be assassin of Mr. Robert
Moore. Here was a fine opening to lead my willing readers a dance, at
once decorous and exciting--a dance of law and gospel, of the dungeon,
the dock, and the "dead-thraw." You might have liked it, reader, but _I_
should not. I and my subject would presently have quarrelled, and then I
should have broken down. I was happy to find that facts perfectly
exonerated me from the attempt. The murderer was never punished, for the
good reason that he was never caught--the result of the further
circumstance that he was never pursued. The magistrates made a
shuffling, as if they were going to rise and do valiant things; but
since Moore himself, instead of urging and leading them as heretofore,
lay still on his little cottage-couch, laughing in his sleeve, and
sneering with every feature of his pale, foreign face, they considered
better of it, and after fulfilling certain indispensable forms,
prudently resolved to let the matter quietly drop, which they did.
Mr. Moore knew who had shot him, and all Briarfield knew. It was no
other than Michael Hartley, the half-crazed weaver once before alluded
to, a frantic Antinomian in religion, and a mad leveller in politics.
The poor soul died of delirium tremens a year after the attempt on
Moore, and Robert gave his wretched widow a guinea to bury him.
* * * * *
The winter is over and gone; spring has followed with beamy and shadowy,
with flowery and showery flight. We are now in the heart of summer--in
mid-June--the June of 1812.
It is burning weather. The air is deep azure and red gold. It fits the
time; it fits the age; it fits the present spirit of the nations. The
nineteenth century wantons in its giant adolescence; the Titan boy
uproots mountains in his game, and hurls rocks in his wild sport. This
summer Bonaparte is in the saddle; he and his host scour Russian
deserts. He has with him Frenchmen and Poles, Italians and children of
the Rhine, six hundred thousand strong. He marches on old Moscow. Under
old Moscow's walls the rude Cossack waits him. Barbarian stoic! he waits
without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. He puts his trust in a
snow-cloud; the wilderness, the wind, and the hail-storm are his refuge;
his allies are the elements--air, fire, water. And what are these? Three
terrible archangels ever stationed before the throne of Jehovah. They
stand clothed in white, girdled with golden girdles; they uplift vials,
brimming with the wrath of God. Their time is the day of vengeance;
their signal, the word of the Lord of hosts, "thundering with the voice
of His excellency."
"Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the
treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of
trouble, against the day of battle and war?
"Go your ways. Pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth."
It is done. The earth is scorched with fire; the sea becomes "as the
blood of a dead man;" the islands flee away; the mountains are not
found.
In this year, Lord Wellington assumed the reins in Spain. They made him
generalissimo, for their own salvation's sake. In this year he took
Badajos, he fought the field of Vittoria, he captured Pampeluna, he
stormed San Sebastian; in this year he won Salamanca.
Men of Manchester, I beg your pardon for this slight _résumé_ of warlike
facts, but it is of no consequence. Lord Wellington is, for you, only a
decayed old gentleman now. I rather think some of you have called him a
"dotard;" you have taunted him with his age and the loss of his physical
vigour. What fine heroes you are yourselves! Men like you have a right
to trample on what is mortal in a demigod. Scoff at your ease; your
scorn can never break his grand old heart.
But come, friends, whether Quakers or cotton-printers, let us hold a
peace-congress, and let out our venom quietly. We have been talking with
unseemly zeal about bloody battles and butchering generals; we arrive
now at a triumph in your line. On the 18th of June 1812 the Orders in
Council were repealed, and the blockaded ports thrown open. You know
very well--such of you as are old enough to remember--you made Yorkshire
and Lancashire shake with your shout on that occasion. The ringers
cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The
Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro',
and one and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never
wish to witness more. Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse
roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt
threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled--all, like wise men,
at this first moment of prosperity, prepared to rush into the bowels of
speculation, and to delve new difficulties, in whose depths they might
lose themselves at some future day. Stocks which had been accumulating
for years now went off in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
Warehouses were lightened, ships were laden; work abounded, wages rose;
the good time seemed come. These prospects might be delusive, but they
were brilliant--to some they were even true. At that epoch, in that
single month of June, many a solid fortune was realized.
