by Ellen Wood
The ten minutes lengthened into twenty, and Henry’s attention was so far roused that he came to the table in his impulsive way, and began talking on his own account. When William was ready to go, he was not; and he actually told the men that he would come round again. It was a great point gained.
Small beginnings, it has been remarked, lead to great endings. The humble, confined way in which the class had begun at Robert East’s; the vague ideas of William upon the subject; the doubtings of East and Crouch, were looked back upon with a smile. For the little venture had swollen itself into a great undertaking — an undertaking that was destined to effect a revolution throughout the whole of Honey Fair, and might probably even extend to Helstonleigh itself. The drawback now was want of room; numbers were being kept away by it. Henry Ashley did go again; and finding that books of the right kind ran short, he, the day after his second visit, wrote off an order for a whole cargo.
Mr. Ashley was in a state of inward delight. Anything to rouse him! “You think it will succeed, that movement, do you, Henry?” he carelessly observed.
“It’s safe to succeed,” was the answer. “William, with his palavering, has gained the ear of the fellows. I don’t believe there’s William Halliburton’s equal in the whole world!” he added, with enthusiasm. “Fancy his sacrificing his time to such a thing, and for no benefit to himself! It will bear a rich crop of fruit too. If I have the gift — I’ll give you a long word for once — of ratiocination, this reform of William’s will be more extensive than we now foresee.”
The chief thing in these evenings was to keep alive the interest of the men. Not to lead them to abstruse things, which they had a difficulty in understanding, and remained strange to at best; but rather to plunge them into familiar home topics — the philosophy, if you will, of everyday life. There is a right and a wrong way of doing most things, and it often happens that people, from ignorance, pursue the wrong. Of the plain sanitary laws, relating to physical health, Honey Fair was intensely ignorant: of the ventilation of rooms, of cleanliness, of the most simple rules by which the body can be kept in order, they knew no more than they did of the moon. When a man was, to use Honey Fair phraseology, “took bad,” he generally neglected the symptoms altogether, thereby laying the foundation of worse illness: or else he went to a doctor, and ran himself into expense. A little familiarity with ordinary complaints and ordinary antidotes would have remedied this. An acquaintance with sanitary laws would have prevented it. When children were down with measles or scarlatina, the careless of the land allowed the maladies to take their own course, and the sufferers to air themselves in the gutters, as usual. The cautious ones smothered the patients in a hot room, keeping up a fire as large as the stock of coals would allow, and borrowing all the blankets from the houses on either side, to heap upon them. No wonder the supply of little coffins was great to Honey Fair.
All these things would be talked of and discussed, and a little enlightenment imparted to the men, as a guidance for the future. No one who did not witness it can imagine the delighted satisfaction with which these and similar practical topics were welcomed; for they bore for them a personal interest — they concerned themselves, their families, and their homes.
One evening the way in which Honey Fair rather liked to spend its Sundays was under discussion; namely, the men in smoking; the women slatternly and dirty; the children fighting and quarrelling in the dirt outside.
William Halliburton was asking them in a half-earnest, half-joking manner, what particular benefit they found in it, that it should not be remedied? Could they impart its pleasures to him? If so ——
His voice suddenly faltered and stopped. Standing just inside the door of the room, a quiet spectator and listener of the proceedings, was Thomas Ashley. The men followed William’s gaze, saw who was amongst them, and rose in respectful silence.
Mr. Ashley came forward, signing to William to continue. But William’s eloquence had died out, leaving only a heightened colour in its place. In the presence of Mr. Ashley, whom he so loved and respected, he had grown timid as a child.
“Do you know,” said Mr. Ashley, addressing the men, “it gives me greater pleasure to see you here than it would do were I to hear that you had come into a fortune.”
They smiled and shook their heads. “Fortunes didn’t come to the like o’ them.”
“Never mind,” replied Mr. Ashley: “fortunes are not the best gifts in life.”
