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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Carbonels, by Charlotte M. Yonge
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Carbonels
+
+Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
+
+Illustrator: W.S. Stacey
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2007 [EBook #21223]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CARBONELS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+The Carbonels
+
+By Charlotte M. Yonge
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+THE CARBONELS
+
+BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+FRENCH MEASURE.
+
+  "For thy walls a pretty slight drollery."
+  _The Second Part of King Henry IV_.
+
+"A bad lot.  Yes, sir, a thoroughly bad lot."
+
+"You don't mean it."
+
+"Yes, ma'am, a bad lot is the Uphill people.  Good for nothing and
+ungrateful!  I've known them these thirty-years, and no one will do
+anything with them."
+
+The time was the summer of 1822.  The place was a garden, somewhat gone
+to waste, with a gravel drive running round a great circle of
+periwinkles with a spotted aucuba in the middle.  There was a low,
+two-storied house, with green shutters, green Venetian blinds, and a
+rather shabby verandah painted in alternate stripes of light and darker
+green.  In front stood a high gig, with a tall old, bony horse trying to
+munch the young untrimmed shoots of a lilac in front of him as he waited
+for the speaker, a lawyer, dressed as country attorneys were wont to
+dress in those days, in a coat of invisible green, where the green
+constantly became more visible, brown trousers, and under them drab
+gaiters.  He was addressing a gentleman in a blue coat and nankeen
+trousers, but evidently military, and two ladies in white dresses,
+narrow as to the skirts, but full in the sleeves.  One had a blue scarf
+over her shoulders and blue ribbons in her very large Leghorn bonnet;
+the other had the same in green, and likewise a green veil.  Her bonnet
+was rather more trimmed, the dress more embroidered, the scarf of a
+richer, broader material than the other's, and it was thus evident that
+she was the married sister; but they were a good deal alike, with the
+same wholesome smooth complexion, brown eyes, and hair in great shining
+rolls under their bonnet caps, much the same pleasant expression, and
+the same neat little feet in crossed sandalled shoes and white stockings
+showing out beneath their white tambour-worked gowns.
+
+With the above verdict, the lawyer made his parting bow, and drove off
+along a somewhat rough road through two pasture fields.  The first gate,
+white and ornamental, was held open for him by an old man in a short
+white smock and long leathern gaiters, the second his own servant
+opened, the third was held by half a dozen shock-headed children, with
+their backs against it and hands held out, but in vain; he only smacked
+his driving-whip over their heads, and though he did not strike any of
+them, they requited it with a prolonged yell, which reached the ears of
+the trio in front of the house.
+
+"I'm afraid it is not far from the truth," said the green lady.
+
+"Oh no; I am sure he is a horrid man," said her blue sister.  "I would
+not believe him for a moment."
+
+"Only with a qualification," rejoined the gentleman.
+
+"But, Edmund, couldn't you be sure that it is just what he would say,
+whatever the people were?"
+
+"I am equally sure that the exaction of rents is not the way to see
+people at their best."
+
+"Come in, come in!  We have all our settling in to do, and no time for
+you two to fight."
+
+Edmund, Mary, Dorothea, and Sophia Carbonel were second cousins, who had
+always known one another in the house of the girls' father, a clergyman
+in a large country town.  Edmund had been in the army just in time for
+the final battles of the Peninsular war, and had since served with the
+army of occupation and in Canada.  He had always meant that Mary should
+be his wife, but the means were wanting to set up housekeeping, until
+the death of an old uncle of his mother's made him heir to Greenhow
+Farm, an estate bringing in about 500 pounds a year.  Mary and her next
+sister Dora had in the meantime lost their parents, and had been living
+with some relations in London, where their much younger sister Sophy was
+at school, until Edmund, coming home, looked over the farm, decided that
+it would be a fit home for the sisters, and retired from the army
+forthwith.  Thus then, after a brief tour among the Lakes, they had
+taken up Dora in London, and here they were; Sophy was to join them when
+the holidays began.  Disorder reigned indeed within, and hammers
+resounded, nor was the passage easy among the packing-cases that
+encumbered the narrow little vestibule whence the stairs ascended.
+
+Under the verandah were the five sash windows of the three front rooms,
+the door, of course, in the middle.  Each had a little shabby furniture,
+to which the Carbonels were adding, and meant to add more; the
+dining-room had already been papered with red flock in stripes, the
+drawing-room with a very delicate white, on which were traced in tender
+colouring-baskets of vine leaves and laburnums.
+
+Dora gave a little scream.  "Look!  Between the windows, Mary; see, the
+laburnums and grapes are hanging upward."
+
+"Stupid people!" exclaimed Mary, "I see.  Happily, it is only on that
+one piece, but how Edmund will be vexed."
+
+"Perhaps there is another piece unused."
+
+"I am sure I hope there is!  Don't you know, Edmund fell in love with it
+at Paris.  It was his first provision for future housekeeping, and it
+was lying laid up in lavender all these years till we were ready for
+it."
+
+"It is only that one division, which is a comfort."
+
+"What's the matter?" and the master of the house came in.
+
+"Senseless beings!  It must be covered directly.  It is a desight to the
+whole room.  Here!" and he went out to the carpenter, who was universal
+builder to the village, and was laying down the stair carpet.  "Here,
+Hewlett, do you see what you have done?"
+
+Hewlett, a large man with a smooth, plump, but honest face, came in, in
+his shirt sleeves, apron, and paper cap, touched his forehead to the
+ladies, stood, and stared.
+
+"Can't you see?" sharply demanded the captain.
+
+Hewlett scratched his head, and gazed round.
+
+"See here!  How do grapes grow?  Or laburnums?"
+
+An idea broke in on him.
+
+"What! they be topsy-turvy?" he slowly observed, after looking from the
+faulty breadth to the next.
+
+"Of course they are.  Find the rest of the paper!  We must have a piece
+put on at once, or the whole appearance of the room is spoilt," said
+Captain Carbonel.  "It will make a delay, but it must be done at once.
+Where is the piece left over?"
+
+Hewlett retreated to find it, while the captain said something about
+"stupid ass."
+
+Presently his gruff voice was heard demanding, "Dan, I say, where's the
+remnant of that there fancy paper?"
+
+Dan's answer did not rise into audible words, but presently Hewlett
+tramped back, saying, "There ain't none, sir."
+
+"I tell you there must be," returned the captain, in the same angry
+tones.  And he proceeded to show that the number of pieces he had
+bought, and the measure of which he had ascertained, was such that there
+ought to have been half-a-piece left over from papering the room, the
+size of which he had exactly taken.  Hewlett could do nothing but
+stolidly repeat that "there weren't none left, not enow to make a
+mouse's nest."
+
+"Who did the papering?  Did you?"
+
+"Daniel Hewlett, sir, he did the most on it.  My cousin, sir."
+
+The captain fell upon Daniel, who had more words at command, but was
+equally strong in denial of having any remnant.  "They had only skimped
+out enough," he said, "just enough for the walls, and it was a close fit
+anyhow."
+
+The captain loudly declared it impossible, but Mary ran out in the midst
+to suggest that mayhap the defect was in the French measure.  Each piece
+might not have been the true number of whatever they called them in that
+new revolutionary fashion.
+
+Dan Hewlett's face cleared up.  "Ay, 'tis the French measure, sure, sir.
+Of course they can't do nothing true and straight!  I be mortal sorry
+the ladies is disappointed, but it bain't no fault of mine, sir."
+
+"And look here, Edmund," continued Mary, "it will not spoil the room at
+all if Mr Hewlett will help move the tall bureau against it, and we'll
+hang the `Death of General Wolfe' above it, and then there won't be more
+than two bits of laburnum to be seen, even if you are curious enough to
+get upon a chair to investigate."
+
+"Well, it must be so," returned Captain Carbonel, "but I hate the idea
+of makeshifts and having imperfections concealed."
+
+"Just like you, Edmund," laughed Dora.  "You will always seem to be
+looking right through at the upright sprays, though all the solid weight
+of Hume, Gibbon, and Rollin is in front of them."
+
+"Precisely," said Edmund.  "It is not well to feel that there is
+anything to be hidden.  The chief part of the vexation is, however," he
+added--shutting the door and lowering his voice--"that I am convinced
+that there must have been foul play somewhere."
+
+"Oh, Edmund; French measure!"
+
+"Nonsense!  That does not account for at least a whole piece
+disappearing."
+
+He took out a pencil, and went again into his calculations, while his
+sister-in-law indignantly exclaimed--
+
+"It is all prejudice, because that horrid attorney said all these poor
+people were a bad lot."
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Mrs Carbonel, rather frightened, and--
+
+"I advise you to think before you speak," said Captain Carbonel quietly
+but sternly.
+
+Still Dora could not help saying, as soon as she was alone with her
+sister, "I shall believe in the French measure.  I like that slow, dull
+man, and I am sure he is honest."
+
+"Yes, dear, only pray don't say any more to Edmund, but let us get the
+book-case placed as fast as we can, and let him forget all about it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+THE LIE OF THE LAND.
+
+  "Thank you, pretty cow, that gave
+  Pleasant milk to soak my bread,
+  Every day and every night
+  Warm and fresh, and sweet and bright."
+  _J.  Taylor_.
+
+Darkness had descended before there had been time to do more than shake
+into the downstair rooms and bedrooms and be refreshed with the evening
+meal, but with morning began the survey of the new home.
+
+The front part of the house had three living rooms, with large sash
+windows, almost to the ground, shaded by the verandah.  These were
+drawing-room, dining-room, and study, the last taken out of the entry,
+where was the staircase, and there were three similar rooms above.
+These had been added by the late owner to the original farmhouse, with a
+fine old-fashioned kitchen that sent Mary and Dora into greater raptures
+than their cook.  There were offices around, a cool dairy, where stood
+great red glazed pans of delicious-looking cream and milk, and a clean
+white wooden churn that Dora longed to handle.  The farmhouse rooms were
+between it and the new ones, and there were a good many rooms above, the
+red-tiled roof rising much higher than that of the more modern part of
+the house.  There was a narrow paling in front, and then came the
+farmyard, enclosed in barns, cow-houses and cart-sheds, and a cottage
+where the bailiff, Master Pucklechurch, had taken up his abode, having
+hitherto lived in the farmhouse.  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.  They had managed the farm in the interregnum,
+and brought him weekly accounts in their heads, for neither could write,
+with the most perfect regularity and minuteness.  And his face did
+indeed bespeak confidence in his honesty, as he touched his hat in
+answer to the greeting.
+
+The ladies, however, looked and smelt in some dismay, for the centre of
+the yard was a mountain of manure and straw, with a puce-coloured pond
+beside it.  On the summit of the mountain a handsome ruddy cock, with a
+splendid dark-green arched tail, clucked, chuckled, and scratched for
+his speckled, rose-crowned hens, a green-headed, curly-tailed drake
+"steered forth his fleet upon the lake" of brown ducks and their yellow
+progeny, and pigs of the plum-pudding order rooted in the intermediate
+regions.  The road which led to the cart-sheds and to the house, skirted
+round this unsavoury tract.
+
+"Oh, Edmund!" sighed Mary.
+
+"Farmer's wife, Mary," said her husband, smiling.  "It ought to be a
+perfect nosegay to you."
+
+"I'm sure it is not wholesome," she said, looking really distressed, and
+he dropped his teasing tone, and said--
+
+"Of course it shall be remedied!  I will see to it."
+
+A dismal screeching and cackling here attracted the attention of the
+sisters, who started towards Pucklechurch's cottage, and the fowl-house,
+(a very foul house by the by) in front of which, on a low wooden stool,
+sat a tidy old woman, Betty Pucklechurch in fact, in a tall muslin cap,
+spotted kerchief blue gown, and coarse apron, with a big girl before her
+holding the unfortunate hen, whose cries had startled them.
+
+"Oh, don't go near!  She is killing it," cried Dora.
+
+"No;" as the hen, with a final squawk, shook out her ruffled feathers,
+and rushed away to tell her woes to her companions on the dunghill,
+while the old woman jumped up, smoothed down her apron, and curtsied
+low.
+
+"What were you doing?" asked Mary, still startled.
+
+"Only whipping her breast with nettles, ma'am, to teach her to sit close
+in her nest, the plaguey thing, and not be gadding after the rest."
+
+"Poor thing!" cried Dora.  "But oh, look, look, Mary, at the dear little
+chickens!"
+
+They were in the greatest delight at the three broods of downy little
+chickens, and one of ducklings, whose parent hens were clucking in
+coops; and in the kitchen they found a sickly one nursed in flannel in a
+basket, and an orphaned lamb which staggered upon its disproportionate
+black legs at sight of Betty.
+
+"Ay! he be always after me," she said.  "They terrify one terrible, as
+if 'twas their mother, till they can run with the rest."
+
+Dora would have petted the lamb, but it retreated from her, behind
+Betty's petticoats, and she could only listen to Mary's questions about
+how much butter was made from how many cows milk, and then be taken to
+see the two calves, one of which Betty pronounced to be "but a
+staggering Bob yet, but George Butcher would take he in a sen'night,"
+which sounded so like senate, that it set Dora wondering what council
+was to pronounce on the fate of the poor infant bull.
+
+Over his stall, Edmund found them, after an inspection of the pig-styes,
+and having much offended Master Pucklechurch by declaring that he would
+have them kept clean, and the pigs no longer allowed to range about the
+yard.
+
+"Bless you, sir, the poor things would catch their death of cold and
+die," was the answer to the one edict; and to the other, "They'd never
+take to their victuals, nor fat kindly without their range first."
+
+"Then let them have it in the home-field out there, where I see plenty
+of geese."
+
+"They'll spile every bit of grass, sir," was the growling objection; and
+still worse was the suggestion, which gradually rose into a command,
+that the "muck-heap" should be removed to the said home-field, and never
+allowed to accumulate in such close proximity to the house.
+
+Pucklechurch said little; but his "If it be your will, sir," sounded
+like a snarl, and after ruminating for some time, he brought out--as if
+it were an answer to a question about the team of horses--
+
+"We'll have to take on another boy, let be a man, if things is to be a
+that 'en a."
+
+"Let us, then," said the captain, and joined his ladies, with the old
+man depressed and grumbling inwardly.
+
+There was an orchard preparing to be beautiful with blossom, and a
+considerable kitchen garden at the back and on the other side of the
+house, bounded by an exceedingly dirty and be-rutted farm road, over
+which the carriage had jolted the evening before.  The extensive
+home-field in front was shut off from the approach by a belt of
+evergreens, and sloped slightly upwards towards the hill which gave the
+parish its name.
+
+"We will cut off a nice carriage road," said Mary, as she looked at it.
+
+"All in good time," replied her husband, not wishing further to shock
+poor Master Pucklechurch, who had to conduct the party to the arable
+fields--one of which was being ploughed by three fine sleek horses, led
+by Bill Morris, with his father at the shafts.  In another, their
+approach was greeted by hideous yells and shouts which made Dora start.
+
+"Ay, ay," said Pucklechurch, "he knows how to holler when he see me
+a-coming;" and at the same time a black-specked cloud of rooks rose up
+from the furrows, the old man stamping towards the boy who ought to have
+been keeping them, vituperating him in terms that it was as well not to
+hear.
+
+And it was such a tiny boy after all, and in such a pair of huge boots
+with holes showing his bare toes.  However, they served him to run away
+from Master Pucklechurch into the furthest ditch, and if the ladies had
+designs on him, they had to be deferred.
+
+On the opposite side were more fields, with crops in various stages, one
+lovely with the growing wheat and barley, another promising potatoes,
+and another beans; and beyond, towards the river, were meadows parted by
+broad hedgerows, with paths between, in which a few primroses and golden
+celandines looked up beneath the withy buds and the fluttering hazel
+catkins.  Then came the meadows, in one of which fed the cows, pretty
+buff-and-white creatures, and in another field were hurdled the sheep,
+among their dole of turnips, sheep and turnips alike emitting an odour
+of the most unpleasant kind, and the deep baas of the ewes, and the
+thinner wail of the lambs made a huge mass of sounds; while Captain
+Carbonel tried to talk to Master Buttermere the shepherd, a silent,
+crusty, white-haired old man in a green smock and grey old coat, who
+growled out scarcely a word.
+
+So the tour of the property was made, and old Pucklechurch expressed his
+opinion.  "He'll never make nothing of it; he is too outlandish and full
+of his fancies, and his madam's a fine lady.  'Pon my word and honour,
+she was frought at that there muck-heap!"
+
+This pleasant augury was of course not known to the new-comers, who
+found something so honest and worthy about the Pucklechurches that they
+could not help liking them, though Mrs Carbonel had another tussle with
+Betty about fresh butter.  "It war no good to make it more than once a
+week.  Folk liked it tasty and meller;" and that the Carbonels had by no
+means the same likings, made her hold up her hands and agree with her
+husband that their failure was certain.  These first few days were spent
+in the needful arrangements of house and furniture, during which time
+Captain Carbonel came to the conclusion that no one could be more stupid
+or awkward than Master Hewlett, but that he was an honest man, and tried
+to do his best, such as it was, while his relation, Dan, though
+cleverer, was much more slippery, and could not be depended upon.  Dora
+asked Master Hewlett what schools there were in the place, and he made
+answer that the little ones went in to Dame Verdon, but she didn't make
+much of it, not since she had had the shaking palsy, and she could not
+give the lads the stick.  He thought of sending his biggest lad to
+school at Poppleby next spring, but 'twas a long way, and his good woman
+didn't half like it, not unless there was some one going the same way.
+
+Betty Pucklechurch's account amounted to much the same.  "Dame Verdon
+had had the school nigh about forty years.  She had taught them all to
+read their Testament, all as stayed long enough, for there was plenty
+for the children to do; and folks said she wasn't up to hitting them as
+she used to be."
+
+Farmer Goodenough, the churchwarden, who came to see Captain Carbonel
+about the letting of a field which was mixed up with the Greenhow
+property, gave something of the like character.  "She is getting old,
+certain sure, but she is a deserving woman, and she keeps off the
+parish."
+
+"But can she teach the children?"
+
+"She can teach them all they need to know, and keep the little ones out
+of mischief," said the farmer, perhaps beginning to be alarmed.  "No use
+to learn them no more.  What do they want of it for working in the
+fields or milking the cows?"
+
+"They ought at least to know their duty to God and their neighbour,"
+said Captain Carbonel.  "Is there no Sunday School?"
+
+"No, sir,"--very bluntly.  "I hear talk of such things at Poppleby and
+the like," he added, "but we don't want none of them here.  The lot here
+are quite bad enough, without maggots being put into their heads."
+
+Captain Carbonel did not wish to continue the subject.  The farmer's own
+accent did not greatly betoken acquaintance with schools of any sort.
+
+Of course the wife and sister were amused as well as saddened by his
+imitative account of the farmer's last speech, but they meant to study
+the subject on their first Sunday.  They had learnt already that Uphill
+Priors was a daughter church to Downhill Priors, and had only one
+service on a Sunday, alternate mornings and evenings.  The vicar was the
+head of a house at Oxford, and only came to the parsonage in the summer.
+The services were provided for by a curate, living at Downhill, with
+the assistance of the master of a private school, to whom the vicarage
+was let.  When Captain Carbonel asked Master Pucklechurch about the
+time, he answered, "Well, sir, 'tis morning churching.  So it will be
+half-past ten, or else eleven, or else no time at all."
+
+"What, do you mean that there will be none?"
+
+"No, sir.  There will be churching sure enough, but just as time may
+chance, not to call it an hour.  Best way is to start as soon as you
+sights the parson a-coming past the gate down there.  Then you're sure
+to be in time.  Bell strikes out as soon as they sees him beyond the
+`Prior's Lane.'"
+
+The Carbonels, in Sunday trim, with William the man-servant, and two
+maids, their Prayerbooks in white pocket-handkerchiefs, following in the
+rear, set forth for the gate, in the spring freshness.  The grass in the
+fields was beginning to grow up, the hedges were sprouting with tender
+greens and reds, the polished stems of the celandine were opening to the
+sunshine in the banks, with here and there a primrose.  Birds were
+singing all round, and a lark overhead--most delightful pleasures to
+those so long shut up in a town.  It was the side of a hill, where the
+fields were cut out into most curious forms, probably to suit the
+winding of a little brook or the shape of the ground; and there were,
+near the bottom, signs of a mass of daffodils, which filled the sisters
+with delight, though daffodils were not then the fashion, and were
+rather despised as yellow and scentless.
+
+As they came near the second gate, they saw a black figure go by on an
+old white horse; then they came out on a long ascending lane with deep
+ruts, bordered by fresh soft turf on either sides, with hawthorn hedges,
+and at intervals dark yew trees.
+
+A cracked bell struck up, by which they understood that the clergyman
+had come in sight, and they came themselves out upon a village green,
+where geese, donkeys, and boys in greenish smock-frocks, seemed to be
+all mixed up together.  Thatched cottages stood round the green, and a
+public-house--the "Fox and Hounds."  The sign consisted of a hunt,
+elaborately cut out in tin, huntsman, dogs, and fox, rushing across from
+the inn on a high uplifted rod of iron, fastened into a pole on the
+further side of the road, whence the sound of the bell proceeded, and
+whither the congregation in smock-frocks and black bonnets were making
+their way.
+
+Following in this direction, the Carbonels, much amused, passed under
+the hunt, went some distance further, and found a green churchyard,
+quite shut in by tall elm trees, which, from the road, almost hid the
+tiny tumble-down church, from whose wooden belfry the call proceeded.
+It really seemed to be buried in the earth, and the little side windows
+looked out into a ditch.  There were two steps to go down into the deep
+porch, and within there seemed to be small space between the roof and
+the top of the high square pew into which they were ushered by Master
+Hewlett, who, it seemed, was the parish clerk.
+
+They saw little from it, but on one side, hung from the roof a huge
+panel with the royal arms, painted in the reign of William and Mary, as
+the initials in the corners testified, and with the lion licking his
+lips most comically; on the other side was a great patch of green damp;
+behind, a gallery, full of white smock-frocked men with their knees
+thrust through the rails in front.  Immediately before them rose the
+tall erection of pulpit, the fusty old cushion and tassels, each faded
+to a different tint, overhanging so much that Dora could not help
+thinking that a thump from an energetic preacher would send it down on
+Edmund's head in a cloud of dust.  There was the reading-desk below,
+whence the edges of a ragged Prayer-book protruded, and above it
+presently appeared a very full but much-frayed surplice, and a thin worn
+face between white whiskers.  The service was quietly and reverently
+read, but not a response seemed to come from anywhere except from Master
+Hewlett's powerful lungs, somewhere in the rear, and there was a certain
+murmur of chattering in the chancel followed by a resounding whack.
+Then Master Hewlett's head was seen, and his steps heard as he tramped
+along the aisle and climbed up the gallery stairs, as the General
+Thanksgiving began, and there he shouted out the number of the Psalm,
+"new version," that is, from Brady and Tate, which every one had bound
+up with the Prayer-book.  Then a bassoon brayed, and a fiddle squealed,
+and the Psalm resounded with hearty goodwill and better tone than could
+have been expected.
+
+Master Hewlett stayed to assist in the second singing, and the children,
+who sat on low forms and on the chancel step, profited by it to make
+their voices more audible than the Commandments, though the clergyman
+had not gone to the altar, and once in the course of the sermon, Captain
+Carbonel was impelled to stand up and look over the edge of the pew,
+when he beheld a battle royal going on over a length of string, between
+a boy in a blue petticoat and one in a fustian jacket.  At the unwonted
+sight, the fustian-clad let go, and blue petticoat tumbled over
+backwards, kicking up a great pair of red legs, grey socks, and
+imperfect but elephantine boots, and howling at the same time.  The
+preacher stopped short, the clerk had by this time worked his way down
+from the gallery, and, collaring both the antagonists, hauled them out
+into the churchyard, the triple stamping being heard on the pavement all
+the way.  The sermon was resumed and read to its conclusion.  It was a
+very good one, but immensely beyond the capacity of the congregation,
+and Mary Carbonel had a strong suspicion that she had heard it before.
+
+It was only on coming out that any notion could be gathered of the
+congregation.  There were a good many men and big boys, in smocks, a few
+green, but most of them beautifully white and embroidered; their wearers
+had sat without books through the whole service, and now came out with
+considerable trampling.
+
+The pews contained the young girls in gorgeous colours, the old women,
+and the better class of people, but not many of them, for the "_petit
+noblesse_" of Uphill were very "_petit_" indeed, in means and numbers;
+but their bonnets were enormous, and had red or purple bows standing
+upright on them, and the farmers had drab coats and long gaiters.  The
+old dames curtsied low, the little girls stared, and the boys peeped out
+from behind the slanting old headstones and grinned.  Some of them had
+been playing at marbles on the top of the one square old monument, until
+routed by Master Hewlett on his coming out with the two combatants.
+
+Captain Carbonel had gone round to the vestry door to make acquaintance
+with the clergyman, though Farmer Goodenough informed him in an audible
+whisper, "He ain't the right one, sir; he be only schoolmaster."
+
+And when the two met at the door, and the captain shook hands and said
+that they would be neighbours, he was received with a certain hesitating
+smile.
+
+"I should tell you, sir, that I am only taking occasional duty here--
+assisting.  I am Mr Atkins.  I have a select private academy at the
+vicarage, which the President of Saint Cyril's lets to me.  He is here
+in the summer holidays."
+
+"I understand.  The curate lives at Downhill!" said Captain Carbonel.
+
+"At the priory, in fact, with his father's family.  Yes, it is rather an
+unfortunate state of affairs," he said, answering the captain's
+countenance rather than his words; "but I have no responsibility.  I
+merely assist in the Sunday duty; and, indeed, I advise you to have as
+little to do with the Uphill people as possible.  An idle
+good-for-nothing set!  Any magistrate would tell you that there's no
+parish where they have so many up before them."
+
+"No wonder!" said Captain Carbonel under his breath.
+
+"A bad set," repeated Mr Atkins, pausing at the shed where his old grey
+horse was put up; and there they parted.
+
+The captain and his wife and her sister walked to Downhill, two miles
+off, across broad meadows, a river, and a pretty old bridge, the next
+Sunday morning, found the church scantily filled, but with more
+respectable-looking people, and heard the same sermon over again, so
+that Mary was able to identify it with one in a published volume.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+THE TURNIP FIELD.
+
+  "You ask me why the poor complain,
+  And these have answered thee."
+  _Southey_.
+
+"Hullo, Molly Hewlett, who'd ha' thought of seeing you out here?"
+
+It was in a wet turnip field, and a row of women were stooping over it,
+picking out the weeds.  The one that was best off had great boots, a
+huge weight to carry in themselves; but most had them sadly torn and
+broken.  Their skirts, of no particular colour, were tucked up, and they
+had either a very old man's coat, or a smock-frock cut short, or a small
+old woollen shawl, which last left the blue and red arms bare; on their
+heads were the oldest of bonnets, or here and there a sun-bonnet, which
+looked more decent.  One or two babies were waiting in the hedgeside in
+the charge of little girls.
+
+"Molly Hewlett," exclaimed another of the set, straightening herself up.
+"Why, I thought your Dan was working with Master Hewlett, for they
+Gobblealls," (which was what Uphill made of Carbonel).
+
+"So he be; but what is a poor woman to do when more than half his wage
+goes to the `Fox and Hounds,' and she has five children to keep and my
+poor sister, not able to do a turn?  There's George Hewlett, grumbling
+and growling at him too, and no one knows how long he'll keep him on."
+
+"What!  George, his cousin, as was bound to keep him on?"
+
+"I don't know; George is that particular himself, and them new folks,
+Gobbleall as they call them, are right down mean, and come down on you
+if they misses one little mossle of parkisit; and there's my poor sister
+to keep--as is afflicted, and can't do nothing!"
+
+"But she pays you handsome," said Betsy Seddon, "and looks after the
+children besides."
+
+"Pays, indeed!  Not half enough to keep her, with all the trouble of
+helping her about!  Not that I grudges it, but she wants things extry,
+you see, and Dan he don't like it.  But no doubt the ladies will take
+notice of her."
+
+"I thought the lady kind enough," interposed another woman.  "She
+noticed how lame our granny was with the rheumatics, and told me to send
+up for broth."
+
+"We wants somewhat bad enough," returned another thin woman, with her
+hand to her side.  "Nobody never does nothing for no one here!"
+
+"Nor we don't want no one to come worriting and terrifying," cried the
+last of the group, with fierce black eyes and rusty black hair sticking
+out beyond her man's beaver hat, tied on with a yellow handkerchief.
+"Always at one about church and school, and meddling with everything--
+the ribbon on one's bonnet and to the very pots on the fire.  I knows
+what they be like in Tydeby!  And what do you get by it, but old cast
+clothes and broth made of dish-washings?"  She enforced all this with
+more than one word not to be written.
+
+"I know, I'd be thankful for that!" murmured the thin woman, who looked
+as if she had barely a petticoat on, and could have had scarcely a
+breakfast.
+
+"Oh, we all know's Bessy Mole is all for what she can get!" said the
+independent woman, tossing her head.
+
+"And had need to be," returned Molly Hewlett, in a scornful tone, which
+made the poor woman in question stoop all the lower, and pull her
+groundsel more diligently.
+
+"The broth ain't bad," ventured she who had tried it.
+
+"I shall see what I can get out of them," added another.  "I bain't
+proud; and my poor children's shoes is a shame to see."
+
+"You'll not get much," said Molly Hewlett, with a sniff.  "The captain,
+as they calls him, come down on my Jem, as was taking home a little bit
+of a chip for the fire, and made him put it down, as cross as could be."
+
+"How now, you lazy, trolloping, gossiping women!  What are you after?"
+
+Farmer Goodenough was upon them; and the words he showered on them were
+not by any means "good enough" to be repeated here.  He stormed at them
+for their idleness so furiously as to set off the babies in the hedge
+screaming and yelling.  Tirzah Todd, the gipsy-looking woman whom he
+especially abused, tossed her head and marched off in the midst,
+growling fiercely, to quiet her child; and he, sending a parting
+imprecation after her, directed his violence upon poor Bessy Mole,
+though all this time she had been creeping on, shaking, trembling, and
+crying, under the pelting of the storm; but, unluckily, in her
+nervousness and blindness from tears, she pulled up a young turnip, and
+the farmer fell on her and rated her hotly for not being worth half her
+wage, and doing him more harm than good with her carelessness.  She had
+not a word to say for herself, and went on shivering and trying to check
+her sobs while he shouted out that he only employed her from charity,
+and she had better look out, or he should turn her off at once.
+
+"Oh, sir, don't!" then came out with a burst of tears.  "My poor
+children--"
+
+"Don't go whining about your children, but let me see you do your work."
+
+However, this last sentence was in a milder tone, as if the fit of
+passion had exhausted itself; and Mr Goodenough found his way back to
+the path that crossed the fields, and went on.  Tirzah Todd set her
+teeth, clenched her fist and shook it after him, while the other women,
+as soon as he was out of sight, began to console Bessy Mole, who was
+crying bitterly and saying, "what would become of her poor children, and
+her own poor father."
+
+"Never you mind, Bessy," said Molly Hewlett, "every one knows as how old
+Goodenough's bark is worse than his bite."
+
+"He runs out and it's over," put in Betsy Seddon.
+
+"I'm sure I can hardly keep about any way," sobbed the widow.  "My
+inside is all of a quake.  I can't abide words."
+
+"Ten to one he don't give you another sixpence a week, after all," added
+Nanny Barton.
+
+"He ain't no call to run out at one," said Tirzah, standing upright and
+flourishing her baby.
+
+"I'd like to give him as good as he gave, an old foul-mouthed brute!"
+
+"Look there!  There's the ladies coming," exclaimed Nanny Barton.
+
+"I thought there was some reason why he stopped his jaw so soon,"
+exclaimed Molly, stooping down and pulling up weeds (including turnips)
+with undiscerning energy, in which all the others followed her example,
+except Tirzah, who sulkily retreated under the hedge with her baby,
+while Jem Hewlett and Lizzie Seddon ran forward for better convenience
+of staring.  It was a large field, and the party were still a good way
+off; but as it sloped downwards behind the women, the farmer must have
+seen them a good deal before the weeders had done so.
+
+These, be it remembered, were days when both farmers and their labourers
+were a great deal rougher in their habits than we, their grandchildren,
+can remember them; and there was, besides, the Old Poor Law, which left
+the amount of relief and of need to be fixed at the vestry meetings by
+the ratepayers themselves of each parish alone so that the poor were
+entirely dependent on the goodwill or judgment of their employers, whose
+minds were divided between keeping down the wages and the rates, and who
+had little of real principle or knowledge to guide them.  It was
+possible to have recourse to the magistrates at the Petty Sessions, who
+could give an order which would override the vestry; but it was apt to
+be only the boldest, and often the least deserving, who could make out
+the best apparent cases for themselves, that ventured on such a measure.
+
+The two ladies stopped and spoke to Molly Hewlett and Nanny Barton, whom
+they had seen at their doors, and who curtsied low; and Nanny, as she
+saw Mrs Carbonel's eyes fall on her boots, put in--
+
+"Yes, ma'am, 'tis bitter hard work this cold, damp weather, and wears
+out one's shoes ter'ble.  These be an old pair of my man's, and hurts my
+poor feet dreadful, all over broken chilblains as they be; and my
+fingers, too," she added, spreading out some fingers the colour of
+beetroot, with dirty rags rolled round two of them.
+
+Dora shrank.  "And you can go on weeding with them?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am.  What can us do, when one's man gets but seven shillings a
+week.  And I've had six children, and buried three," and her face looked
+ready for tears.
