John Halifax, Gentleman

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

  The earl received the announcement with dignified, incredulous silence; but Mr. Brithwood never spared language.

  “It’s a cheat—an infamous conspiracy! I will unseat him—by my soul I will!”

  “You may find it difficult,” said John Halifax, counting out the guineas deposited by Jacob Baines, and laying them in a heap before Mr. Brown, the steward. “Small as the number is, I believe any Committee of the House of Commons will decide that nine honester votes were never polled. But I regret, my lord—I regret deeply, Mr. Brithwood,”—and there was a kind of pity in his eye—“that in this matter I have been forced, as it were, to become your opponent. Some day, perhaps, you may both do me the justice that I now can only look for from my own conscience.”

  339“Very possibly,” replied the earl, with a satirical bow. “I believe, gentlemen, our business is ended for to-day, and it is a long drive to Norton Bury. Sir Ralph, might we hope for the honour of your company? No? Good day, my friends. Mr. Halifax, your servant.”

  “One word, my lord. Those workmen of mine, who are your tenants—I am aware what usually results when tenants in arrear vote against their landlords—if, without taking any harsher measures, your agent will be so kind as to apply to me for the rent—”

  “Sir, my agent will use his own discretion.”

  “Then I rely on your lordship’s kindliness—your sense of honour.”

  “Honour is only spoken of between equals,” said the earl, haughtily. “But on one thing Mr. Halifax may always rely—my excellent memory.”

  With a smile and bow as perfect as if he were victoriously quitting the field, Lord Luxmore departed. Soon not one remained of all those who had filled the church and churchyard, making there a tumult that is chronicled to this very day by some ancient villagers, who still think themselves greatly ill-used because the Reform Act has blotted out of the list of English boroughs the “loyal and independent” borough of Kingswell.

  Sir Ralph Oldtower stood a good while talking with John; and finally, having sent his carriage on, walked with him down Kingswell Hill towards the manor-house. I, riding alongside, caught fragments of their conversation.

  “What you say is all true, Mr. Halifax; and you say it well. But what can we do? Our English constitution is perfect—that is, as perfect as anything human can be. Yet corruptions will arise; we regret, we even blame—but we cannot remove them. It is impossible.”

  “Do you think, Sir Ralph, that the Maker of this world—which, 340so far as we can see, He means like all other of His creations gradually to advance toward perfection—do you think He would justify us in pronouncing any good work therein ‘impossible’?”

  “You talk like a young man,” said the baronet, half sadly. “Coming years will show you the world and the ways of it in a clearer light.”

  “I earnestly hope so.”

  Sir Ralph glanced sideways at him—perhaps with a sort of envy of the very youth which he thus charitably excused as a thing to be allowed for till riper wisdom came. Something might have smote the old man with a conviction, that in this youth was strength and life, the spirit of the new generation then arising, before which the old worn-out generation would crumble into its natural dust. Dust of the dead ages, honourable dust, to be reverently inurned, and never parricidally profaned by us the living age, who in our turn must follow the same downward path. Dust, venerable and beloved—but still only dust.

  The conversation ending, we took our diverse ways; Sir Ralph giving Mr. Halifax a hearty invitation to the manor-house, and seeing him hesitate, added, that “Lady Oldtower would shortly have the honour of calling upon Mrs. Halifax.”

  John bowed. “But I ought to tell you, Sir Ralph, that my wife and I are very simple people—that we make no mere acquaintances, and only desire friends.”

  “It is fortunate that Lady Oldtower and myself share the same peculiarity.” And, shaking hands with a stately cordiality, the old man took his leave.

  “John, you have made a step in the world to-day.”

  “Have I?” he said, absently, walking in deep thought, and pulling the hedge-leaves as he went along.

  “What will your wife say?”

  “My wife? bless her!” and he seemed to be only speaking 341the conclusion of his thinking. “It will make no difference to her—though it might to me. She married me in my low estate—but some day, God willing, no lady in the land shall be higher than my Ursula.”

  Thus as in all things each thought most of the other, and both of Him—whose will was to them beyond all human love, ay, even such love as theirs.

  Slowly, slowly, I watched the grey turrets of the manor-house fade away in the dusk; the hills grew indistinct, and suddenly we saw the little twinkling light that we knew was the lamp in Longfield parlour, shine out like a glow-worm across the misty fields.

  “I wonder if the children are gone to bed, Phineas?”

  And the fatherly eyes turned fondly to that pretty winking light; the fatherly heart began to hover over the dear little nest of home.

  “Surely there’s some one at the white gate. Ursula!”

  “John! Ah—it is you.”

  The mother did not express her feelings after the fashion of most women; but I knew by her waiting there, and by the nervous tremble of her hand, how great her anxiety had been.

  “Is all safe, husband?”

  “I think so. Mr. Oldtower is elected—HE must fly the country.”

  “Then she is saved.”

  “Let us hope she is. Come, my darling!” and he wrapped his arm round her, for she was shivering. “We have done all we could and must wait the rest. Come home. Oh!” with a lifted look and a closer strain, “thank God for home!”