* * * * *
When a whole province rejoices, the humblest of its inhabitants tastes a
festal feeling; the sound of public bells rouses the most secluded
abode, as if with a call to be gay. And so Caroline Helstone thought,
when she dressed herself more carefully than usual on the day of this
trading triumph, and went, attired in her neatest muslin, to spend the
afternoon at Fieldhead, there to superintend certain millinery
preparations for a great event, the last appeal in these matters being
reserved for her unimpeachable taste. She decided on the wreath, the
veil, the dress to be worn at the altar. She chose various robes and
fashions for more ordinary occasions, without much reference to the
bride's opinion--that lady, indeed, being in a somewhat impracticable
mood.
Louis had presaged difficulties, and he had found them--in fact, his
mistress had shown herself exquisitely provoking, putting off her
marriage day by day, week by week, month by month, at first coaxing him
with soft pretences of procrastination, and in the end rousing his whole
deliberate but determined nature to revolt against her tyranny, at once
so sweet and so intolerable.
It had needed a sort of tempest-shock to bring her to the point; but
there she was at last, fettered to a fixed day. There she lay, conquered
by love, and bound with a vow.
Thus vanquished and restricted, she pined, like any other chained
denizen of deserts. Her captor alone could cheer her; his society only
could make amends for the lost privilege of liberty. In his absence she
sat or wandered alone, spoke little, and ate less.
She furthered no preparations for her nuptials; Louis was himself
obliged to direct all arrangements. He was virtually master of Fieldhead
weeks before he became so nominally--the least presumptuous, the kindest
master that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated without
a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer
when applied to for orders. Never was wooer of wealthy bride so
thoroughly absolved from the subaltern part, so inevitably compelled to
assume a paramount character.
In all this Miss Keeldar partly yielded to her disposition; but a remark
she made a year afterwards proved that she partly also acted on system.
"Louis," she said, "would never have learned to rule if she had not
ceased to govern. The incapacity of the sovereign had developed the
powers of the premier."
It had been intended that Miss Helstone should act as bridesmaid at the
approaching nuptials, but Fortune had destined her another part.
She came home in time to water her plants. She had performed this little
task. The last flower attended to was a rose-tree, which bloomed in a
quiet green nook at the back of the house. This plant had received the
refreshing shower; she was now resting a minute. Near the wall stood a
fragment of sculptured stone--a monkish relic--once, perhaps, the base
of a cross. She mounted it, that she might better command the view. She
had still the watering pot in one hand; with the other her pretty dress
was held lightly aside, to avoid trickling drops. She gazed over the
wall, along some lonely fields; beyond three dusk trees, rising side by
side against the sky; beyond a solitary thorn at the head of a solitary
lane far off. She surveyed the dusk moors, where bonfires were kindling.
The summer evening was warm; the bell-music was joyous; the blue smoke
of the fires looked soft, their red flame bright. Above them, in the sky
whence the sun had vanished, twinkled a silver point--the star of love.
Caroline was not unhappy that evening--far otherwise; but as she gazed
she sighed, and as she sighed a hand circled her, and rested quietly on
her waist. Caroline thought she knew who had drawn near; she received
the touch unstartled.
"I am looking at Venus, mamma. See, she is beautiful. How white her
lustre is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires!"
The answer was a closer caress; and Caroline turned, and looked, not
into Mrs. Pryor's matron face, but up at a dark manly visage. She
dropped her watering-pot and stepped down from the pedestal.
"I have been sitting with 'mamma' an hour," said the intruder. "I have
had a long conversation with her. Where, meantime, have you been?"
