Читать книгу Deerbrook - Harriet Martineau - Страница 6

Table of Contents

The afternoon was the time when Miss Young’s pupils practised the mysteries of the needle. Little girls are not usually fond of sewing. Till they become clever enough to have devices of their own, to cut out a doll’s petticoat, or contrive a pin-cushion to surprise mamma, sewing is a mere galling of the fingers and strain upon the patience. Every wry stitch shows, and is pretty sure to be remarked upon: the seam or hem seems longer the oftener it is measured, till the little work-woman becomes capable of the enterprise of despatching a whole one at a sitting; after which the glory is found to ameliorate the toil, and there is a chance that the girl may become fond of sewing.

Miss Young’s pupils had not arrived at this stage. It was a mystery to them that Miss Young could sit sewing, as fast as her needle could fly, for the whole afternoon, and during the intervals of their lessons in the morning. It was in vain that she told them that some of her pleasantest hours were those which she passed in this employment: and that she thought they would perhaps grow as fond of work as their sister Sophia before they were as old as she. With languid steps did the twins return to the house this afternoon for another pair of shirt-sleeves, and to show mamma the work they had finished. Hand in hand, as usual, and carrying up for judgment their last performance, they entered the house. In a very different mood did they return. Running, skipping, and jumping, they burst again into the summer-house.

“Miss Young, oh, Miss Young, we are to have a holiday!”

“Mamma sends her compliments to you, Miss Young, and she hopes you will give us a holiday. It is a fine afternoon, she thinks, and my cousins have never gathered cowslips; and we are all going into the meadow for a cowslip-gathering; and Mr. Hope will come to us there. He has to go somewhere now, but he will come to us before we have half done.”

Matilda Rowland looked fall of dismay till she was told that Mrs. Grey hoped she would be of the party, and begged that she would, go directly and ask her mamma’s leave.

“What a quantity of cowslips we shall get!” observed Mary, as she took down Fanny’s basket from the nail on which it hung, and then her own. “We are each to have a basket, mamma says, that we may not quarrel. What shall we do with such a quantity of cowslips?”

“Make tea of them, to be sure,” replied Fanny. “We may dry them in this window, may not we, Miss Young? And we will give you some of our cowslip-tea.”

Miss Young smiled and thanked them. She did not promise to drink any of the promised tea. She had a vivid remembrance of the cowslip-drying of her young days, when the picked flowers lay in a window till they were laced all over with cobwebs; and when they were at length popped into the teapot with all speed, to hide the fact that they were mouldy. She remembered the good-natured attempts of her father and mother to swallow a doll’s cupful of her cowslip-tea, rather than discourage the spirit of enterprise which, now that she had lost those whom she loved, was all that she had to trust to.

“Fanny,” said Mary, with eyes wide open, “cannot we have a feast here for my cousins, when we make our cowslip-tea?”

“A feast! Oh, that would be grand!” replied Fanny. “I have a shilling, and so have you; and we could buy a good many nice things for that: and Matilda Rowland will lend us her doll’s dishes to put with ours. Miss Young, will you let us have our feast here, one afternoon? We will ask my cousins, without telling them anything; and they will be so surprised!”

Miss Young promised everything, engaged not to tell, smoothed their hair, tied their bonnets, and sent them away quite happy with their secret.

Such a holiday as this was one of Miss Young’s few pleasures. There were several occasions in the year when she could make sure beforehand of some hours to herself. Her Sundays were much occupied with the Sunday-school, and with intercourse with poor neighbours whom she could not meet on any other day: but Christmas-day, the day of the annual fair of Deerbrook, and two or three more, were her own. These were, however, so appropriated, long before, to some object, that they lost much of their character of holidays. Her true holidays were such as the afternoon of this day—hours suddenly set free, little gifts of leisure to be spent according to the fancy of the moment. Let none pretend to understand the value of such whose lives are all leisure; who take up a book to pass the time; who saunter in gardens because there are no morning visits to make; who exaggerate the writing of a family letter into important business. Such have their own enjoyments: but they know nothing of the paroxysm of pleasure of a really hardworking person on hearing the door shut which excludes the business of life, and leaves the delight of free thoughts and hands. The worst part of it is the having to decide how to make the most of liberty. Miss Young was not long in settling this point. She just glanced up at her shelf of books, and down upon her drawing-board, and abroad through the south window, and made up her mind. The acacia with its fresh bunches of blossoms was waving above the window, casting in flickering shadows upon the floor: the evergreens of the shrubbery twinkled in the sun, as the light breeze swept over them: the birds were chirruping all about, and a yellow butterfly alighted and trembled on the window-sill at the moment. It was one of the softest and gayest days of spring; and the best thing was to do nothing but enjoy it. She moved to the south window with her work, and sewed or let the wind blow upon her face as she looked out.