  342CHAPTER XXV

  We always rose early at Longfield. It was lovely to see the morning sun climbing over One-Tree Hill, catching the larch-wood, and creeping down the broad slope of our field; thence up toward Redwood and Leckington—until, while the dews yet lay thick on our shadowed valley, Leckington Hill was all in a glow of light. Delicious, too, to hear the little ones running in and out, bright and merry as children ought to be in the first wholesome hours of the day—to see them feeding their chickens and petting their doves—calling every minute on father or mother to investigate and enjoy some wonder in farm-yard or garden. And either was ever ready to listen to the smallest of these little mysteries, knowing that nothing in childhood is too trivial for the notice, too foolish for the sympathy, of those on whom the Father of all men has bestowed the holy dignity of parenthood.

  I could see them now, standing among the flower-beds, out in the sunny morning, the father’s tall head in the centre of the group—for he was always the important person during the brief hour or two that he was able to be at home. The mother close beside him, and both knotted round with an interlaced mass of little arms and little eager faces, each wanting to hear everything and to look at everything—everybody to be first 343and nobody last. None rested quiet or mute for a second, except the one who kept close as his shadow to her father’s side, and unwittingly was treated by him less like the other children, than like some stray spirit of another world, caught and held jealously, but without much outward notice, lest haply it might take alarm, and vanish back again unawares. Whenever he came home and did not see her waiting at the door, his first question was always—“Where’s Muriel?”

  Muriel’s still face looked very bright this morning—the Monday morning after the election—because her father was going to be at home the whole day. It was the annual holiday he had planned for his work-people. This only “dinner-party” we had ever given, was in its character not unlike that memorable feast, to which were gathered the poor, the lame, the halt, and the blind—all who needed, and all who could not return, the kindness. There were great cooking preparations—everything that could make merry the heart of man—tea, to comfort the heart of woman, hard-working woman—and lots of bright pennies and silver groats to rejoice the very souls of youth.

>   Mrs. Halifax, Jem Watkins, and his Jenny, were as busy as bees all morning. John did his best to help, but finally the mother pleaded how hard it was that the children should miss their holiday-walk with him, so we were all dismissed from the scene of action, to spend a long, quiet two hours, lying under the great oak on One-Tree Hill. The little ones played about till they were tired; then John took out the newspaper, and read about Ciudad Rodrigo and Lord Wellington’s entry into Madrid—the battered eagles and the torn and bloody flags of Badajoz, which were on their way home to the Prince Regent.

  “I wish the fighting were over, and peace were come,” said Muriel.

  But the boys wished quite otherwise; they already gloried in the accounts of battles, played domestic games of French and English, acted garden sieges and blockades.

  344“How strange and awful it seems, to sit on this green grass, looking down on our quiet valley, and then think of the fighting far away in Spain—perhaps this very minute, under this very sky. Boys, I’ll never let either of you be a soldier.”

  “Poor little fellows!” said I, “they can remember nothing but war time.”

  “What would peace be like?” asked Muriel.

  “A glorious time, my child—rejoicings everywhere, fathers and brothers coming home, work thriving, poor men’s food made cheap, and all things prospering.”

  “I should like to live to see it. Shall I be a woman, then, father?”

  He started. Somehow, she seemed so unlike an ordinary child, that while all the boys’ future was merrily planned out—the mother often said, laughing, she knew exactly what sort of a young man Guy would be—none of us ever seemed to think of Muriel as a woman.

  “Is Muriel anxious to be grown up? Is she not satisfied with being my little daughter always?”

  “Always.”

  Her father drew her to him, and kissed her soft, shut, blind eyes. Then, sighing, he rose, and proposed that we should all go home.

  This first feast at Longfield was a most merry day. The men and their families came about noon. Soon after, they all sat down to dinner; Jem Watkins’s plan of the barn being universally scouted in favour of an open-air feast, in the shelter of a hay-rick, under the mild blue September sky. Jem presided with a ponderous dignity which throughout the day furnished great private amusement to Ursula, John, and me.

  In the afternoon, all rambled about as they liked—many under the ciceroneship of Master Edwin and Master Guy, who were very popular and grand indeed. Then the mother, with Walter clinging shy-eyed to her gown, went among the other 345poorer mothers there; talked to one, comforted another, counselled a third, and invariably listened to all. There was little of patronizing benevolence about her; she spoke freely, sometimes even with some sharpness, when reproving comment was needed; but her earnest kindness, her active goodness, darting at once to the truth and right of things, touched the women’s hearts. While a few were a little wholesomely afraid of her—all recognized the influence of “the mistress,” penetrating deep and sure, extending far and wide.

  She laughed at me when I told her so—said it was all nonsense—that she only followed John’s simple recipe for making his work-people feel that he was a friend as well as a master.

  “What is that?”

  “To pay attention and consideration to all they say; and always to take care and remember to call them by their right Christian names.”

  I could not help smiling—it was an answer so like Mrs. Halifax, who never indulged in any verbal sentimentalism. Her part in the world was deeds.

  It was already evening, when, having each contributed our quota, great or small, to the entertainment, we all came and sat on the long bench under the walnut-tree. The sun went down red behind us, throwing a last glint on the upland field, where, from top to bottom, the young men and women were running in a long “Thread-the-needle.” Their voices and laughter came fairly down to us.

