CONCERNING A HORSESHOE.
The greater part of the majority of lives is passed in a groove.
Sometimes a great crash comes, and all the machinery is put out of
gear, but then the life is resumed, and all goes on quietly again—not
as before, the change was too violent for that, but in another groove,
in which it moves until another crisis comes. These crises come to all,
even the most uneventful lives, but they come oftener to some than to
others, and when they do come they invariably come suddenly and in the
most unexpected way. Let the road of life be ever so long and straight
and dull and monotonous, it is sure to lead to a turning some day,
though, perhaps, the new road on which we enter with such hope and zest
may be longer and duller and rougher than the first. And, after all,
monotonous lives are often the happiest, though the young are very
sceptical on this point, until their own lives have been upset by one
or two of the great changes which come sooner or later to everyone.
Jack’s sudden departure was such a crisis in his life, and, indeed,
it affected the whole family, though after he was gone they settled
down again into the old quiet daily routine. It was not the same as
before; it never is. This is really the sad part of it; not that life
is monotonous, as people often complain, but that after a great change,
no matter how brief—a few minutes may be long enough to effect such a
change—but after such a change the life can never go on again exactly
the same as it was before; it may be happier or the reverse. One thing
is certain, it will never be the same again. And the older we grow the
more sad does it seem that the good old times are gone for ever—they
can never come back any more.
Our children grow up and are both a blessing and a comfort to our
fading lives, but the days are gone for ever when the curly-headed
cherub, now a man of six feet high, awoke us at unearthly hours for a
romp, before a sepulchral voice outside announced that his bath was
ready, to our intense relief. He has cherubs of his own now, and can
sympathise with our feelings, when the nurse’s knock was heard, and the
time will come when he too, like us, will wish in vain for those happy
days to return.
The Shelleys’ change had been so sudden; in a few hours it was all
settled, and Jack gone to America, who, earlier in the day, had been
shearing sheep, as though that was to be the only anxiety in his
shepherd’s life. After he was gone they were at first so occupied with
nursing Charlie they had scarcely time to realise all that had happened
on that June morning; but in a few weeks Charlie was quite well again,
and then they resumed their former lives. But it was all different now;
Charlie took Jack’s place as under-shepherd, and went with his father
to the downs every day instead of Jack. Fairy spent a great deal of
her time at the rectory, for now Jack was gone she felt her anomalous
position, for, fond as she was of the shepherd and his wife and of
Charlie, she could not help feeling there was a gulf between them and
her, which, in Jack’s case, did not exist, for intellectually he was
her superior.
As she grew older, Fairy began to realise that there was another
difference between her and her foster parents, besides the difference
of education, for she was a lady in thought and feeling as well as by
birth, and, thanks to Mr. Leslie, by education. Not that there was
anything to jar upon her feelings in John Shelley or his wife; for
simple, honest folk as they were, there was nothing vulgar about them;
and it is vulgarity which jars against a refined mind; but all the same
there was a difference between them and her, a difference she had not
felt as a child, but which, now she was growing into a woman, pressed
upon her.
She felt this difference more with Charlie than the others, for John
Shelley’s piety made her look up to him with reverence; and Mrs.
Shelley’s sound common sense and true motherly kindness had won her
respect and affection; but Charlie, fond as she was of him, was rather
a trial to Fairy. His thick hobnailed shoes which he persisted in
wearing in the house, his smock-frock, to which, on the shepherd, Fairy
had no objection, for, as she often said, he looked like one of the
old patriarchs in it, but Charlie’s smock was by no means becoming;
he looked what he was—a clodhopping youth in it; his dirty stained
hands, which no amount of washing could ever make clean, his broad,
Sussex brogue, and his habit of chucking at his forelock if he met Mr.
Leslie, were thorns in the flesh to Fairy, as they had been to Jack;
and certainly there was no danger of her ever feeling or evincing
more than a sisterly affection for the bucolic Charlie. No wonder if
Fairy, feeling lonely when Jack was gone, took to remaining oftener at
the rectory, after her lesson hours were over, than she had done when
he was at home, particularly as she was a great favourite there, not
only with the young people, who could do nothing without Fairy, but
with Mr. and Mrs. Leslie also, both of whom had come to be very fond
of her. They pitied her, too, knowing well the difficulties of her
position, though Fairy was much too loyal to the Shelleys to speak of
them; and they were anxious to help her as far as lay in their power.
At present all they were able to do was to give her the same advantages
of education as they bestowed on their own four plain daughters.
Unluckily, Fairy did not show any great fondness for study, though she
readily learnt French and music, and any accomplishments, for she was
very clever with her fingers, and both painted and played very well,
for those days.
