Tales and Novels Volume II Part 26

"I wish, sir," cried he to Stafford, after pouring forth a volley of oaths, "you would mind your business, and not run after objects that are not fit for you. You are become good for nothing of late; careless, insolent, and not fit to be trusted."

Stafford bore all that his master said till he came to the words not fit to be trusted; but the moment those were uttered, he could no longer command himself; he threw down the great key of the granary, which he held in his hand, and exclaimed, "Not fit to be trusted! Is this the reward of all my services? Not fit to be trusted! Then I have no business here."

"The sooner you go the better, sir," cried the angry baronet, who, at this instant, desired nothing more than to get him out of his way. "You had best set off for England directly: I have no farther occasion for your services."

Stafford said not a word more, but retired from his master's presence to conceal his emotion; and, when he was alone, burst into tears, repeating to himself, "So this is the reward of all my services!"

When Sir Hyacinth's pa.s.sion cooled, he reflected that seven years'

wages were due to Stafford; and as it was not convenient to him at this election time to part with so much ready money, he resolved to compromise. It was not from any sense of justice; therefore it must be said he had the meanness to apologize to his steward, and to hint that he was welcome to remain, if he pleased, in his service.

Satisfied by this explanation, and by the condescension with which it was given, Stafford's affection for his master returned with all its wonted force: and he resumed his former occupations about the house with redoubled activity. He waited only till he could be spared for a day to go to Rosanna, and make his proposal for Rose. Her behaviour concerning the ball convinced him that his mother's prejudices against Irishwomen were ill-founded. Whilst his mind was in this state, his master one morning sent for him, and told him that it was absolutely necessary he should go to a neighbouring county, to some persons who were freeholders, and whose votes might turn the election. The business would only occupy a few days, Sir Hyacinth said; and Stafford willingly undertook it.

The gentlemen to whom Stafford had letters were not at home, and he was detained above a fortnight. When he returned, he took a road which led by Rosanna, that he might at least have the pleasure of seeing Rose for a few minutes; but when he called at the cottage, to his utter surprise, he was refused admittance. Being naturally of a warm temper, and not deficient in pride, his first impulse was to turn his horse's head, and gallop off: but, checking his emotion, he determined not to leave the place till he should discover the cause of this change of conduct.

He considered that none of this family had formerly treated him with caprice or duplicity; it was therefore improbable they should suddenly alter their conduct towards him, unless they had reason to believe that they had some sufficient cause. He rode immediately to a field where he saw some labourers at work. Farmer Gray was with them. Stafford leaped from his horse, and, with an air of friendly honesty, held out his hand, saying, "I can't believe you mean to affront me: tell me what is the reason I am not to be let into your house, my good friend?"

Gray leaned upon his stick, and, after looking at him for a moment, replied, "We have been too hasty, I see: we have had no cause of quarrel with you, Stafford: you could never look at me with that honest countenance, if you had any hand in this business."

"What business?" cried Stafford.

"Walk home with me, out of the hearing of these people, and you shall know."

As they walked towards his cottage, Gray took out his great leather pocket-book, and searched for a letter. "Pray, Stafford," said he, "did you, about ten days ago, send my girl a melon?"

"Yes; one of my own raising. I left it with the gardener, to be sent to her with my best respects and services; and a message intimating to say that I was sorry my master's business required I should take a journey, and could not see her for a few days, or something that way."

"No such message came; only your services, the melon, and this note. I declare," continued Gray, looking at Stafford whilst he read the letter, "he turns as pale as my wife herself did when I showed it to her!"

Stafford, indeed, grew pale with anger. It was a billet-doux from his master to Rose, which Sir Hyacinth entreated might be kept secret, promising to make her fortune and marry her well, if she would only have compa.s.sion upon a man who adored and was dying for her, &c.

"I will never see my master again," exclaimed Stafford. "I could not see him without the danger of doing something that I might not forgive myself. He a gentleman! He a gentleman! I'll gallop off and leave his letters, and his horse, with some of his people. I'll never see him again. If he does not pay me a farthing of my seven years' wages, I don't care; I will not sleep in his house another night. He a gentleman!"

Farmer Gray was delighted by Stafford's generous indignation; which appeared the more striking, as his manner was usually sober, and remarkably civil.

All this happened at two o'clock in the afternoon; and the evening of the same day he returned to Rosanna. Rose was sitting at work, in the seat of the cottage window. When she saw him at the little white gate, her colour gave notice to her brothers who was coming, and they ran out to meet him.