He stayed talking with them some little time, quiet words of encouragement, and then withdrew, wishing them good luck. William left with him: and as they passed through Honey Fair, the women ran to their doors to gaze after them. Mr. Ashley, slightly bent with his advancing years, leaned upon William’s arm, but his face was fresh as ever, and his dark hair showed no signs of age. William erect, noble; his height greater than Mr. Ashley’s, his forehead broader, his deep grey eyes strangely earnest and sincere; and a flitting smile playing on his lips. He was listening to Mr. Ashley’s satisfaction at what he had witnessed.
“How long do you intend to sacrifice your evenings to them?”
“It is no sacrifice, Mr. Ashley. I am glad to do it. I consider it one of the best uses to which my evenings could be given. I intend to enlist Henry for good in the cause, if I can do so.”
“You will be an ingenious persuader if you do,” returned Mr. Ashley. “I would give half I am worth,” he abruptly added, “to see the boy take an interest in life.”
“It will be sure to come, sir. One of these days I shall surprise him into reading a good play to the men. Something to laugh at. It will be a beginning.”
“He is very much better,” observed Mr. Ashley. “All that listless apathy is going.”
“Oh yes. He is all but cured.”
“What was it, William?”
William was taken by surprise. He did not answer, and Mr. Ashley repeated the question.
“It is his secret, sir, not mine.”
“You must confide it to me,” said Mr. Ashley, in his tone of quiet firmness. “You know me, William. When I promise that neither it nor the fact of its having been disclosed to me, shall ever escape me, directly or indirectly, to any living person, you know that you may depend upon me.”
He paused. William did not speak: he was debating with himself what he ought to do.
“William, it is a relief that I must have. Since my suspicions, that there was a secret, were confirmed, I cannot tell you what improbable fancies and fears have not run riot in my brain. For prostration so excessive to have overtaken him, one would almost think he had been guilty of murder, or some other unaccountable crime. You must relieve my mind: which, in spite of my uncontrollable fancies, I do not doubt the truth will do. It will make no difference to any one; it will only be an additional bond between myself and you; and you, my almost son.”
William’s duty rose before him, clear and distinct. But when he spoke, it was in a whisper.
“He loved Anna Lynn.”
Mr. Ashley walked on without comment. William resumed.
“Had that unhappy affair not taken place, Henry’s intention was to make her his wife, provided you could have been brought to consent to it. His whole days used to be spent, I believe, in planning how he could best invent a chance of obtaining it.”
“And now?” very sharply asked Mr. Ashley.
“Now the thing is at an end for ever. Henry’s good sense has come to his aid; I suppose I may say his pride; his self-esteem. Innocent of actual ill as Anna was in the affair, there was sufficient reflection cast upon her to prove to Henry that his hopeful visions could never be carried out. That was Henry’s secret, sir: and I almost feared the blow would have killed him. But he is getting over it.”
Mr. Ashley drew a deep breath. “William, I thank you. You have relieved me from a nightmare: and you may forget having given me the confidence if you like, for it will never be abused. What are you going to do about space?” he continued, in a different tone.
“
About space, sir?”
“For those protégés of yours, at East’s. They seem to me to be tolerably confined for it, there?”
“Yes, and that is not the worst,” said William. “Men are asking to join every day, and they cannot be taken in.”
“I can’t think how you manage to get so many — and to keep them.”
“I suppose the chief secret is, that their interest enters into it. We contrive to keep that up. Most of them would not go back to the Horned Ram for the world.”
“Well, where shall you stow them?”
“It is more than I can say, sir. We must manage it somehow.”
“Henry told me you were ambitious enough to aspire to the Mormon failure.”
“I was foolish enough to do so,” replied William, with a laugh. “Seeing it was very much in the condition of the famed picture taken of the good Dr. Primrose and his family — useless — I went and offered a rent for it — only a trifling sum, it is true; but if our fires only kept it from damp, one would think the builder might have been glad to let it, thrown as it is upon his hands. I told him so.”