What was to become of Fairy in the future was a problem which often
exercised Mr. and Mrs. Leslie’s brains, and the only solution they
could arrive at was that Jack must make his fortune in America, and
come back and marry her, since it was quite clear she could not live
for ever with the shepherd; neither was she fitted to be a governess;
and there was no other way of well-educated women earning their living
in those days, and there would be some insurmountable obstacles to
marrying her to any one else. A gentleman would hesitate at marrying a
girl brought up in a peasant’s cottage, and it was quite certain Fairy
would not marry anyone but a gentleman, unless, indeed, she took Jack;
so, after due consideration, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie settled there was no
other future open to her.
Meanwhile there was plenty of time before Fairy need want to fly away
from the shepherd’s sheltering roof, for if Jack came back at the end
of two years she would only then be eighteen. And as time went on the
accounts of Jack were very satisfactory. Not only did his own letters
lead his friends to gather that he was making his way, but Mr. Leslie
occasionally received glowing accounts from his friend the banker of
the very promising young man he had sent out to him, and there seemed
very little doubt that Jack would do uncommonly well for himself.
He wrote every mail, either to his mother or Fairy; indeed, his letters
were the chief incidents in their lives, and were eagerly looked for,
for little occurred to vary the monotony of the daily routine, except,
in due course, the sheep-fairs, lambing-time, the sheep-washing and
shearing, and the White Ram, until, in the spring of the second year
after Jack went away, a disease broke out among the flocks, which gave
John Shelley a great deal of anxiety, although hitherto his sheep had
escaped. Indeed, he had been very fortunate since Jack left, and at
the time of his third White Ram his flock was in a most prosperous
condition. Charlie had developed into an excellent shepherd; his heart
was as much in his work now as his father’s; he knew and loved all
his sheep, and he was by no means above going to the fairs with them;
on the contrary, he was very proud of his position of under-shepherd,
and then he had no scruples, like Jack, about snareing wheatears. He
made quite a little fortune in this way during the summer months, and
in winter he trapped moles and sold them for so much a dozen; in the
autumn he gathered mushrooms and sold them—indeed, all was fish that
came to Charlie’s net; and in one way he was as observant as Jack,
though while Jack pursued his observations from a pure love of natural
history, Charlie always had an eye on the main chance.
He cared nothing for the beauty of the scenery—probably he saw none,
although Ray, the naturalist, thought the South Downs equal to any
scenery in Europe. All Charlie saw was an expanse of short crisp turf,
excellent pasturage for his sheep. He never brought Fairy home a bunch
of flowers, as Jack had been wont to do every day except in the depth
of winter, and when she asked him to get her some bee orchises from
Mount Caburn, Charlie either did not know where they grew or else had
not time to gather them; and then Fairy would go to John Shelley, and
beg him to get her some orchids before they were all over, and, busy as
he might be, John never refused.
One hot July day when John Shelley’s White Ram was already a thing of
the past, he came home unexpectedly about ten in the morning, looking
so very grave that Fairy, who was painting on the kitchen table, asked
what was the matter. John often looked grave now; indeed, he had never
been quite the same since Jack had struck that unlucky blow; the
suspense and anxiety he endured then, and the narrow escape he felt
they had had of a terrible tragedy being enacted in the midst of their
happy home circle, and then the loss of his eldest son, which he felt
exceedingly, for he was very proud of clever, handsome Jack; all had
saddened him. Perhaps, too, the knowledge that he had attained the goal
of his earthly ambition, to be captain of the Lewes shearing company,
and had nothing more to hope for in this world, made him grave; at any
rate, though he had always lived for the future—for the life beyond
the grave, he did so more than ever now; and though he was too good a
man and too busy to indulge in any morbid thoughts, yet he set very
little store on this life, and often longed for the time to come when
he should lay his burden down and cross the dark river which leads to
those fields of light where the wicked cease from troubling and the
weary are at rest.
For Fairy the shepherd had ever a smile; she was the light of his home,
the poetry of his life; one glance at her delicate, bright little face,
crowned with its wealth of golden hair, was sufficient to chase all
gloom from his brow; and now, though he looked unusually grave, he
smiled at her.
“Where is mother, little one?”
“She is lying down with one of her bad headaches; she would clean up
the house first, but at last I persuaded her to let me cook the dinner,
so I am going to; surely, it is not time yet. Why have you come home so
soon, John?”
“Mother ill! That is bad. ‘It never rains but it pours,’ as they say.
What am I to do?”
“Why, John; what is the matter? Has anything happened to Charlie?”
“No, child, no, not that I know of; but my sheep have got it.”
No need for Fairy to ask what the sheep had got, for this disease had
been Charlie’s sole topic of conversation ever since it had broken out,
so, to tell the truth, she was rather weary of it; but for John’s sheep
to have it was a serious matter she knew; moreover, she always took
special interest in “our sheep,” as she called them.
“Oh, John, have our sheep got it? Oh, I am sorry! I thought you would
be sure to escape. How many are ill?”
“Only ten at present; but though I have taken them away from the
others, it is so infectious I am afraid they will all get it.”
“Did you come home to tell mother?” asked Fairy.
