William Howitt

“ At noon the young people returned, full of enjoyment of their ride, and George escorted the two visitors to Fair Manor gate. All were eloquent in Miss Drury’s praise: her fine figure and easy grace on Maydew’s back; her light and kindly spirit; her admiration of their country, and familiarity with everything she saw. Ann loved her more and more for her love of her church, and of religion, without its formality. Letty was delighted with a boating excursion that Miss Heritage had proposed to-morrow, and tea on the great island, with only just themselves, Miss Heritage and Miss Drury. ”

“ The effect of these walks, and the shoemaker’s conversation on little Simon Deg, was such as never wore out of him through his whole life, and soon led him to astonish the shoemaker by his extraordinary conduct. He manifested the greatest uneasiness at their treading on the flowers in the grass; he would burst into tears if they persisted in it; and when asked why, he said they were so beautiful, and that they must enjoy the sunshine, and be very unhappy to die. The shoemaker was amazed, but indulged the lad’s fancy. ”

“ Drury was in raptures with that little Fairyland. On one side, the woods of Rockville hung darkly down the steep slope, on the other ran the crystalline river, and the wide meadows showed greenly beyond. Abundant willows, mixed with midsummer flowers, made a soft, verdurous fence round the island. Its mown surface was like a garden, or park lawn. Already Betty Trapps was busy there. She had kindled a fire near the upper end, where a burnt spot evidenced the fact of former fires on similar occasions. The tea kettle was briskly boiling. ”

“ Scarcely were the young amateur haymakers, who, by-the-by, were furnished with light forks and rakes suited to such delicate hands as those of the ladies—scarcely were all engaged in raking and throwing up the hay into wainrow under the generalship of George Woodburn, with much mutual merriment over one another’s awkwardness, and over Thorsby’s mercurial capers and flourishes—when a novel sight arrested their attention, and brought them all to a full stand. ”

“ There could come the very humblest children of the plebeian town, and feel a thrill of exquisite delight pervade their bosoms at the sight of the very flowers on the sod, and see heaven in the infinite blue above them. And poor Sir Roger, the holder, but not the possessor of all, walked only in a region of sterility, with no sublimer ideas than poachers and trespassers—no more rational enjoyment than the brute indulgence of hunting like a ferret, and seizing his fellow-men like a bulldog. ”

“ The air is blowing charmingly, and tempers the heat. I am going to Hillmartin and a little beyond, and I want you, Letty, to mount Fairaway, and have a gallop in the breeze. It is what you want to take the dismals out of your blood. Ann, what say you?”
“I say that I shall stay and help mother; but, Letty, by all means, and Mr. Thorsby will join you.”
“Of course he will,” said Thorsby.
“Your horse is saddled, Letty,” added George. “I will have him brought out, and so away, and get on your habit.” ”

“ To be the great men of their little ancestral spots of earth; to rule over the farmers; to rear and destroy game; to officiate as magistrates, and convict poachers and petty culprits—that was the extent of their ambition. They seldom frequented the metropolis, or mixed in the society of the more elevated and refined aristocracy. They formed a circle of society of their own, looking proudly down on the moneyed men of the market town, on the farmers and villagers around them—at once ignorant of all superior knowledge, proud, and arbitrary. ”

“ Woodburn might be seen daily riding on a good sturdy horse about his farm, and in harvest time he did not hesitate to take a hand at raking or forking in the hay-field, or binding after his reapers in the corn-field; and on such occasions his children would turn out for a frolic, rather than for serious work. His harvest done, Leonard Woodburn shot over his own land, accompanied by his son George, now just come of age, and who was treading in his father’s steps, being fond of both agricultural pursuits and of the gun. ”

“ Woodburn, “I dare say, that Mrs. Heritage feels that she left a gloomy impression the other day behind her, and she is desirous of effacing it by a pleasant party at Fair Manor.”
“A pleasant party at Fair Manor! Oh, dear father, how can a Quaker party be a pleasant party?” exclaimed Letty, walking quickly about the room. And then, laughing in her usual gaiety, “Only to imagine a party of Friends, who neither sing, nor dance, nor play any music, nor any game but fox-and-goose, or drafts or dominoes, and who make such frightful addresses—being a pleasant party! ”