The landscape was a wide one. Far beyond, and somewhat below the garden and shrubberies in which the summerhouse stood, flat meadows stretched to the brink of the river, on the other side of which were the park woods. All was bathed in the afternoon sunshine, except where a tree here and there cast a flake of shadow upon the grass of the meadows.

“It is a luxury,” thought the gazer, “for one who cannot move about to sit here and look abroad. I wonder whether I should have been with the party if I had not been lame. I dare say something would have taken off from the pleasure if I had. But how well I can remember what the pleasure is! the jumping stiles—the feel of the turf underfoot—the running after every flower—the going wherever one has a fancy to go—how well I remember it all! And yet it gives me a sort of surprise to see the activity of these children, and how little they are aware of what their privilege is. I fancy, however, the pleasure is more in the recollection of all such natural enjoyments than at the moment. It is so with me, and I believe with everybody. This very landscape is more beautiful to me in the dark night when I cannot sleep, than at this very moment, when it looks its best and brightest: and surely this is the great difference between that sort of pleasures and those which come altogether from within. The delight of a happy mood of mind is beyond everything at the time; it sets one above all that can happen; it steeps one in heaven itself; but one cannot recall it: one can only remember that it was so. The delight of being in such a place as those woods is generally more or less spoiled at the time by trifles which are forgotten afterwards;—one is hungry, or tired, or a little vexed with somebody, or doubtful whether somebody else is not vexed; but then the remembrance is purely delicious—brighter in sunshine, softer in shade—wholly tempered to what is genial. The imagination is a better medium than the eye. This is surely the reason why Byron could not write poetry on Lake Leman, but found he must wait till he got within four walls. This is the reason why we are all more moved by the slightest glimpses of good descriptions in books than by the amplitude of the same objects before our eyes. I used to wonder how that was, when, as a child, I read the openings of scenes and books in ‘Paradise Lost.’ I saw plenty of summer sunrises; but none of them gave me a feeling like the two lines:—

“ ‘Now morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime

Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl.’

“If all this be so, our lot is more equalised than is commonly thought. Once having received pictures into our minds, and possessing a clear eye in the mind to see them with, the going about to obtain more is not of very great consequence. This comforts one for prisoners suffering carcere duro, and for townspeople who cannot often get out of the streets; and for lame people like me, who see others tripping over commons and through fields where we cannot go. I wish there was as much comfort the other way—about such as suffer from unhappy moods of mind, and know little of the joy of the highest. It would be a small gain to them to fly like birds—to see like the eagle itself.—Oh, there are the children! So that is their cowslip meadow! How like children they all look together, down on the grass!—gathering cowslips, I suppose. The two in black are more eager about it than Sophia. She sits on the stile while they are busy. The children are holding forth to their cousins—teaching them something, evidently. How I love to overlook people—to watch them acting unconsciously, and speculate for them! It is the most tempting thing in the world to contrast the little affairs one sees them busy about, with the very serious ones which await them—which await every one. There are those two strangers busy gathering cowslips, and perhaps thinking of nothing beyond the fresh pleasure of the air and the grass, and the scent of their flowers—their minds quite filled with the spirit of the spring, when who knows what may be awaiting them! Love may be just at hand. The tempest of passion may be brewing under this soft sunshine. They think themselves now as full of happiness as possible; and a little while hence, upon a few words spoken, a glance exchanged, they may be in such a heaven of bliss that they will smile at their own ignorance in being so well pleased to-day. Or—but I pray they may escape the other chance. Neither of them knows anything of that misery yet, I am confident. They both look too young, too open, too free to have really suffered.—I wonder whether it is foolish to fancy already that one of them may be settled here. It can hardly be foolish, when the thought occurs so naturally: and these great affairs of life lie distinctly under the eye of such as are themselves cut off from them. I am out of the game, and why should not I look upon its chances? I am quite alone; and why should I not watch for others? Every situation has its privileges and its obligations.—What is it to be alone, and to be let alone, as I am? It is to be put into a post of observation on others: but the knowledge so gained is anything but a good if it stops at mere knowledge—if it does not make me feel and act. Women who have what I am not to have, a home, an intimate, a perpetual call out of themselves, may go on more safely, perhaps, without any thought for themselves, than I with all my best consideration: but I, with the blessing of a peremptory vocation, which is to stand me instead of sympathy, ties and spontaneous action—I may find out that it is my proper business to keep an intent eye upon the possible events of other people’s lives, that I may use slight occasions of action which might otherwise pass me by. If one were thoroughly wise and good, this would be a sort of divine lot. Without being at all wiser or better than others—being even as weak in judgment and in faith as I am—something may be made of it. Without daring to meddle, one may stand clear-sighted, ready to help.—How the children are flying over the meadow towards that gentleman who is fastening his horse to the gate! Mr. Hope, no doubt. He is the oldest cowslip gatherer of them all, I fancy. If one could overhear the talk in every house along the village, I dare say some of it is about Mr. Hope winning one of these young ladies. If so, it is only what I am thinking about myself. Every one wishes to see Mr. Hope married—every one, even to the servants here, who are always disputing whether he will not have Miss Sophia, or whether Miss Sophia is not to make a grander match. Sophia will not do for him; but it is very possible that one of these girls may. And the other—but I will not think about that to-day.—How yellow the glow is upon those woods! What heavenly hues hang about the world we live in! but how strange is the lot of some in it! One would wonder why, when all are so plainly made to feel and act together, there should be any one completely solitary. There must be a reason: I would fain know it; but I can wait till we may know all.”

