_Describes the greeting which Colin received on his arrival at
Snitterton Lodge; together with a very serious quarrel between him and
Mr. Palethorpe; and its fearful results._
As Colin descended a gentle declivity, where the sterility of the moor
seemed imperceptibly to break into and blend with the woods and the
bright spring greenery of a more fertile tract of country, he came
within sight of Miss Sowersoft's abode. Though dignified with the title
of a seat, it was a small common farmhouse, containing only four rooms,
a long dairy and kitchen, and detached outhouses behind. To increase its
resemblance to a private residence, a piece of ground in front was
laid out with grass and flower-beds. The ground was flanked on either
extremity with gooseberry-bushes, potato-lands, broad-beans, and
pea-rows; and, farther in the rear, so as to be more out of sight,
cabbages, carrots, and onions. The natural situation of the place was
excellent. Standing on the north side of a valley which, though
not deep, yet caused it to be shut out from any distant prospect in
consequence of the long slope of the hills, the little dwelling looked
out over a homely but rural prospect of ploughed and grass land, and
thick woods to the left; over which, when the light of the sun was upon
it, might be seen the white top of a maypole which stood in the middle
of the next village; and, still nearer, the fruitful boughs of an
extensive orchard, now pink and white with bloom; while along the foot
of the garden plunged a little boisterous and headlong rivulet, worn
deep into the earth, which every summer storm lashed into a hectoring
fury of some few days' duration, and, on the other hand, which every
week of settled fair weather, calmed down into a gentle streamlet,--now
gathering in transparent pools, where minnows shot athwart the
sun-warmed water like darts of light; and then again stretching over
fragments of stone, in mimic falls and rapids, which only required to
be enlarged by the imagination of the listless wanderer, to surpass in
picturesque beauty the course of the most celebrated rivers.
As Colin entered the garden-gate, he observed the industrious Mr.
Palethorpe sitting against the western wall of the house,--the afternoon
being warm and inviting,--smoking his pipe, and sipping the remains of
a bottle of wine. With his legs thrown idly out, and his eyes nearly
closed to keep out the sun, he appeared to be imbibing, in the most
delicious dreamy listlessness, at once the pleasures of the weed and the
grape, and those which could find their way to his inapprehensive soul
from the vast speaking volume of glad nature which lay before him.
“So, you 're come, are you?” he muttered, without relieving his mouth of
the pipe, as the boy drew near him.
“Yes, I am here at last,” replied Colin; adding very good-humouredly,
“you seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“And what in th' devil's name is that to you?” he savagely exclaimed;
“what business of yours is it what I'm doing?”
“I did not intend to offend you, I'm sure,” said Colin.
“You be dang'd!” replied Sammy. “You arn't mester here yet, mind you, if
you are at home! I have heard a bit about you, my lad; and if you don't
take care how you carry yourself, you 'll soon hear a little bit about
me, and feel it an' all, more than we've agreed for at present. Get into
th' house with you, and let meesis see you 're come.”
The blood rose in Colin's face; and tears, which he would have given
half his life to suppress, welled up in his eyes at this brutal
greeting, so different to that which he had expected, and to the
feelings of happiness which a few minutes previously had thronged, like
bees upon a flower, about his heart.
As he passed the wire-woven windows of the dairy at the back of the
house, he observed a maid within busily employed, in the absence of Miss
Sowersoft, in devouring by stealth a piece of cheese.
Colin knocked at the door; but before the maid could swallow her
mouthful, and wipe the signs thereof from her lips, so as to fit herself
to let him in, an ill-tempered voice, which he instantly recognised as
that of Miss Sowersoft, bawled out, “Sally!--why don't you go to the door?”
“Yes, 'um!” bellowed Sally, in return, as she rushed to the place of
entrance, and threw the door back.
“Is Miss Sowersoft at home?” asked the boy.
“Oh, it's you, is it?” cried his mistress from an inner room. “Come in,
come in, and don't keep that door open half an hour, while I am in a
perspiration enough to drown anybody!”
Colin passed through the kitchen into the apartment from which the voice
had proceeded, and there beheld Miss Sowersoft, with a huge stack of
newly-washed linen before her, rolling away at a mangle, which occupied
nearly one side of the room.
“Why did n't your mother send you at a more convenient time?” continued
Miss Sowersoft, looking askance at Colin, with her remotest eye cast
crosswise upon him most malignantly. “If she had had as much to do as
I have had, ever since she kept house of her own, she would have known
pretty well before now that folks don't like to be interrupted in the
middle of their day's work with new servants coming to their places.
But I suppose she's had nothing to do but to pamper you all her life. I
can't attend to you now;--you see I 'm up to my neck in business of one
sort or another.”
So saying, she fell to turning the mangle again with increased velocity;
so that, had our hero even felt inclined to make an answer, his voice
would have been utterly drowned by the noise.
In the mean time Colin stood in the middle of the floor, doubtful what
step to take next, whether into a chair or out of the house; but, in the
lack of other employment, he pulled his cap into divers fanciful forms,
which had never entered into the head of its manufacturer, until at
length a temporary cessation of his mistress's labours, during which an
exchange of linen was made in the mangle, enabled him to ask, with some
chance of being heard, whether he could not begin to do something.
