A Terrible Tomboy Part 30

'I feel old, my dear, after all I have gone through. It is worry, not years, which ages people. But there's life in the old dog yet, and we'll make a brave push for it in Australia.'

'I wish Aunt Helen were here,' said Peggy. 'She would have been _such_ a comfort in all this trouble!'

'No, no!' cried Father hastily. 'Thank G.o.d she's out of it, at any rate!

I feel it one of my blessings to know she was safely settled before this came upon us. Aunt Helen has had too much trouble in her life, without taking any more upon her shoulders. She'll be grieved enough about it as it is, even out there in India with her husband to console her.'

In spite of all possible care, the secret of the state of affairs at the Abbey soon leaked out in the neighbourhood, causing the utmost consternation and regret, for the Vaughans were universally liked and respected, while for Mr. Norton n.o.body could find a good word. The matter was much discussed at the Bluebell Inn, where old Ephraim, having served the family for forty years, was considered an authority on the subject, and graciously allowed himself to be treated by the a.s.sembled company while he gave voice to his opinions.

'It's not as I holds by pride of birth,' he argued, 'and me a Radical fifty year and more. When I were a lad, there were a talk o' choppin' up th' land, an' givin' share and share alike to all, but they never done it. It come up sure enough at election times, as regular as free trade or the income-tax. "Three acres o' land and a cow," was what was promised th' poor man if he'd give his vote to th' Liberal candidate; but it weren't nothing but talk, and came to naught.'

'They be mostly windbags, they candidates,' observed Tom Slater, the village blacksmith, settling himself more easily in a corner of the bench by the fireside, and holding up a stalwart finger for the pot-boy.

'Ay, as empty as a gla.s.s wi' naught in it!' replied Ephraim, shaking his head, and gazing reflectively at his empty tumbler.

Taking the hint, Tom ordered gin-and-water hot for two, and gently turned the conversation back to the Vaughans.

'If there's to be property,' said the old man, 'let them have it, sez I, as is used to it, and knows what's due to other folk. There's Mester Vaughan would always do a good turn to a poor body if it lay in his way, but this here Mester Norton's as tight-fisted a screw as ever looked at a penny twice afore he parted with it.'

'Ay, he be that, and scant honest,' cried the stout miller, with a lively remembrance of sundry hard transactions with grain for the distilleries, in which, to his chagrin, he had had distinctly the worst side of the bargain. 'It be the same with all they that make haste to get rich,' he added piously. 'But they'll take their place with Dives when other folk has gone to Abraham's bosom.'

'You hain't done badly yourself, Mester Griffiths,' suggested Tom Slater, 'if it come to a matter o' that. Folks say you've a tidy sum laid by in Warford Bank.'

'Earned by the sweat o' my brow, Tom,' said the miller, puffing away at his long churchwarden pipe. 'The work o' my hands has been blessed and prospered. Ay, the Lord's been very good to me, and I've done Him credit, too!'

For Ebenezer Griffiths was deacon of Salem Chapel, and accustomed to regard himself as the main bulwark and pillar of the religious and moral welfare of the village.

'I've not any grudge against them as has money,' observed old Ephraim oracularly, 'but when it's used to turn them as hasn't out of their own, it's time them Socialists had a innings and stepped in. There was Mester Vaughan givin' interest fair on them mortgages, and I've heard as th'

lawyer hisself said as he were safe as th' bank to pay regular, and what call had Mester Norton to buy 'em up, and ask for th' princ.i.p.al back, when it weren't in reason as he could raise it?'

'A case of Naboth's vineyard,' sighed the miller. 'He coveted the land, and is using foul means to get it.'

But Ephraim's knowledge of Scripture being limited, the allusion was lost upon him.

'Let th' Government take it up, sez I,' he declared, waxing excited, and thumping his fist on the table. 'It 'ud be a sight better nor pa.s.sing land bills for Ireland, where no one's satisfied i' th' end, do what un may. Let Mester Vaughan go up to Lunnon, and put it fair afore th' House o' Commons, like th' deputations as th' newspapers tell on, and they'd listen to un, and see un to his rights.'

Tom Slater shook his head. He had little opinion of Parliament, having supported the wrong candidate at the last election, and pinned his faith to purely local measures.

'We might boycott Norton, may be,' he observed thoughtfully, 'and mek the place too hot to hold him.'

'Ay, Tom, that be a good notion, surely,' put in little Sam Andrews, the joiner. 'Send him a letter with a coffin drawed out at the top, or a skull and cross-bones, to say as how that's what's waitin' for un, if he comes to Gorswen.'

