CHAPTER XVIII.
WHICH THE GENTEEL READER IS RECOMMENDED TO SKIP, LOW PERSONS BEING HEREINTRODUCED.
The evening was still and warm; close and sultry it even promised tobecome. Round the descending sun the clouds glowed purple; summer tints,rather Indian than English, suffused the horizon, and cast rosyreflections on hillside, house-front, tree-bole, on winding road andundulating pasture-ground. The two girls came down from the fieldsslowly. By the time they reached the churchyard the bells were hushed;the multitudes were gathered into the church. The whole scene wassolitary.
"How pleasant and calm it is!" said Caroline.
"And how hot it will be in the church!" responded Shirley. "And what adreary long speech Dr. Boultby will make! And how the curates willhammer over their prepared orations! For my part, I would rather notenter."
"But my uncle will be angry if he observes our absence."
"I will bear the brunt of his wrath; he will not devour me. I shall besorry to miss his pungent speech. I know it will be all sense for thechurch, and all causticity for schism. He'll not forget the battle ofRoyd Lane. I shall be sorry also to deprive you of Mr. Hall's sincerefriendly homily, with all its racy Yorkshireisms; but here I must stay.The gray church and grayer tombs look divine with this crimson gleam onthem. Nature is now at her evening prayers; she is kneeling before thosered hills. I see her prostrate on the great steps of her altar, prayingfor a fair night for mariners at sea, for travellers in deserts, forlambs on moors, and unfledged birds in woods. Caroline, I see her, and Iwill tell you what she is like. She is like what Eve was when she andAdam stood alone on earth."
"And that is not Milton's Eve, Shirley."
"Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! I repeat. No, by the pure Mother of God,she is not! Cary, we are alone; we may speak what we think. Milton wasgreat; but was he good? His brain was right; how was his heart? He sawheaven; he looked down on hell. He saw Satan, and Sin his daughter, andDeath their horrible offspring. Angels serried before him theirbattalions; the long lines of adamantine shields flashed back on hisblind eyeballs the unutterable splendour of heaven. Devils gatheredtheir legions in his sight; their dim, discrowned, and tarnished armiespassed rank and file before him. Milton tried to see the first woman;but, Cary, he saw her not."
"You are bold to say so, Shirley."
"Not more bold than faithful. It was his cook that he saw; or it wasMrs. Gill, as I have seen her, making custards, in the heat of summer,in the cool dairy, with rose-trees and nasturtiums about the latticedwindow, preparing a cold collation for the rectors--preserves and'dulcet creams;' puzzled 'what choice to choose for delicacy best; whatorder so contrived as not to mix tastes, not well-joined, inelegant, butbring taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change.'"
"All very well too, Shirley."
"I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans,and that Eve was their mother; from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion,Oceanus; she bore Prometheus----"
"Pagan that you are! what does that signify?"
"I say, there were giants on the earth in those days--giants that stroveto scale heaven. The first woman's breast that heaved with life on thisworld yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence, thestrength which could bear a thousand years of bondage, the vitalitywhich could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, theunexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality,which, after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceiveand bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born. Vast was theheart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations, and grandthe undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation."
"She coveted an apple, and was cheated by a snake; but you have got sucha hash of Scripture and mythology into your head that there is no makingany sense of you. You have not yet told me what you saw kneeling onthose hills."
"I saw--I now see--a woman-Titan. Her robe of blue air spreads to theoutskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white asan avalanche sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques oflightning flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purplelike that horizon; through its blush shines the star of evening. Hersteady eyes I cannot picture. They are clear, they are deep as lakes,they are lifted and full of worship, they tremble with the softness oflove and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud,and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers. Shereclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands arejoined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. ThatEve is Jehovah's daughter, as Adam was His son."
"She is very vague and visionary. Come, Shirley, we ought to go intochurch."
"Caroline, I will not; I will stay out here with my mother Eve, in thesedays called Nature. I love her--undying, mighty being! Heaven may havefaded from her brow when she fell in paradise, but all that is gloriouson earth shines there still. She is taking me to her bosom, and showingme her heart. Hush, Caroline! You will see her and feel as I do, if weare both silent."