“I 'll tell you what to do,” replied Miss Maria, “when I 've done
myself,--if I ever shall have done; for I am more like a galley-slave
than anything else. Nobody need sit with their hands in their pockets
here, if their will is as good as their work. Go out and look about
you;--there 's plenty of stables and places to get acquainted with
before you 'll know where to fetch a thing from, if you are sent for it.
And, if Palethorpe has finished his pipe and bottle, tell him I want to
know what time he would like to have his tea ready.”
Colin very gladly took Miss Sowersoft (who was more than usually sour,
in consequence of the quantity of employment on her hands) at her word,
and, without regarding her message to Palethorpe, with whom he had no
desire to change another word at present, he hastened out of the house,
and rambled alone about the fields and homestead until dusk.
Several times during this stroll did Colin consider and re-consider the
propriety of walking home again without giving his situation any farther
trial. That Snitterton was no paradise, and its inhabitants a nest
of hornets, he already began to believe; though to quit it before a
beginning had been made, however much of ill-promise stared him in the
face, would but indifferently accord with the resolutions he had formed
in the morning, to undergo any difficulties rather than fail in his
determination eventually to do something, not for himself only, but
for his mother and Fanny. The advice which the former had given him not
twelve hours ago also came vividly to his recollection; the sense of its
truth, which experience was even now increasing, materially sharpening
its impression on his memory. It was not, however, without some doubts
and struggles that he finally resolved to brave the worst,--to stand out
until, if it should be so, he could stand out no longer.
Strengthened by these reflections, and relying on his own honesty of
intention, our hero returned to the house just as all the labourers had
gathered round the kitchen-grate, and were consuming their bread
and cheese in the dim twilight. Amongst them was one old man, whose
appearance proclaimed that his whole life had been spent in the hard
toils of husbandry, but spent almost in vain, since it had provided him
with nothing more than the continued means of subsistence, and left him,
when worn-out nature loudly declared that his days of labour were past,
no other resource but still to toil on, until his trembling hand should
finally obtain a cessation in that place which the Creator has appointed
for all living. What little hair remained upon his head was long and
white; and of the same hue also was his week's beard. But a quiet
intelligent grey eye, which looked out with benevolence from under a
white penthouse of eyebrow, seemed to repress any feelings of levity
that otherwise might arise from his appearance, and to appeal, in
the depth of its humanity, from the helplessness of that old wreck of
manhood, to the strength of those who were now what once he was, for
assistance and support.
“Ay, my boy!” said old George, as Colin entered, and a seat was made for
him near the old man, “thou looks a bit different to me; though I knew
the time when I was bonny as thou art.”
As he raised the bread he was eating to his mouth, his hand trembled
like a last withered leaf, which the next blast will sweep away for
ever. There was so much natural kindness in the old man's tone, that
instantaneously, and almost unconsciously, the comparison between Miss
Sowersoft and her man Samuel, who had spoken to him in the afternoon,
and poor old George, was forced upon Colin's mind. In reply to the old
man's concluding remark, Colin observed, “Yes, sir, I dare say; but that
is a long while ago now.”
“Ay, ay, thou's right, boy,--it is a long while. I've seen more than I
shall ever see again, and done more than I shall ever do again.”
Mr. Palethorpe, who sat in the home-made easy-chair, while the old man
occupied a fourlegged stool, burst into a laugh. “You 're right there,
George,” he retorted. “Though you never did much since I knowed you, you
'll take right good care you 'll not do as much again. Drat your idle
old carcase! you don't earn half the bread you 're eating.”
The old man looked up,--not angry, nor yet seeking for pity. “Well,
perhaps not; but it is none the sweeter for that, I can assure you. If I
can't work as I did once, it's no fault of mine. We can get no more out
of a nut than its kernel; and there's nought much but the shell left of
me now.”
“Yes, yes,” returned Palethorpe, “you don't like it, George, and you'll
not do it. Dang your good-for-nothing old limbs! you 'll come to the
work'us at last, I know you will!”
“Nay, I hope not,” observed the old man, somewhat sorrowfully. “As I've
lived out so long, I still hope, with God's blessing on my hands, though
they can't do much, to manage to die out.”
“Come, then,” said Palethorpe, pushing a pair of hard clay-plastered
quarter-boots from off his feet, “stir your lazy bones, and clean my
boots once more before you put on th' parish livery.”
The old man was accustomed to be thus insulted, and, because he dared
not reply, to take insult in silence. He laid down the remaining portion
of his bread and cheese, with the remark that he would finish it when he
had cleaned the boots, and was about rising from his seat to step across
the hearth to pick them up, as they lay tossed at random on the floor,
when young Colin, whose heart had been almost bursting during this brief
scene, put his hand upon the poor old creature's knee to stop him,
and, at the same time starting to his own feet instead, exclaimed, “No,
no!--It's a shame for such an old man as you.--Sit still, and I 'll do
'em.”
“You shan't though, you whelp!” exclaimed Palethorpe, in great wrath, at
the same time kicking out his right foot in order to prevent Colin from
picking them up. The blow caught him in the face, and a gush of blood
fell upon the hearthstone.