'Ye'll be gettin' into trouble, Samuel,' said the miller. 'Norton would put the police on your track, and clap you in Warford Gaol for threatening his life.'

'But it wouldn't be me alone if we made a round robin o' it,' said Sam hastily, who had by no means antic.i.p.ated carrying out the scheme on his own responsibility. 'Or I'd send un wi'out puttin' a name to un--a unanimous letter they calls un, I believe.'

'Anomalous?' suggested Tom Slater.

'Anonymous be the word,' said the miller. 'But it's agin the law, Sam--agin the law. Nay, it's a case where the wicked do prosper. I be main sorry for Mester Vaughan, I be, but the ways o' Providence be dark and past findin' out.'

If there was sympathy for Mr. Vaughan's trouble among the patrons of the Bluebell Inn, nearer home it waxed both keen and practical.

'Take me with you, sir,' begged poor Joe, dissolving into tears at the thought of parting with the family to whom he was so much attached. 'I'd serve you faithful, and never ask a penny of wages, but just my keep till you got settled and started. I've got eight pound ten laid by in the savings-bank, which would go towards my pa.s.sage-money, and my granny would lend me the rest. I'd be glad to try my luck over the seas, and maybe it 'ud seem more homelike to Master Bobby and the young ladies to find a face they knew about 'em in a place where all was strangers.'

Warm-hearted Nancy was in a perpetual tempest of regret, and a.s.sured Lilian that if she had not faithfully promised to marry Tom Higgins she would have packed her box and insisted upon joining the party.

'But he have took the farm, Miss Lilian, and bespoke three cows, and a pig, and twelve hens, and he be such a fule he'd no more know what to do with 'em than a babe, so I must have him, if it's for naught but the sake of the poor beasts'--which certainly seemed a most convincing reason.

Perhaps to David the antic.i.p.ated change meant as much as to anyone, for he was growing too old to seek a new master, and dreaded the inevitable time when he would be shelved from work, and placed on the parish list, to the self-respecting poor always the bitterest sting of old age. The day of possible emigration for him had long gone by, and his must be the harder part of remaining to watch the Abbey pa.s.s into the hands of 'a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph,' and who could not be counted upon for either kindness or charity in his dealings with the poor around him.

As it was such an open secret, Peggy did not feel she was betraying any confidence by discussing their affairs with Archie when he came over for his brief half-term holiday, and in the seclusion of the stack-yard she poured out her troubles into his sympathetic ear.

'Oh, I say, look here, you know,' cried the boy, ruffling up his chestnut locks with both hands, which was a way he had when upset, 'if you go out to Australia, I shall come too! I could persuade aunt to go in a jiffey--the doctor said she'd be a million times better in a drier climate--and we'd take the farm next to yours. Now my poor old dad's gone, and my mother's married again, and the boys all trading off on their own account, I don't want to go back to Colorado; but I like colonial life, and farming would be a lot jollier than school, any way, for the fellows in my house are awful Johnnies, they can talk of nothing but games, and laugh at one for a crank if one tries to make things.'

'It would be nice if you went too,' said Peggy, quite brightening at the prospect, for not the least part of her trouble had been the thought of leaving her friends.

'Then we'll go. Cheer up, Pegsie; you'll see it won't be so bad as you imagine. Australia's a fine place to get on in, and there'll be queer trees and flowers, and kangaroos, and natives, and all sorts of new things to see. Of course, I know it's an awful wrench leaving the Abbey; but, after all, there are other places in the world to locate in.

There's no end of jolly fun going on on board ship, I can tell you, and you'll have a real good time on the voyage out, and at the ports, especially with me to show you around; and when we get fixed up on our new ranches I guess you'll allow that things are pretty first-rate!'

'It would never be the Abbey, though, however jolly it was. I had meant to live here all my life, and be buried in the transept when I die. I have a feeling as if the Crusaders and the Elizabethan lady and gentleman on the monuments would miss us when we go away,' said Peggy, relapsing into pensiveness once more.

But Archie had been brought up in a democratic country, and had little sympathy for the ties of race.

'Oh, bother the ancient Crusaders, and the other folks under the tombstones! If they could get up again and chop off old Norton's head, and fight anyone who laid a finger on the Abbey, they'd be of some use to you. I believe there are a pile of old Forsters lying under elaborate tombs somewhere in Northumberland, but what have they ever done for me?

