IN THE GRANITE QUARRY.
"But still she found, or rather thought she found,
Her own worth wanting, others to abound;
Ascribed above their due to every one,
Unjust and scanty to herself alone."--_Dryden._
"Queen, this is our old friend Mr. Chester, commonly known in the
district as the King of Karldale; he plays Damon to Garth's Pythias,
and is a sort of useful Family Friend to us all."
Cathy's entrance as usual effected a sort of whirlwind; her swift
movements and flowing draperies swept breezelike through the quiet
room. Langley's low-toned "hush" was no check on her volubility. A
look of amusement crossed Mr. Chester's face as he stood up and
greeted the new-comers.
"Irrepressible as usual, Cathy," was his only comment, as he reseated
himself beside Langley, and took up his little daughter, a
solemn-faced child of four, on his knee.
Queenie regarded the pair critically. On the whole the survey
contented her.
The King of Karldale was a tall, powerfully-built man, with a florid
handsome face, half hidden by a light curly beard, a countenance
marked more by good nature than intellect, but bearing the stamp of
plain honest common-sense.
Queenie wondered if it were her fancy, that a vague uneasiness
pervaded the man's gait at times. In spite of his cheerfulness and
hearty laugh there were hints of past or present troubles in the worn
lines round the kindly eyes; even in the midst of their pleasant talk
a shadow now and then crossed his face, as though some unwelcome
remembrance obtruded itself.
Strange to say, there was little or no resemblance between the child
and him.
Nan was evidently a character.
She sat perched on her father's knee in her little white pelisse and
sun-bonnet, with a large woolly lamb in her arms, staring at Queenie
with great dark eyes.
Queenie noticed that now and then one small hand would furtively
touch her father's coat-sleeve, and she would stroke the rough grey
tweed with a look of infinite contentment, but showed no impatience
or weariness during the long discussion that followed the girls'
entrance.
"Is my little mouse tired? is not Nan very tired?" said Mr. Chester,
at last stooping to peep under the sun-bonnet.
Queenie caught the look, and then she said to herself, "That little
bright-eyed child is his idol."
"Nan is not so very tired, father," pronounced the little creature
with a slight lisp, and a stress on the word, very; "a little, only a
very little."
"Then we will go, my pet; say good-bye to Langley," and Nan
obediently slid down from her father's knee, and trotted with sturdy
compactness across the room.
Queenie stood with the sisters in the porch and watched them cross
the tiny moat under the dark sycamores, Nan wrapt up in a grey rug,
and seated comfortably in her little chair-saddle on the back of an
old white pony, her white lamb still hugged in her arms, her father
holding the reins, and mounted on a handsome brown mare. "Nan has
found her voice now; do you hear how she is chattering to him,
Langley?" observed Cathy in an amused voice. "How those two dote on
each other! No wonder Gertrude is jealous, the child cares nothing
for her mother; but then Gertrude is too selfish to make a fuss over
any one but herself."
"Hush, my dear; what a terribly sweeping assertion! Gertrude is an
undemonstrative woman, one cannot tell how deeply she feels."
"And Harry is a demonstrative man, and ought to have a wife who
understands and makes much of him, instead of one who frets and
teases him from morning to night. It is no good talking to me,"
continued Cathy, with a burst of vindictiveness rather surprising
from its suddenness, "I detest that woman, with her slim figure and
dark eyes, and little would-be elegancies. She to be Harry's wife
and the mother of Nan! Why I would not trust a pet dog to her tender
mercies and small tempers."
"Cathy, all this is highly unnecessary," remonstrated her sister in a
pained tone. Her face looked a little paler and sadder as she went
back into the house after uttering her little protest. A child's
white woollen glove lay on the carpet beside a stray sunbeam.
Queenie, following her, saw as she stooped to pick it up that she
touched it lightly with her lips before laying it aside in her
work-basket.
The next day was warm and bright, "regular Queen's weather," as Cathy
chose to call it; and at the time appointed a merry little party
assembled at the door of the Deer-hound, and filled the two little
waggonettes.
Garth had gone over to the Quarry, and left his brother as his
deputy, and a playful dispute ensued between him and Captain Fawcett
concerning the selection of the occupants of each waggonette. "The
difficulty of suiting folk was truly awful," as Ted expressed it
feelingly.
