Charlotte M. Yonge

“ Captain Edmund, and Mary his wife, lie in their quiet graves, but the work they did—by justice, by kindness, by teaching, by example—has gone on growing, and Miss Sophia looks at it, and is thankful, as she still gives her best in love and experience to the young generation who are with her and look up to her for help and counsel.
The church is beautiful now, not only to look at, nor merely in the well-performed music of the services, but in the number and devotion of the worshippers and communicants. Of course, all is not perfect in the place—never, never will it be so in this world ”

“ He looked more like a sportsman than a clergyman, except for his black coat; he had a happy, healthy, sunburnt face, top boots, and a riding-whip in his hand, and informed Mrs Carbonel that his father and mother would have the honour of calling on her in a day or two. They had an impression that he had come to reconnoitre and decide whether they were farmers or gentry.
“We have been trying to make acquaintance with some of your flock,” said Mary.
“The last thing I would advise you to do,” he answered; “there are not a worse lot anywhere. Desperate poachers! Not a head of game safe from them.” ”

“ No, there are no wolves. No, Mary, only—see! the little rabbit. Come along, take hold of my hand, we will soon get out. Never mind; God is taking care of us. Come, we will say our hymn as we go on.”
The mother said her verse, and Mary tried to follow, in a voice quivering with sobs. Those imaginary wolves were a far greater alarm and trouble to her than the real riot at her father’s farm. She clung round her mother’s gown, and there was no pacifying her but by taking her up in arms.
“Let me take her, ma’am,” said Tirzah Todd, making over the sleeping Edmund to his mother. ”

“ He was waiting to show Captain Carbonel over the farm. He was a grizzled, stooping old fellow, with a fine, handsome, sunburnt face; bright, shrewd, dark eyes looking out between puckers, a short white smock-frock, and long gaiters. It was not their notion of a bailiff but the lawyer, who was so chary of his praise, had said that old Master Pucklechurch and his wife were absolutely trustworthy. ”

“ The summons was indeed not given till the men were well out of reach of their clacking women, but at work in the fields, and then a party began—not to march—they could not have done that to save their lives, but to tramp out of Poppleby, shouting to any one whom they saw in the fields to come with them and stand up for the people’s rights. At Downhill their numbers increased by all the noisy fellows, and some who fancied great good was to be gained somehow, though some wiser wives called out to them not to get into a row, nor let themselves be drawn into what they would be sorry for. ”

“ Boys are like sheep: what one does, the others do, and few are to be found to stand alone. Mr Harford looked anxiously at Johnnie Hewlett and one or two more, from whom he expected better things, but they only looked down, with their hands in their pockets and sullen faces; and Captain Carbonel held up his watch to show that they should all be too late. ”

“ There’s nothing for any one to fear. If they do harm, it is to things, not people. I only go away for the sake of this child! No, Mary dear, nobody will hurt you. You are going for a nice early walk with mamma and baby and Rachel. You,”—to the maids—“may follow if you will feel safer so, but I do not believe there is any real danger to you. Betty Pucklechurch, please tell your husband that I do beg him not to resist. It would be of no use, his master would not wish it, only if he will take care that the poor cattle and horses come to no harm.” ”

“ Where are we going now?”
“I believe that is the workhouse, behind the church,” said Mary. “That rough-tiled roof.”
“It has a bend in the middle, like a broken back. I must sketch it,” said Dora.
“Why, there’s Edmund, getting over the churchyard stile.”
“Ay, he can’t keep long away from you, Madam Mary.”
“Were you going to the workhouse?” said Captain Carbonel, coming up, and offering an arm to each lady, as was the fashion in those days.
“We thought of it. All the poorest people are there, of course.”
“And the worst,” said the captain. “No, I will not have you go there. It is not fit for you.” ”