"You ought to shut your doors against me now, instead of running out to meet me," said he; "for I am not clear that I have a farthing in the world, except what is in this portmanteau. I have been fool enough to leave all I have earned in the hands of _a gentleman_, who can give me only his bond for my wages. But I am glad I am out of his house, at any rate."

"And I am glad you are in mine," said farmer Gray, receiving him with a warmth of hospitality which brought tears of grat.i.tude into Stafford's eyes. Rose smiled upon her father, and said nothing; but set him his arm-chair, and was very busy arranging the tea-table. Mrs. Gray beckoned to her guest, and made him sit down beside her; telling him he should have as good tea at Rosanna as ever he had in Warwickshire; "and out of Staffordshire ware, too," said she, taking her best Wedgwood teacups and saucers out of a cupboard.

Robin, who was naturally gay and fond of rallying his friends, could not forbear affecting to express his surprise at Stafford's preferring an Irishwoman, of all women in the world. "Are you quite sure, Stafford,"

said he, "that you are not mistaken? Are you sure my sister has not wings on her shoulders?"

"Have you done now, Robin?" said his mother; who saw that Stafford was a good deal abashed, and had no answer ready. "If Mr. Stafford had a prejudice against us Irish, so much the more honourable for my Rose to have conquered it; and, as to wings, they would have been no shame to us natives, supposing we had them; and of course it was no affront to attribute them to us. Have not the angels themselves wings?"

A timely joke is sometimes a real blessing; and so Stafford felt it at this instant: his bashfulness vanished by degrees, and Robin rallied him no more. "I had no idea," said he, "how easy it is to put an Englishman out of countenance in the company of his mistress."

This was a most happy evening at Rosanna. After Rose retired, which she soon did, to see after the household affairs, her father spoke in the kindest manner to Stafford. "Mr. Stafford," said he, "if you tell me that you are able to maintain my girl in the way of life she is in now, you shall have her: this, in my opinion and in hers, is the happiest life for those who have been bred to it. I would rather see Rose matched to an honest, industrious, good-humoured man, like yourself, whom she can love, than see her the wife of a man as grand as Sir Hyacinth O'Brien. For, to the best of my opinion, it is not the being born to a great estate that can make a man content or even rich: I think myself a richer man this minute than Sir Hyacinth; for I owe no man any thing, am my own master, and can give a little matter both to child and stranger.

But your head is very naturally running upon Rose, and not upon my moralizing. All I have to say is, win her and wear her; and, as to the rest, even if Sir Hyacinth never pays you your own, that shall not stop your wedding. My sons are good lads, and you and Rose shall never want, whilst the mill of Rosanna is going."

This generosity quite overpowered Stafford. Generosity is one of the characteristics of the Irish. It not only touched but surprised the Englishman; who, amongst the same rank of his own countrymen, had been accustomed to strict honesty in their dealings, but seldom to this warmth of friendship and forgetfulness of all selfish considerations.

It was some minutes before he could articulate a syllable; but, after shaking his intended father-in-law's hand with that violence which expresses so much to English feelings, he said, "I thank you heartily; and, if I live to the age of Methusalem, shall never forget this. A friend in need is a friend indeed. But I will not live upon yours or your good sons' earnings; that would not be fair dealing, or like what I've been bred up to think handsome. It is a sad thing for me that this master of mine can give me nothing, for my seven years' service, but this sc.r.a.p of paper (taking out of his pocket-book a bond of Sir Hyacinth's). But my mother, though she has her prejudices, and is very stiff about them, being an elderly woman, and never going out of England, or even beyond the parish in which she was born, yet she is kind-hearted; and I cannot think will refuse to help me, or that she will cross me in marriage, when she knows the thing is determined; so I shall write to her before I sleep, and wish I could but enclose in the cover of my letter the picture of Rose, which would be better than all I could say. But no picture would do her justice. I don't mean a compliment, like those Sir Hyacinth paid to her face, but only the plain truth. I mean that a picture could never make my mother understand how good, and sweet-tempered, and modest, Rose is. Mother has a world of prejudices; but she is a good woman, and will prove herself so to me, I make no doubt."

Stafford wrote to his mother a long letter, and received, in a fortnight afterwards, this short answer:

"Son George, I warned you not to fall in love with an Irishwoman, to which I told you I could never give my consent.

"As you bake, so you must brew. Your sister Dolly is marrying too, and setting up a shop in Warwick, by my advice and consent: all the money I can spare I must give, as in reason, to her who is a dutiful child; and mean, with her and grand-children, if G.o.d please, to pa.s.s my latter days, as fitting, in this parish of Little Sonchy, in Old England, where I was born and bred. Wishing you may not repent, or starve, or so forth, which please to let me know,

"I am your affectionate mother,

"DOROTHY STAFFORD."