Such were some of Maria Young’s natural and unchecked thoughts. There was not much of common holiday spirit in them: but to Maria, liberty and peace were holiday, and her mind was not otherwise than peaceful. She was serious, but not sad. Any one who could at the moment have seen her face, would have pronounced her cheerful at heart; and so she was. She had been so long and so far banished from ordinary happiness, that her own quiet speculations were material enough for cheerfulness. The subject on which she would not think to-day, was the possibility of one of the sisters attaching Mr. Enderby. Maria Young had not always been solitary, and lame, and poor. Her father had not been very long dead; and while he lived, no one supposed that his only child would be poor. Her youth passed gaily, and her adversity came suddenly. Her father was wont to drive her out in his gig, almost every summer day. One evening, the horse took fright, and upset the gig on a heap of stones by the road-side. Mr. Young was taken up dead, and Maria was lamed for life. She had always known the Enderbys very well; and there had been some gossip among their mutual acquaintance about the probability that Philip would prove to be Maria’s lover, when he should be old enough to think of marrying. It never went further than this—except in Maria’s own heart. She had, indeed, hoped—even supposed—that in Philip’s mind the affair had at least been entertained thus far. She could never settle to her own satisfaction whether she had been weak and mistaken, or whether she had really been in any degree wronged. There had been words, there had been looks—but words and looks are so easily misinterpreted! The probability was that she had no one to blame but herself—if fault there was. Perhaps there was no fault anywhere: but there was misery, intense and long. During her illness, no tidings came of Philip. He was in another part of the country when the accident happened; and it was not till long after it had been made known that Mr. Young had died insolvent—not till after Maria had recovered, as far as recovery was possible—not till she had fallen into the habit of earning her bread, that Philip reappeared, and shook hands with her, and told her with how much concern he had heard of her sufferings. This interview gave her entire possession of herself:—so she believed. She got through it calmly, and it left her with one subject at least of intense thankfulness—that her mind was known only to herself. Whatever might be her solitary struggles, she might look without shame into the face of every human being. She could bear being pitied for her poverty, for her lameness, for her change of prospects, when the recollection of this came across any of her acquaintance. If it had been necessary, she could probably have borne to be pitied for having loved without return; but she could not be too thankful that it was not necessary.