"I will humour your whim; but you will begin talking again ere tenminutes are over."
Miss Keeldar, on whom the soft excitement of the warm summer eveningseemed working with unwonted power, leaned against an upright headstone;she fixed her eyes on the deep-burning west, and sank into a pleasurabletrance. Caroline, going a little apart, paced to and fro beneath therectory garden wall, dreaming too in her way. Shirley had mentioned theword "mother." That word suggested to Caroline's imagination not themighty and mystical parent of Shirley's visions, but a gentle humanform--the form she ascribed to her own mother, unknown, unloved, but notunlonged for.
"Oh that the day would come when she would remember her child! Oh that Imight know her, and knowing, love her!"
Such was her aspiration.
The longing of her childhood filled her soul again. The desire whichmany a night had kept her awake in her crib, and which fear of itsfallacy had of late years almost extinguished, relit suddenly, andglowed warm in her heart, that her mother might come some happy day,and send for her to her presence, look upon her fondly with loving eyes,and say to her tenderly, in a sweet voice, "Caroline, my child, I have ahome for you; you shall live with me. All the love you have needed, andnot tasted, from infancy, I have saved for you carefully. Come; it shallcherish you now."
A noise on the road roused Caroline from her filial hopes, and Shirleyfrom her Titan visions. They listened, and heard the tramp of horses.They looked, and saw a glitter through the trees. They caught throughthe foliage glimpses of martial scarlet; helm shone, plume waved. Silentand orderly, six soldiers rode softly by.
"The same we saw this afternoon," whispered Shirley. "They have beenhalting somewhere till now. They wish to be as little noticed aspossible, and are seeking their rendezvous at this quiet hour, while thepeople are at church. Did I not say we should see unusual things erelong?"
Scarcely were sight and sound of the soldiers lost, when another andsomewhat different disturbance broke the night-hush--a child's impatientscream. They looked. A man issued from the church, carrying in his armsan infant--a robust, ruddy little boy of some two years old--roaringwith all the power of his lungs. He had probably just awaked from achurch-sleep. Two little girls, of nine and ten, followed. The influenceof the fresh air, and the attraction of some flowers gathered from agrave, soon quieted the child. The man sat down with him, dandling himon his knee as tenderly as any woman; the two little girls took theirplaces one on each side.
"Good-evening, William," said Shirley, after due scrutiny of the man. Hehad seen her before, and apparently was waiting to be recognized. He nowtook off his hat, and grinned a smile of pleasure. He was arough-headed, hard-featured personage, not old, but very weather-beaten.His attire was decent and clean; that of his children singularly neat.It was our old friend Farren. The young ladies approached him.
"You are not going into the church?" he inquired, gazing at themcomplacently, yet with a mixture of bashfulness in his
look--a sentimentnot by any means the result of awe of their station, but only ofappreciation of their elegance and youth. Before gentlemen--such asMoore or Helstone, for instance--William was often a little dogged;with proud or insolent ladies, too, he was quite unmanageable, sometimesvery resentful; but he was most sensible of, most tractable to,good-humour and civility. His nature--a stubborn one--was repelled byinflexibility in other natures; for which reason he had never been ableto like his former master, Moore; and unconscious of that gentleman'sgood opinion of himself, and of the service he had secretly rendered himin recommending him as gardener to Mr. Yorke, and by this means to otherfamilies in the neighbourhood, he continued to harbour a grudge againsthis austerity. Latterly he had often worked at Fieldhead. Miss Keeldar'sfrank, hospitable manners were perfectly charming to him. Caroline hehad known from her childhood; unconsciously she was his ideal of a lady.Her gentle mien, step, gestures, her grace of person and attire, movedsome artist-fibres about his peasant heart. He had a pleasure in lookingat her, as he had in examining rare flowers or in seeing pleasantlandscapes. Both the ladies liked William; it was their delight to lendhim books, to give him plants; and they preferred his conversation farbefore that of many coarse, hard, pretentious people immeasurably higherin station.
"Who was speaking, William, when you came out?" asked Shirley.
"A gentleman ye set a deal of store on, Miss Shirley--Mr. Donne."