“ Johnnie Hewlett received a Bible, his sister Polly a warm cape, Lizzie a petticoat, little Judy a doll, but on the very last Sunday, Jem, always a black sheep, had been detected in kicking Jenny Morris at church over a screw of peppermint drops which they had clubbed together to purchase from Goody Spurrell. The scent and Jenny’s sobs had betrayed them in the thick of the combat, and in the face of so recent and so flagrant a misdemeanour, neither combatant could be allowed a prize, though the buns were presented to them through Mary’s softness of heart. ”

“ Polly, Betsy, and Judy were the children of Dan Hewlett. As a rule, all the old women of the parish were called Betty, all the middle-aged Lizzie, and the girls Elizabeth.
“It is worse on week-days,” said Dora. “One would think it was a collection of little porcupines!”
“And so dirty,” began Sophy, but she was hushed up, for Edmund was seen approaching, and Mary never allowed him to be worried with the small, fretting details of school life.
It was a time when it was the fashion for young ladies up to their teens to have their hair curled in ringlets round their heads or on their shoulders. ”

“ Captain Carbonel wished to keep his ladies from the sight, but they were watching eagerly, and could not help seeing that it was Tirzah Todd, more gipsy-looking than ever, who came out. Not, however, walking as if intoxicated, and quite able to comprehend Captain Carbonel’s brief explanation where to find her companion.
“Ah, poor Nanny!” she said cheerfully. “She’s got no head! A drop is too much for her.”
The chaise door was shut, and they went on, Dora and Mary shocked infinitely, and hardly able to speak of what they had seen. ”

“ There is a machine, with its long tail of spikes, coughing along as it blows off the steam at Farmer Goodenough’s. No one dreams of meddling with it to do any harm. Wages are better, food is cheaper, and there are comforts in the house of every one tolerably thrifty that the grandmothers look at as novelties. John and George Hewlett, carpenters and builders, have a handsome shop and large workshop in the street. ”

“ Dan, being a really clever workman, far brighter-witted than George, had lived upon chance jobs at Downhill or Poppleby, together with a good deal of underhand poaching, which he kept as much as possible from the knowledge of his family, never being sure what Molly might not tell her sister, nor what Judith might disclose to the ladies. Polly had made a miserable marriage, and Jenny was in service at a public-house, Jem, a big idle lad, whom no one employed if it could be helped, Judy was still at home, and a comfort to her aunt. ”

“ John looked into his hat and shuffled on his foot, and Captain Carbonel, who knew that Sir Harry Hartman, the old gentleman, was persuaded that Delafield was the place to protect, was in an agony lest John should be too awkward and too anxious to shield his family to convince him. He ventured to translate the words into “How do you know?”
His voice somehow made John feel that he must speak, and he said, “Aunt heard it.”
“What’s that? Who is aunt?” said Sir Harry, in a tone as if deciding that it was gossip; but this put John rather more on his mettle, and he said, “My aunt, Judith Grey, sir.” ”

“ The Carbonels could only feel that her remnant of life had been shortened by all she had undergone for their sakes, and Edmund and Sophy both stood as mourners at her grave, Sophy feeling that her life had been more of a deepening, realising lesson than anything that had gone before, making her feel more than had ever come yet into her experience, what this life is compared with eternal life. ”

“ Poor thing, she had been in a terrible state of anxiety and terror for all these hours, so much the worse because of the need of keeping her little girl from being agitated by seeing her alarm or hearing the cries, exclamations, and fragments of news that Mrs Pearson and her daughters were rushing about with.
When she saw him first, and Sophy a moment afterwards, she sprang up to him as he dismounted, and greeted him with a burst of sobs and thankful tears.
“Why, Mary, Mary, what’s this? One would think I had been in a general engagement. You, a soldier’s wife! No; nobody’s a hair the worse! ”

“ Of course Mr Selby could not commit for an offence against himself, so Hewlett and Barton were hauled off to Captain Carbonel, while their wives begged to see madam, and they were conducted to the verandah, for the justice business was going on in the large kitchen. No doubt they expected, though Nanny had read no novels, that the magistrate would sit enthroned in the most public place in the house, that the women would weep, that the ladies, with softened hearts, would throw themselves before him, like Queen Philippa at Calais, and beg off the victims. ”

