The Squire of Sandal-Side Part 11

He gave father a lile, cheerful bit of a laugh, and said he didn't want to hinder work; but he would give anybody that knew the fells well a matter of five shillings to go with him, and carry his two little bags. And father says to our Joe, "Away with thee! It's a crown more than ever thou was worth at home." So the strange man gave Joe two little leather bags to carry; and Joe thought he was going to make his five shillings middling easy, for he never expected he would find any thing on the fells to put into the bags.

But Joe was mistaken. The old gentleman, he said, went louping over wet spots and great stones, and scraffling over crags and screes, till you would have thought he was some kin to a Herdwick sheep.

Charlotte laughed heartily at this point. "It is just the way Sedgwick goes on. He led father and me exactly such a chase one day last June."

"I dare say he did. I remember you looked like it. Go on."

After a while he began looking hard at all the stones and crags he came to; and then he took to breaking lumps off them with a queer little hammer he had with him, and stuffing the bits into the bags that Joe was carrying. He fairly capped Joe then. He couldn't tell what to make of such a customer. At last Joe asked him why ever he came so far up the fell for little bits of stone, when he might get so many down in the dales? He laughed, and went on knapping away with his little hammer, and said he was a jolly-jist.

"Geologist she means, Charlotte."

"Of course; but Agnes spells it 'jolly-jist.'"

"Agnes ought to know better. She waited table frequently, and must have heard the word p.r.o.nounced. Go on, Charlotte."

He kept on at this f.e.c.kless work till late in the afternoon, and by that time he had filled both bags full with odd bits of stone. Joe said he hadn't often had a harder darrack after sheep at clipping-time than he had after that old man, carrying his leather bags. But, however, they got back to our house, and mother gave the stranger some bread and milk; and after he had taken it, and talked with father about sheep-farming and such like, he paid Joe his five shillings like a man, and told him he would give him another five shillings if he would bring his bags full of stones down to Skeal-Hill by nine o'clock in the morning.

"Are you sleepy Sophy?"

"Oh, dear, no! Go on."

Next morning Joe took the bags, and started for Skeal-Hill. It was another hot morning; and he hadn't gone far till he began to think that he was as great a fool as the jolly-jist to carry broken stones to Skeal-Hill, when he could find plenty on any road-side close to the place he was going to. So he shook them out of the bags, and stepped on a gay bit lighter without them. When he got near to Skeal-Hill he found old Abraham Atchisson sitting on a stool, breaking stones to mend roads with; and Joe asked him if he could fill his leather bags from his heap. Abraham told Joe to take them that wasn't broken if he wanted stones; so Joe told him how it was, and all about it. The old man was like to tottle off his stool with laughing, and he said, "Joe take good care of thysen'; thou art over sharp to live very long in this world; fill thy bags, and make on with thee."

"Don't you remember old Abraham, Sophy? He built the stone d.y.k.e at the lower fold."

"No, I do not remember, I think."

"You are getting sleepy. Shall I stop?"

"No, no; finish the letter."

When Joe got to Skeal-Hill, the jolly-jist had just got his breakfast, and they took Joe into the parlor to him. He laughed all over when Joe went in with the bags, and told him to set them down in a corner, and asked him if he would have some breakfast. Joe had had his porridge, but he said he didn't mind; so he told them to bring in some more coffee and eggs, and ham and toasted bread; and Joe got such a breakfast as isn't common with him, while the old gentleman was getting himself ready to go off in a carriage that was waiting at the door for him. When he came down-stairs he gave Joe another five shillings, and paid for Joe's breakfast, and for what he had eaten himself. Then he told him to put the leather bags beside the driver's feet, and into the carriage he got, and laughed, and nodded, and away he went; and then Joe heard them say he was Professor Sedgwick, a great jolly-jist. And Joe thinks it would be a famous job if father could sell all of the stones on our fell at five shillings a bagful, and a breakfast at odd times. And would it not be so, Miss Sandal? But I'm not easy in my mind about Joe changing the stones; though, as Joe says, one make of stone is about the same as another.

"Sophia, you are sleepy now."

"Yes, a little. You can finish to-morrow."

Then she laid down the simple letter, and sat very still for a little while. Her heart was busy. There is a solitary place that girdles our life into which it is good to enter at the close of every day. There we may sit still with our own soul, and commune with it; and out of its peace pa.s.s easily into the shadowy kingdom of sleep, and find a little s.p.a.ce of rest prepared. So Charlotte sat in quiet meditation until Sophia was fathoms deep below the tide of life. Sight, speech, feeling, where were they gone? Ah! when the door is closed, and the windows darkened, who can tell what pa.s.ses in the solemn temple of mortality?

Are we unvisited then? Unfriended? Uncounselled?

"Behold!

The solemn s.p.a.ces of the night are thronged By bands of tender dreams, that come and go Over the land and sea; they glide at will Through all the dim, strange realms of men asleep, And visit every soul."

CHAPTER VI.

THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

"Still to ourselves in every place consigned.

Our own felicity we make or find."