"To Fieldhead. Shirley is as naughty as ever, Robert. She will neither
say Yes nor No to any question put. She sits alone. I cannot tell
whether she is melancholy or nonchalant. If you rouse her or scold her,
she gives you a look, half wistful, half reckless, which sends you away
as queer and crazed as herself. What Louis will make of her, I cannot
tell. For my part, if I were a gentleman, I think I would not dare
undertake her."
"Never mind them. They were cut out for each other. Louis, strange to
say, likes her all the better for these freaks. He will manage her, if
any one can. She tries him, however. He has had a stormy courtship for
such a calm character; but you see it all ends in victory for him.
Caroline, I have sought you to ask an audience. Why are those bells
ringing?"
"For the repeal of your terrible law--the Orders you hate so much. You
are pleased, are you not?"
"Yesterday evening at this time I was packing some books for a
sea-voyage. They were the only possessions, except some clothes, seeds,
roots, and tools, which I felt free to take with me to Canada. I was
going to leave you."
"To leave me? To leave _me_?"
Her little fingers fastened on his arm; she spoke and looked affrighted.
"Not now--not now. Examine my face--yes, look at me well. Is the despair
of parting legible thereon?"
She looked into an illuminated countenance, whose characters were all
beaming, though the page itself was dusk. This face, potent in the
majesty of its traits, shed down on her hope, fondness, delight.
"Will the repeal do you good--_much_ good, _immediate_ good?" she
inquired.
"The repeal of the Orders in Council saves me. Now I shall not turn
bankrupt; now I shall not give up business; now I shall not leave
England; now I shall be no longer poor; now I can pay my debts; now all
the cloth I have in my warehouses will be taken off my hands, and
commissions given me for much more. This day lays for my fortunes a
broad, firm foundation, on which, for the first time in my life, I can
securely build."
Caroline devoured his words; she held his hand in hers; she drew a long
breath.
"You are saved? Your heavy difficulties are lifted?"
"They are lifted. I breathe. I can act."
"At last! Oh, Providence is kind! Thank Him, Robert."
"I do thank Providence."
"And I also, for your sake!" She looked up devoutly.
"Now I can take more workmen, give better wages, lay wiser and more
liberal plans, do some good, be less selfish. _Now_, Caroline, I can
have a house--a home which I can truly call mine--and _now_----"
He paused, for his deep voice was checked.
"And _now_," he resumed--"now I can think of marriage, _now_ I can seek
a wife."
This was no moment for her to speak. She did not speak.
"Will Caroline, who meekly hopes to be forgiven as she forgives--will
she pardon all I have made her suffer, all that long pain I have
wickedly caused her, all that sickness of body and mind she owed to me?
Will she forget what she knows of my poor ambition, my sordid schemes?
Will she let me expiate these things? Will she suffer me to prove that,
as I once deserted cruelly, trifled wantonly, injured basely, I can now
love faithfully, cherish fondly, treasure tenderly?"
His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure answered him.
"Is Caroline mine?"
"Caroline is yours."
"I will prize her. The sense of her value is here, in my heart; the
necessity for her society is blended with my life. Not more jealous
shall I be of the blood whose flow moves my pulses than of her happiness
and well-being."
"I love you, too, Robert, and will take faithful care of you."
"Will you take faithful care of me? Faithful care! As if that rose
should promise to shelter from tempest this hard gray stone! But she
_will_ care for me, in her way. These hands will be the gentle
ministrants of every comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to
entwine with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to
which, of myself, I am a stranger."
Suddenly Caroline was troubled; her lip quivered.
"What flutters my dove?" asked Moore, as she nestled to and then
uneasily shrank from him.
"Poor mamma! I am all mamma has. Must I leave her?"
"Do you know, I thought of that difficulty. I and 'mamma' have discussed
it."
"Tell me what you wish, what you would like, and I will consider if it
is possible to consent. But I cannot desert her, even for you. I cannot
break her heart, even for your sake."
"She was faithful when I was false--was she not? I never came near your
sick-bed, and she watched it ceaselessly."
"What must I do? Anything but leave her."
"At my wish you never shall leave her."
"She may live very near us?"
