by Ellen Wood
It was a prolonged, hearty shout from the collected boys outside; a cheer of congratulation for William’s success, given before they dispersed. The neighbourhood came to its doors in wonder, and William had seventeen invitations to go out to tea that evening, roared out from as many different boys.
Annis clapped her hands and laughed. “How pleasant that sounds? how glad they all seem! Are you not glad, William?”
“More glad, more thankful than I can express, for all that this day has brought forth,” was his answer.
“To think that you should have gained it, when they were all so against you!” exclaimed Annis, watching the boys flocking away. “And you have had no friend to help you on!”
“No friend! why, that’s just what the school said this morning. Annis,” he continued, drawing her to his side and gazing into her face with his earnest eyes, solemn then, “I have had one powerful Friend to help me on and work for me. One that I hope will stand by me through life; and I know He will, so long as I trust to Him.”
Oh, boys, boys! you for whom I have written this, try and make Him yours!
THE END
THE GHOST OF THE HOLLOW FIELD
THE GHOST OF THE HOLLOW FIELD
AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF MARY BARBER.
THIS chapter contains an experience that may almost be called the chief event of Mary Barber’s life. She considered it as such. It occurred some years before the epoch we are at present writing of, and was essentially supernatural. In fact, a ghost story. Not one born of the fancy or imagination, but real — at least so far as the actors and witnesses in the circumstances connected with it believed. The facts were very peculiar: for my own part I do not see how they could be reasonably accounted for, or explained away. The details are given with simple truth, just as they happened.
The Owens were not then living at Harebell Farm, but at some few miles distance across country, in the rural village of Hollow. Their dwelling house was a commodious one: and Mary Barber the ruling power in it, under her mistress. Mrs. Owen, delicate then, as always, was not capable of active, bustling management.
One Monday afternoon in September, Mrs. Owen was seated alone in her parlour, mending soiled muslins and laces in preparation for the next day’s wash, when the door opened and Mary Barber came in, neat as usual, superior in appearance, inexpensive though her attire was, to an ordinary servant. She must have been tolerably young then — say six-and-thirty, perhaps — and yet she looked middle-aged.
“I’ve come to ask a fine thing, mistress, and I don’t know what you’ll say to me,” she began, in her strong country accent. “I want holiday to-morrow.”
“Holiday!” repeated Mrs. Owen, in evident surprise. “Why, Mary, to-morrow’s washing-day.”
“Ay, it is; nobody knows it better than me. But here’s my sister come over about this wedding of Richard’s. Nothing will do for ’em but I must go to it. She’s talking a lot of nonsense; saying it should be the turning-point in our coolness, and the healer of dissensions, and she won’t go to church unless I go. As to bringing in dissensions,” slightingly added Mary Barber, “she’s thinking of the two boys, not of me.”
“Well, Mary, I suppose you must go.”
“I’d not, though, missis, but that she seems to make so much of it. I never hardly. saw Hester in such earnest before. It’s very stupid of her. I said, from the first, I’d not go. What do them grand Laws want with me — or Richard, either? No, indeed! I never thought they’d get me to it — let alone the wash!”
“But you do wish to go, don’t you, Mary?” returned Mrs. Owen, scarcely understanding.
“Well, you see, now Hester’s come herself, and making this fuss, I hardly like to hold out. They’d call me more pig-headed than they have done — and that needn’t be. So, mistress, I suppose you must spare me for a few hours. I’ll get things forward before I start in the morning, and be back early in the afternoon; I shan’t want to stop with ‘em, not I.”
“Very well, Mary; we shall manage, I dare say. Ask Mrs. Pickering to come in and see me before she goes. Perhaps she’ll stay to tea with me.”
“Not she,” replied Mary; “she’s all cock-a-hoop to get back again. Richard and William are coming home early, she says.”