Maria was right in her supposition that the village was speculating upon the newly-arrived young ladies. The parish clerk had for some years, indeed ever since the death of the late stationer and dispenser of letters, carried on a flirtation with the widow, notwithstanding the rumours which were current as to the cause to which her late husband owed his death. It was believed that poor Harry Plumstead died of exhaustion from his wife’s voice; for she was no other than the village scold, of whose existence Margaret had been warned by Mr. Enderby. Some thought that Owen was acting a politic part in protracting this flirtation—keeping her temper in check by his hold upon her expectations; and such had little doubt that the affair would linger on to the end, without any other result than Owen’s exemption meanwhile from the inflictions of her tongue, to which, in the discharge of his office, he might otherwise become frequently liable. Others wished to see them married, believing that in Owen, a Welshman sufficiently irascible, Mrs. Plumstead would at last meet her match. This afternoon, an observer would have thought the affair was proceeding to this point. Mrs. Plumstead, looking particularly comely and gracious, was putting up an unclaimed letter at the window for display, when Owen stopped to ask if she had seen the pretty young ladies who had come to Deerbrook. He remarked that, to be sure, they might have gone to some place where they were more wanted, for Deerbrook was not without pretty faces of its own before: and, as he said so, he smiled hard in the widow’s face. He should not wonder if some work for the rector should rise up before long, for, where there were pretty faces, weddings might be looked for. He even asked Mrs. Plumstead if she did not think so: and added something so ambiguous about his own share in the work for the rector which was to arise, that the widow could not make out whether he spoke as her admirer or as parish clerk. In the milliner’s workroom there was a spirited conversation between Miss Nares and her assistant, on the past wedding dresses of Deerbrook, arising out of the topic of the day—the Miss Ibbotsons. Mrs. Howell, who, with her shopwoman, Miss Miskin, dispensed the haberdashery of the place, smiled winningly at every customer who entered her shop, and talked of delightful acquisitions, and what must be felt about Mr. Hope, in the midst of such charming society, and what it must be hoped would be felt; and how gay the place was likely to be with riding parties, and boating parties, and some said, dances on the green at Mrs. Enderby’s; and how partners in a dance have been known to become partners for life, as she had been jocosely told when her poor dear Howell prevailed on her to stand up with him—the first time for twenty years—at his niece’s wedding. Hester’s beauty, and what Mrs. Grey had said about it to her maid, were discussed, just at the moment when Hester, passing the shop, was entreated by Sophia to look at a new pattern of embroidery which had lately arrived from London, and was suspended at the window. Mrs. Howell and her gossips caught a glimpse of the face of the young lady, through the drapery of prints and muslins, and the festoons of ribbons; and when the party proceeded down the street, there was a rush to the door, in order to obtain a view of her figure. She was pronounced beautiful; and it was hoped that some gentleman in the village would find her irresistible. It was only rather strange that no gentleman was in attendance on her now.

If the gossips could have followed the party with their eyes into the meadow, they would soon have been satisfied; for it was not long before Mr. Hope joined them there. On leaving Mr. Grey’s table, he was as little disposed to go and visit his patient, as medical men are when they are called away from the merriest company, or at the most interesting moment of a conversation. The liability to this kind of interruption is one of the great drawbacks of the profession to which Mr. Hope belonged; another is, the impossibility of travelling—the being fixed to one place for life, without any but the shortest intervals of journeying. Mr. Hope had been settled for five years at Deerbrook; and, during that time, he had scarcely been out of sight of its steeple. His own active and gladsome mind had kept him happy among his occupations. There was no one in the place with whom he could hold equal converse; but, while he had it not, he did not feel the pressing want of it. He loved his profession, and it kept him busy. His kind heart was ever full of interest for his poorer patients. Seeing the best side of everybody, he could be entertained, though sometimes vexed, by his intercourse with the Greys and Rowlands. Then there was the kindly-tempered and gentlemanly rector; and Philip Enderby often came down for a few weeks; and Mr. Hope had the chief management of the Book Society, and could thus see the best new books; and his professional rides lay through a remarkably pretty country.

He kept up a punctual and copious correspondence with the members of his own family—with his married sisters, and with his only brother, now with his regiment in India—relating to them every important circumstance of his lot, and almost every interesting feeling of his heart. With this variety of resources, life had passed away cheerily, on the whole, with Mr. Hope, for the five years of his residence at Deerbrook; though there were times when he wondered whether it was to be always thus—whether he was to pass to his grave without any higher or deeper human intercourses than he had here. If it had been possible, he might, like other men as wise as himself, have invested some one of the young ladies of Deerbrook with imaginary attributes, and have fallen in love with a creature of his own fancy. But it really was not possible. There was no one of the young ladies of Deerbrook who was not so far inferior to the women of Hope’s own family—to the mother he had lost, and the sisters who were settled far away—as to render this commonest of all delusions impossible to him.