+
+"Well, we will come and see you, and try to find something to help you,"
+said Mrs Carbonel.  "Where do you live?"
+
+"Out beyond the church, ma'am--a long way for a lady."
+
+"Oh, we are good walkers."
+
+"And please, my lady," now said Molly, coming to the front, "if you
+could give me an old bit of a pelisse, or anything, to make up for my
+boy there.  He's getting big, you see, and he is terrible bad off for
+clothes.  I don't know what is to be done for the lot of 'em."
+
+Dora had recognised in the staring boy, who had come up close, him who
+had made the commotion in church; and she ventured to say, "I remember
+him.  Don't you think, if you or his father kept him with you in church,
+he would behave better there?"
+
+"Bless you, miss, his father is a sceptic.  I can't go while I've got no
+clothes--nothing better than this, miss; and I always was used to go
+decent and respectable.  Besides, I couldn't nohow take he into the seat
+with me, as Master Pucklechurch would say I was upsetting of his
+missus."
+
+"Well, I hope to see him behave better next Sunday."
+
+"Do you hear, Jem?  The lady is quite shocked at your rumbustiousness!
+But 'twas all Joe Saunders's fault, ma'am, a terrifying the poor
+children.  His father will give him the stick, that he will, if he hears
+of it again."
+
+Meantime Mrs Carbonel had turned to Widow Mole, who, after her first
+curtsey, had been weeding away diligently and coughing.
+
+"Where do you live?" she asked.  "I don't think I have seen you before."
+
+"No, ma'am," she said quietly.  "I live down the Black Hollow."
+
+"You don't look well.  Have you been ill?  You have a bad cough."
+
+"It ain't nothing, ma'am, thank you.  I can keep about well enough."
+
+"Do you take anything for it?"
+
+"A little yarb tea at night sometimes, ma'am."
+
+"We will try and bring you some mixture for it," said Mrs Carbonel.
+And then she spoke to Betsy Seddon, who for a wonder had no request on
+her tongue, and asked her who the other woman was, in the hedge with the
+baby.
+
+"That's Tirzah Todd, ma'am," began Mrs Seddon, but Molly Hewlett thrust
+her aside, and went on, being always the most ready with words; "she is
+Reuben Todd's wife, and I wouldn't wish to say no harm of her, but she
+comes of a gipsy lot, and hasn't never got into ways that us calls
+reverend, though I wouldn't be saying no harm of a neighbour, ma'am."
+
+"No, you'd better not," exclaimed a voice, for Tirzah was nearer or had
+better ears than Mrs Daniel Hewlett had suspected, "though I mayn't go
+hypercriting about and making tales of my neighbours, as if you hadn't
+got a man what ain't to be called sober twice a week."
+
+"Hush! hush!" broke in Mrs Carbonel; "we don't want to hear all this.
+I hope no one will tell us unkind things of our new neighbours, for we
+want to be friends with all of you, especially with that bright-eyed
+baby.  How old is it?"
+
+She made it smile by nodding to it, and Tirzah was mollified enough to
+say, "Four months, ma'am; but she have a tooth coming."
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+Tirzah showed her pretty white teeth in a smile.  "Well, ma'am, my
+husband he doth want to call her Jane, arter his mother, 'cause 'tis a
+good short name, but I calls her Hoglah, arter my sister as died."
+
+"Then she hasn't been christened?"
+
+"No.  You see we couldn't agree, nor get gossips; and that there parson,
+he be always in such a mighty hurry, or I'd a had her half-baptized
+Hoglah, and then Reuben he couldn't hinder it."
+
+Tirzah was getting quite confidential to Mrs Carbonel, and Dora
+meantime was talking to Molly Hewlett, but here it occurred to the
+former that they must not waste the women's time, and they wished them
+good-bye, Dora fearing, however, that there would be a quarrel between
+Tirzah and Molly.
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" she sighed, "couldn't you make peace between those
+two," she said; "they will fight it out."
+
+"No, I think the fear of the farmer and the need of finishing their work
+will avert the storm for the present at least," said Mary, "and I
+thought the more I said, the worse accusations I should hear."
+
+"But what people they are!  I do begin to believe that attorney man,
+that they are a bad lot."
+
+"Don't be disheartened, Dora, no one has tried yet, apparently, to do
+anything for them.  We must try to see them in their own homes."
+
+"Beginning with Mrs Seddon.  She was quiet and civil, and did not beg."
+
+"Neither did that thin little woman.  I should like to give her a
+flannel petticoat.  There is a look of want about her."
+
+"But I'm most taken with the wild woman, with the teeth and the eyes,
+and the merry smile.  I am sure there is fun in her."
+
+"Little enough fun, poor things!" sighed Mrs Carbonel.
+
+She was more used to poor people.  She had more resolution, though less
+enthusiasm than her sister.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+NOBODY'S BUSINESS.
+
+  "For the rector don't live on his living like other Christian sort of
+  folks."--_T.  Hood_.
+
+The sisters found on coming home that a very handsome chestnut horse was
+being walked up and down before the front door, and their man-servant,
+William, informed them that it belonged to the clergyman.
+
+As they advanced to the verandah, Captain Carbonel and his visitor came
+out to meet them, and Mr Ashley Selby was introduced.  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."
+
+"Perhaps they may be improved."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.  "See what my father has to say of them."
+
+"Is there much distress?"
+
+"There ought not to be, for old Dr Fogram and my father send down a
+handsome sum for blankets and coals every Christmas, and Uphill takes
+care to get its share!"  He laughed.  "No sinecure distributing!"
+
+"We have not been to see the school yet."
+
+"A decrepit old crone, poor old body!  She will soon have to give in.
+She can't even keep the children from pulling off her spectacles."
+
+"And Sunday School?"
+
+"Well, my father doesn't approve of cramming the poor children.  I
+believe the Methodists have something of the kind at Downhill; but there
+is no one to attend to one here, and the place is quite free of
+dissent."
+
+"Cause and effect?" said Captain Carbonel, drily.
+
+"Would you object if we tried to teach the poor children something?"
+asked Mrs Carbonel, cautiously.
+
+"Oh no, not at all.  All the good ladies are taking it up, I believe.
+Mrs Grantley, of Poppleby, is great at it, and I see no harm in it; but
+you'll have to reckon with my father.  He says there will soon be no
+ploughmen, and my mother says there will be no more cooks or housemaids.
+You'd better write to old Fogram, he'll back you up."
+
+Mary had it on her lips to ask him about Widow Mole, but he had turned
+to Edmund to discuss the hunting and the shooting of the neighbourhood.
+They discovered, partly at this time, and partly from other visitors,
+that he was the younger son of the squire of Downhill, who had been made
+to take Holy Orders without any special fitness for it, because there
+was a living likely soon to be ready for him, and in the meantime he was
+living at home, an amiable, harmless young man, but bred up so as to
+have no idea of the duties of his vocation, and sharing freely in the
+sports of his family, acting as if he believed, like his father, that
+they were the most important obligations of man; and accepting the
+general household belief that only the Methodistical could wish for more
+religious practice.
+
+Be it understood that all this happened in the earlier years of the
+century, and would be impossible under the revival of the Church that
+has since taken place.  No one now can hold more than one piece of
+preferment at a time, so that parishes cannot be left unprovided.  Nor
+could Ashley Selby be ordained without a preparation and examination
+which would have given him a true idea of what he undertook, or would
+have prevented his ordination.  This, however, was at a time when the
+work of the church had grown very slack, and when a better spirit was
+beginning to revive.  The father of Mary and Dora had been a zealous and
+earnest man, and both they and Edmund had really serious ideas of duty
+and of the means of carrying them out.  In London they had heard sermons
+which had widened and deepened their views, but they had done no work,
+as the relation with whom they lived thought it impossible and improper
+for young ladies there.  Thus they were exceedingly desirous of doing
+what they could to help the place where their lot was cast, and they set
+forth to reconnoitre.  First, they found their way to the school, which
+stood on the border of the village green, a picturesque thatched
+cottage, with a honeysuckle and two tall poplars outside.  But strange
+sounds guided them on their way, and the first thing they saw was a
+stout boy of four or five years old in petticoats bellowing loudly
+outside, and trying to climb the wicket gate which was firmly secured by
+a rusty chain.  Mary tried to undo the gate, speaking meanwhile to the
+urchin, but he rushed away headlong back into the school, and they heard
+him howling, "They bees a-coming!"
+
+A big girl in a checkered pinafore came out and made a curtsey,
+assisting to undo the chain.
+
+"What has he been doing?" asked Dora.
+
+"He be a mortial bad boy!" answered the girl.  "He've been getting at
+Dame Verdon's sugar."
+
+"And what is your name?" asked Mrs Carbonel.
+
+"Lizzie Verdon, ma'am.  I helps Grannie."
+
+Grannie did seem in need of help.  There she sat in a big wooden chair
+by the fire, the very picture of an old dame, with a black bonnet,
+high-crowned and crescent shaped in front, with a white muslin cap
+below, a buff handkerchief crossed over her shoulders, a dark
+short-sleeved gown, long mittens covering her arms, and a checkered
+apron; a regular orthodox birch-rod by her side, and a black cat at her
+feet.  But her head was shaking with palsy, and she hardly seemed to
+understand what Lizzie screamed into her ear that, "Here was the
+ladies."
+
+But the door which they had shut in the face of their spaniel was thrust
+open.  Up went the cat's back, bristle went her tail, her eyes shot
+sparks, and she bounded to the top of her mistress's chair.  Dandy
+barked defiance, all the children shouted or screamed and danced about,
+and the old woman gasped and shook more.  Lizzie alone was almost equal
+to the occasion.  She flew at the cat who was standing on tiptoe on the
+tall back of the chair, with huge tail and eyes like green lamps,
+swearing, hissing, and spitting, and, regardless of scratches, caught
+him up by the scruff of his neck and disposed of him behind the
+staircase door; while Dora at the same moment secured Dandy by the
+collar, and rushing out, put him over the garden gate and shut both that
+and the door.  Mary, afraid that the old lady was going to have a fit,
+went up to her with soothing apologies, but the unwonted sight seemed to
+confuse her the more, and she began crying.  Lizzie, however, came to
+the rescue.  She evidently had all her wits about her.  First she called
+out: "Order, children.  Don't you see the ladies?  Sit down, Jem
+Hewlett, or I'll after you with the stick!"  Then, as the children
+ranged themselves, she stamped at some to enforce her orders, shook the
+rod at others, and set up the smallest like so many ninepins, handling
+them by the shoulder on one small bench, interspersing the work with
+consolations to granny and explanations to the ladies, who were about to
+defer their visit.
+
+"Granny, now never you mind.  Tip is all right upstairs.  Benny, you bad
+boy, I'll be at you.  Don't go, please, lady.  Bet, what be doin' to
+Jim?  Never mind, granny!  Susan Pucklechurch, you'll read to the lady,
+so pretty."
+
+About five children, more tidily dressed than the others, had a whole
+and sound form to themselves near the fire and the mistress.  The other
+two benches were propped, the one on two blocks of wood, the other on
+two sound and two infirm legs, and this was only balanced by a child at
+each end, so that when one got up the whole tumbled down or flew up, but
+the seat was very low, and the catastrophe generally produced mirth.
+
+Susan Pucklechurch, granddaughter to the old bailiff and his Betty, was
+evidently the show scholar.  "She be in her Testament, ma'am," explained
+Lizzie; and accordingly a terribly thumbed and dilapidated New Testament
+was put into the child's hand, from which she proceeded to bawl out,
+with long pauses between the words, and spelling the longest, a piece of
+the Sermon on the Mount, selected because there were no names in it.  It
+was a painful performance to reverent ears, and as soon as practicable
+Mrs Carbonel stopped it with "Good child!" and a penny, and asked what
+the others read.  Those who were not "in the Testament" read the
+"Universal Spelling-book," provided at their own expense, but not in
+much better condition, and from this George Hewlett, son and heir to the
+carpenter, and a very different person from his cousin Jem, read the
+history of the defence of that city where each trade offered its own
+commodity for the defence, even to the cobbler, who proposed to lay in a
+stock of good l-e-a-t-h-e-r--lather!
+
+These, and three little maidens who had picture spelling-books not going
+beyond monosyllables, were the aristocracy, and sat apart, shielded from
+the claws and teeth of their neighbours in consideration of paying
+fourpence, instead of twopence, a week.  The boy was supposed to write
+large letters on a slate, and the bigger girls did some needlework, and
+not badly--indeed, it was the best of their performances.  The dame went
+on mumbling and shaking all the time, and it was quite evident that she
+was entirely past the work, and that Lizzie was the real mistress;
+indeed, Mrs Carbonel was inclined to give her credit for a certain
+talent for teaching and keeping order, when the sisters emerged from the
+close little oven of a place, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry,
+but full of great designs.
+
+Captain Carbonel, however, to their disappointment, advised them to wait
+to set anything on foot till Dr Fogram, the President of Saint Cyril's,
+came down in the summer holidays, when counsel could be taken with him,
+and there would be more knowledge of the subject.  Dora did not like
+this at all.  She was sure that the Son of Mist, as she was naughty
+enough to call the doctor, would only hamper them, and she was only half
+consoled by being told that there was no objection to her collecting a
+few of the children on Sunday and trying to teach them, and in the
+meantime acquaintance might be made with the mothers.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+AT HOME.
+
+  "Now I've gone through all the village, from end to end,
+  save and except one more house;
+  But I haven't come to that, and I hope I never shall,
+  and that's the village Poor House."
+  _T.  Hood_.
+
+Cottage visiting turned out to be a much chequered affair.  One of the
+first places to which the sisters made their way was the Widow Mole's.
+They found it, rather beyond the church, down a lane, where it was
+hidden behind an overgrown thorn hedge, and they would scarcely have
+found it at all, if a three-year-old child had not been clattering an
+old bit of metal against the bar put across to prevent his exit.  He was
+curly and clean, except with the day's surface dirt, but he only stared
+stolidly at the question whether Mrs Mole lived there.  A ten-year-old
+girl came out, and answered the question.
+
+"Yes, mother do live here, but her be out at work."
+
+"Is that your grandfather?" as they caught sight of a very old man on a
+chair by the door, in the sun.
+
+"Yes, ma'am.  Will you come in and see him?"
+
+He was a very old man, with scanty white hair, but he was very clean,
+and neatly dressed in a white smock, mended all over, but beautifully
+worked over the breast and cuffs, and long leather buskins.  He was very
+civil, too.  He took off his old straw hat, and rose slowly by the help
+of his stout stick, though the first impulse of the visitors was to beg
+him not to move.  He did not hear them, but answered their gesture.
+
+"I be so crippled up with the rheumatics, you see, ma'am," and he put
+his knotted and contracted hand up to his ear.
+
+Mrs Carbonel shouted into his ear that she was sorry for him.  She
+supposed his daughter was out at work.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, with Farmer Goodenough--a charing to-day it is."
+
+"Washing," screamed the little girl.
+
+"She was off at five o'clock this morning," he went on.  "She do work
+hard, my daughter Bess, and she's a good one to me, and so is little Liz
+here.  Thank the Lord for them."
+
+"And her husband is dead?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am.  Fell off a haystack three years ago, and never spoke no
+more.  We have always kept off the parish, ma'am.  This bit of a cottage
+was my poor wife's, and she do want to leave it to the boy; but she be
+but frail, poor maid, and if she gave in, there'd be nothing for it but
+to give up the place and go to the workhouse; and there's such a lot
+there as I could not go and die among."
+
+He spoke it to the sympathising faces, not as one begging, and they
+found out that all was as he said.  He had seen better days, and held
+his head above the parish pay, and so had his son-in-law but the early
+death of poor Mole, and the old man's crippled state, had thrown the
+whole maintenance of the family on the poor young widow, who was really
+working herself to death, while, repairs being impossible, the cottage
+was almost falling down.
+
+"Oh, what a place, and what a dear old man!" cried the ladies, as they
+went out.  "Well, we can do something here.  I'll come and read to him
+every week," exclaimed Dora.
+
+"And I will knit him a warm jacket," said Mary, "and surely Edmund could
+help them to prop up that wretched cottage."
+
+"What a struggle their lives must have been, and so patient and good!
+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."
+
+For besides that he was very particular about his ladies, and had no
+notion of letting them go to all the varieties of evil where they could
+hope to do good, like the ladies of our days, the workhouse was an
+utterly different place from the strictly disciplined union houses of
+the present Poor Law.  Each parish had its own, and that of Uphill had
+no master, no order, but was the refuge of all the disorderly,
+disreputable people, who could not get houses, or pay their rent, who
+lived in any kind of fashion, on parish pay and what they could get, and
+were under no restraint.
+
+While the captain was explaining to them what he had heard from Farmer
+Goodenough, a sudden noise of shouting and laughing, with volleys of
+evil words, was heard near the "Fox and Hounds."
+
+"What is that?" asked Dora, of a tidy young woman coming her way.
+
+"That's only the chaps at old Sam," she answered, as if it was an
+ordinary sound.  And on them exclaiming, she explained.  "Samson
+Sanderson, that's his name, sir.  He be what they calls _non-compos_,
+and the young fellows at the `Fox and Hounds' they have their fun out of
+he.  They do bait he shameful."
+
+Violent shouts of foul words and riotous laughter could be distinguished
+so plainly, that Captain Carbonel hastily thrust his wife and sister
+into the nearest cottage, and marched into the group of rough men and
+boys, who stood holloaing rude jokes, and laughing at the furious oaths
+and abuse in intermittent gasps with which they were received.
+
+"For shame!" his indignant voice broke in.  "Are you not ashamed,
+unmanly fellows, to treat a poor weak lad in this way?"
+
+There was a moment's silence.  Then a great hulking drover called out,
+"Bless you, sir, he likes it."
+
+"The more shame for you," exclaimed the captain, "to bait a poor
+innocent lad with horrid blasphemy and profanity.  I tell you every one
+of you ought to be fined!"
+
+The men began to sneak away from the indignant soldier.  The poor idiot
+burst out crying and howling, and the ostler came forward, pulling his
+forelock, and saying, "You'll not be hard on 'em, sir.  'Tis all sport.
+There, Sammy, don't be afeared.  Gentleman means you no harm."
+
+Captain Carbonel held out some coppers, saying, "There, my poor lad,
+there's something for you.  Only don't let me hear bad words again."
+
+Sam muttered something, and pulled his ragged hat forward as he shambled
+off into some back settlements of the public-house, while the ostler
+went on--
+
+"'Tis just their game, sir!  None of 'em would hurt poor Sam!  They'd
+treat him the next minute, sir.  All in sport."
+
+"Strange sport," said the captain, "to teach a poor helpless lad, who
+ought to be as innocent as a babe, that abominable blasphemy."
+
+"He don't mean nought, sir!  All's one to he!"
+
+"All the worse in those who do know better, I tell you; and you may tell
+your master that, if this goes on, I shall certainly speak to the
+magistrates."
+
+There was no need to tell the landlord, Mr Oldfellow.  The captain was
+plainly enough to be heard through the window of the bar.  The drovers
+had no notion that their amusement was sinful, for "it didn't hurt no
+one," and, in fact, "getting a rise" out of Softy Sam was one of the
+great attractions of the "Fox and Hounds," so that Mr Oldfellow was of
+the same mind as Dan Hewlett, who declared that "they Gobblealls was
+plaguey toads of Methodys, and wasn't to think to bully them about like
+his soldiers."
+
+They had another drink all round to recover from their fright, when they
+treated Softy Sam, but took care not to excite him to be noisy, while
+the captain might be within earshot.
+
+The two ladies had meanwhile taken refuge in what proved to be no other
+than Mrs Daniel Hewlett's house, a better one, and less scantily
+provided with furniture, than the widow Mole's, but much less clean and
+neat.  The door stood open, and there was a tub full of soap-suds
+within.  The captain gave a low whistle to intimate his presence, and
+stood at the entrance.  Unwashed dinner things were on a round table, a
+dresser in confusion against the wall, on another _Moore's Almanack_ for
+some years past, full of frightful catastrophes, mixed with little,
+French, highly-coloured pictures of the Blessed Virgin.
+
+His wife and her sister were seated, the one on a whole straw chair, the
+other on a rickety one, conversing with a very neat, pale, and
+pleasant-looking invalid young woman, evidently little able to rise from
+her wooden armchair.  Molly Hewlett, in a coarse apron, and a cap far
+back amid the rusty black tangles of her hair, her arms just out of the
+wash-tub, was in the midst of a voluble discourse, into which the ladies
+would not break.
+
+"You see, ma'am, she was in a right good situation, but she was always
+unlucky, and she had the misfortune to fall down the attic stairs with
+the baby in her arms."
+
+"The baby was not hurt," put in the invalid.
+
+"Not it, the little toad, but 'twas saving he as ricked her back
+somehow, and made her a cripple for life, as you see, ma'am; and she was
+six months in the hospital, till the doctor, he say as how he couldn't
+do nothing more for her, so Hewlett and me we took her in, as she is my
+own sister, you see, and we couldn't let her go to the workhouse, but
+she do want a little broth or a few extrys now and then, ma'am, more
+than we poor folks can give her."
+
+"My mistress is very good, and gives me a little pension," put in the
+invalid, while her sister looked daggers at her, and Mrs Carbonel, in
+obedience to her husband's signal, took a hasty leave.
+
+"There now!  That's the way of you, Judith," cried Molly Hewlett,
+banging the door behind them.  "What should you go for to tell the
+ladies of that pitiful pay of yours but to spile all chance of their
+helping us, nasty, mean skin-flints as they be!"
+
+"I couldn't go for to deceive them," humbly replied Judith, meek, but
+cowering under the coming storm.
+
+"Who asked you to deceive?  Only to hold your tongue for your own good,
+and mine and my poor children's, that you just live upon.  As if your
+trumpery pay was worth your board and all the trouble I has with you
+night and day, but you must come in and hinder these new folk from
+coming down liberal with your Methody ways and your pride!  That's it,
+your pride, ma'am.  Oh, I'm an unhappy woman, between you and Dan!  I
+am!"
+
+Molly sank into a chair, put her apron over her face and cried, rocking
+herself to and fro, while Judith, with tears in her eyes, tried gentle
+consolations all in vain, till Molly remembered her washing, and rose
+up, moaning and lamenting.
+
+Meantime Mrs Carbonel and her sister were exclaiming in pity that this
+was a dear good girl, though Edmund shook his head over her
+surroundings.
+
+"I wonder how to make her more comfortable," said Dora.  "She seemed so
+much pleased when I promised to bring her something to read."
+
+"I am afraid those Hewletts prey on her," said Mary.
+
+"And patronising her will prove a complicated affair!" said the captain.
+
+He wanted them to come home at once, but on the way they met Nanny
+Barton, who began, with low curtsies, a lamentable story about her girls
+having no clothes, and she would certainly have extracted a shilling
+from Miss Carbonel if the captain had not been there.
+
+"Never accept stories told on the spur of the moment," he said.
+
+Then Betsy Seddon and Tirzah Todd came along together, bending under
+heavy loads of broken branches for their fires.  Tirzah smiled as usual,
+and showed her pretty teeth, but the captain looked after her, and said,
+"They have been tearing Mr Selby's woods to pieces."
+
+"What can they do for firewood?" said his wife.
+
+"Let us look out the rules of your father's coal store and shoe club,"
+he said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.
+
+  "Through slush and squad,
+  When roads was bad,
+  But hallus stop at the Vine and Hop."
+  _Tennyson_.
+
+Through all Pucklechurch's objections and evident contempt for his
+fancies, and those of young madam, Captain Carbonel insisted on the
+clearance of the yard.  He could not agree with the old man, who made
+free to tell him that, "Such as that there muck-heap was just a bucket
+to a farmer's wife, if she was to be called a farmer's wife--was that
+it."
+
+With some reflection, Captain Carbonel decided that a bucket might mean
+a bouquet, and answered, "Maybe she might have too much of a good thing.
+When I went down to Farmer Bell's the other day, they had a famous
+heap, and I was struck with the sickly look of his wife and daughters."
+
+"His missus were always a poor, nesh 'ooman," returned Pucklechurch.
+
+"And I don't mean mine to be like her if I can help it," said the
+captain.
+
+But he did not reckon on the arrival of a prancing pair of horses, with
+a smart open carriage, containing two ladies and a gentleman, in the
+most odorous part of the proceedings, when he was obliged to clear the
+way from a half-loaded waggon to make room for them, and, what was quite
+as inconvenient, to hurry up the back stairs to his dressing-room to
+take off his long gaiters, Blucher boots (as half high ones were then
+called) and old shooting coat, and make himself presentable.
+
+In fact, when he came into the room, Dora was amused at the perceptible
+look of surprised approval of the fine tall soldierly figure, as he
+advanced to meet Mr and Mrs Selby and their daughter, the nearest
+neighbours, who were, of course, in the regular course of instruction of
+the new-comers in the worthlessness and ingratitude of Uphill and the
+impossibility of doing anything for the good of the place.
+
+Mary was very glad that he interrupted the subject by saying merrily,
+"You caught me in the midst of my Augean stable.  I hope next time you
+are kind enough to visit us that the yard may be in a more respectable
+condition."
+
+Mr Selby observed that it was unpardonable not to have done the work
+beforehand, and the captain answered, "On the contrary, it was reserved
+as a fragrant bucket, or bouquet for a farmer's wife."
+
+Whereat the visitors looked shocked, and Mary made haste to observe:
+"But we do hope to make a better road to the house through the fields."
+
+"There is a great deal to be done first," said Dora, who thought the
+observation rather weak.
+
+Nothing else that was interesting took place on this occasion.  Mr
+Selby asked the captain whether he hunted, and gave him some information
+on the sport of all kinds in the neighbourhood.  Miss Selby asked Dora
+if she liked archery, music, and drawing.  Mrs Selby wanted to
+recommend a housemaid, and advised Mrs Carbonel against ever taking a
+servant from the neighbourhood.  And then they all turned to talk of the
+evil doings of the parish thieves, poachers, idlers, drunkards, and to
+warn the Carbonels once more against hoping to improve them.  The horses
+could be heard pawing and jingling outside, and, as the ladies rose to
+take leave, Captain Carbonel begged leave to hurry out and clear the
+coast.  And it was well that he did so, for he had to turn back a whole
+procession of cows coming in to be milked, and sundry pigs behind them.
+
+The farm court was finished, and never was so bad again, the animals
+being kept from spending their day there, except the poultry, in which
+Mary took great delight.  Soon came more visitors, and it became a joke
+to the husband and sister that she always held out hopes of "the future
+drive" when they arrived, bumped or mired by the long lane.  "Mary's
+Approach," as Edmund called it, had to be deferred till more needful
+work was done.  The guests whom they best liked, Mr and Mrs Grantley,
+the clergyman and his wife from the little town of Poppleby, gave an
+excellent and hopeful account of their rector, Dr Fogram, who was, they
+said, a really good man, and very liberal.
+
+Mrs Grantley was interested in schools and poor people, as it was easy
+to discover, and Mary and Dora were soon talking eagerly to her, and
+hearing what was done at Poppleby; but there were gentry and prosperous
+tradespeople there, who could be made available as subscribers or
+teachers; so that their situation was much more hopeful than that of the
+Carbonels, who had not the authority of the clergyman.
+
+Poppleby was a much larger place than Downhill, on the post road to
+London.  The mail-coach went through it, and thence post-horses were
+hired, and chaises, from the George Inn.  The Carbonels possessed a
+phaeton, and a horse which could be used for driving or riding, and thus
+Captain Carbonel took the two ladies to return the various calls that
+had been made upon them.  They found the Selbys not at home, but were
+warmly welcomed by the Grantleys, and spent the whole afternoon with
+them, and, at Dora's earnest request, were taken to see the schools.  So
+different was the taste and feeling of those days that, though Poppleby
+Church was a very fine old one--in grand architecture, such as in these
+days is considered one of the glories of the country--no one thought of
+going to look at it, and the effect of Mr Grantley's excellent sermons
+had been the putting up of a new gallery right across the chancel arch.
+
+It had a fine tower and steeple, and this Dora thought of as a
+delightful subject for a sketch from the Parsonage garden.  She made
+great friends with Lucy Grantley, the eldest daughter, over their tastes
+in drawing, as well as in the Waverley novels and in poetry, and was
+invited to spend a long day at Poppleby and take a portrait of the
+steeple.
+
+After the calls had been made and returned, began the dinner-parties.
+Elmour Priory was so near Greenhow that it would have been easy to walk
+there across the fields, or to drive in the phaeton, especially as the
+hours were much earlier, and six or half-past was held to be a late
+dinner hour, but this would have been contrary to etiquette, especially
+the first time, with people who evidently thought much of "style," and
+the Carbonels were not superior to such considerations, which were--or
+were supposed to be--of more importance in those days.  So a chaise was
+ordered, and they went in state, and had a long, dull evening, chiefly
+enlivened by the Miss Selbys and Dora playing on the piano.
+
+As they were going home, all round by the road, when they were near the
+top of the hill, before they came to the "Fox and Hounds," the postilion
+first shouted and then came to a sudden stop.  The captain, putting his
+head out at the window, saw by the faint light of a young moon, going
+down in the remains of sunset, that he was jumping off his horse,
+growling and swearing, but under his breath, when the captain sprang
+out.  A woman was lying across the road, and had barely escaped being
+run over.  Mary and Dora were both out in a moment.
+
+"Poor thing, poor thing!  Is it a fit?  She is quite insensible."
+
+"A fit of a certain kind," said the captain, who was dragging her into
+the hedge, while the post-boy held the horses.  "Go back, Mary, Dora!"
+
+"It is Nanny Barton!" said Dora in horror.
+
+Mary took down one of the carriage lamps and held it to the face.  "Yes,
+it is!" said she.  "Can't we take her home, or do anything?"
+
+"No, no; nonsense!" said Edmund.  "Don't come near, don't touch her.
+Don't you see, she is simply dead drunk."
+
+"But we can't leave her here."
+
+"The best thing to do!  Yes, it is; but we will stop at the `Fox and
+Hounds,' if that will satisfy you, and send some one out to see after
+her."
+
+They were obliged to be satisfied, for the tones were authoritative, and
+they had to accept his assurance that the woman was in no state for them
+to meddle with.  She would come to no harm, he said, when he had put her
+on the bank, and it was only to pacify them that he caused the postilion
+to stop at the public-house, whence roaring, singing, and shouts
+proceeded.  The landlord came out, supposing it was some new arrival,
+and when Captain Carbonel jumped out, and, speaking severely, desired
+that some one would go to look after the woman, who was lying in the
+road, and whom the horses had almost run over, he answered as if he had
+been doing the most natural and correct thing in the world.
+
+"Yes, sir; I had just sent her home.  They had been treating of her, and
+she had had a drop too much.  She wasn't in a proper state."
+
+"Proper state!  No!  I should think not!  It is a regular shame and
+disgrace that you should encourage such goings on!  Where's the woman's
+husband?  Has no one got the humanity to come and take her home?"
+
+Oldfellow called gruffly to some of the troop, who came reeling out to
+the door, and told them it was time to be off, and that some one, "You
+Tirzah had best see to that there Barton 'oman."
+
+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.
+
+And they did not feel any happier when the next day, as Mary was feeding
+the chickens, Nanny came up to her, curtseying and civil.
+
+"Please, ma'am, I'm much obliged to you for seeing to me last night.  I
+just went in to see if my husband was there, as was gone to Poppleby
+with some sheep, and they treated me, ma'am.  And that there Tirzah and
+Bet Bracken, they was a-singing songs, as it was a shame to hear, so I
+ups and rebukes them, and she flies at me like a catamount, ma'am; and
+then Mr Oldfellow, he puts me out, ma'am, as was doing no harms as
+innocent as a lamb."
+
+"Well," said Mrs Carbonel, "it was no place for any woman to be in, and
+we were grieved, I cannot tell you how much, that you should be there.
+You had better take care; you know drunkenness is a really wicked sin in
+God's sight."
+
+"Only a little overtaken--went to see for my husband," muttered Nanny.
+"I didn't take nigh so much as that there Tirzah Todd, that is there
+with Bet Bracken every night of her life, to sing--"
+
+"Never mind other people.  Their doing wrong doesn't make you right."
+
+"Only a drop," argued Nanny.  "And that there Tirzah and Bet--"
+
+Mary was resolved against hearing any more against Tirzah and Bet, and
+actually shut herself into the granary till Nanny was gone.  And there
+she sat down on a sack of peas and fairly cried at the thought of the
+sin and ignorant unconsciousness of evil all round her.  And then she
+prayed a little prayer for help and wisdom for these poor people and
+themselves.  Then she felt cheered up and hopeful.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+SUNDAY SCHOOL.
+
+  "She hastens to the Sunday School."  _Jane Taylor_.
+
+Captain Carbonel had written to the President of Saint Cyril's, and at
+once obtained his willing consent to the ladies attempting to form a
+little Sunday School.  Dr Fogram said that he should come down himself
+on July 21, and should be very glad to take counsel with the Carbonels
+on the state of Uphill.  He would be glad to assist if any outlay were
+needed.
+
+The sisters were in high spirits.  The only place they could find for
+the purpose was the wash-house and laundry.  Once in five weeks two
+women, in high white muslin caps and checked aprons, of whom Betsy
+Seddon was one, Betty Pucklechurch the other, came to assist the maids
+in getting up the family linen--a tremendous piece of work.  A tub was
+set on the Saturday, with ashes placed in a canvas bag on a frame above;
+water was poured on it, and ran through, so as to be fitted for the
+operations which began at five o'clock in the morning, and absorbed all
+the women of the establishment, and even old Pucklechurch, who was
+called on to turn the mangle.