"With us--only she will have her own rooms and servant. For this she
stipulates herself."
"You know she has an income, that, with her habits, makes her quite
independent?"
"She told me that, with a gentle pride that reminded me of somebody
else."
"She is not at all interfering, and incapable of gossip."
"I know her, Cary. But if, instead of being the personification of
reserve and discretion, she were something quite opposite, I should not
fear her."
"Yet she will be your mother-in-law?" The speaker gave an arch little
nod. Moore smiled.
"Louis and I are not of the order of men who fear their mothers-in-law,
Cary. Our foes never have been, nor will be, those of our own household.
I doubt not my mother-in-law will make much of me."
"That she will--in her quiet way, you know. She is not demonstrative;
and when you see her silent, or even cool, you must not fancy her
displeased; it is only a manner she has. Be sure to let me interpret for
her whenever she puzzles you; always believe my account of the matter,
Robert."
"Oh, implicitly! Jesting apart, I feel that she and I will suit--_on ne
peut mieux_. Hortense, you know, is exquisitely susceptible--in our
French sense of the word--and not, perhaps, always reasonable in her
requirements; yet, dear, honest girl, I never painfully wounded her
feelings or had a serious quarrel with her in my life."
"No; you are most generously considerate, indeed, most tenderly
indulgent to her; and you will be considerate with mamma. You are a
gentleman all through, Robert, to the bone, and nowhere so perfect a
gentleman as at your own fireside."
"A eulogium I like; it is very sweet. I am well pleased my Caroline
should view me in this light."
"Mamma just thinks of you as I do."
"Not quite, I hope?"
"She does not want to marry you--don't be vain; but she said to me the
other day, 'My dear, Mr. Moore has pleasing manners; he is one of the
few gentlemen I have seen who combine politeness with an air of
sincerity.'"
"'Mamma' is rather a misanthropist, is she not? Not the best opinion of
the sterner sex?"
"She forbears to judge them as a whole, but she has her exceptions whom
she admires--Louis and Mr. Hall, and, of late, yourself. She did not
like you once; I knew that, because she would never speak of you. But,
Robert----"
"Well, what now? What is the new thought?"
"You have not seen my uncle yet?"
"I have. 'Mamma' called him into the room. He consents conditionally. If
I prove that I can keep a wife, I may have her; and I _can_ keep her
better than he thinks--better than I choose to boast."
"If you get rich you will do good with your money, Robert?"
"I _will_ do good; you shall tell me how. Indeed, I have some schemes of
my own, which you and I will talk about on our own hearth one day. I
have seen the necessity of doing good; I have learned the downright
folly of being selfish. Caroline, I foresee what I will now foretell.
This war _must_ ere long draw to a close. Trade is likely to prosper for
some years to come. There may be a brief misunderstanding between
England and America, but that will not last. What would you think if,
one day--perhaps ere another ten years elapse--Louis and I divide
Briarfield parish betwixt us? Louis, at any rate, is certain of power
and property. He will not bury his talents. He is a benevolent fellow,
and has, besides, an intellect of his own of no trifling calibre. His
mind is slow but strong. It must work. It may work deliberately, but it
will work well. He will be made magistrate of the district--Shirley says
he shall. She would proceed impetuously and prematurely to obtain for
him this dignity, if he would let her, but he will not. As usual, he
will be in no haste. Ere he has been master of Fieldhead a year all the
district will feel his quiet influence, and acknowledge his unassuming
superiority. A magistrate is wanted; they will, in time, invest him with
the office voluntarily and unreluctantly. Everybody admires his future
wife, and everybody will, in time, like him. He is of the _pâte_
generally approved, _bon comme le pain_--daily bread for the most
fastidious, good for the infant and the aged, nourishing for the poor,
wholesome for the rich. Shirley, in spite of her whims and oddities, her
dodges and delays, has an infatuated fondness for him. She will one day
see him as universally beloved as even _she_ could wish. He will also be
universally esteemed, considered, consulted, depended on--too much so.