To such a man, so circumstanced, it may be imagined how great an event was the meeting with Hester and Margaret. He could not be in their presence ten minutes without becoming aware of their superiority to every woman he had seen for five years past. The beauty of the one, the sincerity and unconsciousness of the other, and the general elevation of both, struck him forcibly the first evening. His earliest thought the next morning was of some great event having taken place; and when he left Mr. Grey’s door after dinner, it was with an unwillingness which made him spur himself and his horse on to their business, that he might the sooner return to his new-found pleasure. His thoughts already darted forward to the time when the Miss Ibbotsons would be leaving Deerbrook. It was already a heavy thought how dull Deerbrook would be without them. He was already unconsciously looking at every object in and around the familiar place with the eyes of the strangers, speculating on how the whole would appear to them. In short, his mind was full of them. There are, perhaps, none who do not know what this kind of impression is. All have felt it, at some time or other—many have felt it often—about strangers whom they have been predisposed to like, or with whom they have been struck at meeting. Nine times out of ten, perhaps, the impression is fleeting; and when it is gone, there is an unwillingness to return to it, from a sense of absurdity in having been so much interested about one who so soon became indifferent: but the fact is not the less real and general for this. When it happens between two young people who are previously fancy-free, and circumstances favour the impression till it sinks deeper than the fancy, it takes the name of love at first sight. Otherwise it passes away without a name, without a record:—for the hour it is a secret: in an after time it is forgotten.

Possessed unconsciously with this secret, Hope threw himself from his horse at the entrance of the meadow where the cowslip-gatherers were busy, fastened his steed to the gate, and joined the party. The children ran to him with the gleanings of intelligence which they had acquired since he saw them last, half an hour before:—that it was well they did not put off their gathering any longer, for some of the flowers were beginning to dry up already: that cousins had never tasted cowslip-tea;—(was not this very odd?)—that cousin Hester would not help to pick the flowers for drying—she thought it such a pity to pull the blossom out of the calyx: that Sophia would not help either, because it was warm: that cousin Margaret had gathered a great many, but she had been ever so long watching a spider’s nest—a nasty large spider’s nest that Matilda was just going to break into, when cousin Margaret asked her not to spoil it?

Margaret was indeed on her knees, prying into the spider’s nest. When duly laughed at, she owned to having seen cobwebs before, but maintained that cobwebs in a closet were a very different affair from a spider’s nest in a field.

“I rather think, however,” said she, “the word ‘nest’ itself has something to do with my liking for what I have been looking at. Some of your commonest country words have a charm to the ear and imagination of townspeople that you could not understand.”

“But,” said Mr. Hope, “I thought nests were very common in Birmingham. Have you not nests of boxes, and nests of work-tables?”

“Yes, and so we have stacks of chimneys; but yet we do not think of hay-making when we see the smoke of the town.—I rather think country words are only captivating as relating to the country; but then you cannot think how bewitching they are to people who live in streets.”

“The children might have found you a prettier sort of nest to indulge your fancy with, I should think. There must be plenty of creatures besides spiders in this wide meadow.”

Mr. Hope called out to the little girls, that whoever should find any sort of a nest in the meadow, for Miss Margaret Ibbotson, should have a ride on his horse. Away flew the children; and Hester and Sophia came from the water-side to know what all the bustle was about. Fanny returned to inquire whether the nests must be in the meadow; whether just outside would not do. She knew there was an ants’ nest in the bank, just on the other side of the hedge. The decision was that the ants’ nest would do only in case of her not being able to find any other within bounds. Sophia looked on languidly, probably thinking all this very silly. It put her in mind of an old schoolfellow of hers who had been called very clever before she came to school at nine years old. Till she saw her, Sophia had believed that town children were always clever: but no later than the very first day, this little girl had got into disgrace with the governess. Her task was to learn by heart Goldsmith’s Country Clergyman, in the ‘Deserted Village.’ She said it quite perfectly, but, when questioned about the meaning, stopped short at the first line—“Near yonder copse where once a garden smiled.” She persisted that she did not know what a copse was: the governess said she was obstinate, and shut her up in the play hours between morning and afternoon school. Sophia never could make out whether the girl was foolish or obstinate in persisting that she did not know what a copse was: but her cousin Margaret now put her in mind of this girl, with all her town feelings, and her fuss about spiders’ nests.