+
+Except during this formidable week, the wash-house and laundry were
+empty, and hither were invited the children.  About twenty, of all ages,
+came--the boys in smocks, the girls in print frocks and pinafores, one
+in her mother's black bonnet, others in coarse straw or sun-bonnets.
+All had shoes of some sort, but few had stockings, though the long
+frocks concealed the deficiencies, and some wore stocking-legs without
+feet.
+
+They made very low bows, or pulled their forelocks, most grinned and
+looked sheepish, and a very little one began to cry.  It did not seem
+very promising, but Mary and Dora began by asking all their names, and
+saying they hoped to be better friends.  They, for the most part, knew
+nothing, with the exception of George Hewlett's two eldest, Bessie
+Mole's girls, and one sharp boy of Dan Hewlett's, also the Pucklechurch
+grandchildren; but even these had very dim notions, and nobody but the
+Hewletts could tell a word of the Catechism.
+
+To teach them the small commencement of doctrine comprised in the
+earliest pages of "First Truths" was all that could be attempted, as
+well as telling them a Bible story, to which the few intelligent ones
+listened with pleasure, and Johnnie Hewlett showed that he had already
+heard it--"from aunt," he said.  He was a sickly, quiet-looking boy,
+very different from his younger brother, Jem, who had organised a revolt
+among the general multitude before long.  None of these had enough
+civilisation to listen or be attentive for five minutes together, and
+when Mrs Carbonel looked round on hearing a howl, there was a pitched
+battle going on between Jem and Lizzie Seddon over her little sister,
+who had been bribed into coming with a lump of gingerbread, which the
+boy was abstracting.  He had been worked up enough even to lose his awe
+of the ladies, and to kick and struggle when Dora, somewhat imprudently,
+tried to turn him out.
+
+The disturbance was so great that the sisters were obliged to dismiss
+their pupils at least a quarter of an hour sooner than they had
+intended, and without having tried to teach the short daily prayers that
+had been part of the programme.
+
+Somewhat crestfallen they sped back to the house.
+
+"Did you ever see such a set of little savages?" cried Dora.
+
+"Come, there was a very fair proportion of hopeful ones," was the reply.
+
+These hopeful ones made one class under Dora, while Mary, who had more
+patience and experience, undertook the others, who, when once wakened,
+proved very eager and interested, in a degree new to those who are not
+the first lights in gross darkness.  Johnnie Hewlett was the brightest
+among the children, for though his weekdays were occupied in what his
+mother called "keeping a few birds," or, more technically,
+"bird-starving," he spent most of his spare time beside his sick aunt,
+and had not only been taught by her to read, but to think, and to say
+his prayers.
+
+As Dora gradually learnt, both Mary Hewlett and Judith Grey had been
+children of a little "smock-frock" farmer, and had not been entirely
+without breeding; but Molly had been the eldest, and had looked after
+the babies, and done much of the work of the farm, till she plunged into
+an early and most foolish marriage with the ne'er-do-well member of the
+old sawyer's family, and had been going deeper into the mire ever since.
+
+Judith, a good deal younger, and always delicate, had gone to the dame
+school when Mrs Verdon was rather less inefficient, and at ten years
+old had been taken into service by an old retired servant, who needed
+her chiefly as a companion, and thence she had been passed on to a
+family where the ladies were very kind to the servants, and the children
+brought them their books and their information of all kinds, so that she
+had much cultivation, religious and otherwise.
+
+When her accident had sent her home to the only surviving member of her
+family, she hoped to be of use to her sister and the children; but,
+before long, she found it almost hopeless.  Molly, indeed, was roughly
+kind to her, but Dan took no notice of her except to "borrow" her money,
+and any attempt to interfere with the management of the children was
+resented.
+
+Johnnie, the eldest boy, was fond of his aunt, and soon became her best
+attendant when not out at the work that began at nine years old.  He was
+willing that she should teach him, and when the ladies came to see her,
+she was full of stories of what he had told her.  She said no word of
+the rudeness of the girls or the tyranny of Jem, as she sat helpless by
+the fire.  When all were out, these were pleasant peaceful visits to
+her, and she was grateful for the books Dora lent her, and the
+needlework Mrs Carbonel gave her when she was well enough to do it.
+Molly was not unwilling that her sister should be "a fav'rite," as she
+called it, more especially as Jem was generally allowed to swallow any
+dainty brought by the ladies that was to his taste.
+
+Old Master Redford, Widow Mole's father, was another cheerful spot in
+the village.  He was a thoroughly good, devout person in a simple way,
+and most grateful for Dora's coming to read to him.  Old Pucklechurch
+once, indeed, said, "What, ma'am, ye be never a-going to read to that
+there Thomas Redford!  Why, 'tis all one as singing Psalms to a dead
+horse."
+
+In spite, however, of this hopeless augury, Dora's voice did reach his
+ears.  He had made good use of his scanty opportunities, and had taught
+his family to be thoroughly conscientious.  There was another daughter
+in service, who from time to time sent him a little help, but the
+transit of money was a difficulty in those days, and the relief could
+not often come.  One morning Widow Mole fainted away in the hayfield,
+and hardly heard Farmer Goodenough abusing her fine-lady airs, though
+she trembled and shook so much when she tried to go on that she was
+forced to let Tirzah Todd lead her home, and the next morning she could
+not get up.
+
+She had been in such plight before, and the shop trusted her, knowing
+that she always strove to pay off her debts, but the farmer rated her
+vehemently, declaring that she had been good for nothing since the
+ladies had been putting fancies and megrims in her head, and that he
+would not take her on again.  Probably he did not mean to fulfil his
+threat, for, as far as her strength allowed, she was the best and most
+thorough worker of all his women, and he had no desire to have the whole
+family on the rates; but the ladies believed it, and came home furious
+with indignation, and even Captain Carbonel thought her justified in
+accepting the dismissal, and as soon as "kitchen physic" had a little
+restored her, she became washer-woman, weeding woman, and useful woman
+generally at Greenhow Farm.
+
+Many a cup of tea and thick slice of bread-and-butter were carried out
+to her after breakfast, not to say three-cornered remnant of pie, or
+sandwich of cold meat at luncheon; and, though some was saved for
+"granfer and the children," still she began to look like another woman
+ere many weeks were over.
+
+Betsy Seddon and Molly Hewlett were much displeased, and reproached her
+with having got the place by "hypercriting about."
+
+Nanny Barton put on a white apron and brought out the big Bible when she
+saw the ladies getting over the stile.  The first time Dora was much
+delighted; the second, Mrs Carbonel managed to see that the Bible was
+open at one of the genealogies in the First Book of Chronicles, and
+spied besides the dirtiest of all skirts under the apron.  After that
+she did not much heed when Nanny said she would come to church if her
+shoes were not so bad.
+
+Tirzah Todd laughed and showed her white teeth and merry eyes so
+pleasantly that no one could help liking to talk with her, but alas! old
+Pucklechurch took care to let them know that she could be just as merry
+in a different way at the "Fox and Hounds."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+MARY'S APPROACH.
+
+  "The chaise was stayed,
+  But yet was not allowed
+  To drive up to the door, lest all
+  Should say that she was proud."
+  _Cowper_.
+
+Dr Fogram was true to his word, and made his appearance at the Long
+Vacation.  The Carbonels, to whom little eager Sophia had been added a
+day or two previously, first saw him at Downhill Church, where he made a
+most dignified appearance, in a very full surplice, with his Doctor of
+Divinity's red hood over it.  The clerk, small, grey-haired, and
+consequential, bustled up to open the pulpit door for him, and he
+preached, in a fine, sonorous voice, a very learned sermon, that might
+have been meant for his undergraduates at Oxford.
+
+It was the day for afternoon service at Uphill, so the sisters had to
+hurry away to eat their luncheon in haste, and then to introduce Sophy
+to the Sunday School, where she was to teach a class of small ones, a
+matter of amazing importance and ecstasy.
+
+She was a damsel of thirteen, in a white frock and cape, a pink sash,
+pink kerchief round her neck, pink satin ribbons tying down her broad
+Leghorn hat over her ears, in what was called gipsy fashion.  She had
+rosy cheeks, blue, good-natured eyes, and shining, light-brown curls all
+round her head.  Her appearance in the school was quite as memorable to
+the children as Dr Fogram's could be to their elders, and the little
+ones were so engaged in looking at her that they quite forgot to be
+naughty, except that Billy Mole, in curiosity to know what anything so
+glossy and shining could be, pinched the end of her sash, and left the
+grimy mark of his little hot hands on it, which caused Maitland the
+maid, who had charge of her toilette, to declare that such things always
+came of going among "they nasty, dirty little brats."
+
+Dr Fogram rode over on a plump, shining, black horse, followed by a
+well-equipped groom.  He dismounted, and gave his horse to the man when
+he overtook the Carbonel party on the way up the hill.
+
+"Captain Carbonel, I believe," said he, touching his hat, almost a
+shovel.  "Will you do me the honour to introduce me to the ladies," and
+to them he uncovered with the grand formal politeness which even then
+was becoming rather old-fashioned, and which they returned with
+curtsies, Sophia's, being fresh from the dancing-master, the most
+perfect of all.
+
+"I understand," said he, "that I am greatly indebted to you for pains
+taken with this unfortunate parish."
+
+"We have been trying to do what we could," said Mrs Carbonel, to whom
+this was chiefly addressed.
+
+"It is a great kindness," he replied, "and I hope the people may show
+themselves sensible of your exertions, but hitherto all endeavours for
+their benefit have been thrown away."
+
+Dora could not help wondering what the exertions were!
+
+After the service he joined the family again, and said that he thought
+the appearance of the poor--and especially of the children--and their
+behaviour much improved, and he had no doubt it was owing to the gentle
+and beneficent influence of the ladies, to whom he bowed.
+
+In fact, the children had been much engaged in staring, though whether
+he or Sophy were the prime attraction, might be doubtful.  At any rate,
+Master Pucklechurch's rod had only once descended.  Moreover, two neat
+sun-bonnets of lilac print adorned two heads, and the frocks looked as
+if they were sometimes washed.
+
+Captain Carbonel said he hoped to have some conversation with the
+President about the parish; and he responded that he hoped to do himself
+the honour of calling the next day.  After which he mounted his horse
+and rode off.
+
+The three sisters waited and watched as if their whole fate depended on
+the morning's conference but nothing was seen of the President till
+after luncheon, when he rode up, attended by his groom as before.  To
+their great disappointment, he would talk of nothing but the beauty of
+the country, and of the voices of Lablache and Sonntag, or the like,
+which he evidently considered the proper subjects for ladies; and it was
+not till he had spent the quarter of an hour, fit for a visit of
+ceremony, on these topics that he asked Captain Carbonel to allow him a
+little conversation with him.
+
+They shut themselves into the captain's little `den,' which was
+something between a gun-room and a library, with the rectory books going
+round two sides of the room, Edmund's sword, pistols, and spurs hanging
+over the mantelpiece, and his guns, shot-belts, powder-horn, and
+fishing-rods on hooks on the wall.  No noise was heard for more than an
+hour, during which Dora fumed, Mary cut off the dead roses, and Sophia
+was withheld from peeping.
+
+At last they came out--the horses had been brought to the door--the
+President bowed to the ladies, mounted, and rode off, while Edmund came
+across the lawn; and they all clustered round him.
+
+"Well," said he, "we have fared better than we expected.  Dr Fogram has
+long been regretting the state of the parish."
+
+"Why did he do nothing?" broke in Dora.
+
+"I suppose he has much on his hands; and, I am afraid, my poor old uncle
+was a hindrance, for he really seemed like a man who had got rid of an
+incubus when he found that we were willing to do what we could.  Then it
+seems that he was disappointed in Ashley Selby.  He thought that, being
+an inhabitant of the place, the young man would be interested in the
+people, and make his sisters useful."
+
+"They!" exclaimed Dora.  "They are such fine ladies, who think about
+nothing but Almack's, are afraid of the dirt, and of catching all sorts
+of disorders at the cottages."
+
+"I can hardly get Dora to be moderately civil to them," said Mary.
+
+"Yes," said Edmund, "parental influence has been strong.  The mother
+fears for health, the father for his game, and the children have grown
+up to think poachers and their families almost beyond the pale of
+humanity.  It has been too much for this young man, who simply
+acquiesced in the way in which he was bred.  However, this will come to
+an end, for the present holder of the family living has had a paralytic
+stroke, and wants him to come and assist.  I fully believe that he may
+do much better away from home habits, especially under a good
+incumbent."
+
+"And what is to happen to us?" inquired Mary.
+
+"Dr Fogram says that he will send us one of the Fellows of his
+college--a young man full of zeal, who is eager for parochial work, and
+has been taking duty at a parish some miles from Oxford.  He thinks we
+shall be satisfied with the change."
+
+"As if we were the people to be satisfied," cried Dora.  "Just confess,
+Edmund, that the old gentleman did not think the place worth attending
+to, till educated gentlefolk came to live in it."
+
+"Say, rather, that he really did not know the deficiencies," said the
+captain, "till they were brought before him."
+
+"Then he ought," muttered Dora.
+
+"Judge not," whispered Mary, who was a reverent person.
+
+"And the school?" resumed Dora.  "Was he aware of any deficiency there?"
+
+"He was very glad to hear that you had begun keeping school, and will
+contribute to a better arrangement for the week-day school, assist in
+pensioning off Dame Verdon, if needful, and in obtaining a better
+person."
+
+Dora and Sophy each gave a little caper, and squeezed one another's
+hands.
+
+"He is quite disposed to be liberal," continued Edmund; "and I am sure
+we shall find him no impediment."
+
+"I don't think the school is going on now," said Mary.  "Lizzie Verdon
+came for some broth, and said Granny was bad in bed.  I asked whether
+she had had the doctor, and she stared and said no, but Dame Spurrell
+had got her some `yarbs.'"
+
+For in those days the union doctor was not an institution.  Large tracts
+of country would contract with some apothecary to attend their sick; but
+he was generally a busy man, with his hands full of paying patients, and
+there was nobody to keep him up to his work among the poor, if he could
+have done it, which he really could not.  The poor themselves knew that
+it was in vain to apply to him, or if he came once in a serious case, to
+expect any attention; and they preferred to depend on the woman clever
+in "yarbs," on the white witch, or, in favoured villages, on the lady
+bountiful or the clergyman and his wife; and in simple cases these
+latter were quite efficient, keeping a family medicine-chest and a book
+on household medicine.
+
+Mrs Carbonel had rooted out her mother's book, replenished her chest,
+and had cured two or three children who had been eating unripe apples,
+and greatly benefited Mole with infusions of Jesuit's bark in a large
+jug, the same thing as quinine, only more cumbrously and domestically
+prepared.  But most of the Uphill people had the surest confidence in
+Dame Spurrell and her remedies, some of which were very curious; for
+Mrs Carbonel found a child who had fits wearing, in a bag, a pinch of
+black hair from the cross on the back of a jackass; and once, when she
+objected to a dirty mark on the throat of Susan Pucklechurch, she was
+told it was left by a rasher of bacon put on to cure a sore throat.
+
+The symptoms were sometimes curious as she now found when she went to
+inquire after Dame Verdon, who, Lizzie informed her, had her heart
+hanging by only one string, and when that gave way, she would not be
+here.
+
+For the present, however, she was in bed, under a quilt made of coloured
+cloth scraps; but however it might be with her heart-strings, she did
+not seem likely to get up again.  It was hay time, and it appeared that
+no one did come to school in hay and harvest seasons, so that there was
+time to consider what could be done.  Dr Fogram was invited to dinner
+to hold consultation with the ladies, whom the captain would not leave
+to any conclusion as to the schools.
+
+There were no such things as trained masters and mistresses in those
+days; the National Society had only been in existence eleven years, and
+Government had not taken up the matter at all.  Educated and religious
+people had, however, come to the conclusion that it would be well to
+help all the village children to know their faith and duty, and to read
+their Bibles; and the good work of Mrs Hannah More and Mrs Trimmer
+were examples that had begun to be followed, now that the one was in
+extreme old age, and the other in her grave.  The Carbonel family had
+been bred up to such work, and all of them knew a good deal more about
+it than the President, whose studies had been chiefly in Greek plays,
+and whose tasks had been dealing with young men and the college estates.
+His conscience as a clergyman was a good deal stirred by the condition
+of his parish, and he was really thankful to those who would take up the
+matter, as well as ready to assist with his purse.
+
+So it was settled that Mrs Carbonel should write about a widow at her
+old home, who had once been a servant in the family.  She was known to
+be a good religious person, who could read, and write, and cast accounts
+quite well enough for any possibly advanced scholars, as well as being a
+beautiful needlewoman.  An old friend went to see her, explain the
+situation to her, and ascertain if she were willing to undertake the
+school for twenty pounds a year, and what the children could pay.
+
+A cottage belonging to Captain Carbonel might have a room added to it to
+receive the scholars, by the end of harvest, by which time they might be
+got together, and Mrs Verdon was to be induced to resign by a pension
+of half-a-crown a week, a sum then supposed to be ample, and which,
+indeed, was so for her wants, which were much less than in these days.
+Captain Carbonel looked over the cottage, and worked out an estimate of
+the cost with old Hewlett, whose notions of paper work were of the kind
+shown in his Midsummer bill.
+
++===========================+=========+=====+
+|                           |shillings|pence|
++---------------------------+---------+-----+
+|1 ooden barrer a oodnt soot|        9|    6|
++---------------------------+---------+-----+
+|1 ooden barrer a ood soot  |        9|    6|
++===========================+=========+=====+
+
+The result of the calculations, conjectural and otherwise, was this.
+
+"Mary, look here.  This is an expensive year, and if we do the thing
+this year, we must put off making the drive through the fields--your
+approach, madam."
+
+Mary came and looked at his figures.  "How will it be after harvest?"
+she said.
+
+"Harvest is an inappreciable quantity, especially to novices," he said.
+"If you believe Farmer Goodenough, the finest weather will not save me
+from finding myself out of pocket."
+
+"Farmer Goodenough is an old croaker, after his kind," said Mary.
+
+"It won't do to reckon thereupon.  I must be secure of capital enough to
+fall back upon.  Think it over well, Mary, and answer me to-morrow; and
+you had better say nothing to your sisters till your own mind is made
+up.  I own that I should be very glad of the road.  It would save us and
+old Major a good deal, to say nothing of our friends' bones."
+
+"Do you mean that you wish it, Edmund?"
+
+"I wish to leave it entirely to you."
+
+Dora and Sophy had gone across the fields, a four miles' walk to
+Poppleby, and were to be brought home in the evening, and Mary was left
+to wander about the old road and the field-path, and meditate on the
+ruts and quagmires that would beset the way in the winter, and shut them
+up from visiting, perhaps even from church.  Besides, there were
+appearances!
+
+There was an old gentleman, a far-away connection of Edmund's, who had
+been in the navy, and now lived at Poppleby, and went about collecting
+all the chatter to be heard in one house, and retailing it all in
+another, and he thought himself licensed to tell Edmund and Mary
+everything personal.  One thing was--
+
+"My dear fellow, you should really put a check on your wife's
+Methodistical ways!"
+
+"I didn't know she had any."
+
+"I have been told, on good authority, that she has a meeting every
+Sunday in the wash-house."
+
+Edmund laughed.  "A dozen children for Sunday School, with the
+President's full consent."
+
+"It won't do, Edmund.  You'll find it won't do!  Why, old Selby told me
+she was a pretty creature, only just like your good pious ladies,
+running into all the dirtiest cottages."
+
+And to Mary it was, "Let me give you a hint, my dear Mrs Carbonel.  The
+Duchess saw you in Poppleby, and asked who you were, and she said she
+would like to visit you, if you did not live in such a hole."
+
+"I don't think I want her," said Mary.
+
+"Now, my dear, don't you be foolish!  It would be so much to Edmund's
+advantage!  He was in the same regiment with Lord Henry, and you might
+have the best society in the county, if only you would make your new
+drive!  Why, even Lady Hartman says she can't take her horses again
+through that lane, or into the farm court.  Miss Yates said it was quite
+disgusting."
+
+Mary Carbonel might laugh.  She did not care for her own dignity, but
+she did for Edmund's; and though she had been amused at Lady Hartman's
+four horses entangled in the narrow sweep, and did not quite believe old
+Captain Caiger, the lady herself had been very charming, and Mary did
+not like to cut her husband and sisters off from the pleasantest houses
+in the country.
+
+But the words, "Love not the world," came up into her mind, and the
+battle ended by her saying to her husband--
+
+"Don't let us have the _ap_proach this year, dear Edmund.  I don't want
+it to be Mary's _re_proach."
+
+"You are quite sure?  In spite of Caiger?"
+
+"Indeed I am; though I am afraid it is asking you to give up something."
+
+"Not while I have my merry faces at home, Mary.  And indeed, little
+woman, I am glad of your decision.  It is right."
+
+"I am so glad!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE SCREEN.
+
+  "There is no honesty in such dealing."--_Shakespeare_.
+
+One day when Sophy had been trusted to go out alone to carry a few veal
+cutlets from luncheon to Judith, she found the door on the latch, but no
+one in the room downstairs, the chair empty, the fire out, and all more
+dreary than usual, only a voice from above called out, "Please come up."
+
+Sophy, pleased with the adventure, mounted the dark and rickety stairs,
+and found herself in the open space above, cut off from the stairs by a
+screen, and containing a press-bed, where Judith lay, covered by an
+elaborate patchwork quilt.  There was a tiny dressing-table under the
+narrow lattice window, and one chair, also a big trunk-box, with a
+waggon-shaped lid, such as servants used to have in those days, covered
+with paper, where big purple spots of paint concealed the old print of
+some story or newspaper.  On the wall hung a few black profiles, and all
+was very fairly neat, whatever the room might be shut off by a wooden
+partition, whence came a peculiar sour smell.
+
+"Oh, it is Miss Sophia!" exclaimed Judith.  "I beg your pardon, ma'am, I
+thought it was Dame Spurrell, who said she would come and look in on me,
+or I would not have troubled you to come up."
+
+"I am glad I did, Judith; I like to see where you live.  Only, are you
+worse?"
+
+"No, miss, only as my back is sometimes, and my sister and all the
+children are gone to the hiring fair, so it was not handy to get me up."
+
+"And this is your room!" said Sophy, looking about her.  "Isn't it very
+cold?"
+
+"Johnnie heats me a brick to keep me warm at night; but my feet are
+always cold downstairs.  It does not make much difference."
+
+"Oh dear!  And you have a screen, I see.  Oh!  Why, that is our
+drawing-room paper."
+
+She sat transfixed at the recognition, while Judith observed, quite
+innocently, with a free conscience--
+
+"Yes, miss, my brother-in-law brought it home, and told me it was just a
+scrap that was left over, and he was free to have, though I said I did
+wonder the lady did not want to keep it in case of an accident
+happening."
+
+"Yes," said Sophy, "I don't think he had any business to have it, for
+all one division of the paper is put on upside down.  The laburnums
+point up instead of hanging down, and I am sure Mary would have altered
+it if she could.  It was beautiful French paper that Edmund brought home
+from Paris and laid up for the furnishing their house."
+
+This, of course, Mrs Carbonel and Dora would never have told poor
+Judith, but Sophy was young and unguarded, and apt to talk when she had
+better have held her tongue.
+
+"I am sorry to hear it, miss, indeed I am.  I am afraid one could not
+take it off the screen to put it back again where it did ought to be."
+
+Sophy looked, but it was manifestly impossible.  Spoiling the screen
+would not mend the wall of the drawing-room.
+
+"Perhaps Molly might have another bit left," she said, only thinking of
+the triumph of carrying home the means of repairing the deficiency by
+her own unassisted sagacity.
+
+"I will ask her, miss.  I am sure I never thought Dan would go for to do
+such a thing," mourned Judith, though, even as she spoke, there came
+back on her recollections of times when she had tried to be blind and
+deaf.  "But if Mrs Carbonel would let me pay for it, miss, I should be
+easier in my mind.  I have a shilling, though no doubt that is not the
+worth of it."  And she began feeling for a little box under her pillow,
+never mentioning that she had already paid Dan a shilling for it.
+
+"No, no; nonsense, Judith!  Of course my sister would not take it for
+the world; but if any one could find another bit, just to patch up the
+part above the book-case, it would be nice."
+
+"I will do what in me lays, Miss Sophy," answered Judith.
+
+So Sophy took her leave and trotted home, very proud of her discovery,
+which she communicated in an eager voice as the phaeton drew up at the
+front door.
+
+"Oh, Edmund, I have found the rest of the drawing-room paper!"
+
+"Hush! not so loud, my dear," said Dora, getting out of the back seat,
+and Edmund, being busy in telling the groom to attend to something in
+the harness, did not heed at first.
+
+"Did you know, Dora?" asked Sophy, in a lower voice, being struck by
+something in her repressive manner.
+
+"Yes; but I did not tell, because Edmund was so much vexed, and it was
+of no use now."
+
+Dora really hoped no one had heard, as Mary was busy with her parcels,
+and she was too fond of Judith not to wish to shield her family; but it
+was too late.  The captain came in with, "What's this about the
+drawing-room paper?"
+
+Sophy was delighted to pour out the history of her discovery, and tell
+how it appeared on the screen that sheltered poor Judith Grey.
+
+"Exactly as I supposed," said Captain Carbonel.  "I always believed that
+fellow was a thief."
+
+"But it is not poor Judith's fault," exclaimed the sisters, with one
+voice.
+
+"She knew nothing about it.  She wanted to pay the shilling for it,"
+said Sophia.
+
+The captain laughed a little.
+
+"And she is going to search for a bit to go up there!" continued the
+girl more vehemently; and he laughed again.
+
+"Yes," said Mary, "if you only saw something of her, you would be
+convinced that her whole character is very different from that of the
+rest of the family."
+
+"Don't you be taken in by plausibility," said the captain.  "I know that
+fellow Dan is a thief.  I meant to tell his relation, George, that I
+won't allow him to be employed on the new schoolroom.  I shall do so
+now."
+
+"Would it not be better to forget what happened so long ago?"  Mary
+ventured to say.
+
+"And suppose Judith restores it," added Sophia.
+
+"Pshaw!" said the captain; but Mary followed him to the study, and what
+she did with him there her sisters did not know, but it resulted in his
+allowing that Dan might have another trial, with a sharp eye over him.
+
+So unused was Uphill to the visits of ladies, that when the piece of
+French paper was sold to Judith, no one had thought of her being sought
+out in her bedroom.  Molly came home with the children in the evening,
+tired out but excited--for all had had rather more beer than was good
+for them, and the children a great many more sweets.  Jem and Judy were
+quarrelling over a wooden horse covered with white spots, but whose mane
+had already disappeared, Lizzie was sick, cross, and stupid, Polly had
+broken the string of her new yellow necklace, and was crying about it,
+and nobody had recollected the aunt except Johnnie, who presented her
+with a piece of thin gingerbread representing King George the Fourth, in
+white, pink, and gilt!  Molly herself was very tired, though she said it
+was all very fine, and she had seen a lot of people, and the big sleeves
+they wore were quite a wonder.  Then she scolded Polly with all her
+might for crying and never setting the tea, nor boiling the kettle; and,
+after all, it was Johnnie who made up the fire, fetched water, and set
+the kettle boiling.  They all wrangled together over their purchases,
+and the sights they had seen, or not seen, while Judith was glad to be
+out of the way of seeing, though not of hearing.  Then the girls trailed
+themselves upstairs.  Judy slept with her aunt, Polly and Lizzie had a
+kind of shake-down on a mattress of chaff or hulls, as she called it, by
+her side.  Judith always insisted on their prayers, but they said they
+were much too tired to-night, and could not say anything but "Matthew,
+Mark, Luke, and John," which was all they knew except the Lord's Prayer.
+Judith had taught them this, but they thought the repeating it a very
+difficult ceremony, far too hard when they were tired.
+
+Their mother went to bed soon afterwards, taking Jem with her, and so
+did Johnnie, all being anxious to get what sleep they could before the
+dreaded moment of father's return.  Public-houses were not obliged to
+close at any special time in those days, and the home-coming, especially
+on a fair day, was apt to be a terrible affair.  It was not till past
+one o'clock that shouts, broken bursts of singing, and howls of
+quarrelling announced the break-up of the riotous party, and presently
+the door bounced open, and with oaths at the darkness, though there was
+bright moonlight, Dan stumbled in and staggered upstairs, overturning
+the unlucky screen upon Polly as he did so, cursing and swearing at them
+all, and ordering his wife to get up and open the door, which he was
+past finding.  He did not attack Judith, though he almost fell over her
+bed, and the two girls lay trembling, not daring to lift off the screen
+till the door of the bedroom was shut on them; and then came the only
+too well-known sound of their mother scolding and crying, and his
+swearing and beating her.
+
+They were only too much used to such disturbance, and were asleep again
+before it was over; but Judith could only lie on, shaking with terror--
+not personal--but at the awful words she heard, and praying that they
+might not be visited on that unhappy household, but that God would
+forgive.
+
+It was not till the next day when the house was tolerably quiet, and
+Molly, rather fretful and grumbling, had helped Judith down to her place
+by the fire, that she ventured the question, "Molly, you have not a bit
+more of that pretty wall-paper you gave me for my screen?"
+
+"Did it get broke last night in Dan's drunken tantrums?"
+
+"Not more than I can mend, but little Miss Sophia, she says that the
+paper in the Greenhow drawing-room is quite spoilt for want of a piece
+to cover up a bit that was put on wrong."
+
+"My patience!  And how did Miss Sophia come to know anything about it?"
+
+"She came up to see me, and bring those cutlets that you are warming up
+now."
+
+"Bless me!  Well, Dan will be vexed," said Molly.  "Such mean folk as
+they are, a-peeping and a-prying after everything!  They knows how to
+look after whatever they chooses to say is their own; and the captain,
+he made a row before about that there trumpery yard or two of paper that
+was the parkisit of them that hung it."
+
+"Miss Sophy says it spoilt the room."
+
+"Sp'ilt it!  They've little to vex 'em that is terrified about that!"
+
+"But have you got the bit, Molly?"
+
+"I never had it!  Dan kept it in the outhouse.  He may have a scrap
+left, that he used to make caps for the Christmas boys when he used the
+rest to paper Mrs Hunter's closet with down at Downhill.  Your piece
+was left over of that, and may be there was half-a-yard more; but he
+locks that there workshop of his, so as one can't get in to get a bit of
+shavings to light the fire.  So you must ask him.  I am sure I dare not
+do it.  He's _that_ angry if one does but look into his shop."
+
+"I must try and get it!" said Judith.
+
+"Not now, I wouldn't," entreated Molly.  "What is it to the ladies?  And
+father, he will be fit to tear the place down if he hears of it!  Them
+Gobblealls is set again him already, and 'tis just taking away our bread
+to say a bit more about it to them folks.  George Hewlett is particular
+enough already, without having a work about this."
+
+Poor Judith, she felt as if she could never be at peace with her
+conscience, while she had those yellow laburnums in sight in her room,
+and she did not see how restitution and confession could injure her
+brother-in-law; but her code of right and wrong was very different from
+that of either husband or wife.
+
+Molly went on maundering about the hardship of having taken in a poor
+helpless thing, and having stood between her and the workhouse, only
+that she should turn a viper and a spy, and take her poor children's
+bread out of their mouths, forgetting that Jem was at the very moment
+eating up the piece of apple-pie that had come with the cutlets.
+
+Judith tried to get her thoughts together, and decided that, however
+much she might dread Dan's anger, and care for his interest and family
+peace, it was her duty to do her best to recover whatever remnant was
+possible of his booty.  So when he came home to dinner she ventured to
+ask him if he had a piece left of that paper of her screen.
+
+"Why?" he asked, turning on her, as if he hoped to make more of whatever
+he had.
+
+She told him timidly, and it was as she had feared.  He began abusing
+her violently for letting spies up into her room, and turning against
+him, that let her have her house-room, and "worriting" them all with her
+hypocritical ways.  He could tell her there was nothing between her and
+the workhouse, and all was interspersed with oaths, terrible to hear.
+
+Molly began taking her part, and declaring that Judith could not help it
+if little miss would come into her room; but Dan, who had qualified last
+night's revel with another mug of ale, was quite past all reason, and
+declared that Judith called the girl up on purpose to bring him into
+trouble, and that nothing but harm had ever come of her canting, Methody
+ways, and he had a good mind to kick her out at once to the workhouse,
+and would do so, if she brought them Gobblealls down on him again.
+There had been nothing but plague ever since they came into the parish,
+and he wouldn't have them come poll-prying about his house.  No, he
+wouldn't.
+
+Judith knew this was a vain threat, for he was always out of the house
+when they came, and she also knew that he was the last man to give up
+the small payment that she was in the habit of making quarterly, or what
+was begged from her besides, so she was not afraid of any such measure;
+but she was much shaken, and felt quite ill afterwards, and Molly did
+not stint her blame and lamentations.  Nothing happened in consequence,
+except that, from that time forward, Dan's incipient dislike to "they
+Gobblealls" was increased, and they could do nothing which he did not
+find fault with; though his wife, grumbling at them all the time, was
+quite willing to get everything possible out of them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+INNOVATIONS.
+
+  "Timotheus placed on high
+  Among the tuneful choir,
+  With flying fingers touched the lyre."
+  _Dryden_.