Mary Barber shut the door; she had stood holding the handle in her hand all the time; and returned to the room she had left — a great barn of a room, where the children were accustomed to play. Mary was regarded more as a friend than a servant, but she did the work altogether of any two. She was generally called “Mary Barber,” one of the children being named Mary. On Mrs. Owen’s sick days, Mary Barber would shut herself up with the children in this remote bam of a room, and keep them in quietness, leaving the work to be done without her.
Mrs. Pickering was older by some years than Mary. The two sisters were much alike, tall, sensible-looking, hard-featured women, with large, well-formed foreheads, and honest, steady grey eyes. But Mrs. Pickering looked ill and careworn. She wore a very nice violet silk gown, a dark Paisley shawl, and Leghorn bonnet. Mary Barber had been regarding the attire in silent condemnation; except her one best gown, she had nothing but cottons.
“Well, Hester, the mistress says she’ll spare me,” was her announcement. “But as to getting over in time to go to church, I don’t know that I can do it. There’ll be a thousand and one things to do to-morrow morning, and I shall stop and put forward.”
“You might get over in time, if you would, Mary.”
“Perhaps I might, and perhaps I mightn’t,” was the plain answer. “It’s a five-weeks’ wash; and the missis is as poorly as she can be. Look here, Hester — it’s just this: I don’t want to come. I will come, as you make such a clatter over it, and I’ll eat a bit o’ their wedding-cake, and drink a glass o’ wine to their good luck; but as to sitting down to breakfast — or whatever the meal is — with the Laws and their grand company, it’s not to be supposed I’d do it. I know my place better. Neither would the Laws want me to.”
“They said they’d welcome you.”
“I daresay they did!” returned Mary, with a sniff; “but they’d think me a fool if I went, for all that. I shouldn’t mind seeing ’em married, though, and I’ll get over to the church, if I can. Anyway, I’ll be in time to drink health to ’em before they start on their journey.”
Mrs. Pickering rose. She knew it was of no use saying more. She wished good-bye to the children, went to Mrs. Owen’s parlour for a few minutes, absolutely declining refreshment, and then prepared to walk home again. Mary attended her to the door.
“It’s fine to be you — coming out in your puce silk on a week-day!” she burst out with, her tongue refusing to keep silence on the offending point any longer.
“I put it on this afternoon because I was expecting Mrs. Law,” was the inoffensive answer. “She sent me word she’d come up to talk over the arrangements; and then I got a message by their surgery boy, saying she was prevented. Don’t it look nice, Mary?” she added, taking a bit of the gown up in her fingers. “It’s the first time I’ve put it on since it was turned. I kept it on to come here; it seemed so cold to put it off for a cotton; and I’ve been feeling always chill of late.”
“What be you going to wear to-morrow?” demanded Mary Barber.
Mrs. Pickering laughed. “Something desperate smart. I can’t stay to tell you,”
“You’ve got a gown a-purpose for it, I reckon,” continued Mary, detaining her. “What sort is it?”
“A new fawn silk. There! Good-bye; I’ve a power of things to do at home to-night, and the boys are coming home to an early tea.”
Mrs. Pickering walked away quickly as she spoke. Mary Barber, enjoining the two pretty girls and little Tom to be quiet, and not go in to tease their mamma, ran to the village shop to see if by good luck she could find there some white satin bonnet ribbon. William Owen, the eldest son, was at school in Worcester.
Bather to Mary Barber’s surprise, Mrs. Smith produced a roll of white satin, e
ncased carefully in cap-paper. She didn’t always have such a thing by her, she said. Mary Barber bought four yards — some narrow to match, for her cap border — and set off home again. Hearing from the children that they had been “as quiet as mice,” she dived into her pocket, and produced a large mellow summer apple. Cutting it into four parts, she gave one to each.
Mrs. Pickering walked rapidly homewards. Hallow was (and is) situated about three miles from Worcester, and her house was between the two — nearer the city, however, than the village. After Hester Barber’s marriage, her husband had got on in the world. A cottage and a couple of fields and a cow grew into — at least the fields did — many fields, and they into hop gardens. From being a successful hop-grower, John Pickering took an office in Worcester, and became a prosperous hop-merchant. He placed his two sons in it — well-educated youths; and on his death, his eldest son, Richard, then just twenty-one, succeeded him as its master. This was four years ago. Richard was to be married on the morrow to Helena Law, daughter of Mr. Law the surgeon; and Mary Barber, as you have heard, considered she should be out of place in the festivities.