“What did he say?”
“He stood out for thirty pounds. But that’s more than I — than we can afford.”
“And who was going to find the money? You?”
William hesitated; but did not see any way out of the dilemma.
“Well, sir, you know it is a sad pity for the good work to be stopped, through so insignificant a trifle as want of room.”
“I think it is,” replied Mr. Ashley. “You can hire it to-morrow, and move your forms and tables and books into it as soon as you like. I will find the rent.”
The words took William by surprise. “Oh, Mr. Ashley, do you really mean it?”
“Really mean it? It is little enough, compared with what you are doing. A few years, William, and your name may be great in Helstonleigh. You are working on for it.”
William walked with Mr. Ashley as far as his house, and then turned back to his own. He found sorrow there. Not having been home since dinner-time, for he had taken tea at Mr. Ashley’s, he was unconscious of some tidings which had been brought by the afternoon’s post. Jane sat and grieved while she told him. Her brother Robert was dead. Very rarely indeed did she hear from the New World; Margaret appeared to be too full of cares and domestic bustle to write often. She might not have written now, but to tell of the death of Robert.
“I have lost myself sometimes in a vision of seeing Robert home again,” said Jane, with a sigh. “And now he is gone!”
“He was not married, was he?” asked William.
“No. I fear he never got on very well. Never to be at his ease.”
Gar came in noisily, and interrupted them. The death of an uncle whom he had never seen, and who had lived thousands of miles away, did not appear to Gar to be a matter calling for any especial amount of grief. Gar was in high spirits on his own account; for Gar was going to Cambridge. Not in all the pomp and pride of an unlimited purse, however, but as a humble sizar.
Gar, not seeing his way very clearly, had been wise enough to pluck up courage and apply for counsel to the head master of the college school. He had told him that he meant to go to college, and how he meant to go, and he asked Mr. Keating if he could help him to a situation, where he might be useful between terms. “A school where I might become a junior assistant,” suggested Gar. “Or any family who would take me to read with their sons? If I only earned my food, it would be so much the less weight upon my mother,” added he, in the candid spirit peculiar to the family.
“Have you forgotten that you ought to work, yourself, out of terms, nearly as hard as in them?” asked Mr. Keating.
“Oh, no, sir, I have not forgotten it. I will take care to accomplish my own work as well. That should not suffer.”
Mr. Keating looked at the cheerful, hopeful face, a sure index of the brave hopeful spirit. He had taken unusual interest in the two Halliburtons, so clever and persevering. It had been impossible for him not to do so; for, if Mr. Keating had a weakness, it was for a good classical scholar.
“I’ll see about it, Gar,” said he. “But you are rather young to read with students. And I do not suppose any school would be willing to engage you on account of the interruption that keeping your terms would cause. If nothing better turns up, you can remain in the college school-room here, and undertake one of the junior desks. I should give you nothing for it,” added the master, “except your meals. Those you would be welcome to take at my house with my private pupils, sleeping at your own home. And I think that, for you, it would be a better arrangement than any other, for it would leave you plenty of time for your own studies, and I could still superintend them.”
Gar thought the arrangement would be first-rate. It would be the very thing. “Not that I ever thought of it,” he ingenuously said. “I did not know the college school admitted assistants.”
“Neither does it,” replied the master. “You would be ostensibly my private pupil. And if I choose to set a private pupil to keep the desks to their work, that is my affair.”
Gar could only reiterate his thanks.
“I am pleased to give you this little encouragement,” remarked Mr. Keating. “When I see boys hopefully plodding on in the teeth of difficulties, of brave heart, of sterling conduct, they deserve all the encouragement that can be given to them. If you and your brothers only go on as you have hitherto gone on, you will stand in after-years as bright examples of what industry and perseverance can achieve.”
So that, altogether, Gar was in spirits, and did not by any means put on superfluous mourning for a gentleman who had died in the backwoods of Canada, although he was his mother’s brother.