His advice will be always judicious, his help always good-natured. Ere
long both will be in inconvenient request. He will have to impose
restrictions. As for me, if I succeed as I intend to do, my success will
add to his and Shirley's income. I can double the value of their mill
property. I can line yonder barren Hollow with lines of cottages and
rows of cottage-gardens----"
"Robert! And root up the copse?"
"The copse shall be firewood ere five years elapse. The beautiful wild
ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green natural terrace shall be a
paved street. There shall be cottages in the dark ravine, and cottages
on the lonely slopes. The rough pebbled track shall be an even, firm,
broad, black, sooty road, bedded with the cinders from my mill; and my
mill, Caroline--my mill shall fill its present yard."
"Horrible! You will change our blue hill-country air into the Stilbro'
smoke atmosphere."
"I will pour the waters of Pactolus through the valley of Briarfield."
"I like the beck a thousand times better."
"I will get an Act for enclosing Nunnely Common, and parcelling it out
into farms."
"Stilbro' Moor, however, defies you, thank Heaven! What can you grow in
Bilberry Moss? What will flourish on Rushedge?"
"Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed shall come to
Hollow's Mill from far and near; and Joe Scott shall give them work, and
Louis Moore, Esq., shall let them a tenement, and Mrs. Gill shall mete
them a portion till the first pay-day."
She smiled up in his face.
"Such a Sunday school as you will have, Cary! such collections as you
will get! such a day school as you and Shirley and Miss Ainley will have
to manage between you! The mill shall find salaries for a master and
mistress, and the squire or the clothier shall give a treat once a
quarter."
She mutely offered a kiss--an offer taken unfair advantage of, to the
extortion of about a hundred kisses.
"Extravagant day-dreams," said Moore, with a sigh and smile, "yet
perhaps we may realize some of them. Meantime, the dew is falling. Mrs.
Moore, I shall take you in."
* * * * *
It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire, but
through England. From Spain the voice of a trumpet has sounded long; it
now waxes louder and louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is
Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry dine
together; the Hollow's Mill workpeople will be assembled for a like
festal purpose; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were
two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church--Louis Gérard Moore, Esq.,
late of Antwerp, to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles Cave Keeldar,
Esq., of Fieldhead; Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Mill, to
Caroline, niece of the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, M.A., rector of
Briarfield.
The ceremony, in the first instance, was performed by Mr. Helstone,
Hiram Yorke, Esq., of Briarmains, giving the bride away. In the second
instance, Mr. Hall, vicar of Nunnely, officiated. Amongst the bridal
train the two most noticeable personages were the youthful bridesmen,
Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke.
I suppose Robert Moore's prophecies were, partially at least, fulfilled.
The other day I passed up the Hollow, which tradition says was once
green, and lone, and wild; and there I saw the manufacturer's day-dreams
embodied in substantial stone and brick and ashes--the cinder-black
highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens; there I saw a mighty
mill, and a chimney ambitious as the tower of Babel. I told my old
housekeeper when I came home where I had been.
"Ay," said she, "this world has queer changes. I can remember the old
mill being built--the very first it was in all the district; and then I
can remember it being pulled down, and going with my lake-lasses
[companions] to see the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two
Mr. Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and a deal of
fine folk besides, and both their ladies; very bonny and grand they
looked. But Mrs. Louis was the grandest; she always wore such handsome
dresses. Mrs. Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she
talked. She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she had een
that pierced a body through. There is no such ladies nowadays."
"What was the Hollow like then, Martha?"
"Different to what it is now; but I can tell of it clean different
again, when there was neither mill, nor cot, nor hall, except Fieldhead,
within two miles of it. I can tell, one summer evening, fifty years
syne, my mother coming running in just at the edge of dark, almost
fleyed out of her wits, saying she had seen a fairish [fairy] in
Fieldhead Hollow; and that was the last fairish that ever was seen on
this countryside (though they've been heard within these forty years). A
lonesome spot it was, and a bonny spot, full of oak trees and nut trees.