It's no use being sentimental about old times. I'll undertake there was precious little sentiment about them in those days. Didn't they come sailing over from Denmark and Normandy, and all sorts of places, to settle down in England, which was a new country then, just as we're thinking of going out to Australia? Five hundred years hence we shall be quite ancient history ourselves, and folks can romance over our tombstones if they feel inclined. And after all, why should one's ancestors do everything for one? I guess I'd rather make my mark in the world for myself,'--for the boy had all the enthusiasm of a pioneer about him, added to a st.u.r.dy spirit of independence.

This was quite a new gospel to Peggy, and though she could not altogether reconcile it with her clinging love for the home of so many generations of Vaughans, it did her good in that it gave her a fresh aspect of life, for it is always wise to look at things from another person's point of view, as well as your own, and she had a great respect for Archie's opinions.

In the meantime things went on at the Abbey just as though the family were not, metaphorically speaking, sitting on the edge of a volcano.

Daily duties must be done, however sore your heart may be, and the work of a farm can never be stopped for your private troubles. So Lilian reared fluffy chickens and yellow ducklings which would probably never grace her poultry-yard, and Father cultivated the fields, though he might not be there to gather in the harvest. It seemed hard to Peggy to think that the trees would bud and the flowers blossom, and the crops grow, when they were not there to watch it all, for most of us have a kind of feeling that we are the important centre around which Nature turns, instead of only mere spectators of her varying moods, and sometimes it felt so impossible that such an utter upheaval in their lives could really come to pa.s.s that she would have to shake herself to believe that it was not all a bad dream; but as she noticed the quiet preparations that went on, and the added worry on Father's face, she realized that it was only too true, and that every day was bringing them nearer to that terrible twenty-fifth of July when the mortgages would fall due.

There is always a silver lining, however, to every cloud, and I think this trouble, hard as it was to bear, made one of the stepping-stones in Peggy's character. At first she had been inclined to grumble and repine, and say that life was using them hardly, but something which the Rector (always the family confidant) wrote to her in one of his frequent letters made her stop and think.

'If you are really anxious to be a help and comfort, Peggy, here is your grand opportunity. Now that the sky is so overcast at home, suppose you put your own part of the trouble quite on one side, and let your bright ways make the family sunshine. One cheerful person in a sad house can work wonders, and by being specially gentle and loving just now you can make Father remember that his children are more to him than his old home, and that, after all, love is the best thing in this life, and worth more than houses, or lands, or any goods which the world may offer us. A really bright, sunny disposition is as much a talent as any other of G.o.d's good gifts, so be thankful, child, you possess it, and make the best use you can of it in the Master's service.'

Peggy put the letter by among the treasures in her work-box. She did not speak about it, or show it to anyone, but after that not a further grumble escaped her, and she managed to find such a bright side to the question, and talked so often and so hopefully of the future, that Father said she was as good as a tonic, and began to find his little daughter such a comfort to him, and so different to the old thoughtless Peggy of former days, that I scarcely know how he would have got through that trying time without her.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY

'Who comes to the ruin, the ivy-clad ruin, With old shaking arches, all moss-overgrown?'

May drew to a close with a burst of warm weather, and the Whitsuntide holidays promised to prove all that the heart of the cheap tripper might desire, though beyond a chance cyclist or two that article was as unknown as the dodo in quiet Gorswen, where fortunately the charms of the scenery had not yet been spoilt by picnic parties leaving greasy sandwich papers and ginger-beer bottles in the woods, and demanding noisy entertainment in the village, nor the youth of the neighbourhood corrupted into hanging round the public-house doors to listen to the mirth and songs of the excursionists within, or offer faded bunches of flowers in exchange for halfpence. Gorswen, having taken its annual holiday at Easter, made no account of Whit-week, and went on with its work as usual, for the agricultural labourer does not claim so much in the way of pleasure as his brethren of the loom or the forge, and is content with an occasional fair or village feast to break the monotony of his daily life.

Whit Monday was a holiday at school, however, and Peggy and Bobby, having the day at home, took a sudden fit of industry, and started to weed the shrubbery with the n.o.ble intention of having it raked over and tidied by teatime, being put somewhat on their mettle by Father's remarks on the subject of sustained labour, and his laughing incredulity when they a.s.sured him he would find it all neatly finished when he returned from Warford that evening. It was a warm day, and gardening is particularly back-breaking work, but they toiled grimly away, neither liking to be the first to give in, and soon began to make considerable headway among the weeds.