“ There was a universal murmur of indignation at such an instance of unheard-of audacity.
“Yes,” said Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, “that is precisely the case in point. My game is drained off by constantly getting into some one of Degge’s fields, and being killed by one of his stocking-weaver acquaintances. I say, Mr. Markham, spite of your praises of Simon Degge, the man is a nuisance, a sheer, intolerable unmitigated nuisance.” ”

“ Miss Letty; an angel, too good for any such scapegrace as hasn’t sown even his wild oats—only mere skegs, which are but bastard oats. I’ve eyes, Miss, I have,” said Betty, “if other folks haven’t, as should have. He is clever, I grant you, is that young man; but mark me, Miss Woodburn, he is all fingers and no wrist. He is all pendulum and no clock-weights. He doesna want cleverness, no more nor a monkey, but he wants sober sense, and grace more nor all. ”

“ The waggon was drawn by six great farm-horses, with all their bells on their collars ringing and jingling as they went.”
“How can people,” said Letty, wonderingly, “grow so stupid about their money—what good is it to them!”
“None,” said Thorsby, “no more than so many oyster-shells; but, Miss Letty, it is of no use your trying to comprehend such people. Their ideas are as unintelligible to you as you are to them. If they were allowed to try a reforming hand on you, they would sell your laces and your clothes, put you into linsey-woolsey, and set you to feed the pigs. ”

“ These humble creatures, amid all their ignorance, in all their unvalued life, go home at night to loving hearts, and taste a happiness in communion with a few loved objects, which never can come to those whose affections are dissipated by running over countless forms and faces without settling on any. I would rather be one of these poor, despised, unknown, uncared-for creatures than the finest, wealthiest man or woman who lives the mere life of fashion and conventionalism. ”

“ Harry Thorsby was fond of his horse, and followed the hunt. He might often be seen during the season, in his scarlet coat riding out of town on a fine morning to the meet of the day, looking very gallant and happy; and grave fellow-manufacturers as they passed to their warehouses, while they nodded and smiled in passing, said to themselves,—“Thorsby will be Thorsby; what is bred in the bone will never be out of the flesh. ”

“ Your dearest rights are menaced! The woods of Rockville, your ancient, rightful, and enchanting resort, are to be closed to you. Castleburghians, the eyes of the world are upon you. ‘Awake! arise! or be for ever fallen!’ England expects every man to do his duty! And [Pg 24] your duty is to resist and defy the grasping soil-lords, to seize on your ancient patrimony!”
“Patrimony! Ancient and rightful resort of Rockville!” Sir Roger was astounded at the audacity of this upstart plebeian race. What! they actually claimed Rockville, the heritage of a hundred successive Rockvilles, as their own. ”

“ The garden was always neatness itself—staid and [Pg 151] tempered in the very colours of its flowers. Dorothy Qualm had once been seen ordering the gardener to dig up and throw out some gorgeously red peonies, as too un-Friendly and gaudy in hue. David Qualm never was seen to garden, to engage in anything active, or visible even, except in tranquilly smoking his pipe, and in riding out on a small, stout Welsh pony, called Taffy, by the side of his tall, portly brother-in-law, Jasper Heritage, who rode, as befitted him, a large black horse. ”

“ In an attitude at once so easy and so graceful, await the wisdom which is sure to fall from beauty, learning, and experience, and hoard up the precious results for the future occasions of life, as the busy bee hoards up the honey of spring for the winter of age. ”

“ We, or most of us, visit the galleries of great painters; we gaze in enthusiasm on the imitations of nature which they hang upon our walls, and decree immortality to them for their inspired achievement; yet the King of artists every day spreads before our eyes, and the eyes of the simplest and the poorest, landscapes and aerial paintings which no mortal hand can ever equal, and no man lays it to heart. ”

“ Markham; “it is useless to deny what is plain to everybody; but I join you in all you say of Degge’s vulgar impudence in presuming to snatch a property, as it were, out of the hands of such a gentleman as Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, and in letting loose half the hosiers of Castleborough on Sir Benjamin’s game.”
“On Sir Benjamin’s game!” said Sir Roger Rockville; “on all our game. He has encouraged the poachers to an audacity never known before. They all say, ‘There, Mr. Degge has shown his sense. He knows that game is everybody’s.’ Our keepers have now no rest day nor night. ”