All Stafford's hopes were confounded by this letter: he put it into farmer Gray's hands, without saying a word; then drew his chair away from Rose, hid his face in his hands, and never spoke or heard one word that was saying round about him for full half an hour; till, at last, he was roused by his friend Robin, who, clapping him on his back, said, "Come, Stafford, English pride won't do with us; this is all to punish you for refusing to share and share alike with us in the mill of Rosanna, which is what you must and shall do now, for Rose's sake, if not for ours or your own. Come, say done."

Stafford could not help being moved. All the family, except Rose, joined in these generous entreaties; and her silence said even more than their words. Dinner was on the table before this amicable contest was settled, and Robin insisted upon his drinking a toast with him, in Irish ale; which was, "Rose Gray, and Rosanna-mill."

The gla.s.s was just filled and the toast p.r.o.nounced, when in came one of Gray's workmen, in an indescribable perspiration and rage.

"Master Robin, master John! Master," cried he, "we are all ruined! The mill and all--"

"The mill!" exclaimed every body starting up.

"Ay, the mill: it's all over with it, and with us: not a turn more will Rosanna-mill ever take for me or you; not a turn," continued he, wiping his forehead with his arm, and hiding by the same motion his eyes, which ran over with tears.

"It's all that thief Hopkins's doing. May every guinea he touches, and every shilling, and tester, and penny itself, blister his fingers, from this day forward and for evermore!"

"But what has he done to the mill?"

"May every guinea, shilling, tester, and penny he looks upon, from this day forth for evermore, be a blight to his eyes, and a canker to his heart! But I can't wish him a worse canker than what he has there already. Yes, he has a canker at heart! Is not he eaten up with envy? as all who look at him may read in that evil eye. Bad luck to the hour when it fixed on the mill of Rosanna!"

"But what has he done to the mill? Take it patiently, and tell us quietly," said farmer Gray, "and do not curse the man any more."

"Not curse the man! Take it quietly, master! Is it the time to take it quietly, when he is at the present minute carrying off every drop of water from our mill-course? so he is the villain!"

At these words, Stafford seized his oak stick, and sprang towards the door. Robin and John eagerly followed: but, as they pa.s.sed their father, he laid a hand on each, and called to Stafford to stop. At his respected voice they all paused. "My children," said he, "what are you going to do? No violence. No violence. You shall have justice, boys, depend upon it; we will not let ourselves be oppressed. If Mr. Hopkins were ten times as great, and twenty times as tyrannical as he is, we shall have justice; the law will reach him: but we must take care and do nothing in anger. Therefore, I charge you, let me speak to him, and do you keep your tempers whatever pa.s.ses. May be, all this is only 8 mistake: perhaps Mr. Hopkins is only making drains for his own meadow; or, may be, is going to flood it, and does not know, till we tell him, that he is emptying our water-course."

"He can't but know it! He can't but know it! He's'cute enough, and too 'cute," muttered Paddy, as he led the way to the mill. Stafford and the two brothers followed their father respectfully; admiring his moderation, and resolving to imitate it if they possibly could.

Mr. Hopkins was stationed cautiously on the boundary of his own land.

"There he is, mounted on the back of the ditch, enjoying the mischief all he can!" cried Paddy. "And hark! He is whistling, whilst our stream is running away from us. May I never cross myself again, if I would not, rather than the best shirt ever I had to my back, push him into the mud, as he deserves, this very minute! And, if it wasn't for my master here, it's what I'd do, before I drew breath again."

Farmer Gray restrained Paddy's indignation with some difficulty; and advancing calmly towards Mr. Hopkins, he remonstrated with him in a mild tone. "Surely, Mr. Hopkins," said he, "you cannot mean to do us such an injury as to stop our mill?"

"I have not laid a finger on your mill," replied Hopkins, with a malicious smile. "If your man there," pointing to Paddy, "could prove my having laid a finger upon it, you might have your action of trespa.s.s; but I am no trespa.s.ser; I stand on my own land, and have a right to water my own meadow; and moreover have witnesses to prove that, for ten years last past, while the mill of Rosanna was in Simon O'Dougherty's hands, the water-course was never full, and the mill was in disuse. The stream runs against you now, and so does the law, gentlemen. I have the best counsel's opinion in Ireland to back me. Take your remedy, when and where you can find it. Good morning to you."

Without listening to one word more, Mr. Hopkins hastily withdrew: for he had no small apprehensions that Paddy, whose threats he had overheard, and whose eyes sparkled with rage, might execute upon him that species of prompt justice which no quibbling can evade.