It is altered now."
The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his
spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his sagacity
to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!
THE END.
ESTABLISHED 1798
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THE NELSON CLASSICS.
_Uniform with this Volume and Same Price._
=Jack Sheppard.= HARRISON AINSWORTH.
=Masterman Ready.= CAPTAIN MARRYAT.
=Michael Strogoff.= JULES VERNE.
=The Wide Wide World.= ELIZ. WETHERELL.
This famous American novel has for many years been a classic in every
home. It is a masterpiece of the best type of domestic fiction.
=Hereward the Wake.= CHARLES KINGSLEY.
This brilliant romance tells of the last stand of the great English
leader, Hereward, against the advance of the Normans. The scene is
largely laid in the Fen country, and every page is a record of fierce
strife. The fall of Hereward is one of the greatest death scenes in
literature.
=David Copperfield--I.= CHARLES DICKENS.
=David Copperfield--II.= CHARLES DICKENS.
"David Copperfield" is, by general consent, Dickens's masterpiece,
showing, as it does, all his peculiar merits in their highest form. It
is the most autobiographical of his novels, and the one into which he
put most of his philosophy of life.
=Jane Eyre.= CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
"Jane Eyre" is Charlotte Brontë's first and most famous work. It was the
first realistic novel, in the modern sense of the word, in English
literature, and its influence has been beyond reckoning. It ranks as one
of the great novels of the nineteenth century.
=Verdant Green.= CUTHBERT BEDE.
This is the humorous classic of Oxford life. Published more than half a
century ago, its humour is as fresh to-day as ever.
=Pickwick Papers--I.= CHARLES DICKENS.
=Pickwick Papers--II.= CHARLES DICKENS.
Every year sees a new edition of "Pickwick," and the world still asks
for more. It is one of the world's greatest romances of the road, where
adventures fall to those who seek them. It is also a faithful and loving
picture of an older England, from which we have travelled far to-day. We
may become a wiser people, but we shall never again be so humorous.
=Windsor Castle.= HARRISON AINSWORTH.
The romances of Harrison Ainsworth need no advertisement. In this, as in
his "Tower of London" and "Old St. Paul's," he has taken one of
England's great historical sites, and woven around it an appropriate
romance.
=Peg Woffington.= CHARLES READE.
"Peg Woffington" was the first of Charles Reade's romances, and was
founded upon his comedy, "Masks and Faces." The story of the famous
Irish actress who dazzled London in the eighteenth century, and with
whom Garrick was in love, has been made the foundation of a charming
romance.
=Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character.= Dean RAMSAY.
The only book of jests that has ever attained an honourable place in
literature. Its wealth of genuine humour is a perpetual refutation of
the old slander that Scots joke "wi' deeficulty."
=Parables from Nature.= Mrs. GATTY.
This is one of the great children's books of the world. It was a classic
in our grandmothers' time, and possesses that imperishable charm which
makes it as attractive to-day as when it was first written.
=Lavengro.= GEORGE BORROW.
The greatest romance of the road in English literature, telling of all
the byways and humours of that older England which is fast disappearing.
=Little Women.= LOUISA M. ALCOTT.
This delightful book has become a possession of childhood and youth. It
has captured the affections of millions of young people in two
continents, and is certainly the finest piece of work in the whole range
of Miss Alcott's breezy, hopeful, genial, and tender writings.
=Pride and Prejudice.= JANE AUSTEN.
=Sense and Sensibility.= JANE AUSTEN.
Sir Walter Scott was among the earliest to detect the merits of Miss
Austen's work, and of recent years her humour and her keen insight into
human nature have been abundantly recognized, so that to-day she is
probably the most read novelist of her period. In Sir Walter Scott's
phrase she possesses "the exquisite touch which renders ordinary
commonplace things and characters interesting."
=Toilers of the Sea.= VICTOR HUGO.
=The Laughing Man.= VICTOR HUGO.