Captain Fawcett had secured Langley and Miss Faith Palmer, and his
wife and Miss Cosie had tucked in Emmie between them, just as Ted had
slyly beckoned to the girls to favor him.
Mr. Logan and Mr. Chester had followed, and Nan was carefully lifted
in and placed beside her father.
"Do you mean to say that mite of a child is going with us to the
Quarry?" interposed Mrs. Fawcett, in genuine dismay. "What can her
mother be thinking about?"
"Hush! her father takes her everywhere with him," replied Langley
softly; "she is out with him all day on the farm; she is never tired.
I know he has often carried her for miles, or walked beside her pony."
"Dear, dear! what a mistake," ejaculated Miss Cosie, straightening
her brown "ugly," in the depths of which the gentle little mouse face
was almost buried from view, and trying to pat the big curls. "A
child of that tender age ought to be with her mother. It reminds one
of the child in Kings--or was it in Samuel?--who got sunstroke, or
something of the kind, and cried, 'My head, my head,' and they
carried him to his mother. Think if something of that kind happened
to that dear child! her father would never forgive himself; but
there, there, he does it for the best, poor dear."
"The child frets after him, and is never happy away from him,"
replied Langley in a low voice, for Mrs. Fawcett's eyes had filled
with tears, and she had taken Emmie's hand in hers. "Mrs. Chester is
a nervous invalid; and one cannot judge in these cases," finished
Langley in a deprecating voice.
"True, my dear, true; but I am such an advocate of mother's right, as
I often tell Kit; there is something so especially sacred in the
claims of maternity. Bless you, I know all about their feelings as
much as if I had a dozen children," continued the little woman,
brightly. "Didn't I have a dear old mother myself, and Kit her very
image, poor soul; and didn't she often say, 'Charlotte, my dear, you
will know one day, please God, what a mother's feelings are'! And so
I do, my dear; and so does every woman, married and single," finished
Miss Cosie with a little burst, "as long as there are young things in
the world needing our care."
"You are right," returned Langley in a stifled voice; and just then
the other waggonette passed, Ted cracking his whip and gesticulating
boyishly. Nan was on her father's knee as usual, the little white
sun-bonnet rested on his shoulder, the quiet dark eyes and rosy face
full of a child's contentment.
Garth received his guests at the entrance to the works, and did the
honors of the place with great dignity. "Is not the dear old fellow
just in his element," whispered Ted to Cathy, as they stood behind
the others. Queenie caught the whisper and smiled to herself.
"He looks just what he is, a ruler among men; one who ought to be a
leader, who expects obedience as a right," she thought, as she
watched the tall athletic figure moving through the sheds crowded
with workmen. "The old grey coat and felt hat just suited him," she
thought. Though he carried his head so high he had a pleasant word
or look for the men.
"My fellows are such splendid workmen," he said once, with a little
conscious pride in his manner. The words, "My men," "my boys," were
perpetually on his lips. Here, on his own domain, among his
subjects, he felt and moved as a sort of king. "Rival monarchs, my
dear," observed Cathy mischievously--"King Karl and the King of
Warstdale."
To Queenie the whole scene was strangely picturesque--the blue sky;
the open sheds full of noisy workers; the whirr of machinery; the
great blocks of rough-hewn granite, grey, fresh from the quarries;
then the smooth polished slabs, shining with soft-mingled tints. The
process, the amount of hard, patient labour, astonished the girl.
She could have stood for a long; time watching; the masons
chiselling; and fine-boring the hard stone. Piles of grey and pink
granite lay in the centre, carved and shaped into headstones.
Mr. Logan inspected them thoughtfully.
"White marble is more beautiful, especially for the graves of women
and children," she heard him say to Captain Fawcett; "but then
granite is more impervious to weather. In cemeteries, for instance,
where there are trees the constant dropping and damp stains and
defaces the beauty of the marble; but nothing spoils the granite."
"Nothing, to my mind, beats Warstdale granite," replied the Captain
meditatively. "Marble is too white and chilly for our English
cemeteries; we want Italian sun to light it up. Look at these warm
tints; here is coloring, durability, everything we want. Can
anything be finer than this polish?"
Queenie was listening to them with interest when Garth came up and
claimed her attention.
"While they are getting the quarry engine ready I want to show you
the workmen's cottages, and the room where Langley and I have our
classes," said the young man a little condescendingly. He looked
grey-eyed, eager, rather flushed with playing the part of host and
cicerone to so many ladies. His white teeth gleamed with a bright
happy smile under his dark moustache: but for all that his tone had a
slight accent of condescension that made Queenie smile as she
followed him.