“I will, I tell you!” replied Colin vehemently, as he strove to wipe
away the blood with his sleeve, and burst into tears.
“I'm d----d if you do!” said Palethorpe, rising from his chair with fixed
determination.
“I 'll soon put you to rights, young busybody.”
So saying, he laid a heavy grip with each iron hand on Colics shoulders.
“Then if I don't, _he_ shan't!” sobbed Colin.
“Shan't he?” said Palethorpe, swallowing the oath which was upon his
lips, as though he felt that the object of it was beneath his contempt.
“I 'll tell you what, young imp, if you don't march off to bed this
minute, I 'll just take and rough-wash you in the horse-pond.”
Miss Sowersoft smiled with satisfaction, both at Mr. Palethorpe's wit
and at his display of valour.
“Do as you like about that,” replied Colin: “I don't care for you, nor
anybody like you. I didn't come here to be beaten by you!”
And another burst of tears, arising from vexation at his own
helplessness, followed these words.
“You don't care for me, don't you?” savagely demanded Palethorpe. “Come,
then, let's try if I can't make you.”
He then lifted Colin by the arms from the floor, with the intention of
carrying him out; but the farm-labourers, who had hitherto sat by in
silence, though with rising feelings of indignation, now began to watch
what was going on.
“You shan't hurt him any more,” cried old George, “or else you shall
kill me first!”
“Kill you first, you old fool!” contemptuously repeated Palethorpe.
“Why, if you say another word, I 'll double your crooked old back clean
up, and throw you and him an' all both into th' brook together!”
“Then I 'm danged if you: do, and that's all about it!” fiercely
exclaimed another of the labourers, striking his clenched fist upon his
thigh, and throwing the chair on which he sat some feet behind him, in
his sudden effort to rise. “If you dare to touch old George,” he added,
with an oath, “I 'll knock you down, if I leave this service to-night
for it.”
[Illustration: 213]
“Ay,--what you an' all, Abel!” cried Palethorpe, somewhat paler in the
cheeks than he was sixty seconds before. “Why, what will _you_ do, lad?”
“What will _I_ do?” said Abel, “Why, if you don't set that lad loose,
you cowardly brute, and sit down in quietness, I'll thump you into a
jelly in three minutes!--Dang you! everybody hates you, and I 'll tell
you so now; for you are the biggest nuisance that ever set foot on a
farm. Talk of that old man being idle!--why, what do you call yourself,
you skulking vagabond? You never touch plough nor bill-hook once
a-week, nor anything else that's worth a man's putting his hand to. Your
business is to abuse everybody under you, and sneak after your missis's
tail like a licked spaniel.--I wish I was your mester, instead of
your being mine, I'd tickle your ears with a two-inch ash plant every
morning, but I 'd make you do more in a day than you ever did in a week
yet!”
A blow from Palethorpe's fist drove all the powers of oratory out
of Abel, and caused him to stagger so suddenly backwards, that he would
have fallen, had he not caught hold of the back of one of his comrades'
chairs. All were now upon their feet; while Miss Sowersoft, who
hitherto had sat petrified at the monstrous discourse of Abel, screamed
out that whoever struck Palethorpe again should go out of the house
that night. But as no one interfered farther in the quarrel, on the
supposition that he was already pretty well matched, the penalty she had
proclaimed amounted to nothing, since it did not deter the only man who
at that moment was likely to commit anything so atrocious. Abel had no
sooner recovered his balance than he made a furious lunge at the
head farming-man, which that hero attempted but failed to parry.
His antagonist, who, though less in weight, was yet tall and active,
followed up his advantage; and, by a judicious and rapid application
of his fists, he so far made good his former threat, as to give Miss
Sowersoft's favourite two tremendous black eyes, and to plump his nose
up to nearly double its original bulk and lustre, within sixty tickings
of the clock. Miss Maria had now summoned the maid to her assistance,
and between them they succeeded in protecting him from further
vengeance. Nor did they find much difficulty in persuading that
courageous man to sit down in his chair, and submit to a grand
mopping with vinegar and hot water, which commenced as soon as active
hostilities ceased, and did not conclude until nearly two hours
afterwards.
Long before that time was expired, as no more comfort could be expected
by the fireside that night, the rustics had moved quietly off to rest,
taking poor Colin along with them, and directing him to occupy one small
bed which stood in a room containing two, and informing him at the same
time, not much to his satisfaction, that Palethorpe always slept in the
other. Old George shook hands with Colin at the door, bidding him good
night, and God bless him; and telling him not to care for what had
happened, as Heaven would reward his goodness of heart at a time when,
perhaps, being old and feeble, he might most want a friend to help him.
As the old man said this, his voice failed, and Colin felt a warm tear
drop upon his hand as it remained clasped in that of the speaker.
Colin rushed into his room, and in great distress, resulting from the
memory of all he had left behind, and the dread of all that might meet
him here, he fell on his knees by the bed-side.
That night the voices of two lonely women, praying for the welfare of
a still more lonely child, and of a child asking for help in his
loneliness, ascended to heaven. Their hearts were comforted.