"Catch, then, oh, catch the transient hour!

Improve each moment as it flies.

Life's a short summer, man a flower; He dies, alas! how soon he dies!"

There are days which rise sadly, go on without sunshine, and pa.s.s into night without one gleam of color. Life, also, has these pallid, monotonous hours. A distrust of all things invades the soul, and physical inertia and mental languor make daily existence a simple weight. It was Christmas-time, but the squire felt none of the elation of the season. He was conscious that the old festal preparations were going on, but there was no response to them in his heart. Julius had arrived, and was helping Sophia to hang the holly and mistletoe. But Sandal knew that his soul shrank from the nephew he had called into his life; knew that the sound of his voice irritated him, that his laugh filled him with resentment, that his very presence in the house seemed to desecrate it, and to slay for him the very idea of home.

He was sitting in the "master's room," wondering how the change had come about. But he found nothing to answer the wonder, because he was looking for some palpable wrong, some distinctive time or cause. He was himself too simple-hearted to reflect that it is seldom a great fault which destroys liking for a person. A great fault can be forgiven. It is small personal offences constantly repeated; little acts of meanness, and, above all, the petty plans and provisions of a selfish nature. Besides which, the soul has often marvellous intuitions, unmasking men and things; premonitions, warnings, intelligences, that it cannot doubt and cannot explain.

Inside the house there was a pleasant air and stir of preparation; the rapid movements of servants, the shutting and opening of doors, the low laughter of gay hearts well contented with the time and the circ.u.mstances. Outside, the mesmerizing snow was falling with a soft, silent persistence. The squire looked sadly at the white hills, and the white park, and the branches bending under their load, and the sombre sky, gray upon darker gray.

Last Christmas the girls had relied entirely upon his help. He had found the twine, and driven the nails, and steadied the ladder when Sophia's light form mounted it in order to hang the mistletoe. They had been so happy. The echo of their voices, their s.n.a.t.c.hes of Christmas carols, their laughter and merry badinage, was still in his heart. He remembered the impromptu lunch, which they had enjoyed so much while at work. He could see the mother come smiling in, with constant samples of the Christmas cheer fresh out of the oven. He had printed the verses and mottoes himself, spent all the afternoon over them, and been rather proud of his efforts. Charlotte had said, "they were really beautiful;"

even Sophia had admitted that "they looked well among the greens." But to-day he had not been asked to a.s.sist in the decorations. True, he had said, in effect, that he did not wish to a.s.sist; but, all the same, he felt shut out from his old pre-eminence; and he could not help regarding Julius Sandal as a usurper.

These were drearisome Christmas thoughts and feelings; and they found their climax in a pathetic complaint, "I never thought Charlotte would have given me the go-by. All along she has taken my side, no matter what came up. Oh, my little la.s.s!"

As if in answer to the heart-cry, Charlotte opened the door. She was dressed in furs and tweeds, and she had the squire's big coat and woollen wraps in her hand. Before he could speak, she had reached his chair, and put her arm across his shoulder, and said in her bright, confidential way, "Come, father, let you and me have a bit of pleasure by ourselves: there isn't much comfort in the house to-day."

"You say right, Charlotte; you do so, my dear. Where shall we go? Eh?

Where?"

"Wherever you like best. There is no snow to hamper us yet. Some of the servants are down from Up-Hill. Ducie has sent mother a great spice-loaf and a fine Christmas cheese."

"Ducie is a kind woman. I have known Ducie ever since I knew myself.

Could we climb the fell-breast, Charlotte? Eh? What?"

"I think we could. Ducie will miss it, if you don't go and wish her 'a merry Christmas.' You never missed grandfather Latrigg. Old friends are best, father."

"They are that. Is Steve at home?"

"He isn't coming home this Christmas. I wasn't planning about Steve, father. Don't think such a thing as that of me."

"I don't, Charlotte. I don't think of Charlotte Sandal and of any thing underhand at the same time. I'm a bit troubled and out of sorts this morning, my dear."

She kissed him affectionately for answer. She not only divined what a trial Julius had become, but she knew also that his heart was troubled in far greater depths than Julius had any power to stir. Harry Sandal was really at the root of every bitter moment. For Harry had not taken the five hundred pounds with the creditable contrite humiliation of the repenting prodigal. It was even yet doubtful whether he would respond to his parents' urgent request to spend Christmas at Seat-Sandal. And when there is one rankling wrong, which we do not like to speak of, it is so natural to relieve the heart by talking a great deal about those wrongs which we are less inclined to disguise and deny.

In the great hall a sudden thought struck the squire; and he stood still, and looked in Charlotte's face. "You are sure that you want to go, my dear? Won't you be missed? Eh? What?"

She clasped his hand tighter, and shook her head very positively. "They don't want me, father. I am in the way."

He did not answer until they had walked some distance; then he asked meaningly, "Has it come to that? Eh? What?"

"Yes, it has come to that."

"I am very glad it isn't you. And I'm nettled at myself for ever showing him a road to slight you, Charlotte."