"You are master here--Garth Clayton of Warstdale--and I am a poor
little school-teacher, a nobody," thought the girl, with just a faint
touch of rebellion, growing hot all at once.
"Stay, this is rough walking; let me give you some help," and he
turned back and held out his hand. For a moment Queenie hesitated;
it was her nature to be independent, and walk alone. She never
willingly owned to any small feminine weakness. "If she fell she
could pick herself up," she always said; but a glance at the kind
bright face changed her resolution. She took the offered hand
without any demur, and let herself be guided through the intricacies
of the path as meekly as Nan, who followed them, holding tightly to
her father's sleeve. She stood quietly beside him, an appreciative
and most sympathizing listener, as he explained, with not
unpardonable egotism, all his little schemes and plans for the
comfort of his workmen. "My boys deserve all that I can do for them,
they are such good fellows, and clever, too, some of them. Why,
there is Daniel Armstrong;" and here followed a string of anecdotes
bearing on the cleverness of this man, the gratitude and good feeling
of another, the sad troubles of a third, until Ted came down on them
in a whirlwind of indignation, to know what Garth meant by keeping
them all waiting?
"All right, Ted; go on with Miss Marriott," returned his brother
good-humoredly, breaking in upon the lad's wrath. "I am going to
carry Nan;" and, as the little lady looked dubious, and clung close
to her father, he caught her up and seated her lightly on his
shoulder and marched off with her, a smile breaking over Nan's face
as her father clapped his hands after her.
The little engine was already waiting for them; and the trucks were
furnished with boxes and hampers, which formed seats for the ladies.
Emmie crept up to her sister to whisper her ecstasies. "She had
never been so happy in her life; everyone was so good to her, that
kind Mrs. Fawcett especially; and Miss Cosie and Miss Faith Palmer;
she was sure she would love Miss Faith dearly; and did not Queenie
think she was very pretty?"
"She certainly had been," Queenie thought, "though no longer young."
It was a very sweet, loveable face still, though with a certain
sadness of repression on it--the shadowing of an over-quiet life.
Coloring would still have lent it beauty; but, as it was, the pallid
neutral tints harmonized with the grey Quaker-like costume and little
close bonnet. The voice was very sweet, but lacked enthusiasm; it
touched one like some plaintive minor chord; it was the face and
voice that one meets behind the gratings of nunneries, or in the
hushed wards of a hospital, where youth finds no place, and the
bustle of life is shut out.
She placed herself by Queenie as the engine steamed off, somewhat
slowly, and the work-sheds receded from their view.
"You must come and see my sisters. One of them, Charity, is an
invalid, and the sight of a fresh face is such a treat to her. Her
world is bounded by four walls, and she lives in her books. She
knows far more about it than I do, who was never a reader," said the
quiet woman with a little sigh.
Queenie fell in love with Miss Faith on the spot, as she told Cathy
afterwards. Young as she was, she knew far more of the world than
this woman of thirty-five. The unsophisticated freshness of the
simple woman, her tender voice, her old-fashioned ways, and little
quaint pedanteries, charmed the young governess, grown bitter with
the hard edge of life. Before the day was out she learnt a good deal
about "the Sisterhood," as Garth and Cathy always called the
Evergreens, where the Palmers lived. The eldest sister, Hope, was
cosmopolitan in her charities,--knitted woollen jugs and socks for
the missionary boxes of half the neighbourhood, was a strong advocate
of the temperance movement, and was a little shaky in her church
principles, having, as her sisters well knew, a decided leaning to
the society of the Plymouth Sisters.
The second sister, Prudence, managed the household, and divided her
time between her store-room and her district. "I am not as clever as
the others; but I wait on Charity," said Miss Faith, with an
unconscious pathos in her voice.
"'Faith waiting on Charity.' Poor cardinal virtues," thought the
girl, with a little smile of amusement over the odd play of words.
"I suppose Faith has plenty of waiting and looking up in this world.
To judge by some women's lives, some must wait for ever,"
soliloquized the young philosopher with a sigh.
She speculated for a short time on this Charity, who had been
handsomer than any of them, and had met with an accident in her
youth, whose view was bounded by four walls, and who lived in her
books.
"My dear Miss Marriott, Cara is so clever. You should hear her talk.