“No, I came back to ask her to go to Lewes and tell Hobbs, the
veterinary, to come and see them as soon as possible, while I take
those who are all right to the downs, and go on to look at Charlie’s
flock; he may not have noticed the first symptoms. Perhaps I can find
someone in the village to go, as mother is ill.”
“Nonsense, John, I will go; I shall like the walk this lovely day. I
don’t mind the sun a bit; I love it; besides, I shall be back before
the heat of the day. Tell me where I am to go, and what I am to say.”
“But, my pretty one, mother does not like you to go to Lewes alone,
does she?”
“In a case like this she would not mind; it is great nonsense at all,
I think, for the Leslie girls go in alone, one or other of them, every
day.”
John smiled, partly at the way in which Fairy identified herself with
the Leslie girls, as if they were in the same position as herself, and
partly at her naivety in not seeing that it was one thing for a plain
girl like Maud Leslie to walk about Lewes alone, and quite another for
the shepherd’s pretty dainty little foster daughter. However, he was
very anxious about his sheep, and wanted the veterinary fetched as
quickly as possible, and he knew he could trust Fairy to go far better
than a boy in the village, so he accepted her offer, and gave her the
necessary directions.
Fairy ran upstairs to tell Mrs. Shelley where she was going and to
fetch her hat, and then set off in high glee, very much enjoying the
novelty of going to Lewes alone, though Mrs. Shelley, as she first
bent and kissed her before starting, grumbled at John’s imprudence
in allowing it. And certainly there was something to be said on Mrs.
Shelley’s side of the question, for Fairy was a girl who could not
walk out without attracting attention; not that she was so exceedingly
beautiful, but there was such a brilliancy in her beauty, which was of
the pocket-Venus type, such a freshness and brightness about her, that
everyone who saw her involuntarily turned to look after this little
sunbeam who had just shed a ray of light across his path. She was
dressed in a very simple white dress, with a large straw hat, with a
piece of blue ribbon round it on her head. Fairy was very fond of white
dresses, and very extravagant, for she never would wear a soiled one,
and good Mrs. Shelley, who took a great pride in the girl’s appearance,
washed and starched and ironed them for her without complaining.
Fairy’s way lay down the lane and across some fields, by a kind of
drift, to the Winter-bourne, now a mere tiny brook, which you could
easily step over, and then down a road with fields on one side and the
Priory grounds on the other, to the town.
She met no one till she reached the bourne, and she tripped along
quickly, resolutely denying herself the pleasure of gathering all the
wild roses she came across, partly because, she told herself, she must
make haste on her important errand, partly because it would soil her
dress.
“I must gather all I can as I come back,” said Fairy, with a longing
glance at the fence, covered with the lovely wild roses, pink and white
and cream-coloured, the loveliest of all our wild flowers—the “rose of
all the roses.”
But when she came back that golden head was too full of other thoughts
to remember the roses.
At the bourne Fairy met Mr. Leslie on horseback. He stopped and wanted
to know where she was going.
“To Lewes, on business, very important business, for John,” said Fairy,
grandly.
“Indeed! I wish my mare were not so tired, that I might come with you,
but I am just back from Brighton, and I expect, as the poor people
here say, the fairies got into my stable and rode her about all last
night, for she is far from fresh this morning. But I must not keep you.
Good-bye; don’t let anyone pick you up and run off with you before Jack
comes back. I heard from him this morning; he talks of coming home at
the end of this year.”
“So soon? Mother will be glad. Good-bye,” said Fairy, her bright little
face lighting up with pleasure, though she did not blush or look
conscious; facts Mr. Leslie noticed, and went home to tell his wife
Fairy was too much of a child to be in love, and he was sure she had no
thought of Jack as a husband.
In this he was right; Fairy had no thought of Jack nor of anyone else
as a husband just then; she was fancy-free as she disappeared down the
road which led to the picturesque old town, lying before her in its
amphitheatre of hills, whose white chalk patches looked strangely cold
and repellent on this warm July morning. But those chalk hills often
give one a chill at first. Fairy was too much accustomed to them to
notice or feel it any more than she noticed or felt the cold, blunt,
downright, and, at first, repelling manner of the Sussex peasant, who
probably derives some of his characteristics from the country in which
he is born and bred, and lives and moves and has his being, for it is
certain that scenery influences character to a much greater extent
than is commonly supposed. Fairy knew that this was only one phase of
the Sussex downs; another time those hills—by the way, the word “down”
is derived from an old Saxon word, meaning “hill”—another time those
hills would look soft, and warm, and sweet, and attractive, just as the
Sussex peasant, on better acquaintance, proves himself honest and true
and kind-hearted, in spite of his uncouth manners.
(_To be continued._)
[Illustration]
[Illustration: BERCEUSE.]
BY
J. W. HINTON, M.A., MUS.D.
[Music]
MERLE’S CRUSADE.
BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY, Author of “Aunt Diana,” “For Lilias,” etc.