=Les Misérables--I.= VICTOR HUGO.
=Les Misérables--II.= VICTOR HUGO.
='Ninety-Three.= VICTOR HUGO.
Victor Hugo took the romantic novel as invented by Sir Walter Scott and
gave it a new and philosophic interest. All his great romances have a
purpose. "Les Misérables" exposes the tyranny of human laws; "The
Toilers of the Sea" shows the conflict of man with nature; "The Laughing
Man" expounds the tyranny of the aristocratic ideal as exemplified in
England. But being a great artist as well as a great thinker, he never
turned his romances into pamphlets. Drama is always his aim, and no
novelist has attained more often the supreme dramatic moment.
=The Heir of Redclyffe.= C. M. YONGE.
This is a reprint of Miss Yonge's most famous tale. It has been said of
her that she domesticated the historical romance, which owed its origin
to Sir Walter Scott, and her characters were for long the ideal figures
of most English households.
=Wild Wales.= GEORGE BORROW.
This book was the result of Borrow's wanderings after the publication of
"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." He tramped on foot throughout the
country, and the work is a classic of description, both of the scenery
and people.
=The Cloister and the Hearth.= CHARLES READE.
There are many who think this the greatest of all historical novels, and
it is certain that there are few better. It is not a story so much as a
vast and varied transcript of life. It is also a delightful romance, and
Gerard and Margaret are among the immortals of fiction.
=Romola.= GEORGE ELIOT.
This is the only novel of George Eliot's in which the scene is laid
outside her own country. It is a story of Florence during the time of
the Renaissance, a marvellous picture of the intellectual and moral
ferment which the New Learning created. With amazing learning and
insight the author portrays the souls of men and women, and her study of
a weak man and a strong woman has rarely been surpassed in English
literature for dramatic power and moral truth.
=Silas Marner.= GEORGE ELIOT.
This, the shortest and the most exquisite of George Eliot's tales,
represents her great powers at their best. In the picture of the hero
she shows a profound understanding of human nature, and the feelings
which were then moving rural and industrial England.
=The Abbot.= Sir WALTER SCOTT.
One of the Waverley novels which has always been deservedly popular.
=Bride of Lammermoor.= Sir WALTER SCOTT.
The story is a tragedy on the lines of Greek drama, and the ending has
been pronounced by great critics to be the most moving in prose
literature. In the Master of Ravenswood, Scott has drawn perhaps his
greatest tragic figure, and in Caleb Balderstone one of his most
humorous creations.
=The Black Tulip.= ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
This was the last of Dumas' great stories. It is a veritable _tour de
force_, for in it the reader follows with consuming interest the
vicissitudes of a tulip, and the human element in the story is quite
subsidiary. Nevertheless, it contains such strongly-drawn characters as
Cornelius van Baerle, the guardian of the tulip, and Rosa, the jailer's
daughter.
=Tom Cringle's Log.= MICHAEL SCOTT.
A brilliant story of West Indian life by an author who combined abundant
personal experience with keen observation, sprightly temper, and
delightful humour. "Tom Cringle's Log" has been many times reprinted,
and has lost nothing of its popularity and power to please.
=Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.=
Tens of thousands of readers have been led to Shakespeare by the
charmingly told stories which Charles and Mary Lamb, about a hundred
years ago, extracted from the plays of the greatest dramatist of all
time. Though produced by Lamb at the very outset of his literary career,
these stories betray that unique and finished art, that delightful
freshness and rare sympathy, which are the characteristics of his mature
work.
=The Scarlet Letter.= NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
This is one of the most powerful and affecting stories ever conceived.
On its first appearance, in 1850, it immediately leaped high into public
favour, and attained the distinction of an unmistakable classic. The
tragedy of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale is wrought out in the
midst of an austere Puritan community, which exacts the bitterest
expiation for sin.
THE NELSON CLASSICS.
_Uniform with this Volume and Same Price_.
CONDENSED LIST.