+
+On the first of October the new beginning was to be made.  The new
+curate, Mr Harford, arrived, and spent his first few days at Greenhow,
+while looking out for a lodging at Downhill, for he was to be shared
+between the two parishes as before, and Mr Atkins still undertook to
+assist on Sundays.  Mr Harford looked very young, almost a boy, and was
+small and thin, but not in the least delicate.  He had only worked off
+his superfluous flesh in study and parish cares at Oxford, and he was
+likely to do the same in his new home.  He looked on it as likely to be
+his residence for a long time, for, as the President had already told
+Mrs Carbonel, he was engaged to a young lady, whose father would not
+consent to her marriage till he had a living worth 500 pounds a year,
+and there were a good many fellows senior to him.
+
+He seemed to have no fears of any amount of work, and the first thing he
+thought of was how to arrange for Uphill to have two services on Sunday,
+as he thought could be contrived by giving the Downhill people, who
+mostly lived near the church, their second service in the evening
+instead of the morning; and, as Mr Atkins would thus have more to do,
+he gave up to that gentleman the addition to his stipend, which the
+President had offered to himself.  The boon was great to the Greenhow
+family, who had often been hindered by weather from getting to Downhill.
+Moreover, he had plans for one service and sermon in the week, and for
+a cottage lecture at a distant hamlet.
+
+Also, in the first fortnight of his stay, he had called at every house,
+alike in Downhill and Uphill, to the great surprise of some of the
+families, who had not in the memory of man seen a parson cross their
+threshold.  Some did not like it, such as old Dame Verdon, who, though
+she could hardly get out of bed, was very sore about the new school; and
+when her friends came to see her, told them wonderful stories which she
+had picked up--or Lizzie had from some hawker--that the gentlefolks
+thought there were too many children for the rates and taxes, and they
+were going to get them all into the school, and make an end of them.
+Sometimes she said it was by "giving of them all the cowpox," as Dame
+Spurrell called vaccination as the fashion was in those parts, sometimes
+it was by sending them all out to Botany Bay.
+
+And as Mrs Carbonel had prevailed on the new gardener's wife to have
+her baby vaccinated, and George Hewlett's and Mrs Mole's children had
+been thence treated by her own hands, this was believed the more,
+although none of the children were visibly the worse for it after the
+first few days; but some of the women, and almost all the children
+believed the story, and many of the little ones were in fits of terror
+about the school, so that there was a falling off even with the Sunday
+School.  The new school was only an additional room to a good-sized
+cottage, with a couple of windows and a brick floor, fitted with forms
+without backs, but which had at least good firm legs to stand upon, pegs
+for the cloaks and head-gear round the walls, and a single desk, likely
+to be quite sufficient for the superior few who were to learn writing
+and summing.  The stock, obtained from the Society for Promoting
+Christian Knowledge, consisted of a dozen copies of Mrs Trimmer's
+Abridgment of the Old Testament, the same number of the lady's work on
+the New Testament, a packet of little paper books of the Sermon on the
+Mount, the Parables and the Miracles, and another packet of little
+books, where the alphabet led the way upwards from ba, bo, etcetera, to
+"Our cat can kill a rat; can she not?"  Also the broken Catechism, and
+Sellon's Abridgment of instruction on the Catechism.  There were a
+housewife full of needles, some brass thimbles, and a roll of calico
+provided, and this was the apparatus with which most village schools
+would commence.
+
+Mrs Thorpe arrived with her two little girls, the neatest of creatures,
+still wearing her weeds, as indeed widows engaged in any business used
+to do for life as a sort of protection.  Under her crape borders showed
+the smoothest of hair, and her apron was spotlessly white.  The two
+little girls were patterns, with short cut hair, spotted blue frocks and
+checkered pinafores in the week, lilac frocks on Sundays; white capes on
+that same day, and bonnets of coarse straw, tied down with green ribbon,
+over little bonnet caps with plain net frilling, the only attempt at
+luxury apparent in their dress.  Their names were Jane and Mary, and
+they looked very pretty and demure, though there was a little mischief
+in Mary's eyes.  Nothing could look nicer or more promising in the eyes
+of the sisters when they took her to her cottage, nor could any one be
+better pleased than she to work under her own young ladies, and to have
+so peaceful a home for her little daughters.  She was introduced to her
+future scholars on Sunday in the wash-house, and very shy and awkward
+did they look, nor were the numbers as large as usual.
+
+Mr Harford came to open the school on Monday morning, and the ladies
+met him there.  The room was in beautiful order, and presently the
+younger Moles, the George Hewletts, the Seddons, the Pucklechurch
+grandchildren, and about half-a-dozen more dropped in; but no one else
+appeared, and these stood handling their pennies and looking sheepish.
+
+Mr Harford, after looking out to see whether any one else was coming,
+addressed them in words a little too fine for their comprehension, and
+then read a few prayers, after which he and Mrs Carbonel went away,
+taking the unwilling Sophy to her lessons, but leaving Dora to follow
+when she had heard the names called over, and inaugurated the work; and
+their journey was enlivened by meeting a child with flying hair and
+ragged garments rushing headlong, so as to have only just time to turn
+off short over a gap in a field where some men who were ploughing called
+out, "Run, little one, run; she'll catch thee!" with a great shouting
+laugh, and at the same moment appeared, with a big stick in her hand,
+Nancy Morris in full chase, her cap on the back of her head, and looking
+not much less wild than her offspring.
+
+However, she drew up at the sight of the clergyman and the lady, pulled
+her cap forward and her apron to the middle, curtsied low, and in a
+voice of conscious merit, though out of breath, explained that she was
+"arter Elizabeth," who was _that_ terrifying and _contrary_ that she
+would not go to school.
+
+Mr Harford, not quite accustomed to the popular use of the verb to
+terrify, began to ask what the child had done to alarm her mother so
+much and Nancy, understanding him as little, said, "'Tis all along of
+Dame Verdon, ma'am.  She be for to say that the new governess will beat
+them and send them off to Minsterham, as sure as they're alive; and I
+told Bet not to believe no such stuff, but her won't listen to I--"
+
+Mr Harford was the more mystified.  Why should she send them to
+Minsterham?  And what was the child afraid of?  Mrs Carbonel had more
+notion.  Minsterham was the assize town, and going thither was a polite
+form of mentioning the being before a court of justice.
+
+"Elizabeth need have no fears of a prison," she said.  "She is a silly
+child to be frightened; but when she sees that the other children like
+school, and that nothing happens to them, she will know better.  Don't
+beat her, it will only frighten her more."
+
+"If it is your will, ma'am, I'll let her off; but I'll give her the
+stick another time, as sure as she is alive, the little toad."
+
+"Hopeful," said the lady and gentleman to each other, as soon as she was
+out of sight, and they could laugh.
+
+It was indeed uphill work in every sense that was before Mrs Thorpe,
+but the effect was visible in much improvement in the general demeanour
+of the children.  A chair was found for her where she sat among them at
+church, and prevented the outrageous misconduct that the ladies had been
+unable effectively to check; and the superior readers were gradually
+acquiring a very cheap form of Prayer-book, with only Matins and
+Evensong and the Collects, besides the Psalms.
+
+But that the children sat on the chancel steps, and that kneeling in
+church was unknown to them, never occurred as an irreverence to any of
+the party, though as Mr Harford read the ante-Communion service from
+the altar instead of disrobing himself of his surplice in the pulpit
+just before the sermon, he had to walk through the whole school, making
+those in his way stand up to let him pass.
+
+The singers, on the establishment of a double service, began to absent
+themselves at least once on a Sunday, so Mr Harford and the ladies
+tried to arrange for the singing of the children instead.  He had no
+knowledge of music, which was then thought a rather doubtful
+accomplishment for a young man, and Mrs Thorpe had, if possible, less,
+so all that could be done was for Dora to train the children by ear; and
+she found that their thin, shrill notes were held as painful by all save
+a few doting mothers, her sisters, and herself.  The captain laughed at
+her, and finally promised her a grinding organ.  It came; it could play
+four tunes, and all the singers were naturally offended.  But on the
+first Sunday there was a great catastrophe, for when once set on it
+would not stop, but went on playing its four tunes long after the Old
+Hundredth was finished.  Mr Harford waited to begin the Prayer for King
+George till it had finished, hoping that it would stop, if not at the
+end of the second tune at least at the fourth; but, behold, it started
+off with the Old Hundredth again, upon which Captain Carbonel emerged
+from his pew, and, with the help of Master Pucklechurch, bore it out
+into the churchyard, where it continued to play till after the service,
+when there was time to check its pertinacity by adjustment of the
+machinery.  At its best, the singers--even George Hewlett--were much
+hurt, and the compromise was made that it never should uplift its voice
+when they were present in full force with bass, flute, and viol, but
+should only draw forth its four tunes when there were only the children
+to need the accompaniment.
+
+Even then, Dan Hewlett, who unluckily had the best voice of all, swore
+that he would never come to church again while "they had that there
+horgin to buzz away like a big bumbledore;" and he kept his word.
+
+"You see, ma'am, he has his feelings," said Molly.
+
+He would fain have made all his family join in the secession; but
+Johnnie would not be kept away from Sunday School; and Molly had heard
+rumours of penny clubs and of prizes at Christmas so, though the other
+children were very irregular, she kept them on after a fashion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+AN UNPROFITABLE CROP.
+
+  "My mother bids me bind my hair."--_Old Ballad_.
+
+"Oh Mary, Mary, what is to be done about the hair?" cried Sophy, one
+Sunday after church.
+
+"Isn't it dreadful?" said Dora.  "Those fearful curl-papers sticking out
+with rolls of old newspapers!  I told them it was not fit to be seen
+last Sunday, but there were even Elizabeth and Jane Hewlett in them
+to-day."
+
+"Yes," said Mary, "they said that mother's aunt was coming to tea, so
+she had curled them before they came out.  I told them I would excuse it
+for this once, but that I should send any one home who came such a
+figure on Sunday."
+
+Elizabeth and Jane, be it observed, were George Hewlett's daughters, the
+most civilised, if the dullest-witted, of the flock.  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.  Sophy's hair curled naturally, and had been "turned up" ever
+since she had come to live at home in the dignity of fourteen, but she
+and both her sisters wore falls of drooping ringlets in front, and in
+Mary's case these had been used to be curled in paper at night, though
+she would as soon have been seen thus decorated by day as in her
+night-cap.  But there was scarcely another matron in the parish who did
+not think a fringe of curl-paper the proper mode of disposing of her
+locks when in morning _desabille_, unless she were elderly and wore a
+front, which could be taken off and put on with the best cap.
+
+Maid-servants wore short curls or smooth folds round side-combs under
+net caps, and this was the usual trim of the superior kind of women.
+The working women wore thick muslin white caps, under which, it was to
+be hoped, their hair was cut short, though often it straggled out in
+unseemly elf-locks.  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.
+She called up Susan Pucklechurch and Rachel Mole, who had nice smooth
+hair neatly parted in the middle, and declared them to be examples of
+the way that heads ought to appear.
+
+That afternoon the women stood out at their gates.  "So the lady told
+you to take pattern by Widdy Mole's child, did her?" said Nanny Barton,
+loud enough for all her neighbours to hear.
+
+"Ay, mother, by Rachel Mole and Susie Pucklechurch."
+
+"As if I'd go out of my way to follow after a mean creeper and low thing
+like Widow Mole," exclaimed Mrs Barton.
+
+"She knows which way her bread is buttered.  A-making favourites!"
+exclaimed Nancy Morris.
+
+"Getting in to work in the garding away from Farmer Goodenough, as her
+man had worked for for years, ay, and his before un," chimed in Nanny
+Barton.
+
+"And if you could see the platefuls and cupfuls as the ladies carries
+out to her," added Betsy Seddon.  "My word and honour!  No wonder she is
+getting lively enough just to bust some day."
+
+"That's the way she comes over them," said Nanny Barton.
+
+"That's what them gentlefolks likes, and Bessy Mole she knows it,"
+observed Nancy Morris; at which they all laughed shrilly.
+
+"As though I'd take pattern by her," exclaimed Nanny Barton.  "I'd
+liefer take pattern by Softy Sam, or Goodenough's old scarecrow."
+
+"Whatever's that?" demanded Tirzah, coming out of the "Fox and Hounds."
+"What have they been after now?"
+
+"Just the lady's been a preachin' down at that there school, how that
+she don't want no curl-papers there, and that all the poor children's
+heads is to be clipped like boys, and setting up that there Rachel
+Mole's bowl-dish of a poll to set the fashion."
+
+"There!  As I telled you," said Tirzah.  "That's the way gentry always
+goes on if they gets their way."
+
+"They just hates to see a curl or a bit of ribbon," added Betsy Seddon.
+
+"Or to see one have a bit of pleasure," added Nancy Morris.
+"Pucklechurches and Mole, they never durst send their poor children to
+the fair--"
+
+"And to hear the lady run out agin' me for just having a drop of beer,"
+exclaimed Nanny Barton.  "Nothing warn't bad enough for me!  As if she
+hadn't her wine and all the rest of it, and a poor woman mayn't touch
+one draught, if it is ever so--"
+
+"Well, you know, Nan, you'd had a bit more than enough," said Tirzah.
+
+"Well, and what call to that was hern or yourn?" cried Nancy, facing
+upon her.
+
+"A pretty job I had to get you home that night," said Tirzah; and they
+all laughed.  "And you wouldn't be here now if Tom Postboy hadn't pulled
+up his horses in time."
+
+"And was it for her to cast up to me if I was a bit overtaken?" demanded
+Nanny.
+
+It may be supposed that after such a conversation as this there was not
+much chance of the bowl-dish setting the fashion.  There was not the
+same ill-temper and jealousy of Susan Pucklechurch being held up as an
+example, for her family were the natural hangers-on of Greenhow, and
+were, besides, always neater and better dressed than the others; but
+Mrs Mole was even poorer than themselves, and had worked with them,
+even while "keeping herself to herself," a great offence in their eyes.
+Thus nobody was inclined to follow the clipped fashion, except one or
+two meeker women, who had scarcely seen that their girls' hair was
+getting beyond bounds.  It is to be remembered that seventy years ago,
+long hair could hardly be kept in respectable trim by busy mothers
+working in the fields, and with much less power of getting brushes and
+combs than at present; so that the crops were almost the only means of
+securing cleanliness and tidiness, and were worn also by all the little
+daughters of such gentry as did not care for fashion, nor for making
+them sleep on a ring of lumps as big as walnuts.  So that Mrs Carbonel
+and her sisters really wished for what was wholesome and proper when
+they tried to make the children conform to their rules, if the women
+could only have seen it so, instead of resenting the interference.
+
+Sunday brought George Hewlett's two girls with their hair fastened up in
+womanly guise, and their cousins becurled as before; but there was
+nothing particularly untidy, and Mary held her peace.
+
+However, the war was not over, and one day, when, after a short absence,
+Dora and Sophy went into the school, they found five or six girls
+bristling with twists of old newspapers, and others in a still more
+objectionable condition, with wild unkempt hair about their necks, and
+the half-dozen really neat ones were on the form around Mrs Thorpe, who
+proceeded to tell Dora that she was quite in despair, the more she spoke
+to the girls about tidy heads, the worse they were, and she was really
+afraid to let her own children or the clean ones sit near the dirty
+ones.
+
+Dora's spirit was roused.  "Very well," she said, "Mrs Carbonel and I
+will not be disobeyed.  Come here, Lizzie Barton.  Your head is
+disgraceful.  Lend me your scissors, Mrs Thorpe."
+
+Lizzie Barton began to cry, with her knuckles in her eyes, and would not
+stir; but Dora was resolute.  One child made a rush for the door; but
+Dora desired Sophy to stand by the door and bar the passage, and called
+Mrs Thorpe to hold Lizzie Barton, who certainly was a spectacle, with
+half-a-dozen horns twisted out of old advertisement papers, but the rest
+of her hair flying in disgusting elf-locks.  She was cowed, however,
+into standing quiet, till her appendages had been sheared off by the
+determined scissors.  "There, I am sure you must be much more
+comfortable," Dora assured her.  "Get your mother to wash your head, and
+you will look so nice to-morrow.  Now then, Betsy Hewlett."
+
+Betsy cried, but submitted; but the next victim, Sally French, howled
+and fought, and said, "Mammy would not have it done."  But Dora sternly
+answered, "Then she should keep your head fit to be seen."  And Mrs
+Thorpe held down her hands, with whispers of "Now, my dear, don't."
+
+And so it went on through nineteen girls, the boys sniggering all the
+time.  Some cried and struggled, but latterly they felt it was their
+fate, and resisted no longer.  Even Mary Cox, who had a curly head by
+nature, stood still to be clipped.  Dora's hands were in a dreadful
+state, and her mind began to quail a little; but, having once started,
+she felt bound to go on and complete her work, and when she finally
+dismissed the school, there was a very undesirable heap of locks, brown,
+black, and carroty, interspersed with curl-papers, on the floor.  The
+girls looked, to her mind, far better, and Mrs Thorpe, a little
+doubtful, gave her a basin of water to wash her hands.
+
+Home the two sisters went, their spirits rising as they laughed over
+their great achievement, and looked forward to amusing Mary with the
+account of the various behaviour of the victims.
+
+So they burst upon her, as she was planting bulbs in the garden, and
+Edmund helping her by measuring distances.
+
+"Oh, Mary, such fun!" cried Sophy.  "We have been cutting all the
+children's hair."
+
+"What do you mean, Sophy?"
+
+"They had their heads worse than ever," said Dora, "so I took Mrs
+Thorpe's scissors and clipped them all round."
+
+"My dear Dora, I wish you had not been so hasty," Mary was gently
+saying; but Edmund was standing up, looking quite judicial.
+
+"Did you get their parents' permission?" he demanded.
+
+"No, of course I never should."
+
+"Then what right had you to meddle with the children?"
+
+"They were quite horrid.  My hands!  They'll never recover," said Dora,
+spreading out her fingers.
+
+"Very likely; but the children were not your slaves.  You have a perfect
+right to forbid them to enter your school except on certain conditions,
+but not to tyrannise over them when there.  You have done more harm than
+you will undo in a hurry."
+
+"I am afraid so," murmured Mary.
+
+Dora had a temper, and answered angrily, "Well, I'm sure I did it for
+the best."
+
+"I don't approve of opinionative young ladies," said Edmund, who was
+really from old habit quite like an elder brother.
+
+"Oh, Dora," sighed Mary, "don't!"
+
+Dora felt impelled to argue the matter out on the spot, but something in
+Mary's look withheld her.  She went away, stepping high and feeling
+stately and proud; but when she had walked up and down her own room a
+few times, her better sense began to revive, and she saw that she had
+acted in anger and self-will quite as much as from a sense of propriety,
+and she threw herself on her bed and shed some bitter tears.
+
+They would have been still more bitter if she could have heard the
+exclamations of the mothers over their gates that evening.
+
+"Well, to be sure, that a young lady should have treated my poor like
+that!"
+
+"Her father says, says he, `I'll have the law of she.'"
+
+"My Jenny, she come home looking like a poor mad woman.  `Whatever has
+thee been arter?' says I.  `'Tis the lady,' says she."
+
+"Lady!  She ought to be ashamed on herself, a-making such Betties of the
+poor children."
+
+"Ah! didn't I tell you," gibed Tirzah, "what would come of making up to
+the gentlefolk, with their soft words and such.  They only want to have
+their will of you, just like the blackamoors."
+
+"You'll not find me a sending my Liz and Nan," cried Mrs Morris, "no,
+not if her was to offer me a hundred goulden guineas."
+
+"I don't let my gal go to be made into a guy!" was the general
+sentiment; and Mrs Verdon, in her bed, intensified it by warning her
+neighbours that the cropping their heads was "a preparation for sending
+them out to them foreign parts where they has slaves."
+
+And on Sunday, there were only ten of the female pupils at school, and
+poor Dora and Sophia both cried all church time.  They thought their
+hasty measures had condemned their poor girls to be heathens and
+good-for-nothings for ever and ever.
+
+Tirzah Todd laughed at them all.  The Todds had gipsy connections; Todd
+himself was hardly ever visible.  He was never chargeable to the parish,
+but he never did regular work except at hay and harvest times, or when
+he was cutting copsewood.  Then old Pucklechurch's brother, Master
+Pucklechurch of Downhill, who always managed the copse cutting, used to
+hire him, and they and another man lived in a kind of wigwam made of
+chips, and cut down the seven years' growth of underwood, dividing it
+into pea-sticks from the tops, and splitting the thicker parts to be
+woven into hurdles, or made into hoops for barrels.  They had a little
+fire, but their wives brought them their food, and little Hoglah, now
+quite well only with a scarred neck, delighted to toddle about among the
+chips, and cry out, "Pitty! pitty!" at the primroses.
+
+Copse cutting over, Joe Todd haunted fairs and drove cattle home, or did
+anything he could pick up.  He lived in a mud hovel which he and Tirzah
+had built for themselves on the border land, and where they kept a tall,
+thin, smooth-haired dog, with a grey coat, a white waistcoat, a long
+nose and tail, and blue eyes, which gave him a peculiarly sinister
+expression of countenance, and he had a habit of leaping up and planting
+his fore feet on the gate, growling, so that Dora and Sophy were very
+much afraid of him, and no one except Mr Harford had ever attempted to
+effect an entrance into the cottage.  It was pretty well understood that
+Joe Todd and his lurcher carried on a business as poachers, and Tirzah
+going about with clothes'-pegs, rush baskets, birch brooms, and in their
+season with blackberries, whortleberries, or plovers' eggs, was able to
+dispose of their game to the poulterers at Minsterham, with whom she had
+an understanding.  Her smiling black eyes, white teeth, and merry looks,
+caused a great deal of business to be done through her, and servants
+were not unwilling to carry in her stories about rabbits knocked down
+unawares by a stick, and pheasants or partridges killed by chance in
+reaping.  Indeed, she had a little trade in dripping and other scraps
+with sundry of these servants, which rendered them the more disposed to
+receive her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+PRIZES.
+
+  "Miss Jenny and Polly
+  Had each a new dolly,
+  With rosy red cheeks and blue eyes,
+  Dressed in ribbons and gauze;
+  And they quarrelled because
+  The dolls were not both of a size."
+  _The Daisy_.
+
+Nobody offered a hundred golden guineas to bring Elizabeth and Anne
+Morris to school, nevertheless they appeared there at the end of the
+second week.  They were heartily tired of home, where there was washing
+to be done, and their eldest sister Patty banged them about, and they
+had no peace from the great heavy baby.  Besides, there had been a talk
+of prizes at Christmas, and they weren't going to let them Moles and
+Pucklechurches get the whole of them.  Moreover, others were going back,
+so why should not they?
+
+Yes, Nanny Barton's children "did terrify her so, she had no peace."
+And Betsy Seddon's Janie had torn her frock as there was no bearing, and
+even the Dan Hewletts were going back.  Little Judy had cried to go, and
+her Aunt Judith had trimmed up the heads of her sisters, for Dora
+Carbonel had not been a first-rate hair-cutter, and it was nearly the
+same with every one, except the desperate truant, Ben Shales, and the
+cobbler's little curly girl, who was sent all the way to Downhill to
+Miss Minifer's genteel academy, where she learnt bead-work and very
+little besides.
+
+The affair seemed to have done less harm than Captain Carbonel had
+expected, yet, on the other hand, the motives that brought most of the
+scholars back were not any real desire for improvement, but rather the
+desire of being interested, and the hope of rewards.  It would take a
+long time to make the generality of the people regard "they Gobblealls"
+as anything but curious kind of creatures to be humoured, for the sake
+of what could be got out of them.
+
+Of the positive love of God and their neighbour, and the strong sense of
+duty that actuated them, few of the Uphill inhabitants had the least
+notion.  It would be much to say that if these motives were always
+present with Edmund and Mary, it was so in the same degree with Dora and
+Sophy; but to them the school children were the great interest,
+occupation, and delight, and their real affection and sympathy, so far
+as they understood, were having their effect.
+
+They were hard at work at those same prizes, which filled almost as much
+of their minds as they could those of the expectant recipients, and
+occupied their fingers a good deal.  And, after all, what would the
+modern scholar think of those same prizes?  The prime ones of all, the
+Bible and Prayer-book, were of course, in themselves as precious then as
+now, but each was bound in the very plainest of dark-brown calf, though,
+to tell the truth, far stronger than their successors, and with the
+leaves much better sewn in.  There was only one of each of these, for
+Susan Pucklechurch and Johnnie Hewlett, who were by far the foremost
+scholars in the Sunday School.
+
+Then followed two New Testaments and two Psalters, equally brown, for
+the next degree.  Sophy had begged for stories, but none were to be had
+within the appointed sum, except Hannah More's Cheap Repository Tracts,
+really interesting, but sent forth without wrappers in their native
+black and white.  Then there was a manufacture by the busy fingers,
+frocks made of remnants of linsey and print, of sun-bonnets of pink or
+blue spotted calico, of pinafores, and round capes, the least of all
+these being the list tippet, made of the listing of flannel, sewn on
+either in rays upon a lining, or in continued rows from the neck,
+leaving rather the effect of a shell.  There were pin-cushions,
+housewives, and work-bags too, and pictured pocket-handkerchiefs, and
+Sophy would not be denied a few worsted balls for the very small boys,
+and sixpennyworth of wooden dolls for the lesser girls, creatures with
+painted faces, and rolls of linen for arms, nailed on to bodies that
+ended in a point, but all deficiencies were concealed by the gay print
+petticoats which she constructed, and as neither toys, nor the means of
+buying them were plentiful, these would be grand rewards.
+
+The Christmas-tree had not yet begun to spring in England, magic
+lanterns were tiny things only seen in private, and even such
+festivities as the tea had not dawned on the scholastic mind.  So, on
+the afternoon of Christmas Day, all the children were assembled in
+school before Mr Harford, the ladies, and the schoolmistress, while the
+table was loaded with books and garments, and beside it stood a great
+flasket brimming over with substantial currant buns, gazed on eagerly by
+the little things, some of whom had even had a scanty Christmas dinner.
+Such a spectacle had never been seen before in Uphill, and their hungry
+eyes devoured it beforehand.
+
+Mr Harford made them a short speech about goodness, steadiness, and
+diligence, and then the distribution began with the two prime Sunday
+scholars, and went on in due order of merit, through all degrees, down
+to the mites who had the painted dolls, and figured handkerchiefs with
+Aesop's fables in pink or in purple, and then followed the distribution
+of buns, stout plum buns, no small treat to these ever hungry children,
+some of whom were nibbling them before they were out of school, while
+others, more praiseworthy, kept them to share with "our baby" at home.
+
+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.
+
+These stayed the tears for the moment, but a fresh shower was pumped up
+by Jem for the sympathetic reception of his mother.  "It was a shame! it
+was; but they ladies always had a spite at the poor little lad.  He
+should have some nice bull's-eyes to make up to him, that he should!
+What call had they to be at him when it was all along of that there
+nasty little Jenny."
+
+Nevertheless, at the gate she shared her wrath with Jenny's mother.
+What call had they to want to make the poor children to be like parsons
+at church?  Jem shouldn't be there no more, she could tell them.
+
+Then Nanny Barton chimed in.  "And look what they did give!  Just a
+twopenny-halfpenny handkercher that her Tom would be ashamed to wear!"
+
+He wasn't, for it was thick and warm, and had been chosen because his
+poor little neck looked so blue.  But Molly went on.  "Ladies did ought
+to know what became 'em to give.  There was my Lady Duchess, she gave
+'em all scarlet cloaks, and stuff frocks, as there was some warmth in.
+That was worth having--given to all alike!  No talk of prizes, for what
+I'd not demean myself to pick up out of the gutter."
+
+"And look at mine," proceeded Molly.  "My Johnnie's got a Bible, as if
+there wasn't another in the house, let alone Judith's.  His father, he
+did say he'd pawn it; but Johnnie he cried, and Judith made a work, and
+hid it for him.  But his father, he says he wouldn't have Johnnie made
+religious, not for nothing--Judith she's quite bad enough."
+
+"Oh! our Polly--she got a little skimping cape, what don't come down to
+her poor little elbows.  If I went for to be a lady, I'd be ashamed to
+give the like of that."
+
+Happily every one did not receive the gifts in this spirit.  There was
+much rejoicing over the Testament, frock, and Psalter of the little
+Moles, and their grandfather observed, "Well, you did ought to be good
+children, there were no such encouragements when I was young."
+
+"Except your big old Bible, granfer," put in Bessy.
+
+"That was give me by our old parson when me and your granny was married.
+Ay, he did catechise we in church when we was children, but we never
+got nothing for it."
+
+"Only the knowing it, father, and that you have sent on to us," put in
+the widow.
+
+"Ay, and _that's_ the thing!" said the old man, very gravely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+AGAINST THE GRAIN.
+
+  "And shall the heirs of sinful blood
+  Find joy unmixed in charity?"
+  _Keble_.
+
+These first beginnings were really hard work, and there was a great
+amount of unpopularity to be encountered, for the people of Uphill were
+so utterly unused to kindness that they could not believe that anything
+was done for them from disinterested motives.  Captain Carbonel took
+great trouble to set up a coal club, persuading the President of Saint
+Cyril's and the neighbouring landowners to subscribe, and the farmers to
+fetch the coal on the plea that to have fuel on low terms would save the
+woods and hedges from destruction.  Tirzah especially, and half-a-dozen
+women besides were to be met with great faggots of limbs of trees on
+their backs from Mr Selby's woods, and the keepers were held to wink at
+it, for, in truth, the want of fuel was terrible.  Mr Selby talked of
+withholding his yearly contribution of blankets, because the people were
+so ungrateful.  "As if it would do them any good to make them colder,"
+cried Dora.
+
+So at last it was arranged that one of the barns should be filled with
+coal, and Captain Carbonel and Mr Harford, with old Pucklechurch, were
+to see it served out at sixpence a bushel every Monday morning.  And
+then, Pucklechurch reported that the people said, "Depend on it, the
+captain made a good thing of it."  So, when he divided one of his fields
+into allotment gardens, for those who had portions too scanty for the
+growth of their potatoes, though he let them off at a rate which brought
+in rent below the price of land in the parish, the men were ready enough
+to hire them, but they followed Dan Hewlett's lead in believing that
+"that Gobbleall knowed what he was about, and made a good thing of it";
+while the farmers, like Mr Goodenough, were much displeased, declaring
+that the allotments would only serve as an excuse for pilfering.  Truly,
+whatever good was attempted in Uphill, had to be done against the
+stream, for nobody seemed to be on the side of the Carbonels except Mr
+Harford, and a few of the poor, such as the old Pucklechurches, Widow
+Mole and her father, the George Hewletts, and poor Judith Grey, besides
+all the better children, who were easily won.
+
+It made the more difficulty that though Captain Carbonel was a patient
+man in _deed_, did not set his expectations too high, and bore, in fact,
+with an amazing amount of disappointment and misunderstanding; yet he
+was not patient in word, and was apt to speak very sharply when
+indignant with cruelty, shuffling, or what was more unlucky, with
+stupidity.  The men used to declare that he swore at them, which was
+perfectly untrue, for a profane word never crossed his lips, but when he
+was very angry, he spoke in a tone that perhaps might excuse them for
+thinking that his reproofs were flavoured, as had been the abuse to
+which they were only too well accustomed.
+
+The tormentors of poor Softy Sam always slunk out of reach at the most
+distant report of the approach of the captain, the curate, or the
+ladies, but the men never understood their objections to the sport that
+had hitherto been freely afforded by the idiot, and had a general idea
+that the gentlefolk disliked whatever afforded them amusement.
+
+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.
+
+Captain Carbonel stormed at George when he failed to understand
+directions, or cut a bit of wood to waste; but without loss of
+confidence, and before long, Master Hewlett came to accept it as the
+captain's way, and to trust him as a really kind and liberal employer.
+And, unluckily, he did not always heed the rating so loudly given, or
+rather he did not set his mind to comprehend what lay a little out of
+his usual beat, and thus gave additional provocation, though still
+Captain Carbonel bore with him, and would not have rejected him in
+favour of the far smarter carpenter at Downhill, on any of these
+provocations.
+
+Dan, who was a much sharper fellow, could have helped a great deal, but
+his back was up at the first word, and he would do nothing but sulk.
+Moreover, George himself detected him doing away with some wood out of
+that which was to make Farmer Goodenough's farm gates, under colour that
+it was a remnant only fit for firewood.  Having already announced that
+he would never again employ his cousin after another of these
+peculations, he kept to his word, and in spite of Molly's tears and
+abuse, and Dan's deeper objurgations, he persisted.  Daniel tried to get
+work at Downhill, but all the time declared that them Gobblealls was at
+the bottom of it, having a spite at him.
+
+Just at this time Captain Carbonel was driving the phaeton, with his
+wife in it, home from Elchester; when, just as they were passing Todd's
+house, a terrible scream was heard.  Shrieks that did not mean
+naughtiness but agony; and a flame was visible within the door.  In one
+moment the captain was over the wicket, past the lurcher, dragging with
+him his great old military cloak, which had been over Mary's knees.
+Another second, and he had wrapped little Hoglah in it from top to toe,
+stifling the flames by throwing her down and holding her tight, while
+her mother came flying in from the garden; and Mary, throwing the reins
+of the horse to the servant, hurried in.
+
+Tirzah was screaming and sobbing.  "My child!  My dear!  Oh, Hoggie!
+Hoggie!  Is she dead!  Oh!"
+
+"No, no; I think not," said the captain.  And, indeed, no sooner did he
+begin to unroll her than cries broke out, very sufficient answer as to
+the child's being alive, and as her mother vehemently clasped her they
+grew more agonising.
