MISS PATCH.
That evening Grace made one more trial to procure a little comfort in
her own affairs. In the dark low parlour of the cottage, where she had
lived for the last three months, with only Miss Patch and a deaf old
woman for company and comfort, she sat by the fire and stitched hard,
to abide her opportunity. At the corner of the table sat the good Miss
Patch, with her spectacles on, and occasionally nodding over her
favourite author, Ezekiel.
It was impossible for anybody to look at Miss Patch, and believe in
anything against her high integrity. That lofty nose, and hard-set
mouth, and the fine abstracted yet benevolent gaze of those hollow
grey eyes, were enough to show that here was a lady of strict moral
principle and high sense of duty. Incorruptible and grandly honest,
but prickly as a hedgehog with prejudice, she could not be driven into
any evil course, and required no leading into what she thought the
right one. And the right course to her was always the simplest of all
things to discover. Because it was that which led most directly to the
glory of God at the expense of man. Anything that would smite down
pride, and overthrow earthly schemes, and abase the creature before
the Creator--that to her mind was the thing commanded; and if it
combined therewith a cut at "papal arrogance," and priestly influence,
then the command was as delightful as it was imperative.
This tall and very clear-minded lady was, by an in and out sort of
way, related to Squire Oglander. She called him her "brother;" and the
Squire once (to comfort her in a vile toothache) had gone so far as to
call her his "sister." Still that, to his mind, was a piece of
flattery, not to be remembered when the tooth was stopped;--from no
pride on his part; but because of his ever-abiding execration of her
father--the well-known Captain Patch.
Captain Patch was the man who married the last Squire Oglander's
second wife, that is to say, our good Squire's stepmother, after the
lady had despatched her first husband, by uneasy stages, to a better
world. Captain Patch took her for her life-interest under the Oglander
settlement; and sterling friends of his declared him much too cheap at
the money. But the Oglanders took quite the contrary view, and hated
his name while he drew their cash. Yet the Captain proceeded to have a
large family, of whom this Hannah Patch was the eldest.
A godly father (as a general rule) has godless children; and happily
the converse of that rule holds true. The children of a godless father
(scared by the misery they have seen), being acquitted of the fifth
commandment, frequently go back to the first. And so it befell with
almost all of that impious fellow's family. Nevertheless the Squire,
believing in the "commandment with promise," as well as the
denunciation at the end of the second, kept himself clear of the
Patches, so far as good manners and kindness permitted him, Miss
Patch, knowing how good she was, had keenly resented this prejudice
after vainly endeavouring to beat it down. Also she felt--not
ill-will--but still a melancholy forgiveness, and uneasiness about the
present position of Grace's poor mother, who had died in her sins,
without any apology to Miss Patch.
However, put all these things as one may (according to constitution),
this lady was very good in her way, and desired to make all others
good. There was not one faulty point about her, so far as she could
discover it; and her rule of conduct was to judge her own doings by a
higher standard than was to be hoped for of any other person.
Therefore of course, for other persons she could judge what was right
and godly infinitely better than they could.
"Oh, Aunty," said Grace, by way of coaxing, having found this of good
service ere now; "Aunty, don't you wish it was tea-time now?"
"All meals come in their proper season. We should be grateful for
them; but not greedy."
"Oh, but, Aunty, you would not call it greedy to be hungry, I should
hope. And you would be so hungry, if you only knew. Ah, but you won't
get me to tell you though. I have always been celebrated for making
them. And this time I have quite surpassed myself. Now, how much will
you offer me to tell you what it is?"
"Grace, you are frivolous!" Miss Patch answered, yet with a slight
inclination of her nose towards the brown kitchen where the wood-fire
burned. "If our food is wholesome, and vouchsafed in proportion to our
daily wants, we should lift up our hearts and be thankful. To let our
minds dwell upon that which is a bodily question only, tends to
degrade them, and leads us to confound the true end--the glory of our
Maker--with the means to that end, which are vulgarly called
victuals."
"Very well, Aunty, we will do with bread and butter. I only made my
Sally Lunns for you; and if they degrade your mind, I will give them
to Margery Daw, or the cottage with ten children, down at the bottom
of the wood. What a treat they will have, to be sure, with them!"
"Not so, my dear! If you made them for me, I should fail in my duty if
I refused them. We are ordered to be kind and courteous and
long-suffering towards one another. And I know that you make them
particularly well. They are quite unfit for people in that lower
sphere of life. It would be quite sinful to tempt them so! They would
puff them up with vanity, and worldliness, and pride. But if you
insist upon my tasting them, my dear, in justice to your work I think
that you should see to the toasting. Poor Mrs. Daw smokes everything."
"Of course she does. But I never meant to let her do them, Aunty. Only
I wanted to be quite sure first that you would oblige me by tasting
them."
"My dear, I will do so, as soon as you please." The good lady shut up
Ezekiel, and waited. In a few minutes back came Grace, with all things
done to a nicety, each against each contending hotly whether the first
human duty were to drink choice tea or to eat Sally Lunns. Miss Patch
always saw her course marked out by special guidance, and devoutly
thus was enabled to act simultaneously.
Grace took a little bit now and again to criticise her own handiwork,
while with her bright eyes she watched the relaxing of the rigid
countenance. "My dear," said Miss Patch, "they are excellent! and they
do the greatest credit to your gifts! To let any talent lie idle is
sinful. You might make a few every day, my dear."