"You look knowing, William. How did you find out my regard for Mr.Donne?"
"Ay, Miss Shirley, there's a gleg light i' your een sometimes whichbetrays you. You look raight down scornful sometimes when Mr. Donne isby."
"Do you like him yourself, William?"
"Me? I'm stalled o' t' curates, and so is t' wife. They've no manners.They talk to poor folk fair as if they thought they were beneath them.They're allus magnifying their office. It is a pity but their officecould magnify them; but it does nought o' t' soart. I fair hate pride."
"But you are proud in your own way yourself," interposed Caroline. "Youare what you call house-proud: you like to have everything handsomeabout you. Sometimes you look as if you were almost too proud to takeyour wages. When you were out of work, you were too proud to getanything on credit. But for your children, I believe you would ratherhave starved than gone to the shops without money; and when I wanted togive you something, what a difficulty I had in making you take it!"
"It is partly true, Miss Caroline. Ony day I'd rather give than take,especially from sich as ye. Look at t' difference between us. Ye're alittle, young, slender lass, and I'm a great strong man; I'm rather morenor twice your age. It is not _my_ part, then, I think, to tak fro'_ye_--to be under obligations (as they say) to _ye_. And that day yecame to our house, and called me to t' door, and offered me fiveshillings, which I doubt ye could ill spare--for ye've no fortin', Iknow--that day I war fair a rebel, a radical, an insurrectionist; and_ye_ made me so. I thought it shameful that, willing and able as I wasto work, I suld be i' such a condition that a young cratur about the ageo' my own eldest lass suld think it needful to come and offer me her bito' brass."
"I suppose you were angry with me, William?"
"I almost was, in a way. But I forgave ye varry soon. Ye meant well. Ay,_I am_ proud, and so are _ye_; but your pride and mine is t' raightmak--what we call i' Yorkshire clean pride--such as Mr. Malone and Mr.Donne knows nought about. Theirs is mucky pride. Now, I shall teach mylasses to be as proud as Miss Shirley there, and my lads to be as proudas myseln; but I dare ony o' 'em to be like t' curates. I'd lick littleMichael if I seed him show any signs o' that feeling."
"What is the difference, William?"
"Ye know t' difference weel enow, but ye want me to get a gate o'talking. Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne is almost too proud to do aught fortheirseln; _we_ are almost too proud to let anybody do aught for us. T'curates can hardly bide to speak a civil word to them they think beneaththem; _we_ can hardly bide to tak an uncivil word fro' them that thinksthemseln aboon us."
"Now, William, be humble enough to tell me truly how you are getting onin the world. Are you well off?"
"Miss Shirley, I am varry well off. Since I got into t' gardening line,wi' Mr. Yorke's help, and since Mr. Hall (another o' t' raight sort)helped my wife to set up a bit of a shop, I've nought to complain of. Myfamily has plenty to eat and plenty to wear. My pride makes me findmeans to have an odd pound now and then against rainy days; for I thinkI'd die afore I'd come to t' parish; and me and mine is content. But t'neighbours is poor yet. I see a great deal of distress."
"And, consequently, there is still discontent, I suppose?" inquired MissKeeldar.
"_Consequently_--ye say right--_consequently_. In course, starving folkcannot be satisfied or settled folk. The country's not in a safecondition--I'll say so mich!"
"But what can be done? What more can I do, for instance?"
"Do? Ye can do not mich, poor young lass! Ye've gi'en your brass; ye'vedone well. If ye could transport your tenant, Mr. Moore, to Botany Bay,ye'd happen do better. Folks hate him."
"William, for shame!" exclaimed Caroline warmly. "If folks _do_ hatehim, it is to their disgrace, not his. Mr. Moore himself hates nobody.He only wants to do his duty, and maintain his rights. You are wrong totalk so."
"I talk as I think. He has a cold, unfeeling heart, yond' Moore."
"But," interposed Shirley, "supposing Moore was driven from the country,and his mill razed to the ground, would people have more work?"