She and Mr. Logan have such interesting conversation; it is quite
wonderful to hear them. What a blessing it is to have a well-stored
mind; no empty space for discontent to creep in, as Cara says. I
often wish I were clever," continued the simple woman, "and then one
would not need to perplex one's self so about the meanings of things.
Life never seems such a puzzle to Cara as it does to me."
But here Cathy, who had overheard the last sentences, interrupted her
scornfully.
"Do you call it life?" curling her lip scornfully. "Are such meagre
existences really life? Life pre-supposes movement, animation,
sensation, coloring, plenty of work, but above all, movement; not
sitting in a close room, putting in patches and listening to chapters
of Physical Geography. Every one knows you are a saint, Miss Faith,"
continued Cathy, enthusiastically. "I know Garth thinks so. But,
all the same, life means a little more than patches and dissertations
on the Gulf Stream."
"You young things are so impetuous," returned poor Miss Faith with a
tremulous smile; "perhaps at your age one may have felt the same.
There is a sort of fever in young blood, I think. I remember how we
used to feel in the spring-time; it made one's pulses beat faster
only to hear the birds singing in their little new nests."
"You thought of something else besides patching then," persisted
Cathy, rebelliously.
"My dear, I love sewing; and then what else can one do when one is
not clever. I used to wish I could find work in some children's
hospital; nursing is my forte, you know. I think I could have been
quite happy if I had some young creatures round me. I tried for a
little while, you remember; and then Cara wanted me, and I came home."
"And I have never forgiven Cara to this day," was the angry response.
"You looked like a different woman when you came home from Carlisle,
Miss Faith,--years younger and brighter, and--"
"Hush, my dear, hush! I am not very clever, but I have learned one
thing,--never to leave a certain duty for an uncertain one. It is a
safe rule; you will find it so, Cathy. I often think of my children,
and long to be back with them; but nothing would induce me to leave
Cara while she wants me."
There was a slight lull in the conversation, and Miss Faith's voice
dropped to a whisper. A fresh wind blew over the wide moor. Some
black-faced mountain sheep browsed among the heather; one of them had
strayed on to the line, and the little engine slackened speed. The
wild, somewhat barren scenery, the novel mode of traffic, the sweet
moorland air, charmed and exhilarated Queenie; she squeezed Emmie's
hand as she whispered to her, "Don't you love Miss Faith?" "Faith
waiting on Charity," she said to herself with a little sigh.
The quarry was in sight by this time. Trucks of the blasted stones
were being shunted hither and thither; then came the work-sheds and
ponderous machinery. Queenie followed the others, as Garth led them
from one point to another. She listened as breathlessly as Emmie to
his description of the blasting; she tried to imagine the vast report
echoing over those lonely moors, the terrified sheep huddled far away
in heaps, the masses of fallen rocks, and then started a little as
she found Garth looking down at her with earnest eyes.
"All this is new to you, a fresh experience. You have not hewn
lessons out of rocks all your life long, as I have," observed the
young man sententiously.
"No," she answered a little timidly; "but then I am only a governess."
"That means a bookworm. Are you very learned, Miss Marriott? I
wonder you have not frightened Langley. Rocks and men have been my
books," continued Garth, waving his hand at the rough cliff half torn
down, but wearing graceful fronds of ferns in its crevices. "There
are hard durable lessons to be learnt here: how to overcome
difficulties, how to war with opposition. I would rather be here
among my quarrymen than on the benches of the House of Commons."
Queenie gave a swift upward glance, but did not answer. "A king
among men," she was saying to herself softly.
"You cannot think how I pity business men in cities," Garth went on,
as he walked beside her. "Boys fresh from school chained for the
best part of their lives to the desk; cramped up in a close
atmosphere, bringing all their best energies, their choicest talents,
down to the level of dull routine,--money-getting,
money-loving,---narrowed to a perfect machinery of existence."
"I think you are a little unjust and prejudiced there," replied
Queenie, with some spirit; "you may love your life best, and I dare
say you are right. You have freedom and rule, two very good things."
"And plenty of fresh air," put in Garth, baring his head as he spoke
to the sweet moorland wind that met them.
"Yes, and that too. But these men are to be honored, because they
make the best of their life. Many of them do not like it; a few
rebel; others get cramped and narrowed, as you say. But to do one's
work in the world, and to do it worthily,--how distasteful and full
of drudgery and routine as it may be,--is to be a man in the truest
sense of the word," finished Queenie, with a sudden sparkle in her
brown eyes.