And she was right. Over and over again had the Pickerings urged Mary to leave service, as a calling beneath her and them, and to live with themselves. Mary declined. As to living with them, she retorted, they knew as well as she did there’d be no “getting on” together; and help from them to set up a couple of rooms for herself, or an independent cottage, was what she’d never accept. She said it was “their pride;” they said they only wanted her to be more comfortable. The contention ran on for years; in feet, it was continuously running on in a sort of undercurrent, if it did not always rise to the surface; and the result was a coldness, and not very frequent meetings. Mary Barber obstinately remained in her condition of servitude, and was called “pig-headed” for her pains.
Not much so, however, by Mrs. Pickering; she understood very little of the world’s social distinctions, and cared less; and she had latterly had a great trouble upon her, beside which few things seemed of weight. For some time past there had been ill-feeling between her two sons: in her heart perhaps she most loved the younger, and, so far as she dared, took his part against the elder. Richard was the master, and overbearing; William was four years the younger, and resented his brother’s yoke. Richard was steady, and regular as clock-work; William was rather given to go out of an evening, spending time and money. Trifling sums of money had been missed from the office by Richard, from time to time; he was as sure in his heart that William had helped himself to them as that they had disappeared, but William coolly denied it, and set down the accusation to his brother’s prejudice. In point of fact, this was the chief origin of the ill-feeling; but Richard Pickering was considerate, and had kept the petty thefts secret from his mother. She, poor woman, fondly hoped that this marriage of Richard’s would heal all wounds, though not clearly seeing how or in what manner it could bear upon them. In one month William would be of age, and must become his brother’s partner; he would also come into his share of the property left by their father.
Mrs. Pickering went home ruminating on these things, and praying — oh how earnestly! — that there should be peace between the brothers. Their house was surrounded by fields; a very pretty, though small, dwelling of bright red brick, with green Venetian outside shutters to the different windows; jessamine trailed over the porch, over the sills of the sitting-room windows, on either side the entrance door. Many-coloured flowers clustered round the green lawn in front; and behind was a fold-yard on a very small scale, for they kept cows, and poultry, and pigs still. The land was somewhat low just here, and no glimpse of the Severn, winding along in front between its banks, could be caught; but there was the fair city of Worcester beyond, with its fine cathedral, and the taper spire of St. Andrew’s rising high against the blue sky.
The young Pickerings came home early that evening, as agreed upon: not, alas! in the friendly spirit their mother had been hoping for, but in open quarrelling. They were both fine grown young men, with good features, dark hair, and the honest, sensible grey eyes of their mother; Richard was grave in look; William gay, with the pleasantest smile in the world. Poor Mrs. Pickering! hasty words of wrath were spoken on either side, and for the first time she became acquainted with the losses at the office, and Richard’s belief in his brother’s dishonesty. It appeared that a far heavier loss than any preceding it had been discovered that afternoon.
“Oh, Richard!” she gasped; “you don’t know what you say. He would never do it.”
“He has done it, mother — he must have done it,” was the elder son’s answer. “No one else can get access to my desk, except old Stone. Would you have me suspect him?”
“Old Stone” was a faithful servant, a many-years’ clerk and manager, entirely beyond suspicion, and there was no one else in the office. Mrs. Pickering felt a faintness stealing over her, but she had firm faith in her younger, her bright, her well-beloved son.
“Look here, mother,” said Richard; “we know — at least I do, if you don’t — that William’s expenditure has been considerably beyond his salary. Whence has he derived the sums of money he has spent — that he does not deny he has spent? If I have kept these things from you, it was to save you pain: Stone has urged me to tell you of it over and over again.”
“Hush, Richard! The money came from me.”