"They'd have less. I know that, and they know that; and there is many anhonest lad driven desperate by the certainty that whichever way he turnshe cannot better himself; and there is dishonest men plenty to guidethem to the devil, scoundrels that reckons to be the 'people's friends,'and that knows nought about the people, and is as insincere as Lucifer.I've lived aboon forty year in the world, and I believe that 'thepeople' will never have any true friends but theirseln and them two orthree good folk i' different stations that is friends to all the world.Human natur', taking it i' th' lump, is nought but selfishness. It isbut excessive few, it is but just an exception here and there, now andthen, sich as ye two young uns and me, that, being in a differentsphere, can understand t' one t' other, and be friends wi'outslavishness o' one hand or pride o' t' other. Them that reckons to befriends to a lower class than their own fro' political motives is neverto be trusted; they always try to make their inferiors tools. For my ownpart, I will neither be patronized nor misled for no man's pleasure.I've had overtures made to me lately that I saw were treacherous, and Iflung 'em back i' the faces o' them that offered 'em."
"You won't tell us what overtures?"
"I will not. It would do no good. It would mak no difference. Them theyconcerned can look after theirseln."
"Ay, we'se look after werseln," said another voice. Joe Scott hadsauntered forth from the church to get a breath of fresh air, and therehe stood.
"I'll warrant _ye_, Joe," observed William, smiling.
"And I'll warrant my maister," was the answer.--"Young ladies,"continued Joe, assuming a lordly air, "ye'd better go into th' house."
"I wonder what for?" inquired Shirley, to whom the overlooker's somewhatpragmatical manners were familiar, and who was often at war with him;for Joe, holding supercilious theories about women in general, resentedgreatly, in his secret soul, the fact of his master and his master'smill being, in a manner, under petticoat government, and had felt aswormwood and gall certain business visits of the heiress to the Hollow'scounting-house.
"Because there is nought agate that fits women to be consarned in."
"Indeed! There is prayer and preaching agate in that church. Are we notconcerned in that?"
"Ye have been present neither at the prayer nor preaching, ma'am, if Ihave observed aright. What I alluded to was politics. William Farrenhere was touching on that subject, if I'm not mista'en."
"Well, what then? Politics are our habitual study, Joe. Do you know Isee a newspaper every day, and two of a Sunday?"
"I should th
ink you'll read the marriages, probably, miss, and themurders, and the accidents, and sich like?"
"I read the leading articles, Joe, and the foreign intelligence, and Ilook over the market prices. In short, I read just what gentlemen read."
Joe looked as if he thought this talk was like the chattering of a pie.He replied to it by a disdainful silence.
"Joe," continued Miss Keeldar, "I never yet could ascertain properlywhether you are a Whig or a Tory. Pray, which party has the honour ofyour alliance?"
"It is rayther difficult to explain where you are sure not to beunderstood," was Joe's haughty response; "but as to being a Tory, I'd assoon be an old woman, or a young one, which is a more flimsier articlestill. It is the Tories that carries on the war and ruins trade; and ifI be of any party--though political parties is all nonsense--I'm ofthat which is most favourable to peace, and, by consequence, to themercantile interests of this here land."
"So am I, Joe," replied Shirley, who had rather a pleasure in teasingthe overlooker, by persisting in talking on subjects with which heopined she, as a woman, had no right to meddle--"partly, at least. Ihave rather a leaning to the agricultural interest, too; as good reasonis, seeing that I don't desire England to be under the feet of France,and that if a share of my income comes from Hollow's Mill, a largershare comes from the landed estate around it. It would not do to takeany measures injurious to the farmers, Joe, I think?"
"The dews at this hour is unwholesome for females," observed Joe.
"If you make that remark out of interest in me, I have merely to assureyou that I am impervious to cold. I should not mind taking my turn towatch the mill one of these summer nights, armed with your musket, Joe."
Joe Scott's chin was always rather prominent. He poked it out, at thisspeech, some inches farther than usual.
"But--to go back to my sheep," she proceeded--"clothier and mill-owneras I am, besides farmer, I cannot get out of my head a certain idea thatwe manufacturers and persons of business are sometimes a little--a _verylittle_--selfish and short-sighted in our views, and rather _too_regardless of human suffering, rather heartless in our pursuit of gain.Don't you agree with me, Joe?"
"I cannot argue where I cannot be comprehended," was again the answer.