“ The whole bench looked at itself; that is, at each other, in wrathful astonishment. The swelling in the diaphragms of the squires of Otterbrook, Turnbull, and Swagsides, and all the rest of the worshipful row, was too big for utterance. Only Sir Roger himself [Pg 26] burst forth with an abrupt—“Impudent fellow! But I’ll see him —— first!”
“Grant the order!” said Sir Benjamin Bullockshed; and the whole bench nodded assent. The able lawyer Dare Deville retired with a pleasant smile. He saw an agreeable prospect of plenty of grist to his mill. Sir Roger was rich, and so was Great Castleborough. ”

“ But many an earlier riser than Sylvanus had already read it, and it had entered into the oral curiosities of Woodburn, and even travelled to Castleborough.
In company David Qualm preserved the same solid reticence, the same inexhaustible capacity for silence as in his own domicile. At home, his pipe was his constant companion even more inseparable than his equally quiescent wife. What was he? He was the companion of Jasper Heritage, and that was all, so far as the most inquisitive mortal ever knew. Did he and brother Jasper ever converse at home, or in their rides? No one lives to tell us. ”

“ Heritage.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Tom, drily. “Poor men have uncles everywhere, and very kind ones; their doors always stand open to them.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Heritage, in her wealthy ignorance of such uncles, and amid the stifled merriment of the young people.
“What I mean,” said Tom, “is, he meant to put it up the spout.”
“Up the spout!” said Mrs. Heritage, in augmented astonishment. “He meant to hide it?”
Tom nodded assent.
“He meant to pawn it, he means,” said Mr. Woodburn. “That’s his slang,” seeing that Thorsby’s good manners were choking him. ”

“ They were at Castleborough.
As they slackened their pace up a hill at the entrance of the town, Mr. Spires again opened his mouth.
“I should be very sorry to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Deg,” he said, “but I have my fears that you are coming to this place with false expectations. I fear your husband did not give you the truest possible account of his family here.”
“Oh, sir! What—what is it?” exclaimed the poor woman; “in God’s name, tell me!”
“Why, nothing more than this,” said the manufacturer; “there are few of the Degs left here. They are old, and on the parish, and can do nothing for you.” ”

“ But the sounds from the tent below, which had been hitherto those of a continuous clatter of tongues, and of merry laughter, now came forth in a chorus of singing voices, in which the bass tones of Thorsby were predominant amid the clear, sweet voices of the young ladies. The tent was like a great cage of warbling birds, or as Mrs. Woodburn said, of happy angels. “Oh!” said she, “I do [Pg 211] love to see young people happy. No one knows what after-life may bring. ”

“ Not a penny will [Pg 246] that man pay to stub and drain his fields,—they are growing wild. He cannot see that labour well employed is more profitable than the sparing of it. His sordid, narrow soul cannot comprehend such an idea. In winter his farm is drowned and starved with water. His house is unapproachable for deep mire. In summer his corn-fields are smothered with weeds and thistles and couch-grass. He quotes Sir Roger Rockville in defence of letting things alone—of bad roads and a filthy farm-yard. He won’t put his money in a bank or out at interest lest he should lose it ”

“ All Thy colours of life shall be clearer, purer, more lofty, more etherial. The after-glow of our evening shall be more tenderly fair, more serenely blessed, than our noon has been strong and rejoicing. ”

“ None but a pauper would dream of marrying a Deg, even were she handsome as Helen of Troy. The Degs, therefore, were in constitution, in mind, in habit, and in inclination, paupers. But a pure and unmixed class of this kind does not die out like an aristocratic stereotype. It increases and multiplies. The lower the grade, the more prolific, as is sometimes seen on a large and even national scale. The Degs threatened, therefore, to become a most formidable clan in the lower purlieus of Castleborough; but, luckily, there is so much virtue even in evils, that one not rarely cures another. ”

“ Heritage, at first in a soft and musical voice, which by degrees acquired depth and earnestness, said—“Dear friends, this has been a beautiful, and to all of us, I think, a very happy day. Let us not forget to be grateful to the Giver of it, and of all good gifts. Days come and go, and, however stationary we may seem, we are going with them. The bloom and gaiety of youth, beautiful as it is, is evanescent as the glories of yon western sky.” ”