“How is old Mr. Smithson to-day?” Sophia inquired of Mr. Hope, by way of introducing something more rational.

“Not better: it is scarcely possible that he should be,” was the reply.

“Papa thought last night he must be dying.”

“He is dying.”

“Have you just come from a patient who is dying?” asked Hester, with a look of anxiety, with which was mixed some surprise.

“Yes: from one who cannot live many days.”

Sophia observed that Mr. James had been sent for early this morning—no doubt to put the finish to the will: but nobody seemed to know whether the old gentleman would leave his money to his nephew or his step-son, or whether he would divide it between them. Hester and Margaret showed no anxiety on this point, but seemed so ready to be interested about some others as to make Mr. Hope think that they were only restrained by delicacy from asking all that he could tell about his patient’s state. They knew enough of the profession, however, to be aware that this kind of inquiry is the last which should be addressed to a medical man.

“You are surprised,” said he, “that I am come from a dying patient to play with the children in the fields. Come, acknowledge that this is in your minds.”

“If it is, it is an unreasonable thought,” said Margaret. “You must see so many dying people, it would be hard that in every case you should be put out of the reach of pleasure.”

“Never mind the hardship, if it be fitting,” said Hope. “Hard or not hard, is it natural—is it possible?”

“I suppose witnessing death so often does lessen the feelings about it,” observed Hester. “Yet I cannot fancy that one’s mind could be at liberty for small concerns immediately after leaving a house full of mourners, and the sight of one in pain. There must be something distasteful in everything that meets one’s eyes—in the sunshine itself.”

“True. That is the feeling in such cases: but such cases seldom occur. Yes: I mean what I say. Such cases are very rare. The dying person is commonly old, or so worn out by illness as to make death at last no evil. When the illness is shorter, it is usually found that a few hours in the sick room do the work of months of common life, in reconciling the minds of survivors.”

“I am sure that is true,” observed Margaret.

“It is so generally the case that I know no set of circumstances in which I should more confidently reckon on the calmness, forethought, and composure of the persons I have to deal with than in the family of a dying person. The news comes suddenly to the neighbours: all the circumstances rush at once into their imaginations: all their recollections and feelings about the sufferer agitate them in quick succession; and they naturally suppose the near friends must be more agitated, in proportion to their nearness.”

“The watchers, meanwhile,” said Hester, “have had time in the long night to go over the past and the future, again and again; and by morning all seems so familiar, that they think they can never be surprised into grief again.”

“So familiar,” said Mr. Hope, “that their minds are at liberty for the smallest particulars of their duty. I usually find them ready for the minutest directions I may have to give.”

“Yes: the time for surprise—for consternation—is long afterwards,” said Hester, with some emotion. “When the whole has become settled and finished in other minds, the nearest mourners begin to wake up to their mourning.”

“And thus,” said Margaret, “the strongest agitation is happily not witnessed.”

“Happily not,” said Mr. Hope. “I doubt whether anybody’s strongest agitations ever are witnessed. I doubt whether the sufferer himself is often aware of what are really his greatest sufferings; and he is so ashamed of them that he hides them from himself when it is possible. I cannot but think that any grief which reveals itself is very endurable.”

“Is not that rather hard?” asked Margaret.

“How does it seem to you hard? Is it not merciful that we can keep our worst sorrows—that we are disposed, as it were forced, to keep them from afflicting our friends?”

“But is it not saying that bereavement of friends is not the greatest of sorrows, while all seem to agree that it is?”

“Is it, generally speaking, the greatest of sorrows? I think not, for my own part. There are cases in which the loss is too heavy to bear being the subject of any speculation, almost of observation; for instance, when the happiest married people are separated, or when a first or only child dies: but I think there are many sorrows greater than a separation by death of those who have faith enough to live independently of each other, and mutual love enough to deserve, as they hope, to meet again hereafter. I assure you I have sometimes come away from houses unvisited, and unlikely to be visited by death, with a heart so heavy as I have rarely or never brought from a deathbed.”

“I should have thought that would be left for the rector to say,” observed Hester. “I should have supposed you meant cases of guilt or remorse.”