+
+"Let me see how much she is burnt," said Mrs Carbonel.  "You had better
+not squeeze her.  It makes it worse."
+
+The child's poor little neck and bosom proved to have been sadly burnt.
+Her mother had been heating the oven, and had gone out to fetch fresh
+faggots, when the little one, trying in baby-fashion to imitate the
+proceedings, had set her pinafore on fire.  Many more children were thus
+destroyed than now, when they do not wear so much cotton, nor such long
+frocks and pinafores.
+
+Poor little Hoglah screamed and moaned terribly, and the thought of her
+being unbaptised came with a shock across Mrs Carbonel.  However, she
+did not think the injuries looked fatal, and speaking gently to soothe
+the mother, as she saw the preparations for baking, she said, "I think
+we can give her a little ease, my dear, my dear."
+
+Tirzah was sobbing, screaming, and calling on her dear child, quite
+helpless at the moment, while Mary took the moaning child.  Captain
+Carbonel, with his own knife (finding it more effective than the blunt
+old knife on the table), cut off the remains of the little garments
+which had become tinder, and then handed his wife the flour in a sort of
+scoop, and as she sprinkled it over the burnt surface, the shrieks and
+moans abated and gradually died away, the child muttered, "Nice, nice,"
+and another word or two, which her mother understood as asking for
+something to drink.  Beer, to Mary's dismay, was the only thing at hand,
+but after a sup of that, the little thing's black eyes closed, and she
+said something of "Mammy," and "Bye, bye."  The great old cradle stood
+by, still used, though the child was three years old, and Mrs Carbonel
+laid her carefully in it.
+
+"I think she will get well," said she to the mother, "only you must not
+let the flour be disturbed on any account."  She had arranged
+handkerchiefs, her own, and a red one of Tirzah's, to cover the
+dressing.  "I will send you some milk, and don't let the coverings be
+disturbed.  Let her lie; only give her milk when she wants it, and I
+will come to see her to-morrow."
+
+Tirzah was sobbing quietly now, but she got out a choked question as to
+whether the child could get well.
+
+"Oh yes; no fear of that, if you let the flour alone, as Mrs Carbonel
+tells you," said the captain.
+
+"Oh, oh! if it wasn't for you--" the mother began.
+
+But Edmund wanted to get his wife away before there was a scene, and cut
+it short with, "There, there!  We'll come again.  Only let her alone,
+and don't meddle with the flour."
+
+Tirzah did what no native of Uphill would have thought of.  She clasped
+Mrs Carbonel's hand, threw herself on her knees, and kissed it.
+
+"Thank God, not me," said Mary, much moved.  "But you will give her to
+God now, and let her be baptised.  I think she will live, but it ought
+to be as God's child."
+
+When the curate came in a little later, to hear how the child was,
+Tirzah allowed him to baptize her privately.  It might partly have been
+the dread of missing the Burial Service, but far more because in this
+present mood she was ready to do anything for madam.
+
+Even when the neighbours thronged in, and Mrs Spurrell wanted to take
+the child up, pull off the flour, and anoint her with oil and spirit,
+she would not hear of it.
+
+"They as saved her shall have their will of her," said she.
+
+"Saved her!  She'll sleep herself off to death!  What's the good of
+simple stuff like that, with no sting nor bite in it?" said Nanny
+Barton.
+
+"Ay," said Mrs Spurrell, "this ile as my great-aunt gave me, as they
+said was a white witch, with all her charrums, is right sovereign!  Why,
+I did Jenny Truman's Sally with it when her arm was burnt."
+
+"Ay, and you could hear her holler all over the place," said Tirzah;
+"and she've no use of her arm, poor maid!  No, you shan't touch my child
+no how."
+
+Tirzah kept her word, and Mrs Carbonel came every day and doctored the
+child, and Sophy brought her a doll, which kept her peaceful for hours.
+The lurcher never barked at them, but seemed to understand their
+mission.  And a wonderful old gipsy grandmother of Tirzah's, with eyes
+like needles and cheeks like brown leather, came and muttered charms
+over the child, and believed her cure was owing to them; but she left a
+most beautiful basket, white and purple, for a present to the lady.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+AN OFFER REJECTED.
+
+  "Oft in Life's stillest shade reclining
+  In desolation unrepining,
+  Without a hope on earth to find
+  A mirror in an answering mind,
+  Meek souls there are who little deem
+  Their daily strife an angel's theme."
+  _Keble_.
+
+In the spring Dora was invited to spend a few weeks with an old family
+friend in London, where there were daughters who had always been her
+holiday friends, and with whom she exchanged letters, on big square
+pages of paper, filled to the very utmost with small delicate
+handwriting, crossed over so that they looked like chequer-work, and
+going into all the flaps and round the seal.  They did not come above
+once in a month or six weeks, and contained descriptions of what the
+damsels had seen, thought, heard, read, or felt; so that they were often
+really worth the eightpence that had to be paid on their reception.
+
+Edmund, who had business in London, took his sister-in-law there,
+driving old Major to the crossroads, where they met the stage-coach.  He
+went outside, on the box-seat, and she in the dull and close-packed
+interior, where four persons and one small child had to make the best of
+their quarters for the six hours that the journey lasted.  Tired,
+headachy, and dusty with March dust, at last Dora emerged, and was very
+glad to rattle through the London streets in a hackney coach to Mr
+Elwood's tall house, where there was a warm welcome ready for her.
+
+But we need not hear of the pictures she saw, nor the music she heard,
+nor the plays she enjoyed, nor the parties she went to during that
+thorough holiday--though perhaps some would not call it a holiday, since
+the morning was spent in lessons in music, drawing, and Italian, in
+practising these same lessons, and in reading history aloud--the reading
+of some lighter book being an evening pleasure when the family were
+alone.  Dora would not have enjoyed it half so much if it had not been
+for the times of real solid thought and interest.  Her friends, too, had
+some poems still in manuscript lent to them, which made an immense
+impression on the young souls, and which they all learnt and discussed
+on Sundays, trying to enter into their meaning, and insensibly getting
+moulded by them.  They were the poems that Dora knew a few years later
+as the "Christian Year."  They made her home-work still dearer to her,
+and she had never let her interest fade among all her pleasures, but she
+was accumulating little gifts for the children, for Betty Pucklechurch,
+Widow Mole, Judith Grey, and the rest.
+
+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.  She managed to save Selina--dear old Judy!--but
+she hurt her back most dreadfully, and she can't ever be well again, so
+papa gives her an allowance.  She writes cheerfully, but we should like
+to hear more about her.  We all were so fond of her."
+
+"Indeed, I don't wonder.  She is so good and patient.  Such a dear
+thing!  Mary and I call her the bright spot in our parish."
+
+"She lives with a sister, I think.  Is she nice?"
+
+Dora had her opportunity, and she painted Dan Hewlett and his household
+in no flattering colours.  Molly was a slattern, and Dan was a thief,
+and the children ate up Judith's dainties, and they all preyed upon her.
+It was a perfectly horrid life for a good, well-trained,
+high-principled person to lead.  In fact, she poured out all the
+indignant accusations that she and Mary had been wont to make between
+themselves or to Edmund; and she sent Caroline and Anne Barnard home
+greatly shocked at what she had told them of their dear Judy's
+surroundings.
+
+Mrs Barnard came the next day, and begged to hear Miss Carbonel's
+account.  Dora was a little more moderate than she had been to the young
+ladies; but, any way, it was sad enough, and Mrs Barnard gave hopes
+that something should be done.  All the family sent little presents of
+books or articles of dress, and Dora promised to write and let her know
+of their reception.
+
+It was one of the great pleasures of the return to spread them out
+before Judith, and to tell of her sight of the dear young ladies and
+their mother, and how tall, and what a fine girl little Miss Selina had
+become.  But she did not seem quite so happy when she perceived that
+Dora had disclosed a good deal of her circumstances; and observed that
+her sister was always a good sister to her.  Which Dora took leave to
+doubt, especially when she recognised Miss Barnard's pretty gift of a
+blue turnover, all on one side, upon young Polly's dirty shoulders.
+Judith waited, and hoped, and gave up hope, and found fault with the
+Barnards before she heard anything; but at last she did.  The Barnards'
+old housekeeper, with whom Judith had lived, had married their head
+gardener.  He had died, and she was settled in a cottage in the park,
+where she would be very happy to receive Judith, and make her
+comfortable.  The place was only thirty miles off, and if she consented,
+Mrs Barnard would pay a visit she had been asked to make to the
+Duchess, and take Judith back in the easy carriage, so as to spare her
+all fatigue.
+
+Dora and Sophy were in a state of transport, and wanted to rush off at
+once with the good news, but Mary withheld them.  She thought it might
+be too much for so frail an invalid, and insisted on going with them and
+telling Judith herself.  Nor would she go till after Sophy's morning
+studies were over, and they had had luncheons which, by-the-by, was not
+an early dinner, but a slender meal of cold meat, cake, or bread and
+cheese, of which Edmund never partook at all.  She devised this delay on
+purpose to wear down the excitement, and Dora had begun to say how they
+should miss Judith, only it was all for her good.
+
+Molly was out, as the sisters hoped, tossing the meadow hay, and Judith
+sat alone by the fire.  Mary told her very gently of the scheme, and she
+kept on saying, "Thank you, ma'am," while the tears came into her eyes.
+Mrs Carbonel gave her Mrs Barnard's letter to read, but the tears came
+so thick and fast that she could not see it at first, nor indeed fully
+grasp the meaning, while two pairs of eyes were devouring her
+countenance as she read.  Mrs Carbonel guessed how it was, and saw that
+the transports which Dora and Sophy expected were not by any means near,
+so she gently said, "We will leave you to read the letter, and come
+again to-morrow to hear what you think."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am; thank you," said poor Judith, as well as she could
+among her tears.
+
+"How stupid she is!" cried Sophy, as they emerged into the road.
+
+"I don't believe she could read Mrs Barnard's letter," said Dora.
+
+"No, not for tears," said Mary.
+
+"Do you think she could have understood you?" added Sophy.
+
+"Oh, yes; she understood well enough."
+
+"But how could she be so dull as not to be delighted?" said Sophy.
+
+"So ungrateful, too!" added Dora.
+
+"My dear Dora!  It was the embarrassment of her gratitude that touched
+me so much," exclaimed Mary.
+
+"Do you really think she will not be enchanted to get away from that
+dismal hole, and live with honest people?" asked Sophy.
+
+"My dears, I think you have quite forgotten that Mrs Dan Hewlett is her
+sister."
+
+"Nobody would think so," said Dora.
+
+"If she could only take Johnnie and Judy away with her," said Sophy,
+"before their father has spoiled them."
+
+"You can't think she would refuse such an offer!" added Dora.  "To be
+with a good, nice woman, and at peace among her friends.  It really
+would be quite wicked in her to refuse."
+
+Nevertheless, Mary withstood all the entreaties of her sisters to go
+with her to hear Judith's decision.  Edmund heard them persuading her,
+and in his peremptory manner desired them to desist.  So they hovered
+about the garden and home-field waiting for news.
+
+But the news was not what they expected.  Mrs Carbonel found Judith
+very tearful, but resolute.
+
+"I could not do it, ma'am!  I am sorry, sorry to the heart, to seem
+ungrateful for her kindness; but, indeed, I could not do it.  I cannot
+leave my sister and the children."
+
+"You would be so much more comfortable--so much better looked after."
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I know that.  Mrs Gregg is one of the best of women, and
+so kind.  It is very good of her to be willing to take me in; but--"
+
+"You need not be afraid of the journey.  Mrs Barnard will come for
+you."
+
+"Oh yes, ma'am, I know; but there's my sister, ma'am, and her children.
+I could not leave them."
+
+"I was afraid they did not know how to take care of you, and that your
+brother-in-law was rough with you."
+
+"My sister have been much better of late, since you have been here,
+ma'am; and the poor children, ma'am, I can do something for them."
+
+"I see that John and Judy seem to respond to your care; but is it right
+to give up all your comfort and peace, and even your health, for so
+little as you are enabled to do for them?  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?"
+
+"I don't know, ma'am; but my poor sister, she has a hard life, and I
+think her husband would be worse to her if I went away.  I couldn't have
+no comfort in thinking of them if I did."
+
+"Do they know of this?  Have they been persuading you?"
+
+"No, ma'am; I did not say a word.  Molly was out, and I wanted to think
+it out without being worried and terrified."
+
+"Quite right, Judith.  I am glad they do not know," said Mary, who had
+learned that "terrified" did not mean frightened, but "tormented."  "I
+can well believe you have decided in true unselfishness, and in the fear
+of God.  But if you see reason to change your mind, let me know in the
+course of the week."
+
+Dora and Sophy were really quite angry at Judith's refusal, especially
+Dora, who had taken all the trouble of representing her condition to the
+Barnards.
+
+"I should call it ungrateful," she said, "only I believe it is pure
+weakness and folly.  Those people have been bullying her and tormenting
+her out of consenting."
+
+"You are wrong, Dora," said her sister, "they know nothing about it!
+This is all her own doing."
+
+"And," said Edmund, "if you were older, Dora, you would know how to
+appreciate a very noble act of self-denial."
+
+Dora did not at all like Edmund to talk of her being older; but what he
+had said gave her something to think about, and she began to reverence
+the feeling that made Judith Grey choose the rough and ungenial life
+with the Hewletts, to comfort and sympathy with her friends.
+
+Mrs Carbonel and Judith were mistaken in thinking the transaction could
+pass unknown to the rest of the family.  Polly was near at hand, but had
+hidden herself, on the lad's approach, for fear of being called to
+account for not being at school, and she reported to her mother that
+"Madam Gobbleall had been ever so long with aunt, a-trying to persuade
+her to go away, and live with them fine folks as she was in service
+with."
+
+Molly had a certain real affection for her sister; but to both her and
+Dan, the removal would be like the loss of the goose that laid the
+golden eggs, and there is no saying what poor Judith had to go through.
+Molly came and cried torrents of tears, taking it for granted that
+Judith meant to go, and must be frightened out of it.  It was of no use
+to declare that she had refused the lady.  Molly was so much in the
+habit of semi-deception, that she could not believe the assurance; and
+to hear her lamentations over her dear sister, for whom no one could do
+like a blood-relation, and her horror at the idea of strangers being
+preferred to herself, one would have thought--as indeed she believed
+herself--that she was Judith's most devoted and indefatigable nurse.
+And to think of them Gobblealls being so sly, such snakes in the grass,
+as to try to get her away, unknownst!  She would not have them prying
+about her house again.
+
+Dan declared it was all the cunning of them, for fear Judith should
+become chargeable to the parish, and there! her fine friends would die,
+or give her up, or she would just be thrown on the parish, and passed on
+to a strange workhouse, and then she would see what she got by leaving
+her kin.  It was just like their sly tricks!
+
+In point of fact, if Judith had become chargeable to the parish, Dan's
+remarks would have been equally true of Uphill, whence she would have
+been handed to the place where her father had lived, and it was the
+object of every place to dispose of all superfluous paupers.  But Dan
+and Molly wished her to imagine them willing to keep her freely, in case
+of a failure of the supplies!
+
+Poor thing!  They really thought that their opposition had induced her
+to drop the idea, and that it was for their own ease, or the good of the
+rates, that the Carbonel ladies had tried to persuade her to leave them.
+Molly did not forbid the ladies the house--there was too much to be
+made out of the pickings from their presents--so Judith did not lose the
+cheerfulness and comfort they brought her; but Dan laid up the proposal
+in his mind as another cause of hatred and ill-will to Captain Carbonel.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+SCALES OF JUSTICE.
+
+  "Thou hast appointed justices of peace to call poor men before them
+  for matters they were not able to answer."--_Shakespeare_.
+
+When the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares was spoken, the Blessed and
+only Wise foresaw the extreme difficulty of rooting out the tares
+without injuring the wheat, when the work is done by the ignorant or
+hasty hands of the servants.
+
+So it was at Uphill.  Captain Carbonel was made a county magistrate, and
+thus had more power in his hands, and his most earnest wish and prayer
+was to use it for the good of the parish.  But things were very
+difficult.  At the vestry, the farmers agreed with him that Barton and
+Morris ought not to have additional parish relief, great strong men as
+they were, who had both refused extra hours of labour offered by
+farmers, of a kind they did not like, and now demanded help on the score
+of their large families.  In fact, it had become the custom to demand
+relief for every fresh child that was born, and the men were often idle
+in consequence.  There were men with many children who had never come on
+the parish, because they were trustworthy and sober, and their wives
+were thrifty.  Each magistrate could point to several of these, and each
+knew how the small and struggling ratepayers were oppressed.  Nor could
+it be fair that these men should be maintained in idleness or dawdling
+at the expense of the hard-working small shopkeepers.
+
+Every gentleman on the bench who had weakly yielded before, and had
+given an order to whoever tramped over to ask for it, was very glad to
+have some one who would speak out, and take the burthen of unpopularity.
+So the order was not given, and Barton and Morris walked home
+disappointed, but not till they had each taken a pint or two of beer at
+the "Blue Lion" on their way home, uttering many curses on "that there
+Gobbleall."  Captain Carbonel did not hear those same curses, but as he
+rode home he saw the two men stagger out of the "Blue Lion," refreshed
+not only by their own pints, but by those of sympathisers.  And the
+sight did not make him sorry for what he had done, knowing well that
+George Hewlett, Cox the cobbler, and Mrs Holly, the widow with a small
+shop, were almost borne down with the rates, and not seeing why they
+should toil that Billy and Nanny Barton should lounge and drink.
+
+Billy Barton, however, did more.  He joined an expedition which Dan
+Hewlett was already organising with Joe Todd, as much for revenge as
+profit, to have a night of poaching in Mr Selby's woods, in which there
+were a number of fine pheasants, not so many as at present where
+preserves are strictly kept, but poaching was more profitable in some
+ways, since in those days poulterers were not allowed to sell game
+openly, but gave a higher price to men who could contrive to convey it
+to them, and then sold it at a great profit to pretentious people, who
+had no friends to give it to them, but who wanted to show it at their
+dinner-parties.  Tirzah Todd, as usual, was the means of disposing of
+most of these gains.  Her lively ways made poulterers and servants
+inclined to further her dealings.
+
+She was a great deal too sharp to carry any save her lawful wares to
+Greenhow Farm; but in the last year since the Carbonels had come,
+especially since the captain had been a magistrate, the trade had been
+less prosperous and required more caution.  Once Captain Carbonel had
+found a wire for a hare in his hedge, and had made it known that he
+should prosecute any one whom he caught out.  He was no eager sportsman
+himself, but he had a respect for the law.
+
+The poachers arranged a raid upon the Selby woods, in which Joe Todd,
+Dan Hewlett, and Billy Barton all took part.  The first of these was too
+sharp to be caught by the keepers.  He had all the litheness and cunning
+of his gipsy blood, and was actually safe in the branches of a tree
+overhead, while Dan, having put his foot into a rabbit-hole, was seized
+by one keeper, with his gun and a bag of spoil, and Billy Barton, in his
+bewilderment, ran straight into the arms of another, with a pheasant's
+tail poking up his short smock-frock as it stuck out of his pocket.
+
+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.  Of
+what could, should, or ought to be done, they had no notion; and of
+course they were both in terrible distress, Nanny crying passionately
+into her apron, and protesting--whenever she could get voice between her
+sobs, that if the good lady would get the good gentleman to forgive him
+this time--he would never, never do so no more.  While Molly Hewlett,
+who had some remnants of old respectability about her, was trying her
+utmost to induce Mrs Carbonel to intercede.
+
+It was the first time.  He was led to it.  It was for sport.  He had
+never done it before.  To be sure madam would not let 'em be hard on
+poor Judith's brother.  No Hewlett--no, nor any Grey--had ever been in
+prison before!  He was just drove to it, because that there George would
+give him no work!  She and her poor children would have to come to the
+workhouse, and poor Judith!  Nanny, too, began to cry out about her poor
+children and the parish.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs Carbonel had been trying to get in a word to make them
+understand that the matter did not rest with the captain, and that he
+had no choice at all in the question but to commit them to gaol to take
+their trial.  He had no power to let them off, and she could do nothing,
+though she was sincerely sorry for the wives; but they neither heard nor
+tried to hear, and as the cart was driven up by Master Pucklechurch, the
+keeper, and the constable Cox, to the back door for the handcuffed
+prisoners, weeping and wailing of the loudest arose, and the women
+darted round to embrace their husbands, evidently expecting Mrs
+Carbonel to assure them that she would charge herself with the support
+of their families while they were in prison.
+
+She was so much distressed, and so pitiful, that she was just going to
+do something of the kind, but her husband's gesture stopped her.  Billy
+Barton howled more loudly than his wife, and, as he could not raise his
+hands to his face, presented a terrible spectacle, though the captain
+declared there were no tears to be seen.  Dan stood grim, stolid, and
+impassive, and if he spoke at all, it was in a muttered oath at the
+noise his wife was making.  It was a great relief when the cart was
+driven off, followed by the two women, and Captain Carbonel exclaimed--
+
+"Poor creatures!  That Barton is a fool, but Mr Dan is something
+worse."
+
+"Oh, those poor women!  Why would you not let me speak, Edmund, and
+promise that they should not starve?"
+
+"The parish will take care of that, Mary; you need not be afraid."
+
+"It sounds so hard-hearted," said Dora and Sophy to each other.
+
+But Edmund did not prevent, nor wish to prevent, their going to see
+Judith, nor taking with them much more solid food than she was in the
+habit of eating.  Thick sandwiches and lumps of cold pudding were
+likewise conveyed to the Barton children at school, so that probably
+they fared much better than was their usual habit.
+
+Judith said she was sorry that Dan should go for to do such a thing, but
+she was less indignant than Dora expected, and she cried, though more
+quietly than her sister, when he was sentenced to three months'
+imprisonment.  It was to be said for Molly Hewlett, that enough of her
+old training remained about her to keep her a sober woman, but Captain
+Carbonel saw Nanny Barton reeling out of the "Blue Lion" on the day of
+the conviction, much the worse for the treatings she had enjoyed by way
+of consolation.
+
+If George Hewlett had any strong feelings about his brother's disaster,
+he did not communicate them; he went about his work just as usual, and
+whistled as much as ever.  But he took Johnnie, who was only eleven
+years old, into his workshop, and gave him eighteenpence a week for
+doing what he could; and he turned out handy, diligent, and trustworthy,
+so as to be fully worth the money, and thus to stay on when his father
+came out of prison.
+
+Dan was much the same man as when he went into gaol, save that his
+hatred to Captain Carbonel had increased.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+LINCH-PINS.
+
+  "And leave them laughing, Ho!  Ho Ho!"--_Robin Goodfellow_.
+
+Notice was sent from the Bishop of the diocese that he was about to hold
+a Confirmation at Poppleby in six weeks' time.  This was matter of
+rejoicing to Mr Harford, who had mourned over the very few
+communicants.  Before he came the Celebrations had been only three times
+a year, and were attended by most of the aged paupers.  To the joy of
+the Carbonels, the feast was monthly after his coming; but the first
+time the aged people were there, and all lingered, George Hewlett, the
+clerk, said, when the curate looked to him for information--
+
+"The alms, sir.  They be waiting for the money in the plate."
+
+"Why, that is to be reserved for sick and distressed."
+
+"Mr Selby, he always give it out to them, and so did Mr Jones afore
+him, sir.  They be all expecting of it."
+
+Mr Harford thought that it might be best not to disappoint the old
+people suddenly, so he stood at the vestry door counting heads, and
+numbering among them two whom he had already been somewhat startled to
+see present themselves, namely, Dame Spurrell, whom he had heard abusing
+her neighbour with a torrent of foul words, and who pretended to be a
+witch, and Tom Jarrold, whom Hewlett had described to him as the
+wickedest old chap in the parish.
+
+He took counsel with the churchwardens, Farmers Goodenough and Rawson,
+who both agreed that they were a bad lot, who didn't deserve nothing,
+but it helped to keep down the rates.  Then he talked to Captain
+Carbonel, who, being a reverent man, was dismayed at what he heard.
+
+"Just paying the old souls for coming in no fit state," he said.
+
+"Then you advise me to change the system?"
+
+"You have no other choice," returned the soldier.  "Read out your
+standing orders, and preach, if you will, explaining the matter."
+
+This Mr Harford did, but not by any means all the persons concerned
+were present, and he afterwards went round among them explaining that,
+though they were to be helped in any distress, and the alms would be
+kept for the purpose, it was profane to give them out as a sort of
+payment to those who partook.  Old Redford, Widow Mole's father, was the
+only person who seemed to enter into the scruples.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, "it went agin me to sim to be paid for coming to
+the Lord's Table, and I wouldn't ne'er ha' done it, but a shilling is a
+shilling to my poor daughter, and when I could get to church, it was
+hard on her to miss the chance."
+
+The next Celebration was only attended by the Carbonels, old Mrs
+Rawson, and Redford; nor at the next ensuing Whitsuntide were the
+numbers much increased.  In spite of all that Mr Harford could preach,
+and say in private, the main body of the parishioners would not listen
+to the invitation.  And the disaffected grumbled among themselves, that
+he kept the money for himself, and no one would never see the colour of
+it.  There really were only thirteen communicants in the parish when
+these had seceded.  And Mr Harford looked to the Confirmation to bring
+more intelligent and devout worshippers, though the time for preparation
+was short.
+
+He found that most people had been confirmed at Minsterham Cathedral,
+and there were reminiscences of great holidays, few and far between, and
+no difficulty was made as to the young people, up to twenty years old,
+being nominated for Confirmation.  There was some disappointment that it
+should be only at Poppleby, as furnishing so much less of a day's
+pleasure; and when it was found that Mr Harford expected the candidates
+at regular classes and private lectures, there were objections.  Farm
+lads could not be spared, maids in farmhouses still less.
+
+"What should parson want to be always at 'em," said Mrs Goodenough.
+"Old Mr Jones, he never made no work with them."
+
+However, she had two daughters to be confirmed, and the reigning
+"Lizzie" was allowed to go as an escort to them.  The elder lads, who
+were really grown men, would not come at all, and could never be found.
+"They wouldn't be catechiz--not they."  The Sunday scholars, male and
+female, came pretty well, but not in large numbers, and the age fixed
+for Confirmation was fifteen, so that those who were fresh from teaching
+were not many.  Sophia Carbonel was a candidate, and very much in
+earnest, but Mr Harford preferred giving her books to read and
+questions to answer in private, as with most of the others he had to
+begin at the very beginning.  The Misses Goodenough knew almost
+nothing--far less than Susan Pucklechurch and Rachel Mole, who were the
+gems of the female class, as was Johnnie Hewlett of that of the youths.
+The brightest of these was, however, in some respects, Fred Allen, of
+the general shop.  He had been at school at Downhill, and could really
+read and write better than Johnnie, and far better than any one else;
+for the chief scholars only made what Betty Pucklechurch called "a sad
+hackering job of un," and most scarcely knew a letter, having forgotten
+whatever they might have learnt at Dame Verdon's before they went out
+bird-starving.  Fred Allen began by answering, when asked what was done
+in Confirmation, "Taking all your godfather's and godmother's sins upon
+you, and becoming liable to be balloted for the militia!"  It was a
+startling view, and, as far as Mr Harford could make out, it was shared
+by most of the candidates; but, then, they had very little notion of
+what sin meant, as, if they had a general idea, it was plain that they
+did not seriously expect to suffer for their sponsors sins after
+Confirmation, or that the sponsors suffered for theirs previously.
+
+The curate taught, questioned, explained, and exhorted.  Fred Allen knew
+little, but his wits were sharper, and he took in Mr Harford's
+instructions more readily, and remembered them better, while apparently
+most of the other minds were, and remained, a blank.  Only he could not
+refrain from causing horse-laughs outside, and making grins at every
+opportunity.
+
+But, with much anxiety, and after many exhortations, Mr Harford gave
+out his tickets.  The girls were to be conveyed--the most of them--in
+the Greenhow waggon, driven by old Pucklechurch, the boys to walk.  Mr
+Goodenough would drive his daughters; and Sophia, in her white dress and
+cap (nobody wore a veil then), would be with her sisters and brother in
+the chariot with post-horses.  Captain Carbonel and Mr Harford went
+outside on the box.
+
+They had passed Downhill, and were getting on, as well as their horses
+could, through the muddy ground at the bottom, freshly stirred up by a
+previous wet day.  Before them was a steep, short ascent, but at the
+bottom of this there was a sudden stop.  The captain put his head in at
+the window and said, "Only the cart--no harm," and strode on following
+Mr Harford, while the ladies craned their heads out, and Dora,
+exclaiming "An accident," ran after him, and Mary only just withheld
+Sophy, in consideration of her white dress, on the post-boy's assurance,
+with a scarcely suppressed grin, "No harm done, ma'am.  Only they lads."
+
+For what the two gentlemen and the amused post-boy had seen was this.
+The squadron of boys had overtaken the cart full of girls, when, just as
+the waggon had come to the pitch of the hill, all the load of maidens
+were seen tumbling out at the back, and as the horses of the chariot
+halted, the girls' screams, mingled with the horse-laughter of the boys,
+was plainly to be heard.  Only Susan Pucklechurch, sitting on the front
+seat with her father, remained in her place.  The girls were giggling
+and helping one another up, nearly all unhurt, but some very angry, and
+Bessy Linwood was scolding violently, Pucklechurch likewise in his most
+growling voice, "Ye young good-for-noughts!  I'll lay the cart whip
+about your idle, mischievous backs," while the party of boys were still
+laughing, and one voice was heard to shout, "Rubbish shot here."  A peal
+of laughter followed, but was cut short by Bessy Linwood's, "Here's
+parson; you'll catch it."  Then, at the top of her voice, "Sir, 'tis
+them boys!  They've bin and pulled out the linch-pins and shot us all
+down into the mud!"
+
+"Is this so?" said the captain sternly, while silence came down on the
+party, except for the sobs of Jenny Hewlett, who had gone into a dirty
+pool, and whom Rachel Mole and Betsy Seddon were brushing down
+vigorously.
+
+"Quite true, sir," returned Pucklechurch.  "They young dogs got behind,
+and played the poor maids this trick."
+
+"Who did?" demanded Mr Harford.
+
+Bessy Linwood spoke up and said it was "all on 'em," but she saw Fred
+Allen at it.
+
+No doubt, the fun of the thing had been too much for the boys, in their
+holiday mood of thoughtlessness, and they stood looking sheepish, but
+Mr Harford was very stern and sharp with them.
+
+"Lads, do you think that, if you could play such a trick, you can be in
+a fit state to take solemn vows upon you?"
+
+No one spoke up except Fred Allen.  "We didn't do 'em no harm," he said.
+
+"No harm!  To disturb all good thoughts in their minds and your own, and
+drive out all serious impressions by this mischievous trick!  Now, will
+any one come forward and say he is sorry?"
+
+Mr Harford waited, but no one stirred.  He bade the girls get in again,
+and Pucklechurch drive them on.  He waited again, but no one spoke.
+Indeed, Allen and another big youth were seen making for a gap in the
+hedge.
+
+"Will no one say he is sorry for what was an idle trick, but very wrong
+when you ought to be thinking how you would be giving yourselves up to
+God?"
+
+They stood like stocks, and Captain Carbonel said, "Has no one the grace
+to regret a very improper and thoughtless action?"
+
+Still no one moved.
+
+"Then," said the clergyman, "there is no choice left to me.  It would be
+profanation to take persons in such a mood to make vows, and kneel to
+receive God's grace, which they evidently make light of.  Whoever will
+not come and apologise must go home."
+
+There was no movement among the white round frocks.  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 was
+nothing to be done but to return to their seats, and urge the post-boy
+to hurry on.
+
+The bells of Poppleby church might ring merrily, but the heart of the
+curate was very heavy with the questions--whether this misfortune could
+be owing to his not having impressed the lads enough while preparing
+them, or to his having been too hasty and peremptory in his indignation.
+
+Captain Carbonel said they were such intolerable louts that to
+disappoint them was all the better, and they would know how to present
+themselves more seriously another time, but Mr Harford much doubted
+whether they would ever present themselves again.
+
+"It would just be mockery for them to make the vow," said the captain.
+
+"Ah! they miss the grace," said the curate.
+
+Harriet Allen was crying all through the time of the Confirmation when
+she perceived that her brother's head was not among the boys.  Indeed
+the only male candidate from Uphill was Will Cox, who had gone with his
+cousins from Downhill.  Most of the boys were glad to have got off
+making the vow, for, in spite of all Mr Harford's teaching, there were
+some who still believed that they would take all their god-parents' sins
+upon them, or, at any rate, that they should feel more bound to take
+heed to their ways.
+
+Johnnie Hewlett indeed was sorry when he went home to his aunt, and had
+to tell her why he had not been confirmed after all.
+
+"Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, you didn't go for to upset the maids?"
+
+"I?  No.  I was at the bottom of the hill with Harry Coles."
+
+"Then why couldn't you have said so?"  He hung his head and twisted his
+hands.  "Oh, Johnnie, what was it?  Was it only the going along with the
+others?"
+
+Still he made no reply, but Judith saw in his face that this was the
+reason.
+
+"Oh, my boy!  To think that you did not feel that God's blessing and
+grace were worth standing out for against a lot of idle chaps; and now
+you won't be able to take the Sacrament!"
+
+"Father never would let I," returned the boy.
+
+"Oh, my dear, dear lad, don't you know that you might have got strength,
+and would get strength, to stand up for yourself, and do what you ought.