  “I think they have had a happy day, John. They will work all the better to-morrow.”

  “I am quite sure of it.”

  “So am I,” said Guy, who had been acting the young master all day, condescendingly stating his will and giving his opinion on every subject, greatly petted and looked up to by all, to the no small amusement of us elders.

  346“Why, my son?” asked the father, smiling.

  But here Master Guy was posed, and everybody laughed at him. He coloured up with childish anger, and crept nearer his mother. She made a place for him at her side, looking appealingly at John.

  “Guy has got out of his depth—we must help him into safe waters again,” said the father. “Look here, my son, this is the reason—and it is well not to be ‘quite sure’ of a thing unless one knows the reason. Our people will work the better, because they will work from love. Not merely doing their duty, and obeying their master in a blind way, but feeling an interest in him and all that belongs to him; knowing that he feels the same in them. Knowing, too, that although, being their superior in many things, he is their master and they his servants, he never forgets that saying, which I read out of the Bible, children, this morning: ONE IS YOUR MASTER—EVEN CHRIST, AND ALL YE ARE BRETHREN.’ Do you understand?”

  I think they did, for he was accustomed to talk with them thus—even beyond their years. Not in the way of preachifying—for these little ones had in their childish days scarcely any so-called “religious instruction,” save the daily chapter out of the New Testament, and the father and mother’s daily life, which was a simple and literal carrying out of the same. To that one test was brought all that was thought, or said, or done, in our household, where it often seemed as if the Master were as visibly obeyed and followed as in the household which He loved at Bethany.

  As to what doctrinal creed we held, or what sect we belonged to, I can give but the plain answer which John gave to all such inquiries—that we were CHRISTIANS.

  After these words from the Holy Book (which the children always listened to with great reverence, as to the Book which their parents most loved and honoured, the reading and learning of which was granted as a high reward and favour, and 347never carelessly allowed, or—horrible to think!—inflicted as a punishment), we ceased smiling at Guy, who in his turn ceased to frown. The little storm blew over, as our domestic storms usually did, leaving a clear, free heaven. Loving one another, of course we quarrelled sometimes; but we always made it up again, because we loved one another.

  “Father, I hear the click of the gate. There’s somebody coming,” said Muriel.

  The father paused in a great romp with his sons—paused, as he ever did when his little daughter’s soft voice was heard. “’Tis only a poor boy—who can he be?”

  “One of the folk that come for milk most likely—but we have none to give away to-day. What do you want, my lad?”

  The lad, who looked miserable and scared, opened his mouth with a stupid “Eh?”

  Ursula repeated the question.

  “I wants Jacob Baines.”

  “You’ll find him with the rest, in front of that hay-rick, over his pipe and ale.”

  The lad was off like a shot.

  “He is from Kingswell, I think. Can anything be the matter, John?”

  “I will go and see. No, boys, no more games—I will be back presently.”

  He went, apparently rather anxious—as was easy to find out by only a glance at the face of Ursula. Soon she rose and went after him. I followed her.

  We saw, close by the hay-rick, a group of men, angrily talking. The gossiping mothers were just joining them. Far off, in the field, the younger folk were still dancing merrily down their long line of “Thread-the-needle.”

  As we approached, we heard sobbing from one or two women, and loud curses from the men.

  “What’s amiss?” said Mr. Halifax, as he came in the 348midst—and both curses and sobbings were silenced. All began a confused tale of wrongs. “Stop, Jacob—I can’t make it out.”

  “This lad ha’ seen it all. And he bean’t a liar in big t
hings—speak up, Billy.”

  Somehow or other, we extracted the news brought by ragged Billy, who on this day had been left in charge of the five dwellings rented of Lord Luxmore. During the owners’ absence there had been a distraint for rent; every bit of the furniture was carried off; two or three aged and sick folk were left lying on the bare floor—and the poor families here would have to go home to nothing but their four walls.

  Again, at repetition of the story, the women wept and the men swore.

  “Be quiet,” said Mr. Halifax again. But I saw that his honest English blood was boiling within him. “Jem”—and Jem Watkins started, so unusually sharp and commanding was his master’s tone—“Saddle the mare—quick. I shall ride to Kingswell, and thence to the sheriff’s.”

  “God bless ’ee, sir!” sobbed Jacob Baines’s widowed daughter-in-law, who had left, as I overheard her telling Mrs. Halifax, a sick child to-day at home.

  Jacob Baines took up a heavy knobbed stick which happened to be leaning against the hay-rick, and eyed it with savage meaning.

  “Who be they as has done this, master?”

  “Put that bludgeon down, Jacob.”

  The man hesitated—met his master’s determined eye—and obeyed him, meek as a lamb.

  “But what is us to do, sir?”

  “Nothing. Stay here till I return—you shall come to no harm. You will trust me, my men?”

  They gathered round him—those big, fierce-looking fellows, in whom was brute force enough to attack or resist anything—yet he made them listen to reason. He explained as 349much as he could of the injustice which had apparently been done them—injustice which had overstepped the law, and could only be met by keeping absolutely within the law.