CHAPTER XVI.
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.
“Mary,” said Mr. Ashley, “I have received an offer of marriage for you.”
A somewhat abrupt announcement to make to a young lady, and Mr. Ashley spoke in the gravest tone. They were seated round the breakfast table, Mary by her mother’s side, who was pouring out the coffee. Mary looked surprised, rather amused; but that was the only emotion discernible in her countenance.
“It is fine to be you, Miss Mary!” struck in Henry, before anyone could speak. “Pray, sir, who is the venturer?”
“He assures me that his happiness is bound up in his offer being accepted,” resumed Mr. Ashley. “I fancy he felt inclined to assure me that Mary’s was also. Of course, all I can do, is, to lay the proposal before her.”
“What is it that you are talking about, Thomas?” interposed Mrs. Ashley, unable until then to say a word, and speaking with some irritability. “I do not consider Mary old enough to be married. How can you think of saying such things to her?”
“Neither do I, mamma,” said Mary, with a laugh. “I like my home too well to leave it.”
“And while you are talking sentiment, my curiosity is on the rack,” cried Henry. “I have inquired the name of the bridegroom, and I should like to be answered.”
“The would-be bridegroom,” put in Mary.
“Mary, I am ashamed of you!” went on Henry. “I blush for your manners. Nice credit she does to your bringing up, mamma! When young ladies of condition receive a celestial offer, they behave with due propriety, hang their heads with a blush, and subdue their voice to a whisper. And here’s Mary — look at her! — talking quite loudly and making merry over it. Once more, sir, who is the adventurous gentleman? Is it good old General Wells, our gouty neighbour opposite, who is lifted in and out of his chariot for his daily airing? I have told Mary repeatedly that she was setting her cap at him.”
“It is not so advantageous a proposal in a financial point of view,” observed Mr. Ashley, maintaining his impassibility. “It proceeds from one of my dependents at the manufactory.”
Mary had the sugar-basin in her hand at the moment, and a sudden tremor seemed to seize her. She set it down; but so clumsily, that half the lumps fell out. Her face had turned to a glowing crimson. Mr. As
hley noticed it.
Mrs. Ashley only noticed the sugar. “Mary, how came you to do that? Very careless, my dear.”
Mary began meekly to pick up the sugar, the flush giving way to pallor. She lifted her handkerchief to her face and held it there, as if she had a cold.
“The honour comes from Cyril Dare,” said Mr. Ashley.
“Cyril Dare!”
“Cyril Dare!”
In different tones of scorn, but each expressing it most fully, the repetition broke from Mrs. Ashley and Henry. Mary, on the contrary, recovered her equanimity and her countenance. She laughed out, as if she were glad.
“What did you say to him, papa?”
“I gave him my opinion only. That I thought he had mistaken my daughter, if he entertained hopes that she would listen to his suit. The question rests with you, Mary.”
“Oh papa, what nonsense! rests with me! Why you know I would never have Cyril Dare.”
A smile crossed Mr. Ashley’s face. He probably had known it.
“Cyril Dare!” repeated Mary, as if unable to overcome her astonishment. “He must have turned silly. I would not have Cyril Dare if he were worth his weight in gold.”
“And he must be worth a great deal more than his weight in gold, Mary, before I would consent to your having him,” quietly rejoined Mr. Ashley.
“Have him!” echoed Henry. “If I feared there was a danger of the daughter of all the Ashleys so degrading herself, I should bribe cook to make an arsenic cake, cut the young lady a portion myself, and stand by while she ate it.”
“Don’t talk foolishly, Henry,” rebuked Mrs. Ashley.
“Mamma, I must say I do not think it would be half so foolish as Cyril Dare was,” cried Mary, with spirit.
Mrs. Ashley, relieved from any temporary fear of losing Mary, was comfortably going on with her breakfast. “Did Cyril say how he meant to provide for Mary, if he obtained her?” asked she, with an amused look.