+Oh dear!  My hope is gone!" she cried bitterly, and though Johnnie got
+away from the sight, her distress really found its way into his heart,
+while he said very little except, "There, there, auntie, never mind.
+Maybe I'll try again next time."
+
+"You promise me, John Hewlett; even if I'm not here to see?"
+
+"Yes, I promise, aunt," said he, glad to have silenced her regrets, and
+hoping the fulfilment was a good way off.
+
+The parishioners, especially those who had only sons and not daughters,
+were very angry.  They did not value Confirmation greatly, but that the
+curate after "making such a work with the poor lads as never was,"
+should have presumed to reject them made them furious.  Mr Allen even
+threatened to write to Dr Fogram, but as he did not know how to address
+a letter, to what he called "Oxford College," he contented himself with
+walking off with his belongings to Downhill church every Sunday--that
+is, when they went anywhere.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+PROGRESS OR NO PROGRESS.
+
+  "For some cry quick and some cry slow,
+  But while the hills remain,
+  Uphill, too slow, will need the whip,
+  Downhill, too quick, the chain."
+  _Tennyson_.
+
+Several years had passed away, and Mary's Approach had never been made,
+though the lane had been improved and worn a good deal smoother, and the
+Duchess and other grandees had found their way along it.
+
+There were other expenses and other interests.  Dora was married.  A
+fellow-soldier of Captain Carbonel's had come on a visit, and had
+carried the bright young sister off to Malta.  She was a terrible loss
+to all the parish, and it would have been worse if Sophia had not grown
+up to take her place, and to be the great helper in the school and
+parish, as well as the story-teller and playmate, the ever ready "Aunt
+Sophy" of the little children.
+
+And these years had made the farm and garden look much prettier and
+neater altogether.  The garden was full of flowers, and roses climbed up
+the verandah; and the home-field beyond looked quite park-like with iron
+railings between, so that the pretty gentle Alderney cows could be
+plainly seen.
+
+The skim-milk afforded by those same cows went in great part to the
+delicate children in the village, though Mrs Carbonel had every year to
+fight a battle for it with Master Pucklechurch and his wife, who
+considered the whole of it as the right of the calves and little pigs,
+and would hardly allow that the little human Bartons or Morrises were
+more worth rearing.
+
+There had been a visitation of measles through the village--very bad in
+the cottages, and at Greenhow the three little children had all been
+very ill; the second, Dora, died, and the elder one, little Mary,
+remained exceedingly delicate, screaming herself ill on any alarm or
+agitation, and needing the most anxious care.
+
+The cottagers had learnt to look to Greenhow and the "Gobblealls" as the
+safe resource in time of any distress, whether of a child having eaten
+too many blackberries, or of a man being helpless from "rhumatiz;" a
+girl needing a recommendation to a service, or "Please, sir, I wants to
+know if it is allowed for a man to kill my father?" which was the
+startling preface to George Truman's complaint of a public-house row, in
+which his father had got a black eye.
+
+Still, there was less fighting among the men and much less among the
+women, since Nanny Barton and Betsy Seddon had lodged
+counter-accusations after a great quarrel over the well, when Nanny had
+called Betsy, among other choice epithets, "a sneaking hypercriting old
+cat of a goody," and Betsy had returned the compliment by terming Nanny
+"a drunken, trapesing, good-for-nothing jade, as had no call to good
+water."  On which Nanny had torn out a large bunch of Betsy's hair, and
+Betsy had used her claws to make long scratches on Nanny's cheeks, the
+scars of which were cherished for the magistrates!  It was expected in
+the village that Betsy would get off, being that she and her husband
+worked for Captain Gobbleall, and Nanny was known, when "a bit
+overtaken," to have sauced Miss Sophy.  Nevertheless they were equally
+fined, with the choice of three weeks' imprisonment, and, to every one's
+surprise, the fines were produced.
+
+Betsy thought it very hard that she should be fined when she worked in
+the captain's fields; and she lamented still more when he insisted on
+the family removing to a vacant cottage of his own between two of his
+fields.  It was in better condition, had more garden, and a lower rent,
+and her husband, who was a quiet man, never quarrelling unless she made
+him, much rejoiced.  "She have too much tongue," he said, and she had to
+keep the peace, for the captain declared that, after the next uproar in
+his fields, he should give her no more work there.  And though she
+declared it was not her, but "they women who would not let her alone,"
+things certainly became much quieter.
+
+For Captain Carbonel was an active magistrate, busy in all the county
+improvements, and preserving as much order in the two parishes as was
+possible where there was no rural police, only the constable, Cobbler
+Cox, who was said to be more "skeered of the rogues than the rogues was
+of he," and, at Downhill, Appleton, the thatcher, who was generally to
+be found enjoying himself at the Selby Arms.  Still, fewer cases came up
+to the bench than in former times, and Uphill hardly furnished one
+conviction in a quarter.  The doctors at the infirmary said that they
+knew an Uphill person by the tidier clothing.  This was chiefly owing to
+the weekly club, of which the women were very glad.  "It is just as if
+it was given," they said, when the clothes came in half-yearly, and
+decent garments encouraged more attendance at church.  There was no
+doubt that Uphill was more orderly, but who could tell what was the
+amount of real improvement in the people's hearts and souls?
+
+That first Confirmation had only produced two additional communicants,
+Sophia Carbonel, and Susan Pucklechurch, who was in training in the
+Greenhow nursery.  Not one of the others came to the Holy Feast.  Their
+parents, for the most part, said they were too young, and, as these
+parents never came themselves, the matter seemed hopeless unless some
+deeper religious feeling could be infused by diligent care.
+
+In one case, where there was a terrible illness and a slow recovery of
+George Truman, he became strongly impressed, and so did his wife, a very
+nice, meek woman, who had been in a good service.  They both came to the
+Holy Communion the month after the man was out again, but he did not
+keep it up.  "Sir, if you knew what the talk was like out in the fields,
+you would not wish it," he said.  Which gave Mr Harford much to think
+about.
+
+The next Confirmation, three years later, collected nearly the same
+number of boys and girls, and Mr Harford walked with the boys himself,
+and sent Mrs Thorpe with the girls, so that there was no such scandal
+as before.  The only lad who presented himself from among those rejected
+of the former year, was Johnnie Hewlett.  He was by this time older than
+any of the other candidates, and he had learnt in a measure to stand
+alone, though it was chiefly his promise to his aunt that brought him
+now.  He still worked with his cousin George Hewlett, and was a good
+deal trusted, and made useful.  His father had, however, drifted farther
+and farther away, since George had absolutely refused to employ him
+again in his business.
+
+"You never know where you are with such as he," said George, and with
+good reason; but Dan laid it all to "they Gobblealls and their spite."
+It was so far true that it was the depredations at Greenhow Farm that
+first convinced George that Dan was an absolute pilferer, though he had
+before suspected it, and tried to shut his eyes to the doubt.  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.
+
+It was his aunt that chiefly induced John to live at home, though he
+could easily have lodged away and have been nearer to the workshop.  His
+father had let him alone, and not interfered with his Sunday School
+going, as long as he was a mere boy, till this second time, when, at
+eighteen, and grown to man's stature, he was going up as a candidate
+with the younger ones.  Then the father swore "he was not going to have
+his son make a tomfool of hisself to please that there parson."
+
+"I have promised," said John.
+
+"Promised?  What--parson or ladies, or any sneaks that come meddling
+where no one wants 'em?"
+
+"'Twere not parson," said John.
+
+"Then 'twas one of they Gobblealls"--with an oath.  "That ain't of no
+account."
+
+"'Tweren't," again said John.
+
+No more was to be got out of him than "'Tweren't," and "I shall keep my
+word."  He was too big to be beaten; a tall, strong, well-made youth,
+and Dan was obliged to let him alone, and only swear at him for turning
+his back on his old father, and being no better than a Methody.
+
+In point of fact, Molly and the two younger children were chiefly
+supported by John's earnings and Judith's pension, for whatever Dan
+earned at Downhill or picked up in his various fashions was pretty sure
+to be swallowed either by the "Blue Lion" or by the "Fox and Hounds."
+Judith was entirely in bed upstairs, and the kitchen had lost all the
+little semblance of smartness it once had.  While Molly might have been
+taken for sixty years old instead of forty-five, though that was not
+unusual among the hard-working women, who got aged and dried up with
+weather in the fields and with toil and care at home--even when they had
+kindly, sober husbands.
+
+Judith's room was a place of peace and order, so kept by the help of
+little Judy and of John, both of whom loved her heartily, and felt as if
+she were a mother to them.  She had brought home to them all the good
+that they knew.  She had always made them say their prayers by her as
+children, and John continued to do so still, "for old sake's sake if for
+no other reason."  They had always repeated to her what they had heard
+at school, and by-and-by the text and substance of the sermons as far as
+they could; and she told them her own thoughts, freely and earnestly,
+thoughts that came partly from the readings of Mrs Carbonel and Mr
+Harford with her, but far more than she knew from her own study of the
+Bible, backed by her earnest spiritual mind, which grew deeper and
+deeper as her earthly sufferings increased.  Of course she had tried to
+do the same with her sister and the other children, but none of them
+would endure it.  Molly always had something to do elsewhere, and said
+what was all very well for a sick woman like Judith could not be
+expected in one who had such a lot of trouble that she did not know
+which way to look.
+
+Poor thing!  Neither Judith nor Mr Harford could persuade her that
+there was a way to look which would have lightened all these troubles!
+But John had learnt how to stand alone, and he did so, not only by
+presenting himself for confirmation, but by becoming a Communicant.  Not
+another lad did so, but his cousin George and his wife had begun at
+last, under the influence of Mr Harford's sermons, and so had a few
+more in the parish.  John, in his cousin's workshop, was shielded from a
+good deal of the evil talk and jesting that went on among his fellows in
+the fields.  He "took after" George in being grave and quiet, and he
+loved no company better than his invalid aunt's; but to be a steady and
+religious youth was a more difficult matter in those days than at
+present, for harmless outlets for youthful spirits had not been devised,
+and to avoid mischief it was almost needful to abstain from almost all
+the company and pleasures of a country lad.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+THE THRESHING-MACHINE.
+
+  "When lawless mobs insult the court,
+  That man shall be my toast,
+  If breaking windows be the sport,
+  Who bravely breaks the most."
+  _Cowper_.
+
+Captain Carbonel had made his farming answer better than his friends, or
+still more the farmers, had predicted.  He had gone to the markets and
+talked with the farmers, and not shown off any airs, though, as they
+said, he was a gentleman, so known by his honest, straightforward
+dealing.  Nor had he been tempted to launch out into experiments and
+improvements beyond what he could properly afford, though he kept
+everything in good order, and used new methods according to the soil of
+his farm.
+
+Master Pucklechurch growled at first, and foretold that nothing would
+come of "thicken a'"; that the "mangled weazel," as he called the mangel
+wurzel, would not grow; and that the cows would never eat "that there
+red clover as they calls apollyon;" but when the mangel swelled into
+splendid crimson root and the cows throve upon the bright fields of
+trifolium, he was as proud as any one, and he showed off the sleek sides
+of the kine, and the big mis-shapen roots of the beet with the utmost
+satisfaction.
+
+Equal grumbling heralded the introduction of a threshing-machine, which
+Captain Carbonel purchased after long consideration.  The beat of the
+flail on barn floors was a regular winter sound at Uphill, as in all the
+country round, but to get all the corn threshed and winnowed by a
+curious revolving fan with four canvas sails, was a troublesome affair,
+making farmers behindhand in coming to the market.  And as soon as he
+could afford the venture the Captain obtained a machine to be worked by
+horse-power, for steam had hardly been brought as yet into use even for
+sea traffic, and the first railway was only opened late in 1830, the
+time of the accession of William the Fourth.
+
+The farm people, with old Pucklechurch at their head, looked at the
+operations of the machine with some distrust, but this gradually became
+wonder and admiration on the part of the Greenhow labourers, for
+threshing with the flail was very hard work for the shoulders and back,
+and Captain Carbonel took care to find employment for the men in winter
+time, so that his men did not join in the complaint of Barton and Morris
+that there wouldn't be nothing for a poor chap to get his bread by in
+the winter.  In truth, the machine and its work were a perfect show to
+the neighbourhood for the first harvest or two, when Seddon was to be
+seen sitting aloft enthroned over a mist of dust, driving the horse that
+went round and round, turning the flails that beat out corn from the
+ears in the sheaves, with which Pucklechurch and Truman fed the
+interior.
+
+All Greenhow was proud of its "Mr Machy," as the little Mary called it,
+thinking perhaps that it was a wonderful live creature.
+
+The neighbourhood remained quiet even when George the Fourth died, and
+there was much hope and rejoicing over the accession of his brother, who
+was reported to be the friend of the people, and to mean to make changes
+in their favour.  Poor old George Hewlett was, however, much exercised
+on the first Sunday, when, in the prayers for the king, Mr Harford
+inadvertently said George instead of _William_, and George Hewlett, the
+clerk, held it to be praying for the dead, which he supposed to be an
+act forbidden.
+
+There was, of course, an election for the new parliament, but it did not
+greatly affect Uphill, as nobody had any votes, except Captain Carbonel,
+the farmers, and the landlord of the "Fox and Hounds," and the place was
+too far from Minsterham for any one to share in the election news,
+except Dan Hewlett and Joe Todd, who tramped over thither to hear the
+speeches, swell the riotous multitude, and partake of all the beer to
+which both sides freely treated all comers.  They came home full of
+news, and reported in the bar of the "Fox and Hounds" that there were to
+be grand doings in this new parliament; the people wasn't going to stand
+it no longer, not if the right gentlemen got in; but there would be an
+end of they machines, as made horses do men's work, and take the bread
+from their poor children.  Beer would be ever so much cheaper, and every
+poor man would have a fat pig in his sty.  That is, if Mr Bramdean, as
+was the people's friend, got in.
+
+"Why, he was the one as our Captain Gobbleall was agin," observed Cox,
+who had come in to hear the news.
+
+"To be sure he was; Gobbleall is hand and glove with all the tyrums.
+Ha'n't he got a machine?" said Dan, in an oracular manner.
+
+"No one will never tell me as how our captain ain't a friend o' the
+people," returned Seddon.  "Don't he get coals reasonable for us, and
+didn't he head the petition for your pig, Jim, and draw it up, too?"
+
+"Ay, but what right had he to say my missus shouldn't take it out of the
+parish?" said Jim Parsons.  "We'd a made a couple of pounds more, if
+she'd been free to go her rounds, as Betty Blake did."
+
+"Ay, that's the way of 'em.  They grudges us everything what they don't
+give themselves," said Dan, "and little of that, too."
+
+No one understood the spirit which desired to make people independent,
+and raise them above indiscriminate beggary, and Todd said, with a grim
+laugh, "They would not see us make a little purse for ourselves, not if
+they can help it."
+
+Seddon feebly said the ladies was free enough with their gifts.  "They
+had never had no one before to help the women folk and the children."
+
+"Pig's wash!  Much good may it do 'em," said Dan, so contemptuously that
+Seddon durst not utter another word in the general laugh, though he
+carried home a little can of milk every day, and he and others well knew
+the store that their wives set by the assistance of their little ones.
+
+They knew it well enough, though they were afraid to maintain the cause
+of the Gobblealls before such an orator as Dan; and nothing worse than
+these grumblings took place all harvest time, where the whole families
+were fully employed, the men each taking a portion of the field, while
+their wives and children aided in the reaping and binding, and earned
+sums amongst them which would pay the quarter's rent, buy the pig, and
+provide huge boots for the father, if for no others of the family.  The
+farmers provided substantial luncheons and suppers for the toilers in
+the field; and, when all was over, and the last load carried, amid
+joyful shouts, there was a great harvest supper at each farm, where
+songs were sung, dances were danced, and there was often a most
+unlimited quantity of beer swallowed.
+
+No one had then thought of harvest thanksgivings; but at Greenhow there
+was as usual the farm supper, but with only ale enough for good and not
+for harm; the ladies came to hear the songs in the great farm kitchen,
+and the party had to break up at nine o'clock.  The women, especially
+Mrs Mole, were glad; but the men, even the steady ones, did not like
+having only half an evening of it, and "such a mean sup of beer."  It
+really was excellent strong beer--far better than the farmers' brew--but
+that did not matter to the discontented, who, instead of letting
+themselves be taken home by their wives, adjourned to the "Fox and
+Hounds," and there sat over their pint cups, replenished from time to
+time, while they discussed the captain's meanness, and listened to a
+dirty old newspaper, which told of the doings of Jack Swing, who was
+going about in Wiltshire, raising mobs, threatening farmers and squires,
+and destroying machines.  There was much excitement among the gentry
+about Reform, but apparently the poor cared not about it.
+
+To the Uphill mind, Wiltshire was as strange and distant a country as
+Australia, and this made little impression, so that, as the days went
+on, everybody went to their usual work, and there was no alarm.
+
+"Oh no," said Mrs Carbonel, "the people here have far too much good
+sense to want to molest their best friends.  They quite admire our
+threshing-machine; and see what a saving of labour it is!"
+
+However, it was thought right to raise a body of yeomanry for the
+defence of the country, in case the disaffection should become more
+serious, and the assistance of Captain Carbonel at the county town was
+urgently requested to organise the members of it.  He left home for a
+few days without the least anxiety.  And Mr Harford, too, went on the
+Monday to attend a college meeting at Oxford, and would not return till
+he had visited his patient lady-love.  The Selbys were away, spending
+the autumn at Cheltenham.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+A NIGHT JOURNEY.
+
+  "And he must post, without delay,
+  Along the bridge and through the dale.
+  And by the church and o'er the down."
+  _Wordsworth_.
+
+John Hewlett had finished his day's work, and come home in the dusk of
+an October evening.  He found the house hung all over with the family
+linen, taken in to shelter from a shower; but not before it had become
+damp enough to need to be put by the fire before it could be ironed or
+folded.  His mother was moaning over it, and there was no place to sit
+down.  He did not wonder that Jem had taken his hunch of bread and gone
+away with it, nor that his father was not at home; but he took off his
+boots at the back door, as his aunt never liked his coming into her room
+in them--though they were nothing to what he would have worn had he
+worked in the fields--and then climbed up the stairs.
+
+Judith was sitting up in bed, with her teapot, tea-cup, and a piece of
+stale loaf, laid out on a tray before her; and little Judy beside her,
+drinking out of a cracked mug.  Judith's eyes had a strange look of
+fright in them, but there was an air of relief when she saw Johnnie.
+
+"Well, aunt, is that all you have got for tea?"
+
+"Poor mother has been hindered; but never mind that," returned Judith,
+in a quick, agitated tone.  "Judy, my dear, drink up your tea and run
+down to help mother, there's a dear."
+
+"You haven't brought nothing, Johnnie," Judy lingered to ask.
+
+"No, not I.  I've worked too late to go to shop," said Johnnie.
+
+"Go down, my dear, as I told you," said Judith, with a little unwonted
+tone of impatience, which made the youth certain that she had something
+important to tell him; and as soon as the little girl began clumping
+down the stairs, she held out her hand and said in the lowest of voices,
+"Come near, Johnnie, that you may hear."  He came near; she put out her
+hand to pull him on his knees, so that his ear might be close to her,
+and whispered, "Jack Swing is coming to Greenhow to-morrow."
+
+"The captain away!  How do you know?"
+
+"A man came and talked with your father in the back garden--just under
+this window.  Mother had run up to shop for a bit of soap; but they
+thought she might come in any minute, and so went out at the back door,
+so that I heard them all the better."
+
+"They never thought of that!  Well?"
+
+"They mean to come on Greenhow, ask for money and arms, break up the
+machine, and burn the ricks if they don't get what they want.  Father
+said they might be sure of the Downhill men, and most of 'em here, for
+they all hate that there machine that is to starve poor folk in winter
+time; and those that were not of that way would be afraid to hold back,
+or they would show them the reason why."
+
+"And the captain away.  It is enough to be the death of madam and the
+little ones."
+
+"That's just what I thought.  Oh, Johnnie dear, can't you help to save
+them, and hinder it?"
+
+"Master wouldn't go along with such doings," said John.
+
+"I wouldn't answer for George!  He's a steady man, and would do no harm
+if he's let alone; but he's a mortal fearsome one!  No, John, there's no
+help for it, but that you should get over in time to fetch the captain,
+and let him take away the ladies, or stand up for them.  He'll know what
+to be at!"
+
+"But will it get father into trouble?" asked John.
+
+"Not among so many.  He's sharp enough.  The captain, if he were only at
+home, would see how to get them away.  Anyway, think of the poor ladies
+and the little children!"
+
+John stood for a minute or two by the window thinking, while Judith sat
+up in her bed gazing at him with eager, anxious eyes; and at last he
+turned back, and would have spoken aloud but that she raised her hand to
+caution him.  He knelt down again beside her, and said, "No, aunt, I
+couldn't rest to think of all those rough brutes of chaps from we don't
+know where coming and playing their rigs, and bullying the ladies, with
+no one to help.  There was a lady frightened to death with them,--master
+was reading it out in the paper.  Yes, I'll go and fetch the captain
+home to take care of them.  Where is he?"
+
+"Miss Sophy told me he was at the hotel at Minsterham with a lot of
+them.  Have you ever been there, Johnnie?"
+
+"Yes.  Once I went with master in the cart when he wanted a bit of
+mahogany wood for Mrs Goodenough's chairs.  It is a long way," said
+Johnnie, looking wistfully at the darkening window; "but I'll do it,
+please God."
+
+"Yes.  Please God, and He will help you.  You've had your tea.  No!
+Well, drink up this,--it is cold enough--and take this hunch of bread.
+I am afraid there's nothing better to be had.  And here's sixpence, in
+case you want a bit of food."
+
+"I've got ninepence of my own," said John, feeling in his pocket; and
+though most of his pay went to his mother for his washing and board, he
+always kept a little back every week.
+
+"There, then, you'd best be off, my dear lad.  Keep out of sight, you
+know, as long as you are in the village."
+
+Johnnie bobbed his head; and his aunt threw her arms round his neck, and
+kissed him, as she had not done since he was in petticoats; and then she
+murmured, "God bless you, my darling lad, and take care of you."
+
+Johnnie did not feel the prayer needless, for in spite of his eighteen
+year, he had all a country lad's dislike of being out alone in the dark;
+and to this was added the sense that it was a time when evil-minded
+people might be about, who would certainly assault and stop him if they
+guessed his errand.  To meet his father would make it certain that he
+would be seized, abused, beaten, and turned back, with the reproach of
+being an unnatural son--turning against his father.  Of this, however,
+there was little chance, as Dan Hewlett was pretty certain to be either
+in the "Fox and Hounds" or in the "Blue Lion" collecting partisans.  And
+Johnnie, getting out through the back door, then by the untidy garden,
+and over the wall of the empty pig-stye, cut out into a stubble field.
+He was not afraid of his mother missing him till bedtime, as it was the
+wont of the youths--especially of those who had comfortless homes--to
+wander about in parties in the evening, bat-fowling sometimes, but often
+in an aimless sort of way, doing little bits of mischief, and seeking
+diversion, which they seldom found, unless there was any solitary figure
+to be shouted at and startled.  His father was not likely to come in
+till after he was turned out of the public-house; so John strode, all
+unseen, across the field, and through the gateway into the next.  He did
+think of the possibilities of bringing arrest and prosecution upon his
+father; but this did not greatly trouble him, for at this early period
+no regular measures of defence had been taken against the rioters; and
+as they went about disguised, and did not, as a rule, threaten life,
+they generally escaped scot-free.
+
+And the idea of a rude mob terrifying Mrs Carbonel to death was
+terrible to him.  Even since the day when she had stood before him in
+the Sunday School at the wash-house at Greenhow, she had been his notion
+of all that was lovely and angelic in womanhood.  She had said many a
+kind word to him over his work, and little Miss Mary had come and
+watched him with intense interest, eager chatter, and many questions
+when he was mending the gate.
+
+He was obliged to go down to the bridge at Downhill so as to cross the
+river, but there were lights in the houses, and a sound of singing in
+the "Blue Lion," which made him get into the fields behind as soon as
+possible, though by this time it was quite dark, so that he had to guide
+himself as well as he could by the lights in the windows.  This led to a
+great many wanderings and stumbles, since he did not know every field
+with its gates and gaps as well as he knew Uphill, so that he lost a
+good deal of time by blundering about, looking for a lighter space in
+the hedge which might or might not lead into the next field.  He made
+his way up to the opening.  It proved to be a gap, but lately mended,
+and he ran a couple of thorns deep into his hand before he tumbled over
+into a ditch.
+
+This was a grass field, and he heard the coughings of an old sheep, and
+the suppressed baaings of the others, finding himself presently outside
+their fold.  He guided himself along by the hurdles and came to deep
+ruts in stiff clay, but these led to a gate, and that into a narrow and
+muddy lane.  This he knew would bring him back to the high road, and
+that was comparatively plain sailing.
+
+Still there was Poppleby to go through, though not for several miles,
+which he tramped along, quietly enough, not meeting any one, but
+beginning to hear the sounds of the night-loving animals.
+
+Owls flew about with their hootings and snappings, startling him a good
+deal, as much from some notions of bad luck as from wonder at first if
+it were a human shout.  Then the lights of Poppleby were welcome to his
+eyes, and as they were chiefly in the upper windows he thought the town
+must be safe to walk through without fear of being met and stopped.
+Gas-lamps hardly existed then and Poppleby was all dark except for the
+big lamps over the public-house doors, and this was well for Johnnie,
+for just as he was about to pass the "Blue Lion," the door was thrown
+open, and a whole party came swaggering and staggering out, singing at
+the tops of their voices.  Johnnie had time to throw himself into a
+garden behind a hedge, and heard them pass by, holloaing rather than
+singing out--
+
+  "Down, down with they machines
+  That takes the poor folks' bread."
+
+There was something too about "Friends to the people and foes beware";
+but what startled Johnny the most was that he knew his father's voice in
+the shout, and for one moment saw the light of a lantern fall across a
+face that could belong to no one else but his father.  It could hardly
+be told whether, as he lay trembling there, the sight made him the more
+dislike his expedition, or the sound of those cries the more anxious to
+bring protection to his friends at Greenhow.  Anyway, he had given his
+word to his aunt, and he must go through with it, and he fancied that he
+could get to Minsterham before the keepers of late hours were shut up
+for the night, and might return again to see how things were going, and
+get excused by his cousin.
+
+Not till the shouts had died away in the distance did he venture out,
+and plodded once more into the darkness, under overhanging trees,
+meeting nothing, except one carriage, whose bright lamps came on like
+two fiery eyes, glowing more and more as they came nearer, and the black
+shadow of horses, driver, and close carriage rushed by, and left him
+again, deciding that it must be the doctor's chariot.  Then came another
+long long spell, so long that he thought it must be near morning, and
+was surprised to hear behind him in the frosty air the church clock at
+Poppleby striking far too many strokes, and what he hoped had been one
+turned into either eleven or twelve!  He hoped it was twelve.
+
+There were the branching roads, and it was far too dark to read the
+sign-post, so that he could only take the one that seemed to him the
+most likely; but when he had gone what might be any distance on the
+road, it seemed to get narrower and rougher than he expected, and then
+came an opening as if on to a common, such as he was sure did not exist
+on the way to Minsterham.  He must have got upon the Elchester road, and
+there was nothing for it but to turn back.  However, there was a pale
+brightness showing in the sky, and the moon came up, an old moon without
+very much light in her, but she was a great comfort to him, and told him
+how the night was going.
+
+On and on, and then there was a sound of trampling of horses and of
+wheels coming nearer, great light eyes growing larger and larger, and
+the mail-coach flashed and thundered by with the four horses, and
+presently, far-away he could hear the guard's horn announcing the
+approach to a wayside inn where the horses were changed; but by the time
+Johnnie had made his weary way up to the place, it was far-away on the
+road, indeed, he saw the lamps flash as it went up Wearyfoot Hill, but
+all the inn was silent again by that time even at the stables, and the
+hotel was a dark mass against the sky--the only light in it the moon
+reflected from the windows.  A dog barked as he went past, but he kept
+far upon the other side of the road and was reassured by hearing the
+rattling of a chain.
+
+Wearyfoot Hill!  Yes, it was Wearyfoot to him, as he dragged up it.  He
+could not remember whether it was four or five miles from Minsterham.
+There was a milestone standing on the bank, and he tried to read it, but
+the moon would not reveal more than the large initial letters of L for
+London and M for Minsterham, and he sat down at last and leaned against
+the stone, trying to trace out the figure above Minsterham with his
+fingers.
+
+Behold, though four and five were both ringing in his head, he must have
+fallen asleep, for he felt quite cold and stiff, the moon was much
+higher in the sky, the stars were paler, and there was a mist all round.
+He rose up, ashamed, and shook himself, colder and more uncomfortable
+than before, but feeling it was a new day, and that, were it four miles
+or five, he was now near Minsterham.  He said his morning prayers as he
+tramped along, stamping to warm his feet, and recollected that Aunt
+Judith would be lying awake praying for him.  He found that when the
+first discomfort of awakening had passed off, he really was the better
+for his short sleep, and marched on more vigorously, presently hearing a
+cock begin to crow, and birds to twitter.  Dawn was beginning, presently
+a lark sprang up and began to send down a wonderful cheerful song, that
+quite raised Johnnie's spirits; then over the quiet misty fields came
+the deep note of the great Minsterham clock pealing out, what was only a
+half hour, but John knew that it would be much louder in his ears next
+time it spoke.
+
+A waggon lumbered by, and then a labourer or two going to their work,
+but John kept out of their way, not wanting to be asked questions; there
+began to be red in the eastern mist, the clock sounded again, and from
+the slope of the hill, the spires of the churches in the town seemed to
+be rising out of a great lake of woolly mist.  The clock went through
+all the four quarters, then solemnly told out five strokes--Johnnie's
+weary night journey was over.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+THE ROYAL HOTEL.
+
+  "O haste to aid, ere aid be vain."
+  _Scott_.
+
+Though Johnnie's journey was over, his troubles were not at an end.
+When he came to the first houses, the way seemed still to lengthen out
+before him, and everything appeared to be still asleep, though the
+daylight was coming in as brightly as a foggy morning allowed.  Nor did
+he know his way; he had only driven to a timber-yard once with his
+cousin, and dined with him at a little public-house close by, and had no
+more than a dim recollection of shops, which looked quite different now,
+with all their shutters up.  Only a milk-cart, coming in with full tins,
+seemed to give a sign that people would want their breakfast some time
+or other; and next appeared a very black sweep with his cart, and two
+miserable little bare-footed boys running beside it, as black as the
+silhouette over Mrs Thorpe's chimney.
+
+Half-past five struck, and charwomen began to come out of side alleys,
+baker's shops to take down their shutters.  Johnnie ventured to ask one
+of the apprentice boys doing so the way to the Royal George Hotel.
+
+"D'ye want to bespeak the best apartments?" was all the answer he got,
+as the lad stopped his whistling and looked superciliously at Johnnie's
+battered, dusty working dress, and old straw hat.
+
+He found he should only be laughed at and walked on, renewing his
+question when he saw a good-natured-looking woman in a black bonnet and
+stout canvas apron, apparently going out for a day's washing.
+
+"Is it the Royal or the King George Tavern as you mean, my son?" she
+asked him.
+
+"Oh! the Royal--the one where the gentlemen goes," said Johnnie.  "I've
+got a message for one of 'em."
+
+"Bless you, my lad, they won't never let you in at this time of
+morning," said the woman.
+
+"It's very particular," returned John.  "I came off at night to tell
+him."
+
+She looked at him curiously.  "And what might it be, young man!  Some
+one taken very bad, no doubt."
+
+"No--not that," said John, and she looked so kind, he could not help
+telling.  "But he have got a machine, and Jack Swing is coming, and if
+he don't come home to see to the poor ladies--"
+
+"Bless me, and who may it be?"
+
+"Captain Carbonel--out at Uphill."
+
+"Never heard tell of the place."
+
+"It's out beyond Poppleby."
+
+"My!  And you've comed all that way to-night?"
+
+"The ladies are very good.  He's a right good gentleman.  All one to the
+poor as to the rich."
+
+"I say!  You are a good young man, to be sure!  I'd go with you and get
+to the speech of Lavinia Bull, the chambermaid, what I know right well;
+but if I'm not at Mrs Hurd's by six o'clock, she'll be flying at me
+like a wild cat.  Mercy on me, there it goes six!  Well, if that fine
+dandy, Boots, as is puffed up like a peacock, won't heed you, ask for
+Lavinia Bull, and say Mrs Callendar sent you, and he will call her fast
+enough."
+
+John thanked her and was going off at once, but she called out, "Bless
+the boy, he's off without even hearing where to go!  Just opposite the
+City Cross, as they calls it."
+
+It was not much like a cross to Johnnie's mind, being a sort of tower,
+all arches and pinnacles and mouldered statues, getting smaller up to
+the spiring top; but he knew it, and saw the hotel opposite with all its
+blinds down, nothing like astir yet, except that some one was about
+under the great open doorway leading into a yard, half entrance, to the
+hotel.
+
+He could see a man brushing a shoe, and went up with "Please, sir--" But
+he was met by, "Get off you young vagabond, we want none of your sort
+here."
+
+"Please, sir, I have a message for Miss Bull;" he hesitated.
+
+"She ain't down.  Get off, I say.  We don't have no idle lads here."
+
+"It's very particular--from Mrs Callendar."
+
+"Old witch!  Have she been burning any one's shirt fronts.  I say, Jem,
+you see if Lavinia is in the kitchen, and tell her old Callendar has
+been burning holes in her stockings or collars, and has sent a young
+scarecrow to tell her."