1. A Tale of Two Cities.
2. Tom Brown's Schooldays.
3. The Deerslayer.
4. Henry Esmond.
5. Hypatia.
6. The Mill on the Floss.
7. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
8. The Last of the Mohicans.
9. Adam Bede.
10. The Old Curiosity Shop.
11. Oliver Twist.
12. Kenilworth.
13. Robinson Crusoe.
14. The Last Days of Pompeii.
15. Cloister and the Hearth.
16. Ivanhoe.
17. East Lynne.
18. Cranford.
19. John Halifax, Gentleman.
20. The Pathfinder.
21. Westward Ho!
22. The Three Musketeers.
23. The Channings.
24. The Pilgrim's Progress.
25. Pride and Prejudice.
26. Quentin Durward.
27. Villette.
28. Hard Times.
29. Child's History of England.
30. The Bible in Spain.
31. Gulliver's Travels.
32. Sense and Sensibility.
33. Kate Coventry.
34. Silas Marner.
35. Notre Dame.
36. Old St. Paul's.
37. Waverley.
38. 'Ninety-Three.
39. Eothen.
40. Toilers of the Sea.
41. Children of the New Forest.
42. The Laughing Man.
43. A Book of Golden Deeds.
44. Great Expectations.
45. Guy Mannering.
46. Modern Painters (Selections)
47. Les Misérables--I.
48. Les Misérables--II.
49. The Monastery.
50. Romola.
51. The Vicar of Wakefield.
52. Emma.
53. Lavengro.
54. Emerson's Essays.
55. The Bride of Lammermoor.
56. The Abbot.
57. Tom Cringle's Log.
58. Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.
59. The Scarlet Letter.
60. Old Mortality.
61. The Romany Rye.
62. Hans Andersen.
63. The Black Tulip.
64. Little Women.
65. The Talisman.
66. Scottish Life and Character.
67. The Woman in White.
68. Tales of Mystery.
69. Fair Maid of Perth.
70. Parables from Nature.
71. Peg Woffington.
72. Windsor Castle.
73. Edmund Burke.
74. Ingoldsby Legends.
75. Pickwick Papers.--I.
76. Pickwick Papers.--II.
77. Verdant Green.
78. The Heir of Redclyffe.
79. Wild Wales.
80. Two Years Before the Mast.
81. Jane Eyre.
82. David Copperfield.--I.
83. David Copperfield.--II.
84. Hereward the Wake.
85. Wide Wide World.
86. Michael Strogoff.
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS.
Transcriber's Note:
Variations in hyphenated words have been retained as
they appear in the original publication.
Changes have been made as follows:
Page 30
with some inpatience _changed to_
with some impatience
Page 48
very bravely mantained _changed to_
very bravely maintained
Page 120
Sudgen, his staff; and Sudgen arrest him _changed to_
Sugden, his staff; and Sugden arrest him
Page 166
The old atticed _changed to_
The old latticed
Page 175
Let as have _changed to_
Let us have
Page 185
Mrs. Gill, my houskeeper _changed to_
Mrs. Gill, my housekeeper
Page 224
by a downward gave _changed to_
by a downward gaze
Page 242
gently invired him _changed to_
gently invited him
Page 245
a smiling Melancthon _changed to_
a smiling Melanchthon
Page 255
Sentinels of Nunwood _changed to_
Sentinels of Nunnwood
Page 260
only the profiters _changed to_
only the profiteers
Page 274
dark gray irids _changed to_
dark gray irides
Page 297
alight and alow _changed to_
alight and aglow
Page 380
my old accupation _changed to_
my old occupation
Page 492
not without approbrium _changed to_
not without opprobrium
Punctuation has been changed as follows:
Page 119
Mr Moore, we lived _changed to_
Mr. Moore, we lived
Page 145
stones on the road? _changed to_
stones on the road.
Page 393
"Shirley, my woman _changed to_
'Shirley, my woman
Page 540
_reward_ her!" _changed to_
_reward_ her!'"