“Cases of guilt or remorse,” continued Mr. Hope, “and also of infirmity. People may say what they will, but I am persuaded that there is immeasurably more suffering endured, both in paroxysms and for a continuance, from infirmity, tendency to a particular fault, or the privation of a sense, than from the loss of any friend upon earth, except the very nearest and dearest; and even that case is no exception, when there is the faith of meeting again, which almost every mourner has, so natural and welcome as it is.”

“Do you tell your infirm friends the high opinion you have of their sufferings?” asked Margaret.

“Why, not exactly; that would not be the kindest thing to do, would it? What they want is, to have their trouble lightened to them, not made the worst of;—lightened, not by using any deceit, of course, but by simply treating their case as a matter of fact.”

“Then surely you should make light of the case of the dying too: make light of it even to the survivors. Do you do this?”

“In one sense I do; in another sense no one can do it. Not regarding death as a misfortune, I cannot affect to consider it so. Regarding the change of existence as a very serious one, I cannot, of course, make light of it.”

“That way of looking at it regards only the dying person; you have not said how you speak of it to survivors.”

“As I speak of it to you now, or to myself when I see any one die; with the added consideration of what the survivors are about to lose. That is a large consideration certainly; but should not one give them credit for viewing death as it is, and for being willing to bear their own loss cheerfully, as they would desire to bear any other kind of loss? especially if, as they say, they believe it to be only for a time.”

“This as looking on the bright side,” observed Hester, in a low voice; but she was overheard by Mr. Hope.

“I trust you do not object to the bright side of things,” said he, smiling, “as long as there is so much about us that is really very dark?”

“What can religion be for,” said Margaret, “or reason, or philosophy, whichever name you may call your faith by, but to show us the bright side of everything—of death among the rest? I have often wondered why we seem to try to make the most of that evil (if evil it be), while we think it a duty to make the least of every other. I had some such feeling, I suppose, when I was surprised to hear that you had come hither straight from a deathbed: I do not wonder at all now.”

“Mr. Smithson will not be much missed,” observed Sophia, who felt herself relieved from the solemnity of the occasion by what had passed, and at liberty to speak of him as freely as if he was no nearer death than ever. “He has never been a sociable neighbour. I always thought him an odd old man, from the earliest time I can remember.”

“Some few will miss him,” said Mr. Hope. “He is a simple-hearted, shy man, who never did himself justice, except with two or three who saw most of him. Their affection has been enough for him—enough to make him think now that his life has been a very happy one. There!” cried Hope, as a lark sprang up almost from under the feet of the party—“There is another member of Deerbrook society, ladies, who is anxious to make your acquaintance.” There were two or three larks hovering above the meadow at this moment, and others were soaring further off. The air was full of lark music. The party stood still and listened. Looking up into the sunny sky, they watched one little warbler, wheeling round, falling, rising again, still warbling, till it seemed as if it could never be exhausted. Sophia said it made her head ache to look up so long; and she seemed impatient for the bird to have done. It then struck her that she also might find a nest, like her sisters; and she examined the place whence the lark had sprung. Under a thick tuft of grass, in a little hollow, she found a family of infant larks huddled together, and pointed them out to her cousins.

The children came upon being called. They were damped in spirits. They did not see how they were to find any nests, if the ants’ nest would not do; unless, indeed, Mr. Hope would hold them up into the trees or hedges to look; but they could not climb trees, Mr. Hope knew. They were somewhat further mortified by perceiving that they might have found a nest by examining the ground, if they had happened to think of it. Margaret begged they would not be distressed at not finding nests for her; and Mr. Hope proposed to try his luck, saying, that if he succeeded, every one who wished should have a ride on his horse.

To the surprise of the children, he turned towards the water, and walked along the bank. The brimming river was smooth as glass; and where it stood in among the rushes, and in every tiny inlet, it was as clear as the air, and alive with small fish, which darted at the flies that dimpled the surface. A swan, which had been quietly sailing in the middle of the stream, changed its deportment as the party proceeded along the bank. It ruffled its breast feathers, arched back its neck till the head rested between the erect wings, and drove through the water with a speed which shivered the pictures in it as a sweeping gale would have done.

“What is the matter with the creature?” asked Margaret; “I never saw a swan behave so.”

The children seemed rather afraid that the bird would come on shore and attack them. Mr. Hope took the opportunity of its being at some little distance, to open the rushes, and show where a fine milk-white egg lay in a large round nest.