+
+John opened his mouth to say it was no such thing; but the under
+shoeblack, who was a sort of slave to Boots, made an ugly face at him,
+and was gone, turning coach wheels across the yard.  In another minute
+Lavinia, a nice brisk looking young woman, had come up with, "Well,
+young man, what has Mrs Callendar been after now?"
+
+"Please, ma'am, nothing; but she said as how I was to ask for you.  It's
+for Captain Carbonel, ma'am, a message from Uphill--that's his home."
+
+"Captain Carbonel--that's Number Seven," she said, consulting a slate
+that hung near the bar.  "He was to be called at eight o'clock.  Won't
+that do?"
+
+"Oh no, no, ma'am," implored John, thinking that the captain was taking
+his rest away from home.  "It's very particular, and I have come all
+night with it."
+
+"You have got to call Number Five for the High Flier at half-past six,"
+she said, turning to Boots.  "Could not you take up word at the same
+time?"
+
+"Catch me running errands for a jackanapes like that," said Boots, with
+a contemptuous shrug, turning away, and brushing at his shoe.
+
+"Never mind him," said good-natured Lavinia.  "What shall I say, young
+man?"
+
+"Oh, thank you, miss.  Say that John Hewlett have brought him a message
+from Uphill."
+
+"Jack Owlet!  Oh my!  Hoo! hoo!" exclaimed the blacking boy, as soon as
+Lavinia had disappeared up the stairs, dancing about with his hands on
+his hips.  "Look here, Tom,"--to a boy with a pail, who had just come
+in--"here be an Owlet's just flown in out of the mud.  Hoo! hoo!  Where
+did you get that 'ere patch on your back."
+
+"Where you never got none," responded the other boy.  "Mother stitched
+it for him."
+
+"Ay, sitting under a hedge, with her pot hung up on three sticks and a
+hedgepig in it," added the younger Boots.  "Come, own up, young gipsy!
+Yer come to get a tanner out of Number Seven with your tales."
+
+"I'm no gipsy," growled John; "but--"
+
+"Come, come," called out Boots, "none of your row.  And you, you
+impudent tramp, don't ye be larking about here, making the lads idle.
+Get out of the yard with ye, or I call the master to you."
+
+The landlord might probably have been far more civil; but poor Johnnie
+did not know this, and could only move off to the entrance of the court,
+so that when Lavinia in another moment appeared and asked where he was,
+Boots answered--
+
+"How should I tell?  He was up to mischief with the boys, and I bade him
+be off."
+
+"Well, Number Seven is ever so much put about, and he said he would be
+down in a jiffy!  So there!"
+
+Lavinia held up her skirts, and began in her white stockings to pick her
+way across the yard, while Boots sneered, and began brushing his shoe,
+and whistling as if quite undisturbed; and in another moment Captain
+Carbonel did appear, coming down the stairs very fast, all unshaven, and
+with a few clothes hastily thrown on, and quite ran after Lavinia,
+passing her as she pointed out beyond the entrance, where John was
+disconsolately leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets,
+feeling how utterly weary and hungry he was, and with uneasy thoughts
+about his father coming over him.
+
+"Oh, there you are, John Hewlett!  What is it?  No one ill?" exclaimed
+the captain.
+
+"No, sir; but,"--coming nearer and lowering his voice--"Jack Swing,
+sir."
+
+"Jack Swing!  We had notice of him out at Delafield."
+
+John shook his head, and looked down.
+
+"What!  Do you know anything, my boy?  Here, come in--tell me!"
+
+"Please, sir, they've laid it out to come to Greenhow this very day as
+is, to break the machine and get the guns and money."
+
+The captain started, as well he might; but still demanded, "How do you
+know?"
+
+John held his head down, most unwilling to answer.
+
+"Look here, my lad, you've done well coming to warn me; but I must be
+certain of your news before acting on it.  We were to ride off to
+Delafield to-day, and I must know if this is only a rumour."
+
+"Aunt heard them," said John, between his teeth.  "She heard them
+planning it for to-morrow--that's to-day--and she laid it on me to let
+you know to save the ladies from being fraught."
+
+"Your aunt heard it?"
+
+"Through the window in the back garden.  They planned to get all the
+chaps at Downhill and all, and go at the machine."
+
+"The villains!  Who did?  No, I'll not ask that, my lad," said the
+captain, knowing only too well who it must have been; "you have acted
+nobly, and I am for ever obliged to you.  Come in, and have some
+breakfast, while I dress and report this, and see what is to be done.
+You are sure there is time?"
+
+"They was to go about at dinner-time to get the folks," John squeezed
+out of his mouth, much against his will.
+
+"Then there's time.  Thank you with all my heart, John!  I'll see you
+again.  Here,"--to a barmaid who had appeared on the scene--"give this
+young man a hearty good breakfast and a cup of ale--will you?--and I'll
+be down again presently.  Stay till I come, Hewlett, and I'll see you
+again, and how you are to get home!  Why, it is twenty miles!  Were you
+walking all night?"
+
+"Only I went to sleep a bit of the time when I was trying to make out
+the milestone; I don't rightly know how long it was," said John, so much
+ashamed of his nap that the captain laughed, and said--
+
+"Never mind, Johnnie, you are here in the very nick of time; eat your
+breakfast, and I'll see you again."
+
+The good-natured barmaid let John have a wash at the pump with a bit of
+yellow soap and the round towel, and he was able to eat his breakfast
+with a will--a corner of cold pie and a glass of strong ale, such a
+breakfast as he had never seen, though it was only the leavings of
+yesterday's luncheon.  Everybody was too busy just then to pay him any
+attention, and he had time to hear all the noises and bells seem to run
+into one dull sound, and to be nodding in his chair before he was called
+by a waiter, with--"Ha, youngster, there, look alive! the gentlemen
+wants you."
+
+Now that sleep had once begun upon him, assisted by the ale, John looked
+some degrees less alive, though far more respectable than on his first
+arrival.  He was ushered into the coffee-room, where three or four
+gentlemen sat at one table, all in blue and silver, with the captain,
+and as he pulled his forelock and bobbed his head, the elder of them--a
+dignified looking man with grey hair and whiskers and a silver-laced
+uniform, said--"So, my lad, you are come to warn Captain Carbonel of an
+intended attack on his property?"
+
+"Yes, sir," John mumbled, looking more and more of a lout, for he had
+thought the captain would just go home alone to defend his wife and his
+machine, and was dismayed at finding the matter taken up in this way,
+dreading lest he should have brought every one into trouble and be
+viewed as an informer.
+
+"What evidence have you of such intentions?"
+
+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."
+
+"How did she hear?"
+
+"Through the window.  She heard them laying it out."
+
+"She is bedridden," put in the captain; "but a clever, sensible woman."
+
+"Whom did she hear or see?"
+
+"She couldn't see nobody, sir.  It was a strange voice," John was trying
+to save the truth.
+
+"Oh! and what did she hear?"
+
+"They was planning to go round the place and call up the men--that's
+to-day," said John.
+
+"Are you sure it was to-day?  Did she tell you she heard it?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  And," John bethought him, "there was a great row going on at
+the `Fox and Hounds,' and when I came past Poppleby, a whole lot of them
+come out singing `Down with the machines.'"
+
+"That's more like it, if it was not a mere drunken uproar," said Sir
+Harry.
+
+"I suppose you did not know any of the voices?" said one of the other
+gentlemen.
+
+John could hold his tongue this time.  "And you came all this way by
+night, twenty miles and odd, to warn Captain Carbonel, on your aunt's
+information?" said Sir Harry, thoughtfully.  "Are you sure that she
+could hear distinctly?"
+
+"One can hear in her room talk in our garden as well as if it was in the
+room," replied John.
+
+"Well! you are a good lad, well intentioned," said Sir Harry.  "Here's
+half-a-crown to pay your journey back.  We will consider what is to be
+done."
+
+John had rather not have taken the half-crown, but he did not know how
+to say so, so he pulled his forelock and accepted it.
+
+Captain Carbonel came out of the coffee-room with him, and called to the
+hostler to let him lie down and rest for a couple of hours, when the Red
+Rover would change horses there, and then call him, and pay for his
+journey back to Poppleby.
+
+So John lay down on clean straw and slept, too much tired out to put
+thoughts together, and unaware of the discussion among the gentlemen.
+For Sir Harry Hartman was persuaded that it was Delafield that needed
+protection, and was inclined to make little of John Hewlett's warning,
+thinking that it rested on the authority of a sick nervous woman, and
+that there was no distinct evidence but that of the young man who would
+not speak out, and only went by hearsay.
+
+Captain Carbonel, who was, of course, in an agony to get home and defend
+his property, but was firmly bound by his notions of discipline, argued
+that the lad was the son of the most disaffected man in the parish, and
+that his silence was testimony to the likelihood that his father was
+consulting with the ringleader.  The invalid woman he knew to be
+sensible and prudent, and most unlikely either to mistake what she
+heard, or to send her nephew on such a night journey without urgent
+cause, and he asked permission to go himself, if the troop were wanted
+elsewhere, to defend his home.  Finally, just as the debate was warming
+between the officers, a farmer came in from Delafield, and assured them
+that all was quiet there.  So the horses were brought out, and there was
+much jingling of equipments, and Johnnie awoke with a start of dismay.
+He had never thought of such doings.  He had only thought of Captain
+Carbonel's riding home, never of bringing down what seemed to him a
+whole army on his father.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+JACK SWING.
+
+  "Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw,
+  But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark
+  That set Jack Straw on fire."
+  _Sir H.  Taylor_.
+
+Nobody knew who Jack Swing was.  Most likely he really was more than one
+person, or rather an impersonal being, worked up as a sort of shadowy
+puppet to act in the cause of future reform.
+
+There were hot spirits abroad, who knew that much was amiss on many
+points, and who burned to set them right; and there were others who were
+simply envious and jealous of all that had power or authority, and
+wanted to put these down for their own profit.  They thought that the
+way to get their cause attended to was to make the other party afraid of
+the people, and they did not know or understand that those who delayed
+to grant their wishes only desired patience, and to do the work in the
+best and wisest way.  All that they demanded, and more too, has since
+been given to the people, but gradually, as was expedient, and without
+tumult or disturbance.
+
+So there was a desire to frighten the gentry by showing the strength of
+the people, in anticipation of the Reform Bill to be proposed the next
+year.  It would not have made much difference to the country people, for
+no one would have a vote whose rent did not amount to ten pounds a year,
+and they would not have cared much about it if they had not been told
+that if it was passed, every man would have a fat pig in his sty, and be
+able to drink his daily quart of beer, moreover, that the noblemen and
+gentlemen were resolved on keeping them out of their rights, making
+bread dear, and depriving them of their wages by setting up machines to
+do all the work.
+
+This last came near home, and stirred up the minds that would have cared
+for little else.  Just as four hundred years before, Jack Straw was an
+imaginary champion whose name inflamed the people to rise, so now Jack
+Swing, or whoever it was who acted in that name, sent messages round
+that such and such a place should be attacked at such and such a time.
+
+There was always some one in the town who could be fired with the idea
+that inciting riot and revolt was patriotism, and that a good cause
+could be served by evil methods, who cast aside such warnings as
+"Rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft," or "The powers that be are
+ordained of God."  Besides, the infection spread, and to hear what Jack
+Swing was doing elsewhere encouraged others not to be behindhand with
+their neighbours.
+
+So the mandate had gone out, and there were a few at Elchester ready to
+arrange for a rising at Uphill and Downhill.  Dan Hewlett was known to
+them in the public-house, and he had an especial spite at Captain
+Carbonel, beginning from his knowledge of the tacit detection of his
+abstraction of the paper at Greenhow, going through his dismissal from
+working there, aggravated by the endeavour to remove Judith, embittered
+by the convictions as a poacher, and, perhaps, brought to a height by
+the influence over his eldest son.  He hated the captain enough to be
+willing to direct the attack upon Greenhow, especially as it was known
+that the master was absent and engaged in summoning the yeomanry "to
+ride down the poor chaps," as it was said, "who only wanted bread for
+their children's mouths."
+
+There were men both at Uphill and Downhill, and even at Poppleby, who
+were quite willing to listen.  The Poppleby folk, some of them, believed
+that riot was the only way to get reform, more of the villagers thought
+it was the only way of getting rid of the machines, the object of
+mysterious dread for the future, and more still, chiefly ne'er-do-wells
+and great idle lads, were ready for any mischief that might be going;
+and full of curiosity and delight at what Jack Swing might be about to
+do.
+
+These youths, some of them at work and some not, dispersed the news
+through the village and fields that there was to be a great rising of
+the people's friends, and that Gobbleall's machine was to be
+_somewhere_.  All were to meet at the randygo--supposed to mean
+rendezvous--at the cross-road, and as for those who did not, it would be
+the worse for them, and worse than all for them that told clacking women
+who might carry the tale up to Greenhow.
+
+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.  At the "Fox and Hounds" they tarried
+and demanded a glass of beer all round, which Mr Oldfellow was really
+afraid to refuse.  He was a timid man, half on their side, half on that
+of the gentry, and he saw there were enough of them to sack his cellars
+if he demurred.
+
+There, too, amid much laughter, they all disguised themselves, some
+blackening their faces with soot, others whitening them with chalk, and
+some putting on the women's cloaks, bonnets, or aprons.
+
+Then they collected Uphill men.
+
+"We are come for your good," said Jack Swing, or the man who passed for
+him, wearing a long Punch-like nose.  "We are come to help you; and
+where's the mean coward that won't come along with us in his own cause?
+There will be no living for poor folks if those new-fangled machines be
+allowed to go on, and them Parliament folk vote out all that makes for
+the people.  Down with them, I say!  Up with Reform, and down with all
+the fools and cowards who won't stand up for themselves."
+
+All this, garnished with foul words and abuse, and roared out from the
+top of the horse-block, was addressed to the crowd that began to gather.
+
+Dan Hewlett, with a horrid white face, was going about persuading the
+men, and so were others.  "Bless you, we don't want to do no harm to the
+ladies, nor the children.  We only wants to do away with them toady
+machines, as they wants to do all the work instead of men's hands, as
+the Almighty meant, and is in Scripture."
+
+This was the plea to the better disposed, like Tom Seddon, who held out,
+"You'll not hurt madam nor the little ones.  She've been a kind lady,
+and the captain, he's a good master, I will say that; and I don't want
+to hurt 'em."
+
+"Nobody wants to hurt them; only to do away with they machines."
+
+"I tell you what," was George Truman's answer, "them machines are the
+captain's, none of yours nor mine, and I won't go for to damage 'em.
+No!  I won't have my face blacked nor whited, I'm an honest man, and not
+ashamed to show it.  So I be going to my work."
+
+And off he went to his day's work at Farmer Goodenough's, and the others
+hissed him and hooted him, but did him no harm.  Nobody made such a
+noise as Softy Sam, and together this frightened Jem Gibbs out of
+following him, though he much wished to do so.  Will Mole, as soon as he
+heard any sounds, ran away headlong down towards the meadows, and hid
+himself in the long rushes.  Cox, the constable, thought discretion the
+better part of valour; and long before the rabble rout appeared, set off
+to carry a pair of shoes home to Mrs Pearson at the Lone Farm.
+
+Master Hewlett, the carpenter, looked in vain for John, his apprentice,
+and growled and grumbled that he did not appear; then, on perceiving the
+uproar, decided that he was gone after that "there father of his'n."  He
+wouldn't have thought it of Jack.  No; he wouldn't; but sure enough it
+was "bred in the bone of him!"  Master Hewlett went on with his planing;
+and when the troop, now amounting to about thirty grown men, besides a
+huge rabble of boys and girls, came along, and Dan shouted to him to
+come and stand up for the rights of the people, and down with that there
+"tyrum Gobbleall" and his machine to grind down the poor, he answered--
+
+"Machine ain't nothing to me.  I minds my own business, and thou beest a
+fool, Dan, not to mind thine!  And where's that lad of thine?  A
+trapesing after mischief, just like all idle fellows?"
+
+"He bain't a labourer, and has no feeling for them as is," said Dan.
+"We wants your axe, though, George."
+
+"Not he!  I dares you to touch him," said George Hewlett in his unmoved
+way, smoothing off a long curled shaving, which fell on the ground.
+"There, that's the worth of you all and your Jack Swing!  Swing, ye
+will, Dan, if you don't take the better care."
+
+Some one made a move as if to seize the axe, but George made one step,
+and lifted quietly the stout bit of timber he had been planing, and it
+was plain that a whole armoury of carpenter's tools was on his side the
+bench.
+
+"Come along," said Dan, "he's a coward and mean-spirited cur.  Us shan't
+do nothing with he."
+
+So on they went, all the kindnesses and benefits from Greenhow
+forgotten, and nothing remembered at the moment but grievances, mostly
+past, but more looked forward to as possible!
+
+The women did remember.  Judith Grey was in an agony, praying as she lay
+for Mrs Carbonel and the children.  Widow Mole knew nothing, but was
+weeding the paths at Greenhow; Betsy Seddon and Molly Barnes were crying
+piteously "at thought of madam and her little girl as might be fraught
+to death by them there rascals."  But no one knew what to do!  Some
+stayed at home, in fear for their husbands, but a good many followed in
+the wake of the men, to see what would happen, and to come in for a
+little excitement--whether it were fright, pity, or indignation.
+
+"'Pon my word and honour," said Lizzy Morris, "that there will be summat
+to talk on."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+GREAT MARY AND LITTLE MARY.
+
+  "Who'll plough their fields?  Who'll do their drudgery for them?  And
+  work like horses to give them the harvest?"--_Southey_.
+
+Mrs Carbonel, having seen her two little ones laid down for their
+midday nap, was sitting down to write a note to her husband, while
+Sophia was gone to give her lesson at the school, when there came a tap
+to the drawing-room window, and looking up she saw Tirzah Todd's brown
+face and her finger making signs to her.  She felt displeased, and rose
+up, saying, "Why, Tirzah, if you want me, you had better come to the
+back door!"
+
+"Lady, you must come out this way.  'Tis Jack Swing a-coming, ma'am--
+yes, he is--with a whole lot of mischievous folks, to break the machine
+and burn the ricks, and what not.  Hush, don't ye hear 'em a hollering
+atop of the hill?  They be gathering at the `Fox and Hounds,' and I just
+couldn't abear that you and the dear little children should be scared
+like, and the captain away.  So," as Mrs Carbonel's lips moved in
+thanks and alarm, "if you would come with me, lady, and take the
+children, and come out this way, through the garden, where you wouldn't
+meet none of 'em, I'll take you down the short way to Farmer Pearson's,
+or wherever you liked, where you wouldn't hear nothing till 'tis over."
+
+"Oh, Tirzah!  You are very good.  A fright would be a most fearful
+shock, and might be quite fatal to my little Mary.  But oh, my sister
+and the servants and the Pucklechurches, I can't leave them."
+
+"My Hoggie was at home with the baby, and I sent her off to see Miss
+Sophy at the school, and tell her to come up to Pearson's."
+
+"But the Pucklechurches?"
+
+"Nobody will hurt them!  Nobody means to hurt you," said Tirzah, "I
+knows that!  My man wouldn't ha' gone with them, but so as they promised
+faithful not to lay a finger on you, so you give 'em the money and the
+guns; but men don't think of the dear little gal as is so nesh, so I
+thought I'd warn you to have her out of the way.  Bless my heart,
+they'll be coming.  That was nigher."
+
+Mrs Carbonel's mind went through many thoughts in those few moments.
+She could not bear to desert her husband's property and people in this
+stress, and yet she knew that to expose her tender little girl to the
+terrors of a violent mob would be fatal.  And she decided on accepting
+Tirzah's offer of safety and shelter.  She ran upstairs, put on her
+bonnet, took her husband's most essential papers out of his desk and
+pocketed them, together with some sovereigns and bank-notes, then
+quietly went into the nursery, where she desired Rachel Mole to put on
+her bonnet, take up the baby, and follow her, and herself was putting on
+little Mary's small straw hat and cape, telling her that she was coming
+with mamma for a walk to see Mrs Pearson's old turkey cock, when Mrs
+Pucklechurch burst in with two or three maids behind her.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, Jack Swing's coming and all the rabble rout.  What ever
+shall we do?" was the gasping, screaming cry.
+
+"Only be quiet.  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."
+
+"He have gone to drive 'em off already to Longacre," said Betty.  "I
+tell'd he, he'd better stand by master's goods, but he be a man for his
+cows, he be."
+
+"Quite right of him," said Mrs Carbonel.  "Have you baby's bottle,
+Rachel?  Now, Mary dear, here's your piece of seed cake."
+
+The shouts and singing sounded alarmingly as if approaching by this
+time, and little Mary listened and said, "Funny mens singing."
+
+It was very loud as the fugitives gained the verandah, where Tirzah
+waited with an angry light in her black eyes.  "Oh! won't I give it to
+Joe Todd," she cried, "for turning against the best friend Hoglah ever
+had--or me either."
+
+Mary, carrying her little Mary, and trying to keep a smile that might
+reassure her, followed Tirzah across the orchard on the opposite side of
+the house.  They had to scramble through a gap in the hedge; Tirzah went
+over first, breaking it down further, then the baby was put into her
+arms, and Rachel came next, receiving Mary from her mother, who was
+telling her how funny it was to get over poor papa's fence, all among
+the apple trees, and here was Don jumping after them.  Don, the Clumber
+spaniel, wanted a bit of Mary's cake, and this and her mother's jump
+down from the hedge and over the ditch, happily distracted her
+attention, and made her laugh, while the three maids were screaming that
+here were the rascals, hundreds of them a-coming up the drive; they saw
+them over the apple trees when on the top of the hedge, and heard their
+horrid shouts.  "Oh, the nasty villains, with black faces and all!"
+
+Mrs Carbonel dreaded these cries almost as much as the mob itself for
+her delicate child, and went on talking to her and saying all the
+nursery rhymes that would come into her head, walking as fast as she
+could without making her pace felt, though the little maid--albeit small
+and thin for five years old--was a heavy weight to carry for some
+distance over a rough stubble field for unaccustomed arms.  Tirzah had
+the baby, who happily was too young to be even disturbed in his noontide
+sleep, and Rachel Mole had tarried with the other maids, unable to
+resist her curiosity to see what was doing at the farm since they were
+out of reach.
+
+The fugitives reached a stile which gave entrance to a rough pathway,
+through a copse, and it was only here, when her mother sat down on the
+trunk of a tree taking breath with a sense of safety, that little Mary
+began to cry and sob.  "Oh, we are lost in the wood!  Please, please,
+mamma, get out of it.  Let us go home."
+
+"No indeed, Mary, we aren't lost!  See, here's the path.  We are going
+to see Mrs Pearson's pussy cat and her turkey."
+
+"I don't want to.  Oh! the wolves will come and eat us up," and she
+clung round her mother in real terror.
+
+"Wolves!  No, indeed!  There are no wolves in England, darling, here or
+anywhere."
+
+"Rachel said the wolves would come if I went in here."
+
+"Then Rachel was very silly.  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.  "Come, little lady, I'll carry you so nice."
+
+"No, no!  Go away, ugly woman," cried Mary ungratefully, flapping at her
+with her hands in terror at the brown face and big black eyes.
+
+"Oh, naughty, naughty Mary," sighed the mother, "when Tirzah is so good,
+and wants to help you!  Don't be a naughty child!"
+
+But the word naughty provoked such a fit of crying that there was
+nothing for it but for Mrs Carbonel to pick the child up and struggle
+on as best she could, soothing her terror at the narrow paths and the
+unknown way, and the mysterious alarm of the woodlands, as well,
+perhaps, as the undefined sense of other people's dread and agitation.
+However, the crying was quiet now, and the sounds of tumult at the farm
+were stifled by the trees, so that after a time--which seemed terribly
+long--the party emerged into an open meadow, whence they could see the
+gate leading to the high road, and beyond that the roof of Mrs
+Pearson's house.
+
+But something else was to be seen far up the road.  There was the flash
+of the sun from helmets!  The Yeomanry were coming!
+
+"There's papa!" cried Mrs Carbonel.  "Papa in his pretty silver dress.
+Run on, run on, Mary, and see him."
+
+Mary was let down, still drawing long sobs as she half ran, half toddled
+on, allowing herself to be pulled by Tirzah Todd's free hand, while her
+mother sped on to the gate, just in time for the astonished greeting of
+one of the little troop.
+
+"Mrs Carbonel!  What?"
+
+And the next moment her husband was off his horse and by her side with
+anxious inquiries.
+
+"Yes, yes, dear Edmund!  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?"
+
+It was but a moment's halt ere Captain Carbonel rode on to overtake the
+rest of the troop, who, on hearing that the outrage was really taking
+place, were riding on rapidly.
+
+Mrs Carbonel had not far to go before reaching the hospitable farm,
+where Mrs Pearson came out to receive her with many a "Dear, dear!" and
+"Dear heart!" and entreaty that she and the dear children would make
+themselves at home.
+
+But Sophy was not there, and had not been heard of, and Mrs Carbonel,
+in her anxiety, could not rest on the sofa in the parlour, after she had
+persuaded little Mary into eating her long-delayed dinner of some mutton
+hastily minced for her, and had seen her safely asleep and cuddling a
+kitten.  Mrs Pearson was only too happy to have the baby to occupy her
+long-disused wicker cradle, and Tirzah had rushed off to the scene of
+action as soon as she had seen the lady safely housed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+THE MACHINE.
+
+  "In bursts of outrage spread your judgment wide,
+  And to your wrath cry out, `Be thou our guide.'"
+  _Wordsworth_.
+
+Sophy was endeavouring to make the children remember who Joseph was, and
+thinking them unusually stupid, idle, and talkative, when, without
+ceremony, the door was banged open, and in tramped Hoglah Todd, with the
+baby in her arms, her sun-bonnet on her neck, and her black hair
+sticking wildly out.  "Please, ma'am," she began, "Jack Swing is up
+a-breaking the machine, and mother says you are to go to Farmer
+Pearson's to be safe out of the way!"
+
+"Hoggie Todd," began Mrs Thorpe, "that's not the way to come into
+school," but she could not finish, for voices broke out above the
+regulation school hush: "Yes, yes, father said," and "Our Jem said," and
+it ended in "Jack Swing's a-coming to break up the machine."  Only one
+or two said, "Mother said as how it was a shame, and they'd get into
+trouble."
+
+"Your mother sent you?" said Sophy to Hoglah.
+
+"Yes, ma'am.  She's gone up herself to tell madam, and take she to
+Pearson's, and her said you'd better go there, back ways, or else stay
+here with governess till 'twas quieted down."
+
+"Hark!  They are holloaing."
+
+Strange sounds were in fact to be heard, and the children, losing all
+sense of discipline, made a rush to snatch hats and bonnets, and poured
+out in a throng, tumbling over one another, Hoglah among the foremost.
+Mrs Thorpe, much terrified, began to clasp her hands and say, "Oh dear!
+oh dear, the wicked, ungrateful men, that they should do such things.
+Oh!  Miss Sophy, you will stay here, won't you?"
+
+"No, I must go and see after my sister and the children," said Sophy,
+already at the door.
+
+"But they'll be at Mr Pearson's.  The girl said so.  Oh, stay, ma'am!
+Don't venture.  Pray, pray--"
+
+But Sophy had the door open, and with "I can't.  Thank you, no, I
+can't."
+
+There were the confused sounds of howling and singing on the top of the
+hill.  Betsy Seddon, at her cottage door, called out, "Don't go up
+there, miss; it's no place for the likes of you!" but Sophy only
+answered, "My sister," and dashed on.
+
+She could get into a field of Edmund's by scrambling over a difficult
+gate, and, impelled by the sight of some rough-looking men slouching
+along, she got over it--she hardly knew how--and, after crossing it,
+came upon all the cows, pigs, and horses, with Pucklechurch presiding
+over them.  He, too, said, "Doan't ye go up there, Miss Sophy.  Them
+mischievous chaps will be after them pigs, fools as they be, so I
+brought the poor dumb things out of the way of them, and you'd better be
+shut of it too, miss."
+
+"But, my sister, Master Pucklechurch!  I must see to her."
+
+"She'll be safe enow, miss.  They don't lift a hand to folks, as I've
+heard, but I'll do my duty by the beastises."
+
+He certainly seemed more bent on his duty to the "beastises" than that
+to his wife or his master's wife; and yet, when Sophy proved deaf to all
+his persuasions, he muttered, "Wilful must to water, and Wilful must
+drink.  But, ah! yon beastises be safe enow, poor dumb things, so I'll
+e'en go after the maid, to see as her runs into no harm.  She be a fine,
+spirity maid whatsome'er."
+
+So on he plodded, in the rear of Sophy, who, with eager foot, had
+crossed the sloping home-field, and gained the straw yard, all deserted
+now except by the fowls.  The red game cock was scratching and crowing
+there, as if the rabble rout were not plainly to be seen straggling
+along the drive.
+
+Still there was time for Sophy to fly to the house, where, at the door,
+she met Mrs Pucklechurch.
+
+"Bless my soul and honour, Miss Sophy.  You here!  The mistress, she's
+gone with the children to Mr Pearson's, and you'll be in time to catch
+her up if you look sharp enough."
+
+"I shall not run away.  Some one ought to try to protect my brother's
+property."
+
+"Now, don't 'ee, don't 'ee, Miss Sophy.  You'll do no good with that
+lot, and only get hurt yourself."
+
+But Sophy was not to be persuaded.  She went manfully out to the gate,
+and shut it in the face of the disguised men, who came swaggering up
+towards it.
+
+"What's your business here?" she demanded, in her young, clear voice.
+
+"Come, young woman," said a man in a false nose and a green smock-frock,
+but whose voice had a town sound in it, and whose legs and feet were
+those of no rustic, "clear out of the way, or it will be the worse for
+you!"
+
+"What have you to do here on my brother's ground?" again asked Sophy,
+standing there in her straw bonnet and pink cotton frock.
+
+"We don't want to do nothing, miss,"--and that voice she knew for Dan
+Hewlett's--"but to have down that new-fangled machine as takes away the
+work from the poor."
+
+"What work of yours did it ever take away, Dan Hewlett?" said she.
+"Look here! it makes bread cheaper--"
+
+She had thought before of the chain of arguments, but they would not
+come in the face of the emergency; and besides, she felt that her voice
+would not carry her words beyond the three or four men who were close to
+the gate.  She might as well have spoken to the raging sea when, as the
+gate was shaken, she went on with a fresh start, "I call it most
+cowardly and ungrateful--"
+
+At that moment she was seized from behind by two great brawny arms, and
+borne backward, struggling helplessly like a lamb in a bear's embrace.
+She saw that, not only was the gate burst in, but that the throng were
+pressing in from the garden side, and she was not released until she was
+set down in Mrs Pucklechurch's kitchen, and a gruff voice said, rather
+as if to a little child, "Bide where you be, and no one will go for to
+hurt you."
+
+It was a huge figure, with a woman's bonnet stuck upright over his
+chalked face, and a red cloak covering his smock-frock, and he was gone
+the next moment, while Mrs Pucklechurch, screaming and sobbing,
+clutched at Sophy, and held her tight, with, "Now, don't, Miss Sophy,
+don't ye!  Bide still, I say!"
+
+"But, Edmund's machine!  His things and all!" gasped Sophy, still
+struggling.
+
+"Bless you, miss, you can't do nothing with the likes of them, the born
+rascals; you would, may be, get a stone yourself and what would the
+master say to that?"
+
+"Oh! what are they doing now?" as a wild hurrah arose, and all sorts of
+confused noises.  Mrs Pucklechurch had locked the door on her prisoner,
+but she was equally curious, and anxious for her old man; so, with one
+accord, they hurried up the stairs together, and looked out at an upper
+window, whence they could only see a wild crowd of hats, smock-frocks,
+and women's clothes gathering about a heap where the poor machine used
+to stand, and whence a cloud of smoke began to rise, followed by a jet
+of flame, fed no doubt by the quantity of straw and chaff lying about.
+Sophy and Betty both shrieked and exclaimed, but Betty's mind was
+chiefly full of her old man, and she saw his straw hat at last.  He was
+standing in front of the verandah, before the front door, and, as they
+threw the window open, they heard his gruff voice--
+
+"Not I.  Be off with you!  I baint a-going to give my master's property
+to a lot of rapscallion thieves and robbers like you, as should know
+better."
+
+Then came the answer, "We don't want none of his property.  Only his
+guns and his money for the cause of the people."  And big sticks were
+brandished, and the throng thickened.
+
+"Oh, don't ye hurt he!" screamed Betty.  "He that never did you no harm!
+Don't ye!  Oh, Dan Hewlett!  Oh-oh!"
+
+"Then throw us out the guns, old woman," called up the black-faced
+figure, "and we'll let him be."
+
+"If you do," shouted Pucklechurch--and then there was a rush in on him,
+and they could see no more, for he must have backed under the verandah.
+Betty made a dash for the front stairs, to come to his help, Sophy after
+her; but, before they could even tumble to the bottom, there was a
+change in the cries--
+
+"The soldiers! the soldiers!  Oh-hoo-hoo-hoo!"  There was a scamper and
+a scurry, a trampling of horses.  The two trembling hands, getting in
+each other's way, unfastened the door, which was not even locked, and
+beheld Pucklechurch gathering himself up with a bleeding head, a cloud
+of smoke and flame, and helmets and silver lace glancing through it.