“ We are all safe. Good Tirzah came to warn us. Make haste! They are at the farm. We shall be at Mrs Pearson’s. She,” (pointing to Tirzah) “sent to fetch Sophy from school. She’ll be there. Here are the children all safe.”
“Papa, papa,” cried little Mary, feeling his silver-laced collar, and stroking his face as he kissed her.
And from that time she was comforted though he had to leave her again at once. She had felt a father’s arm.
“Tirzah Todd!” exclaimed Captain Carbonel, “I shall never forget what you have done for us. Never!”
Tirzah curtsied, but said, “You’ll be good to my man, sir?” ”

“ Married women did not go bareheaded, not even the younger ladies, except in the evening, when, like their maiden sisters, they wore coils of their back hair round huge upright ornamental combs on the summit of their heads.
But the children’s heads were deservedly pain and grief to the Carbonel senses, and Mary was impelled to go and make a speech in school, desiring that no more curl-papers should appear there on Sundays, and recommending that all hair should be kept short, as her own and her sister’s had been, till the fit age for the “turning up” was attained. ”

“ George Hewlett, indeed, knew better; but then he had never joined in baiting Softy Sam, and, indeed, had more than once sheltered him from his enemies, and given him a bit of food. But George in his own line was dull and unapt to learn; or the whole adventure of the Greenhow drawing-room paper would never have happened. He might have had it put up wrongly, for that was wholly the defect of his perceptions, but Dan would not have been able to secure his unlawful gains. In fact, Dan had traded on his cousin’s honest straightforward blindness and stupidity a good many times already. ”

“ It would be better if there were some appreciation of your care, or some attention paid—”
“Molly is generally good to me. Yes, she is, ma’am; and poor little Johnnie, there ain’t nothing he would not do for me. I’m greatly obliged to Mrs Barnard and the dear young ladies. I would dearly like to see them again; but Molly is my sister, and my sister is my sister, and I can’t feel it right to leave her.”
“I honour you, Judith. It is a right feeling. But when they neglect you, and prey upon you, can it be incumbent on you to give up all for their sakes?” ”

“ Mrs Carbonel was not well enough for a trying interview, so it was Sophy who drove from Elchester with her brother-in-law, grave and thoughtful, and only wishing to avoid everybody; for she could not yet forget how no one had shown any gratitude, nor desire to shield those who had been so long their friends. The Poppleby doctor had been sent to see Judith, and had pronounced that the old disease had made fatal progress, accelerated by the hysterical convulsions caused by the night and day of suspense and anxiety, and the attack on her nephew, as well as the whole of Dan’s conduct. ”

“ One day, when some intimate friends of the Elwoods were spending the day with them, something was said about Dora’s home; and one of the visitors exclaimed, “Uphill—Uphill, near Poppleby,—is that the place?”
“Yes.”
“Then I wonder whether you can tell me anything about our dear old nursery maid, Judith Grey.”
“Judith Grey! Oh yes! She is the very nicest person in all Uphill,” cried Dora. “Is it your father that gives her a pension?”
“Yes. You know it was while carrying little Selina downstairs, that she put her foot into the string of James’s humming-top, and tumbled down all the stone stairs. ”

“ He be a blessing, and so be Judy, all owing to the Sunday School.”
“Oh! to you, Judith. You made him good before we had him, though Mary and Dora did help,” said Sophy, with rising tears.
“And oh! I am so thankful,” she said, clasping her hands, “for what the captain is doing for the boy.”
“He deserves it, I am sure,” said Sophy.
“It will keep him easier to the right way, and it would be harder for him when I am gone, and his father come home! And Mr Harford, he says he will find a good place for Judy. She is a good girl, a right good girl.” ”