"To be sure I will, Aunty, with the greatest pleasure. I do love to do
anything that reminds me of my dear father! Oh, Aunty, will you tell
me something?"
"Yes, Grace, anything you ask aright. Young girls, of course, must
submit to those whose duty it is to guide them. Undue curiosity must
be checked, as leading to perverse naughtiness. The principle, or want
of principle, inculcated now by bad education, can lead to nothing
else but ruin and disgrace. How different all was when I was young! My
gallant and spirited father, well known as a brave defender of his
country, would never have dreamed of allowing us to be inquisitive as
to his whereabouts. But all things are subverted now; filial duty is a
thing unknown."
"Oh, but, Aunty, of course we never pretend to be half as good as you
were. Still I don't think that you can conclude that I do not love my
dear father, because I am not one bit afraid of him."
"Don't cry, child. It is foolish and weak, and rebellious against
Divine wisdom. All things are ordered for our good."
"Then crying must be ordered for our good, or we should be able to
help it, ma'am. But you can't call it 'crying,' when I do just what I
do. It is such a long and lonely time; and I never have been away more
than a week at a time from my darling father, until now; and now it is
fifteen weeks and five days since I saw him! Oh, it is dreadful to
think of!"
"Very well, my dear, it may be fifty weeks, or fifty years, if the
Lord so wills. Self-command is one of the very first lessons that all
human beings must learn."
"Yes, I know all that. And I do command myself to the very utmost. You
know that you praised me--quite praised me--yesterday; which is a rare
thing for you to do. What did you say then? Please not to retract, and
spoil the whole beauty of your good word."
"No, my dear child, you need not be afraid. Whenever you deserve
praise, you shall have it. You saw an old sack with the name of
'Beckley' on it, and although you were silly enough to set to and kiss
it, as if it were your father, you positively did not shed one tear!"
"For which I deserve a gold medal at least. I should like to have it
for my counterpane; but you sent it away most ruthlessly. Now, I want
to know, Aunty, how it came to be here--miles, leagues, longitudes,
away from darling Beckley?"
Miss Patch looked a little stern again at this. She perceived that her
duty was to tell some stories, in a case of this kind, wherein the end
justified the means so paramountly. Still every new story which she
had to tell seemed to make her more cross than the one before; whether
from accumulated adverse score, or from the increased chances of
detection.
"Sacks arrive and sacks depart," she answered, as if laying down a
dogma, "according to the decrees of Providence. Ever since the time of
Joseph, sacks have had their special mission. Our limited intelligence
cannot follow the mundane pilgrimage of sacks."
"No, Aunty, of course, they get stolen so! But this particular sack I
saw had on it the name of a good honest man, one of the very best men
in Beckley, Zacchary Cripps, the Carrier. His name did bring things to
my mind so--all the parcels and good nice things that he carries as if
they were made of glass; and the way my father looks over the hedge to
watch for his cart at the turn of the lane; and his pretty sister Etty
sitting up as if she didn't want to be looked at; and old Dobbin
splashing along, plod, plod; and our Mary setting her cap at him
vainly; and the way he goes rubbing his boots, as if he would have
every one of the nails out; and then dearest father calling out, 'Have
you brought us Her Majesty's new crown, Cripps?' and Cripps, putting
up his hand like that, and grinning as if it was a grand idea, and
then slyly peeping round where the beer-jug hangs--oh, Aunty, shall I
ever see it all again?"
"Well, Grace, you will lose very little if you don't. It is one of my
brother's worst failings that he gives away fermented liquor to the
lower orders inconsiderately. It encourages them in the bad habits to
which they are only too prone, even when discouraged."
"Oh no, Aunty! Cripps is the soberest of men. And he does take his
beer with such a relish, it is quite a treat to see him. Oh, if I
could only see his old cart now, jogging along, like a man with one
prong!"
"Grace! Miss Oglander! Your metaphor is of an excessively vulgar
description!"
"Is it, Aunty? Then I am very sorry. I am sure I didn't mean any harm
at all. Only I was thinking of the way a certain one-legged fiddler
walks--but, Aunty, all this is so frivolous! With all the solemn
duties around us, Aunty----"
"Yes, my dear, I do wish you would think a little more of them. Every
day I do my best. Your nature is not more corrupt than must be, with
all who have the sad _phronema sarkos_; but unhappily you always
exhibit, both in word and action, something so--I will not use at all
a harsh word for it--something so sadly unsolemn."
"What can I do, Aunt? It really is not my fault. I try for five
minutes together to be solemn. And then there comes something or
other--how can I tell how?--that proves too much for me. My father
used to love to see me laugh. He said it was quite the proper thing to
do. And he was so funny (when he had no trouble) that without putting
anything into anybody's head, he set them all off laughing. Aunty, you
would have been amused to hear him. Quite in the quiet time, almost in
the evening, I have known my father make such beautiful jokes, without
thinking of them, that I often longed for the old horn lanthorn, to
see all the people laughing. Even you would laugh, dear Aunty, if you
only heard him."
"The laughter of fools is the crackling of thorns. Grace, you are
nothing but a very green goose. Even a stray lamb would afford me
better hopes. But knock at the wall with the poker, my dear, that
Margery Daw may come in to prayers."