"Man of mystery! Your master will argue with me sometimes, Joe. He isnot so stiff as you are."
"Maybe not. We've all our own ways."
"Joe, do you seriously think all the wisdom in the world is lodged inmale skulls?"
"I think that women are a kittle and a froward generation; and I've agreat respect for the doctrines delivered in the second chapter of St.Paul's first Epistle to Timothy."
"What doctrines, Joe?"
"'Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. I suffer not awoman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be insilence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.'"
"What has that to do with the business?" interjected Shirley. "Thatsmacks of rights of primogeniture. I'll bring it up to Mr. Yorke thefirst time he inveighs against those rights."
"And," continued Joe Scott, "Adam was not deceived, but the woman beingdeceived was in the transgression."
"More shame to Adam to sin with his eyes open!" cried Miss Keeldar. "Toconfess the honest truth, Joe, I never was easy in my mind concerningthat chapter. It puzzles me."
"It is very plain, miss. He that runs may read."
"He may read it in his own fashion," remarked Caroline, now joining inthe dialogue for the first time. "You allow the right of privatejudgment, I suppose, Joe?"
"My certy, that I do! I allow and claim it for every line of the holyBook."
"Women may exercise it as well as men?"
"Nay. Women is to take their husbands' opinion, both in politics andreligion. It's wholesomest for them."
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed both Shirley and Caroline.
"To be sure; no doubt on't," persisted the stubborn overlooker.
"Consider yourself groaned down, and cried shame over, for such a stupidobservation," said Miss Keeldar. "You might as well say men are to takethe opinions of their priests without examination. Of what value would areligion so adopted be? It would be mere blind, besotted superstition."
"And what is _your_ reading, Miss Helstone, o' these words o' St.Paul's?"
"Hem! I--I account for them in this way. He wrote that chapter for aparticular congregation of Christians, under peculiar circumstances; andbesides, I dare say, if I could read the original Greek, I should findthat many of the words have been wrongly translated, perhapsmisapprehended altogether. It would be possible, I doubt not, with alittle ingenuity, to give the passage quite a contrary turn--to make itsay, 'Let the woman speak out whenever she sees fit to make anobjection.' 'It is permitted to a woman to teach and to exerciseauthority as much as may be. Man, meantime, cannot do better than holdhis peace;' and so on."
"That willn't wash, miss."
"I dare say it will. My notions are dyed in faster colours than yours,Joe. Mr. Scott, you are a thoroughly dogmatical person, and alwayswere. I like William better than you."
"Joe is well enough in his own house," said Shirley. "I have seen him asquiet as a lamb at home. There is not a better nor a kinder husband inBriarfield. He does not dogmatize to his wife."
"My wife is a hard-working, plain woman; time and trouble has ta'en allthe conceit out of her. But that is not the case with you, young misses.And then you reckon to have so much knowledge; and i' my thoughts it'sonly superficial sort o' vanities you're acquainted with. I cantell--happen a year sin'--one day Miss Caroline coming into ourcounting-house when I war packing up summat behind t' great desk, andshe didn't see me, and she brought a slate wi' a sum on it to t'maister. It war only a bit of a sum in practice, that our Harry wouldhave settled i' two minutes. She couldn't do it. Mr. Moore had to showher how. And when he did show her, she couldn't understand him."
"Nonsense, Joe!"
"Nay, it's no nonsense. And Miss Shirley there reckons to hearken to t'maister when he's talking ower trade, so attentive like, as if shefollowed him word for word, and all war as clear as a lady'slooking-glass to her een; and all t' while she's peeping and peeping outo' t' window to see if t' mare stands quiet; and then looking at a bitof a splash on her riding-skirt; and then glancing glegly round at wercounting-house cobwebs and dust, and thinking what mucky folk we are,and what a grand ride she'll have just i' now ower Nunnely Common. Shehears no more o' Mr. Moore's talk nor if he spake Hebrew."
"Joe, you are a real slanderer. I would give you your answer, only thepeople are coming out of church. We must leave you. Man of prejudice,good-bye.--William, good-bye.--Children, come up to Fieldhead to-morrow,and you shall choose what you like best out of Mrs. Gill's store-room."
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