“MASTER PHILIP.”
“A Knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the tyme that he first bigan
To ryden out, he loved chyvalrie,
Truth and honour, freedom and curtesie.
* * * * *
With him ther was his sone, a yong Squyer,
A lovyer and a lusty bachelor,
With lockkes crulle, as they were laid in press.
Of twenty year he was of age, I guess.”
_Chaucer._
The brief spring day had faded into night. Nathan Blyth raked out his
smithy fire, laid aside his leather apron, locked up the forge, and
after an extensive and enjoyable ablution, was seated by the little
round table in the cosy kitchen, discussing the tea and muffins which
Lucy had prepared for their joint repast. That young lady presented a
very piquant and attractive picture. In what her winsomeness consisted
it would be difficult to say: certainly, she was possessed of unusual
charms of face and form, but it is equally certain that these
constituted only a minor element in the glamour of a beauty which
commanded unstinted admiration. With much wisdom and at much
self-sacrifice, Nathan Blyth had sent his daughter to a distant and
noted school for several years, and thanks to this and her own clear
intellect and singular diligence, she had obtained an education
altogether in advance of most girls of her age in a much higher rank
of social life. Her pleasant manners and maidenly behaviour made her
justly popular among the villagers, and many a farmer’s son in and
around Nestleton would have gone far and given much for a preferential
glance from her lustrous hazel eyes, and for the reward of a smile and
a word from lips which had no parallels amid the budding beauties of
Waverdale.
Lucy’s mother, a quiet, unpretentious woman, whose solid qualities and
amiable disposition her daughter had inherited, had died some five
years before the opening of my story; but the well-kept grave, the
perpetual succession of flowers planted there, and the fresh-cut
grave-stone at its head, gave proof enough that the widower and orphan
kept her memory green.
For a long time after his wife’s death Nathan Blyth had lived a lonely
and a shadowed life. His anvil rang as loudly, because his hammer was
wielded as lustily as before, but his grand, clear, tenor voice was
seldom lifted in cheerful song. Time, however, that merciful healer of
sore hearts, had gradually extracted the sting of his bereavement, and
loving memories, sweet and tender, took the place of the aching vacuum
which had been so hard to bear. In his blooming daughter, lately
returned from school in all the fair promise of beautiful womanhood,
Nathan saw the express image of his sainted wife. So now again his
home was lighted up with gladness, and from the hearthstone, long
gloomy in its solitude, the shadows flitted: for as Lucy tripped
around, performing her domestic duties with pleasant smile and cheery
song, Nathan waxed content and happy, and no words can describe the
joy the sweet girl felt as she heard the old anvil-music ringing at
the forge and saw the olden brightness beaming on his face. And so it
should ever be:--
Be sure that those we mourn, whom God has taken,
Have added joys, the more our sorrows die;
They would not have us live of peace forsaken,
While they are joysome in their home on high.
Could we but hear again their loving voices,
Comfort and cheer upon our hearts would fall;
Be sure each sainted friend the more rejoices,
The more we can the olden joy recall.
Down look they on us from their regal glory,
Or, by Divine permit, come hov’ring near;
Fain would they tell us all the golden story
Of their high bliss our mournful hearts to cheer.
Nor are they voiceless--spiritual whispers
In sweetly silent music thrill the breast;
Then soul communes with soul, exchanges Mizpahs,
And their soft saint-song bids us, “Be at rest!”
“Father,” said Lucy, as the pleasant meal proceeded, “What has become
of Master Philip? Before I went to school he used to come riding up to
the forge on his little white pony nearly every day. You and he were
great friends, I remember, and I have never seen him since I came
back.”
“Why, little lassie,” said Nathan, “you and he were quite as good
friends as we were. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that his visits were quite
as much for your sake as mine. At any rate, Master Philip would never
turn his pony’s head towards Waverdale Park until he had seen ‘his
little sweetheart,’ as he called you, and I’m bound to say, Miss Lucy,
that you were quite as well pleased to see his handsome face and to
hear the ring of his merry voice as ever I was--though I did not mean
to make you blush by saying so.”
The concluding words only served to deepen and prolong the ingenuous
blush which now dyed the face of Lucy with a rosy red.
“Well, father,” said Lucy, laughing, “I own I liked the bright
open-hearted boy, who brought me flowers from his papa’s conservatory,
and gave me many a ride on his long-maned pony, but I was only a
little girl then”----
“And now you are a big woman, and as old as Methusaleh, you withered
little witch,” said Blithe Natty, as he drew his heart’s idol to his
side, and planted a kiss upon her brow. “Well, Master Philip went to
college soon after you went to school, and his visits to Nestleton
have been few and far between. He has grown into a fine young man now,
and they tell me that he has borne off all the honours of the
university. The old squire is as proud of his son as a hen with one
chick, and small blame to him for that. He has just returned home for
good; but,” said he, in a tone so serious as to surprise the
unconscious maiden, “my little lassie must not expect any more pony
rides or accept hothouse flowers from his hands again.”
“Of course not,” said my lady, arching her neck and fixing her dark
eyes on her father in innocent amaze, “I don’t think Lucy Blyth is
likely to forget herself or bring a cloud on ‘daddy’s’ face.”
“Neither do I, my darling,” said Nathan, as another and still another
osculatory process proclaimed a perfect understanding between the
doting father and his motherless girl.
* * * * *
Master Philip, the subject of the foregoing conversation, was the only
son and heir of Ainsley Fuller, Esq., of Waverdale Park, who owned
nearly all the village of Nestleton, many a farm round, and half the
town of Kesterton into the bargain. The squire, as he was called, was
rich in worldly wealth, but poor in human sympathies and the more
enduring treasures of the heart. In early life he had essayed to run
a political career; but his first constituency turned their backs upon
him, and on the second he turned his back, disgusted at the pressure
brought to bear upon him by a predominant radicalism. Unfortunate in
his wooing, his first and only true love was taken from him by death,
and a lady to whom he was subsequently betrothed was stolen from him
by a successful rival on the eve of the bridal day. After living to
middle age, and developing a disposition half cynical and accepting a
creed half sceptical, he had suddenly and unwisely married a youthful
wife, whose tastes and habits of life were altogether foreign to his
own. A brief span of unhappy married life was closed by the death of
that lady, leaving the new-born babe to the sole guardianship of the
seemingly cold and irascible father, whose whole affection, small in
store apparently, was fixed on the infant squire--the Master Philip of
this story.
Those, however, who depreciated the measure of Squire Fuller’s love
for his only son were much mistaken. His immobile features and
piercing eyes, peering from beneath the bushy brows of silver grey,
told nothing of the mighty love that lurked within. Nor did Philip
himself, for a long time, at all discern, beneath his father’s cold
exterior, how the old man really doted on his boy. That remained to a
great extent a secret, until a strangely potent key was inserted among
the hidden wards of the parental heart, and a rude wrench flung wide
the flood-gates, and set free the imprisoned stream.