William Pickering turned round; he had been carelessly standing at the window, looking out on the setting sun. For once his pleasant smile had given place to scorn.
“I’d not have told him so much, mother: I never have. If he is capable of casting this suspicion on me, why not let him enjoy it. Times and again have I assured him I’ve never touched a sixpence of the money: I’ve told that interfering old Stone so; and I might as well talk to the wind. Is it likely that I would touch it? I could have knocked the old man down this afternoon when he accused me of being a ‘disgrace’ to my dead father.”
It is of no use to pursue the quarrel, neither is there time for it. That Mrs. Pickering in her love, had privately furnished William with money from time to time was an indisputable fact, and Richard could not disbelieve his mother’s word. But instead of its clearing up the matter, it only (so judged Richard) made it blacker. If he had been robbing the office, he had been, legally, robbing his mother; words grew higher and higher, and the brothers, in their anger, spoke of a separation. This evening, the last of Richard’s residence at home, was the most miserable his mother had ever spent, and she passed a great part of the night at her bed-side, praying that the matter might be cleared up, and the two brothers reconciled.
The morning rose bright and cloudless; and Mary Barber was astir betimes. Washing-day in those days, and in a simple country household, meant washing-day. It most certainly did at Mrs. Owen’s; everybody was expected to work, and did work, the master excepted. Mary put her best shoulder to the wheel that morning, got things forward, and started about ten o’clock. The wedding was fixed for eleven at All Saints’ Church, and Mary calculated that she should get comfortably to the church just before the hour, and ensconce herself in an obscure corner of it, as she meant to do.
She was in her best: a soft fine grey cashmere gown, kept for high-days, a grey twilled silk shawl with a handsome sewn-on border of lilies and roses, and a cottage straw bonnet trimmed with the white satin ribbon, its inside border of real lace. That shawl might have been worn by a lady; it had been a present to Mary for her own wedding (which had been rudely frustrated through the faithlessness of man, and terribly sore was she upon it unto this day), and was as good as new, never coming out above once a year. She brought with her no cap, intending to be firm on the points of not remaining and not removing her bonnet; she’d step into Mr. Law’s house, and drink to the bridegroom and bride, and taste the cake, and she’d start back home again.
She took the field way; it was pleasanter than the dusty road; and went quickly on with her umbrella, a large green cotton thing, tied with a
string round the middle, quite a foot in diameter. The skies were serenely bright, showing no prospect of rain for days to come, but Mary Barber would not have ventured out in her best without an umbrella to guard against contingencies for untold gold.
She had traversed nearly two-thirds of her way, and was in the last field but one before turning into the road. It was a large field, this, called popularly the hollow field, from the circumstance of a hollow or dell being in one part of it. This part Mary Barber had left behind her, and as she walked along the path that led mid-way through it, some church clocks chiming the half hour after ten, came distinctly to her ear in the stillness of the rarified air. “I’ve stepped out well,” quoth she.
It was at this moment that she discerned some one seated on the stile at the end of the path that led into the next field. Very much to her surprise, as she advanced nearer, she saw it was her sister. Mrs. Pickering was sitting sideways, her feet towards Worcester, her face turned to Mary, as if she was waiting for her, and would not take the trouble to get over. To use a common expression, Mary Barber could hardly believe her own eyes, and the proceeding by no means met with her approbation.
“Of all the simpletons! — to come and stick herself there to wait for me. And for what she knew I might have took the road way. They be thinking to get me with ’em to church in the carriage! — but they won’t. I told her I’d not mix myself up in the grand doings: neither ought I to, and Hester’s common-sense must have gone a woolgathering to wish it. Ah! she’s been running herself into that stitch in her side.”
The last remark was caused by her perceiving that Mrs. Pickering, whose left side was this way, had got her hand pressed upon her chest or heart. The doctors had warned Mrs. Pickering that any exertion by which this pain was brought on, might be dangerous. “Serve her right!” cried unsympathizing Mary Barber, who had no patience when people did foolish things.