"Very properly put. Do you think I do not agree with you? I am only
comparing my lot with others, a little to their disparagement. There
is Ted, there, that brother of mine,--would you believe it, Miss
Marriott!--I think you must take him in hand, and preach
contentment,--he vows this place is a howling desert; no society; not
a thing to do. It must be owned," continued Garth, candidly, "that
for a fellow without resources Hepshaw may be a trifle dull,
especially in the winter."
"Do you never find it so, Mr. Clayton?" asked Queenie, with a little
natural surprise. It still seemed strange to her that this man, so
young and distinguished-looking, should own himself contented with a
position where he had few equals and no superiors.
"Dull! do you mean to compare me to Ted, who is lazy, and has no
resources?" returned the young man, slightly discomfited. "What is
there that my life lacks? I have a good home, sisters, a plague of a
brother. It is my own fault, I suppose, if I have no closer ties,"
continued Garth, with a little laugh, and coloring slightly; "but
there is plenty of time for that. I have more work than I know how
to do; and then there is cricket and foot-ball; and lectures and the
chess-club for winter's evening. I sometimes wish my days were
double their length. That does not look like dulness," finished
Garth, in a chafed tone, as though something in her words had
offended him.
Queenie held her ground a little obstinately; she was on the brink of
a discovery. What was the one jarring element in this honest sweet
nature? Was it pride? or--
"You may have all this, and yet you may miss a great deal of what
your despised city men call life," she went on, with an old-fashioned
sagacity that surprised the young man, who was simple enough in his
way. "You miss contact with other minds. Here you can have no
opportunity of gleaning new ideas. There must be a certain amount of
stagnation here. Cathy knows what I mean; she and I have often
talked of it." She finished with slight abruptness, somewhat
provoked by the incredulous smile that rose to his lips.
"Stagnation here!" How Queenie wished he would not repeat her words.
"You are hard on us and Hepshaw. Of course we are simple country
folk; we do not aspire to be anything else; but a peaceful and
independent existence does not necessarily mean stagnation."
"Mr. Clayton, why will you persist in misunderstanding me?" returned
Queenie, in a vexed voice. They were standing at the extreme edge of
a jutting piece of rock; the others had turned back, and were
watching some machinery at work; below them lay the wide moor. Some
peewits were flitting hither and thither; a bank of white clouds
sailed slowly away westward. "I am not hard on Hepshaw; I feel
already that I love it dearly. I only thought that you, being a man,
must sometimes long for a little more society."
"Because I am like Ted, and have no resources, I suppose?" but this
time there was a mollified gleam in his eyes. "I think I am one of
the quiet sort; a few friends content me. Mr. Logan is a host in
himself, with sufficient information to stock half-a-dozen ordinary
men, not to mention Captain Fawcett, who has travelled and seen the
world; and then we have Harry Chester at Karldale, and Mr. Ray, the
Vicar of Karlsmere, and the Sowerbys of Blandale Grange,--very
sensible good people,--and the Cunninghams, Dora and her father at
Crossgill Vicarage. My sisters must take you over there, Miss
Marriott. One can have friends enough for the asking," continued
Garth, loftily. "I always disliked crowds of acquaintances; I am not
like Ted."
Queenie gave him an understanding glance, but her closed lips offered
no response. The shrewd little observer of human nature was saying
to herself, "I have found you out, Mr. Clayton; you are good, but you
are not perfect. Cathy is right. It is better, so you think, to be
the leading man in Hepshaw, and king in Warstdale, than to be simply
Mr. Clayton in London or Carlisle; to lord it over inferior minds
than to mix with superior intelligences;" and, as she recognized this
trait, something like a pang of disappointment crossed her mind.
Was he not a sort of hero to her? and ought not heroes to be perfect?
"It strikes me that I have been very egotistical, and that you must
be very tired," he said at last, rousing her from her reverie, and
turning his bright face full on her with such a kindly look that her
brief disdain died from that moment. "Let us come and see how Ted
has managed the luncheon; he always acts as my steward on these
occasions."
"I wonder who Dora is," thought Queenie, as they walked leisurely
back behind some laden trucks. "I wonder if Cathy has ever mentioned
her. Dora Cunningham and her father at Crossgill Vicarage!"