+There had been no need to read the Riot Act; the enemy were tearing
+along all ways over the fields, except a few whom the horsemen had
+intercepted.  Dan Hewlett and the black-faced leader, without his long
+nose, were two; the other three were--among the loudest, poor Softy Sam,
+who had been yelling wildly--big lads, or young men, one from Downhill,
+the others nearer home, howling and sobbing and praying to be let go.
+Captain Carbonel's first thought was whether Pucklechurch was hurt, but
+the old man was standing up scratching his head, and Betty hovering over
+him.  Then his eyes fell on his sister-in-law, and he exclaimed--
+
+"You here, Sophy!  Your sister is very anxious!"
+
+But the fire was by this time getting ahead, and no one could attend to
+anything else.  The prisoners were put into the servants' hall, and
+locked in; the horses were tied up at a safe distance, the poor things
+rearing with alarm at the flame; the men were, under Sir Harry Hartman
+and Captain Carbonel's orders, made to form a line from the pond, and
+hand on the pails and buckets that were available; but these were not
+very many, though the numbers of helpers were increased by the maids,
+who had crept back from the orchard, and by the shepherd and some even
+of the mob, conscious that they had been only lookers on, and "hadn't
+done no harm."
+
+It was a dry season, and the flames spread, catching the big barn, and
+then seeming to fly in great flakes like a devouring winged thing to the
+Pucklechurches' thatch.  Betty and her husband flew to fling out their
+more valued possessions, and were just in time to save them; but thence
+the fire, just as the water in the nearest pond was drying up, caught a
+hold on the dairy and the old thatched part of the farmhouse.
+Bellowings were heard from the captives that they would be burnt alive,
+and some one, it was never known who, let them out, for no sign of them
+appeared when all was over, though their prison was untouched by the
+fire.  For even at that moment the Poppleby fire-engine galloped up the
+road, and was hailed with shouts of joy.  It had a hose long enough to
+reach down to the brook in the meadow, and the hissing bursts of water
+poured down did at last check the flames before they had done much harm
+to the more modern portion of the house, though all the furniture was
+lying tumbled about in heaps on the lawn--Mary's piano, with the baby's
+cradle full of crockery on the top of it, and Edmund's writing desk in
+the middle of a washing stand all upside down.
+
+The first thing Edmund did when the smoke wreaths alone were lingering
+about, was to send his groom down to the cellar, with a jug in his hand,
+to bring up some beer, which he proceeded to hand in the best
+breakfast-cups to all and sundry of the helpers, including Sir Harry
+Hartman, Sophy helping in the distribution with all her might.
+
+"Miss Carbonel, I think?" said Sir Harry, courteously, as she gave him
+the cup.  "Were you the garrison?"
+
+Sophy laughed.  "Yes, sir, except old Pucklechurch and his wife."
+
+"Then I may congratulate you on being the bravest woman in Uphill," said
+the old gentleman, raising his hat.
+
+It was getting dark, and they had to consider what was next to be done.
+Captain Carbonel was anxious about his wife and children, and Sir Harry
+was urging him to bring them to his house, while Mr Grantley, from
+Poppleby, who had come up on the alarm, urged the same upon him.  It
+ended in a guard being told off, consisting of Cox, the constable of
+Uphill, who had emerged from no one knew where, the Downhill constable,
+and the shepherd, with one of the yeomen, who were to be entertained by
+Pucklechurch and the cook, and prevent any mischief being done to the
+scattered furniture before morning.  The Pucklechurches and Mrs Mole,
+with Barton, were doing their best to bring in and attend to the live
+stock, all of which had been saved by Pucklechurch's care.
+
+Then they rode off together, Sophy and the housemaid having already
+started across the fields, bearing whatever necessary baggage they could
+collect or carry for Mrs Carbonel and the little ones.
+
+Mrs Carbonel was at the door when her husband rode up, having only just
+managed to hush off her little Mary to sleep, and left her and the baby
+with Rachel Mole to watch over them.  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!
+Here is Sir Harry Hartman wondering at you."
+
+To hear of the presence of a stranger startled Mrs Carbonel into
+recovering herself, with "I beg your pardon," and her pretty courtesy,
+with the tears still on her face; while the old gentleman kindly spoke
+of the grievous afternoon she had had, and all the time Mr and Mrs
+Pearson were entreating him to do them the honour to come in and drink a
+glass of wine--for cake and wine were then considered to be _the thing_
+to offer guests in a farmhouse.
+
+Sir Harry, aware of what farmhouse port was apt to be, begged for a
+glass of home-brewed ale instead, but came in readily, hoping to
+persuade Mrs Carbonel to send for the Poppleby post-chaise, and let him
+take her and her children home.  She was afraid, however, to disturb
+little Mary, and Mrs Pearson reckoned on housing them for the night,
+besides which his park was too far-off.  So it was settled that Sophy,
+for whom there really was no room, should go to Poppleby Parsonage with
+Mr Grantley for the night, and she and Sir Harry only tarried to talk
+over the matter, and come to an understanding of the whole as far as
+might be.
+
+"Who warned you?" asked the captain.
+
+"The last person I should expect--Tirzah Todd, good woman," said Mrs
+Carbonel.  "She came and called me, and helped me over the hedges."
+
+"And Hoglah came after me," said Sophy, "and told me to come here, only
+I could not."
+
+"You were the heroine of the whole, Miss Carbonel," said Sir Harry.
+
+"Oh, don't say so; I didn't do any good at all," said Sophy, becoming
+much ashamed of her attempt at haranguing.  "Old Pucklechurch was the
+one, for he saved all the dear cows and horses, and was nearly letting
+himself be killed in the defence.  But, oh! all the rest of them.  To
+think of them treating us so after everything!"
+
+"Most likely they were compelled," said gentle Mrs Carbonel.
+
+"They will hear of it again," said Sir Harry.  "Could you identify them,
+Miss Carbonel?"
+
+"A good many," said Sophy, "though they had their faces chalked--that
+horrid Dan Hewlett for one."
+
+"There can be no doubt of him, for he was one of the prisoners that got
+away," said Captain Carbonel, in a repressive manner.  "He has always
+been a mischievous fellow; but the remarkable thing is that it was his
+son who came to summon us this morning--John Hewlett, a very good,
+steady lad.  By-the-by, has any one seen him?  I sent him home by the
+Elchester coach.  I wonder what has become of him."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+MISJUDGED.
+
+  "That weary deserts we may tread,
+  A dreary labyrinth may thread,
+  Through dark ways underground be led."
+  _Archbishop Trench_.
+
+Poor Johnnie was not very happy at that moment.  He had descended from
+the coach at Poppleby, and set out to walk to Downhill, wondering how he
+should be received at his cousin's workshop.  Everything seemed
+strangely quiet as he crossed the fields, where he had wandered last
+night, but there were now and then far-off echoes of voices and shouts.
+He avoided the village of Downhill, and made his way towards the little
+street and common of Uphill, but not a creature could he see except
+Todd's donkey and a few geese.
+
+The workshop was shut up, no one was about either there or at the house.
+He considered a moment whether to try to see what was doing at
+Greenhow, or to go and tell his aunt how he had fared, and that he knew
+the captain must be at home by this time.
+
+He was glad he had decided on the latter, for the cottage door stood
+open, and Judith was sitting up in bed, her eyes wide open, and her
+breath panting with anxiety and terror.
+
+"Oh, Johnnie, my dear!  There you are!  Oh, they are all gone!  The
+ladies, the dear ladies, and the little babies," she gasped, and fell
+back almost fainting.
+
+"The captain is there by this time, and the soldiers, never you fear,"
+said John.  "Here, you'd better take this," trying to drop out some of
+the cordial he knew she took in her attacks.
+
+"The soldiers!  Your father--your poor father!" she gasped again, and
+she was so ill that John, dreadfully frightened, could only hold her up
+on one arm, and press the cordial to her lips with the other hand.  It
+was an overdose, but that hardly mattered; and before very long, just as
+she was beginning to quiet down, there approached a fresh sound of
+screaming, and his mother burst into the house.  "Oh, my poor man!  My
+poor Dan!" she cried.  "They have got him!  The soldiers have got him!"
+and, as John was laying down his aunt to come and hear, she rushed up
+the stairs with, "And it is all your doing, you unnatural,
+good-for-nothing varmint!  That was what you were after all night, you
+and your aunt, the adder that I have warmed at my bosom!  Turning
+against your own poor father, to set them bloody-minded soldiers on him!
+And now he'll be taken and hanged, and I shall be a poor miserable
+widow woman all along of you!"
+
+This was poured forth as fast as the words would come out of Molly's
+mouth, but before they had all streamed forth, Judith was choking in a
+hysterical fit, so like a convulsion that Johnnie could only cry, "Aunt!
+aunt!  Mother, look!"  And Molly herself was frightened, and began to
+say, "There! there!" while she helped him to hold her sister, and little
+Judy flew off, half in terror and half in search of help, crying out
+that aunt was in a fit.
+
+Help of a certain sort came--a good deal more of it than was wanted--and
+the room was crowded up, and there were a good many "Poor dears!"
+"There, nows!" and proposals of burnt feathers and vinegar; but Mrs
+Spurrell, who was reckoned the most skilled in illness, came at last,
+put the others out, especially as they wanted to see about their
+husbands' teas, and brought a sort of quiet, in which Judith lay
+exhausted, but shuddering now and then, and Molly sobbed by the fire.
+John gathered from the exclamations that the Carbonel family were safe
+somewhere, that Miss Sophy had gone on like the woman preacher at
+Downhill, that Greenhow had been on fire, but nobody was hurt, though
+the soldiers had ridden in upon them, "so as was a shame to see," and
+had got poor Dan and Ned Fell, and all sure locked up.
+
+John was shocked at this, for he had not meant to do more than send
+Captain Carbonel home to protect his family, and had not realised all
+the consequences.  In a few minutes more, however, his father himself
+tramped in, and the first thing he did was to fall on the lad in a fury,
+grasping him by the collar, with horrible abuse of him for an unnatural
+informer, turning against his own father, and dealing a storm of heavy
+blows on him with a great stick.  Down clattered Mrs Spurrell, asking
+if he wished to kill his sister-in-law?
+
+"A good thing too--a traitor in one's house," he burst out, with more
+raging words and fresh blows on poor John, who never cried out through
+all; but his mother rushed down the next moment, crying out that she
+would not have her son mauled and beaten, and laying fast hold of the
+stick.
+
+It was turning into a fight between husband and wife, and Mrs Spurrell,
+who had more of her senses about her than any one else, called out, "Off
+with you, John Hewlett!  I'll tackle 'em!"
+
+Poor Johnnie had no choice but to obey her.  Bruised, worn out, hungry,
+uncertain of everything, and miserable about his aunt, he could only
+wander slowly away, feeling himself a traitor.  He found his way to the
+workshop, and had just thrown himself down in the wood-shed, when he
+heard his master's voice calling out--
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+"Me!  Johnny!  Father's in a mortal rage with me for telling the
+captain, but I never thought as how all the soldiers would come."
+
+"And a very good thing they did, to put a stop to such doings as never
+was," said Mrs Hewlett's voice.  "Bless me, the dear children and the
+ladies might have been burnt in their beds!"
+
+"Come in, Johnnie, and have a bit of supper," said George Hewlett.
+
+"And tell us all about it," said his wife.  "We'll give you a shake-down
+for the night if you can't go home."
+
+John was thankful, and Mrs Hewlett set before him a good meal of bread,
+cheese, cold bacon, and beer; but he was too dull and dejected, as well
+as much too tired, to be able to talk, and scarcely could remember all
+that had happened.  He knew it was not manners to put his head down on
+his arms on the table, but he really could not hold it up, and he had
+dozed off almost with the food in his mouth.
+
+"Poor chap!  He's fair worn out," said the elder George.  "Make his bed
+ready, mother."
+
+And when it was ready, the younger George absolutely kicked him into
+being awake enough to tumble into it.  Even then his sleep was for a
+good while tossing, dreamy, and restless; but, by-and-by, it grew
+sounder, and he lay so still in the morning that his kind hostess
+hindered her boys from disturbing him.  He had not long been awake, and
+had only said his prayers, and washed at the pump, when horses' feet
+were heard, and Cousin George called to him to come out and speak to the
+captain.  He came, with hair wringing wet, and shy, awkward looks.
+
+"My lad," said the captain, "I cannot tell you how much I thank you for
+your bravery and spirit the night before last.  You did me and mine a
+benefit that I shall always remember, though I feel it would just be
+insulting you to offer you any present reward!  Nor, indeed, could it be
+sufficient for what you have done."
+
+"Thank you, sir," mumbled John, hardly knowing what he or the captain
+said.
+
+"And," added Captain Carbonel, "your father got away.  If he is taken,
+what you have done for us may be remembered in his favour."
+
+Again John managed to say, "Thank you, sir."  And the captain rode off
+to offer the like thanks to Tirzah Todd; but her cottage was shut up,
+the donkey gone, and she, with her husband and Hoglah out on a
+broom-selling expedition.  He was not clear of the riot, and she did not
+want him to hear her thanked.  They must have gone away with their gipsy
+kin, for they never came back while the Carbonels were in England, and
+only a sovereign could be left for them with Mr Harford, who promised
+to stand Tirzah's friend if any opening for assisting her offered.
+
+Dan had been told that rioters generally got off without difficulty.  It
+was not easy to trace them, and their safety was in numbers and their
+semi-disguise; and Jack Swing, or the man with the nose, had escaped on
+various similar occasions, wearing a different disguise at each place.
+It had not come into their calculations that they had gone so far as to
+rouse the spirit of the landowners, who had at first dealt gently with
+the disturbances, but who now felt that strong measures must be taken to
+prevent the mischief from going further.  He thought himself safe when
+he had once got away from the strong-room at Greenhow, and he was
+slouching about his garden when Cox the constable, backed by two stout
+men, came with a warrant, from Sir Harry Hartman, for the apprehension
+of Daniel Hewlett for peace-breaking and arson.  He began to argue that
+it was not he more than any one else, and he hadn't set fire to nothing,
+but he was told that he must reserve his defence for his trial, and the
+handcuffs were put on, and he was carried off in a cart, just as John
+was hurrying up the lane, having got leave from his master to see how
+his aunt was, before beginning work.
+
+Molly had seen her husband taken to prison before, and she did not
+realise that this was a much more serious affair than were his poaching
+misdemeanours, so that she was not so much overpowered as might have
+been expected; and, as he was taken by the well-known constable instead
+of the soldiers, she did not treat it as John's fault.  Besides, she was
+really afraid of, as she said, "upsetting" Judith by another outcry, so
+she only moaned in a low, miserable voice about what was to become of
+her and her poor children, though after all, what with the parish,
+Judith's help, and John's earnings, she would be no worse off than was
+common with her.  Jem was supposed to "keep himself," and only Judy was
+really on her hands.
+
+She would hardly let her son go up and see Judith.  "Now, you'll be
+terrifying of her, and she'll be upset again and holler, and go into a
+fit."
+
+However, he took off his boots and went up softly.  Judith was all
+alone, lying still, but he had never seen her look half so ill, though
+she opened her eyes and smiled when the creaking stair announced him,
+and when he bent over her she said, "Dear lad, you bain't hurt!"
+
+"Oh no; not at all."
+
+"And the dear ladies are safe?"
+
+"Yes; Tirzah Todd came and took them away."
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+"But you are bad, auntie?"
+
+"Oh, never mind.  All's right!  You've done your duty, and I can only
+thank God for my good lad."
+
+Her voice grew faint, her eyes closed, and John was obliged to go away--
+but the look of peace stayed with him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+JUDITH.
+
+  "And of our scholars let us learn
+  Our own forgotten lore."
+  _Keble_.
+
+Little Mary Carbonel was not the worse for all the agitations, from
+which, indeed, she had been so carefully shielded, but her mother was
+sadly broken down by all she had undergone, and likewise by
+mortification at the whole conduct of the Uphill people.  After all the
+years that she and her husband and sisters had striven for them, it was
+very hard to find that so very few would exert themselves for their
+protection, and that so many would even turn against them.  It was hard
+to make allowance for the bewilderment of slow minds, for sheer
+cowardice, and for the instinct of going along with one's own class of
+people.  She and Sophy prayed that they might forgive the people, but it
+was impossible just then not to feel that there was a good deal to
+forgive, and Captain Caiger was always telling them that all their
+trouble came in trying to help the good-for-nothing people.
+
+They had moved into the George Hotel at Elchester.  It was a good large
+inn, such as used to exist in coaching days, where travellers stopped
+for meals, and sometimes spent a night, and the rooms were so
+comfortable that they were glad to stay there, while Captain Carbonel
+could go backwards and forwards to make arrangements about the repair of
+Greenhow.  Of course, when he came to look the place over with a builder
+from Elchester it turned out that a great deal more was needed than
+simply re-building what had been burnt; and he was in difficulties about
+the cost, when an offer came which he was glad to accept.
+
+The Seven Ionian Islands had been put under the protection of England
+since they had been set free from the Turkish dominion, and the
+Governor, Sir Thomas Maitland, (King Tom as he was often called), was
+very active in building, making roads, and improving them in every way
+possible.  He wanted an English officer to superintend his doings in the
+little isle of Santa Maura, and being acquainted with Major Sandford,
+Dora's husband, the proposal was made that Captain Carbonel should
+undertake the work for two or three years, bringing out, of course, his
+family with a handsome salary.  It was a most opportune offer, giving
+him the means of renewing Greenhow, of a visit to the sister, and of
+restoring his wife's health, which had been much tried by her child's
+death, little Mary's delicate state, and the alarm of the riots.  So it
+was gladly accepted, and the departure was to take place as soon as the
+trials were over, for a special commission had been appointed to try the
+rioters; and poor Sophy was much distressed at having so evidently
+recognised Dan Hewlett when she found that "rioting and arson," that is,
+burning, made a capital offence, so that it was a matter of life and
+death.
+
+But there was another to whom this same discovery made a great
+difference--namely, Dan Hewlett himself.  When he found that his life
+was at stake, he declared himself willing to turn King's evidence, if
+his pardon were secured to him, and this was really important, as he was
+able to identify Jack Swing, who really was the chief mischief-maker,
+being a young clerk whose head had been turned by foolish notions about
+liberty for the people, and who really acted more generously, and with
+less personal spite, than most of his unhappy followers.  However, Dan
+was content to purchase his own life by denouncing the leader whom he
+had followed, and he was promised safety after the trial should be over,
+until which time he must remain in prison at Minsterham.
+
+Captain Carbonel had consulted George Hewlett, when arranging the ruins
+at Greenhow, as to what had best be done for John, whose services he
+could not forget.  George considered for a night, and the next day
+said--
+
+"Well, sir, I beg your pardon, but the best thing as could be done with
+that there John would be to put him somewhere to learn the
+cabinet-making.  He is a right sharp, clever hand, and knows pretty well
+all I can teach him; and he would get on famous if he had the chance.
+And it bain't so comfortable for him here.  Some of 'em owes him a
+grudge for bringing the soldiers down on 'em, and calls him an informer;
+and it will be all the worserer for him when his father comes home--the
+scamp that he is!  I'm ready to wish my name wasn't the same.  Wuss
+shame by far than to be strung up to turn agin him as he was hand and
+glove with!"
+
+"I am quite of your opinion, Hewlett; and I fully think John would be
+best out of the way, poor fellow.  I will inquire for a good master for
+him."
+
+"Thank you, sir.  I would have had the boy up to sleep at my place, but
+he won't leave his poor aunt.  He be the chief comfort she has, poor
+thing.  But she won't be here long anyway; and if ever there was a good
+woman, 'tis Judith Grey."
+
+It was quite true.  Mr Harford, who had come home on Saturday, walked
+over to Poppleby, partly for the sake of saying that Judith was
+certainly near the close of her trials, and that it was her great wish
+to see one of the dear ladies again, though she durst not ask one of
+them to come into Dan's house.  Indeed Mr Harford had only drawn the
+expression of her desire out of her with difficulty.
+
+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.  He did not think that she could last
+many more days.
+
+So Sophy arrived at the well-known cottage, and was met at the door by
+Molly, with her apron to her eyes, and a great deal to say about her
+poor sister, and "it wasn't her wish"; but Mr Harford, who was on the
+watch, began to answer her, so as to keep her from going upstairs with
+the visitors.  Little Judy, now a nice, neat girl of fourteen, was
+sitting by her, but rose to go away when the lady came in.
+
+Judith was leaning against pillows, and the pink flush in her cheeks and
+her smile of greeting prevented Sophy from seeing how ill and wasted she
+looked, thin and weak as were the fingers that lay on the coverlet.
+
+"Why, Judith, you look much better than I expected.  You will soon be as
+well as ever."
+
+Judith only smiled, and said, "Thank you, ma'am!  I hope Mrs Carbonel
+is better."
+
+"Yes.  She is getting better now, and she is very sorry not to come and
+see you; but perhaps she may be able before we go away."
+
+"And little Miss Mary, ma'am?"
+
+"She has been quite another creature since we have been at Poppleby--not
+at all fretty, and almost rosy."
+
+"I am glad.  And you are going away, ma'am?"
+
+"Yes; off to a beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea, close to all
+the places where Saint Paul preached.  You know Dora is at Malta, where
+he was shipwrecked."
+
+"Yes, ma'am; I like to know it.  You will give my duty to her, Miss
+Sophy, and thank her--oh! so much,"--and Judith clasped her hands--"for
+all she and you and Mrs Carbonel have been to me.  You seemed to bring
+the light back to me, just as my faith was growing slack and dull."
+
+"Yes; I will tell her, Judith.  I don't like leaving you, but it won't
+seem long till we come back; and we will send you those beautiful
+Maltese oranges."
+
+Judith smiled that beautiful smile again.  "Ah, Miss Sophy, you have
+been very good, and helped me ever so much; but my time is nearly over,
+and I shall not want even you and madam where I am going.  I shall see
+His face," she murmured; and lifted up her hands.
+
+Sophy was rather frightened, and felt as if she had done wrong in
+talking of oranges.  She did not know what to say, and only got out
+something about Johnnie and a comfort.
+
+"Yes, that he is, Miss Sophy, and little Judy too.  The boy, he is that
+shy and quiet, no one would believe the blessed things he says and reads
+to me at night.  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."
+
+"That she is."
+
+"And, maybe, Mrs Carbonel and you, when you come home, would be good to
+my poor sister.  She've been a good sister to me, she has, with it all,
+but it has all been against her, and she would be a different woman if
+she could.  Please remember her."
+
+"We will, we will if we can."
+
+Then Judith went on to beg Sophy to write to her former mistress, Mrs
+Barnard, with all her thanks for past kindness.  That seemed to exhaust
+her a good deal, and she lay back, just saying faintly, "If you would
+read me a little bit, miss."
+
+The Prayer-Book lay nearest, and Sophy read, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy
+servant depart in peace," as well as she could amid the choking tears.
+She felt as if she were lifted into some higher air, but Judith lay so
+white and still that she durst not do more than say, "Good-bye, dear
+Judith."  She was going to say, "I will come and see you again," but
+something withheld her.  She thought Judith's lips said, "Up there."
+She bent down, kissed the cheek, now quite white, and crept down,
+passing Molly at the turn.
+
+Two days later Mr Harford came to say that Judith was gone.  Her last
+communion with Johnnie, and with George Hewlett, had been given to her
+the day before, and she had not spoken afterwards, only her face had
+been strangely bright.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+THE GOLDEN CHAINS.
+
+  "A form unseen is pulling us behind,
+  Threads turn to cords, and cords to cables strong,
+  Till habit hath become as Destiny,
+  Which drives us on, and shakes her scourge on high."
+  _Isaac Williams_.
+
+Captain Carbonel lost no time after Judith Grey's funeral in sending
+John Hewlett to his new master, Mr Jones.  The place was the Carbonels'
+old home, in a county far-away from Uphill.  George had wished the lad
+to go to a cabinet-maker whom he knew at Minsterham, but he was
+convinced by the captain's advice to let him be quite away from the
+assizes, which would not only be pain and shame to him, but would mark
+his name with the brand of the same kind as that of an informer.  This
+Mr Jones was well-known to the Carbonel family as an excellent man--a
+churchwarden, and sure to care for the welfare, spiritual as well as
+bodily, of those commended to him.
+
+And it happened, not unfortunately for John, that, in the captain's
+handwriting, his rather uncommon name was read as Newlett, and for some
+time after he arrived he never found out the mistake, and was rather
+glad of it when he did so, since no one connected him with the
+rick-burner who gave evidence against his leader.
+
+Dan himself came home to find that he was held in more utter disgrace
+than for all his former disreputable conduct, which only passed for
+good-fellowship.  If he had been hanged, or even transported, he would
+only have been "poor Dan Hewlett," and his wife would have had all the
+pity due to widowhood; but everybody fought shy of him, and the big lads
+hooted at him.  He could not get work, Judith's pension had failed, and
+they lived scantily on what Farmer Goodenough allowed Molly to earn, as
+an old hand, to be kept off the parish.  Little Judith was apprenticed
+to Mrs Pearson, according to the old fashion which bound out pauper
+girls as apprentices to service, and which had one happy effect, namely,
+that they could not drift foolishly from one situation to another,
+though, in bad hands, they sometimes had much to suffer.  But Mrs
+Pearson was a kind, conscientious mistress, and Judy was a good girl, so
+that all went well.
+
+Dan slouched about, snared rabbits and hares, and drank up the proceeds
+thereof at little public-houses where he was not known, or where the
+company was past caring about his doings.  At last, he was knocked down
+in the dark by the mail-coach, and brought home in a cart, slowly dying.
+
+Mr Harford came to see him, and found his recollections of old times
+reviving, when he had been Dame Verdon's best scholar.  "I could beat
+old George any day at his book.  And, then, I was church singer, and had
+the solos," he said, evidently thinking sadly of his better days.  "And
+my wife, she was that tidy--only she did put too much on her back!"
+
+The screen, which Judith had of late years kept with the panel with the
+laburnums on the back side, had by accident been now turned so that he
+saw them; and, when Mr Harford came the next day, he broke out--
+
+"Them flowers!  Them flowers, sir!"
+
+Mr Harford could not understand.
+
+"Them golden chains, sir.  They was at the bottom of it."
+
+Mr Harford understood still less.
+
+"They talk of devils' chains, sir, and how they drags a man down.  Them
+was a link, sure enough.  That paper there, sir, I keeps seeing it at
+night by the rushlight, and they gets to look just like chains."
+
+Then Mr Harford understood that he meant the laburnums on the paper--
+golden chains, as they are often called.
+
+"I was working with George," he said, "before them Carbonels came, and
+when there was a piece of the parlour paper left over, I took it for a
+parkisit.  I didn't let George know; he always seemed too particular.
+'Twas more than I had reckoned on; and one bit I papered Mrs Brown's
+room, at Downhill, with; and one bit that was left my wife put on the
+screen.  Then, when the captain made a work about it, I thought it was
+mean and shabby in him, and I never could lay my mind to him or his
+after that--special after Miss Sophy came and spied it out.  I went agen
+'em more and more, and all they wanted for the place; and it riled me
+the more that my lad should be took up with them and his aunt.  And so
+the ill-will of it went on with me, worse and worserer.  Molly, I say,
+take the devils' chains away.  They've got a hold of me."
+
+That was his delirious cry.  Mr Harford prayed with him and for him,
+but never could tell how much was remorse and how much might be
+repentance.  He was quieter as his strength failed, and his wife said he
+made a beautiful end, and that she was sure the Holy Name of the Saviour
+was on his lips, and Mr Harford trusted that she was right, with the
+charity that hopeth all things.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+MISSED AND MOURNED.
+
+  "Nor deem the irrevocable Past
+  As wholly wasted, wholly vain."
+  _Longfellow_.
+
+"Be they Gobblealls not coming home?" asked Nanny Barton, as she stood
+at her gate, while some of her neighbours came slowly out of church,
+about two years later.
+
+"My man, he did ask Shepherd Tomkins," said Betsy Seddon, "and all the
+answer he got was, `You don't desarve it, not you.'  As if my man had
+gone out with that there rabble rout!"
+
+"And I'm sure mine only went up to see what they were after, and helped
+to put out the fire beside."
+
+"Ay," said Cox, behind her, "but not till the soldiers were come."
+
+"Time they did come!" said Seddon.  "Rain comes through the roof, and
+that there Lawyer Brent won't have nothing done to it till the captain
+comes home."
+
+"Yes," added Morris, "and when I spoke to him about my windows, as got
+blown in, he said `cottages were no end of expense, and we hadn't
+treated them so as they would wish to come back nohow.'"
+
+"Think of their bearing malice!" cried Nanny Barton.
+
+"I don't believe as how they does," responded the other Nanny.  "They
+have sent the coals and the blankets all the same."
+
+"Bear malice!" said Mrs Truman, who had just walked up.  "No, no.  Why,
+Parson Harford have said over and over again, when he gave a shilling or
+so or a meat order, to help a poor lady that was ill, that 'twas by
+madam's wish."
+
+"And Governess Thorpe, she has the bag of baby-linen and half a pound of
+tea for any call," said Mrs Spurrell.
+
+"But one looks for the friendly word and the time of day," sighed Betsy
+Seddon.
+
+"The poor children, they don't half like their school without the ladies
+to look in," said Mrs Truman.  "It is quite a job to get them there
+without Miss Sophy to tell them stories."
+
+"I can't get mine to go at all on Sundays," said Nanny Morris.
+
+"And," added Betsy Seddon, "I'm right sure my poor Bob would never have
+'listed for a soldier if the captain had been at home to make Master
+Pucklechurch see the rights of things, and not turn him off all on a
+suddent."
+
+"Master Pucklechurch, he don't believe they are never coming back," said
+Widow Mole, who had just come that way as an evening walk with her
+children.  "He says little miss, and madam too, have their health so
+much better out there, that they won't like to come home.  And yet they
+have made the place like a picture.  I was up there to help Sue
+Pucklechurch clean it up, and 'tis just a pleasure to see all the new
+outhouses and sheds, as you might live in yourself, and well off too."
+
+"And that it should all be for them Pucklechurches," sighed Seddon.
+
+"I heerd tell," said Mrs Truman, "that Lawyer Brent was to come and
+live in the house, and that was why they are making it so nice."
+
+On this there arose a general wail of lamentation, and even of
+indignation.  Nobody loved Lawyer Brent, who was a hard, if a just, man,
+anxious for his employer's good, but inclined, in spite of all cautions,
+to grind the tenants.  To hear of his coming to Greenhow was dismal news
+to all concerned, and there was such a buzz of doleful inquiries that
+Mr Harford stopped on his way home to ask what was the matter.
+
+"Oh no," he said, when he heard.  "Captain and Mrs Carbonel are coming
+home in the spring, only they wished to travel slowly, so as to see
+something of foreign parts.  You need not be afraid.  We shall have them
+back again, and I hope nobody will be as foolish as before.  I am sure
+they have quite forgiven."
+
+And, on a fine spring day, the bells were ringing at the church, and
+everybody stood out at the cottage doors, curtseying and bowing with
+delight and welcome; and Mrs Carbonel and Miss Sophia and Miss Mary,
+looking rosy, healthy, and substantial, and even little Master Edmund
+was laughing and nodding, and looking full of joy.  While the captain
+walked up with Mr Harford, and greeted every one with kindly, hearty
+words.  No one could doubt that they were glad to be at home again, and
+after all that had come and gone, that they felt that these were their
+own people whom they loved.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+  "The work be Thine, the fruit Thy children's part."--_Keble_.
+
+Look at Uphill Priors in the year 1880.  Here are the mothers coming out
+of the mothers' meeting.  They look, in their neat hats and jackets,
+better on this week-day than any one would have done on Sunday sixty
+years ago.  They are, many of them, the granddaughters, or grandsons'
+wives, of the inhabitants in those old times; but they have not the
+worn, haggard faces that their parents had when far younger, except one
+or two poor things who have drunken husbands.  Miss Carbonel (young Miss
+Carbonel) and the vicar's wife have been working with them, and reading
+to them things that the Bettys and Nannys of those days would not have
+understood or cared for.
+
+The white-haired lady, who stops her donkey-chaise to exchange some
+affectionate, kindly words, and give out a parcel or two--she is Miss
+Sophia; and those elderly women who cluster round for a greeting, they
+are her old scholars.  Those black eyes are Hoglah's; that neat woman is
+Judy!  Yes, she has lived among them, and worked among them all her
+life, never forgetting that "no good work can be done without drudgery."
+She has her Girls' Friendly Society class still in her own little
+house, though she has dropped most of her regular out-of-door work of
+late years.  For the vicar--there is a vicar now--and his daughters
+teach constantly in the schools.  The children are swarming out now,
+orderly and nice, even superior in appearance to some of the mothers
+they run up to; and as to learning, the whole parish can read and write,
+and the younger ones can send out a letter that would be no disgrace to
+a lady or a gentleman.
+
+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.
+
+All this has come in the way of gradual change, brought about not by
+rioting, but by the force of opinion, and the action of those in
+authority.
+
+But how have people been fitted to make a good use of these things--not
+to waste them, but to use them as God's good gifts?  There has been a
+quiet influence at work ever since "they Gobblealls" came up the
+roughness of the lanes, and "Mary's approach" was given up.
+
+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; but the boys and youths
+can, and often are, saved from a fit of thoughtless heathenism by their
+clubs and their guilds, and the better families are mostly communicants.
+Blots there are, and the vicar sometimes desponds when some fresh evil
+crops up; but Miss Sophia always tells him to hope, and that--
+
+  "The many prayers, the holy tears, the nurture in the Word,
+  Have not in vain ascended up before the Gracious Lord."
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Carbonels, by Charlotte M. Yonge
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