‘’Tis in ourselves that we are thus, or thus.’
The sun still bright on the hilltop; figures rising to its crest, and
there halting, with hands shading their eyes, to take a glad or sad
look backward.
See there; Dick Crawshay and his dame can look down and smile on the
road they have travelled, although there are sundry small black patches
that they would have wished away. But they can see Madge and Philip
in their joyous course, waving orange blossoms towards them, laughing
at the slips and hollows of the hillside, because they march hand in
hand, and when the one falters, the other possesses sustaining power
enough to keep both in the safe path.
‘Lucky dog, that Philip!’ says old Dick Crawshay, fumbling with his
fob-chain. ‘He has got the finest woman in the world to wife—bar my
missus.’
‘They are very happy,’ observed the dame contentedly; ‘and Austin was
not so far wrong as I fancied he was, when he said that the real test
of a man’s nature was money. I never liked it; for losing money makes
men mad or bad, and gaining it seems to do the same thing—but neither
way seems to have hurt Philip much, good lad.’
And Philip and Madge were walking quietly up the hillside, halting here
and there to give a friendly hand to those who were stumbling by the
way. Hadleigh, sitting in his easy-chair, is glad at last, for he has
found the Something which he had sought so long without avail, in the
fair-haired grandchild sitting on his knee. The love that was so slow
of growth in the man’s heart has blossomed in this child.
In the work which Philip had started, Austin Shield with his ally Jack
Hartopp was working with might and main; and the speculation promised
to be not only successful in a commercial way, but also in a moral
way. They had all the idea that in course of time it would come to be
the universal system of work—that men should be allowed to do as much
as they could, and that they should be remunerated in accordance with
the results, calculated by the market value of quality and quantity.
The men themselves were rapidly coming to understand that their real
advantage lay not in combinations which restricted the labour of one
who was quicker of wit and hand than the average labourer, but in doing
their best to keep up to him, and beat him if that were possible,
allowing the lazy and the stupid to fall back into their natural places.
Miss Hadleigh as Mrs Crowell was permitted all the joys she desired;
for she had grand dinner-parties; her dear Alfred became an alderman,
with every prospect of being chosen Lord Mayor in due course of time,
and the possibility of a baronetcy attached to the office.
But look down into one of the side-paths which leads into a jungle.
There is Coutts Hadleigh moving through a maze. Contrary to everybody’s
expectation, he has not married for money, but for a position in
society. He has led to the altar the Honourable Miss Adelaide
Beauchamp, the penniless daughter of a bankrupt peer. She uses his
wealth in the vain effort to re-establish the position of her family.
The master of the house is snubbed; and his presence is only required
to attend those entertainments where the presence of a husband is
supposed to give countenance and propriety to what is going forward.
On that merry racecourse down there is Wrentham, a white hat encircled
by a blue veil on his head, a note-book in his hand. He is one of the
most popular book-makers on the turf; and away in a quiet cottage
are his wife and daughter, happy in the belief that he is engaged on
important business, whilst he is drinking champagne, giving and taking
the odds on the next race. Bob Tuppit sees him often; but they pass
each other without recognition. Bob is content to turn an honest penny
by his juggling craft, and to bring up his family respectably.
By-and-by there comes a stranger man out of the wilderness of foreign
parts. He speaks to Sam Culver. The gardener knew him at once, and was
in great glee that his old pupil should have found fortune in another
land. So he took him to the cottage where Pansy was waiting on her
grandfather, who had been at last persuaded to give up his ‘business
rounds’ and settle down at Ringsford.
Caleb and Pansy were only a few minutes together when they came forward
to the gardener, and the light on their faces seemed to suggest the
burden of the rustic song—‘We’ll wander in the Meadows where the
May-flowers grow.’[1]
[1] The right of translation is reserved.
THE END.
ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.