“Oh, Mr. Hope, you knew!” cried the children, “you knew there was a swan’s nest near.”

“Yes; and did not you, when you saw how the swan behaved? But I was aware of this nest before. Tom Creach has the care of the park swans; he made this nest, and he told me where it was. Let your cousins have a peep; and then we will go, before the poor swan grows too much frightened. And now, who will have a ride on my horse?”

All the children chose to ride; and, while Mr. Hope was coursing with them in turn, round and round the meadow, the young ladies proceeded along the bank. A quarter of a mile further on, they fell in with Sydney Grey and his friend Mr. Philip. They had been successful in their sport. Mr. Enderby had had enough of it, and was stretched on the grass reading, while Sydney stood on the roots of an old oak, casting his line into the pool beneath its shadow.

“So, here you are, quite safe!” said Sophia; “George Rowland might have come after all. Poor boy! I am glad he is not with us, he would be so mortified to see all the fish you have caught without him!”

“How many times have we been in the river, Sydney? Can you remember?” asked Mr. Enderby.

“I have seen no fish big enough to pull us in,” said Sydney; “and I do not know any other way of getting a wetting at this sport. Mrs. Rowland should have seen George and me climbing the old oak at the two-mile turning. I dared George to it, and there he hung over the water, at the end of the branch, riding up and down like a see-saw. She would think nothing of letting him go fishing after that.”

“If the branch had broken,” said Mr. Enderby, “what would you have done then?”

“Oh, it is not often that a branch breaks.”

“Old oaks are apt to break, sooner or later; and, the next time you dare George to see-saw over the river, I would advise you to consider beforehand how you would get him out, in case of his dropping in.”

“Oh, he is not afraid. One day lately, when the water was low, he offered to cross the weir at Dingleford. I did not persuade him to that; but he pulled off his shoes and stockings, and got over and back, safe enough.”

“Indeed! and you tried it too, I suppose?”

“Yes; it would be a shame if I could not do what George can. It was almost as easy as walking along this bank.”

“I shall talk to Master George, however, before he goes to Dingleford again, or he may chance to find it easier some day to miss his footing than to hold it.”

“I wonder Mrs. Rowland is afraid to let George go out with you,” said Sophia, “considering what things he does when you are not with him.”

“She does not know of these pranks, or she would feel as you do; and I hope every one here will be kind enough not to tell her. It would only be making her anxious to no purpose, whenever the boy is out of her sight. It would be a pity to make a coward of him; and I think I can teach him what is mischief and what is not, without disturbing her. Come, ladies, suppose you rest yourselves here; you will find a pleasant seat on this bank: at least, I fell asleep on it just now, as if I had been on a sofa.”

“I wish you would all go to sleep, or else walk off,” said Sydney. “You make so much noise I shall never catch any fish.”

“Suppose you were to go somewhere else,” said Mr. Enderby. “Would not that be rather more civil than sending us all away?”

Sydney thought he would find another place: there were plenty along the bank. He gathered up bait and basket, and trudged off. There was an amusement, however, which he liked better even than fishing; and for which he now surrendered it. He was presently seen cantering round the meadow on Mr. Hope’s horse.

Mr. Enderby hoped the Miss Ibbotsons were able to say “No” with decision. If not, he did not envy them their supper this evening; for Sydney would certainly ask them to eat all the fish he had caught—bream and dace and all. The first pleasure of young anglers is to catch these small fry; and the next is, to make their sisters and cousins eat them. Sophia solemnly assured her cousins that mamma never allowed Sydney’s fish to come to table, at least in the house. If the children liked to get the cook to boil them for their dolls’ feasts in the schoolroom, they might.

“And then Miss Young is favoured with a share, I suppose?” said Margaret.

“Have you made acquaintance with Miss Young yet?” inquired Mr. Enderby.

“Oh, yes! I had the pleasure of knowing Miss Young long before I knew you.”

“Long! how long? I was not aware that you had ever met. Where did you meet?”

“In the schoolroom, before breakfast—full four hours before you called this morning.”

“Oh, that is all you mean! I wondered how you should know her.”

Sophia asked whether Margaret and Miss Young were not going to study together: Margaret assented. Miss Young was kind enough to promise to help her to read German.

“And you?” said Mr. Enderby to Hester.

“Why, no; I am rather afraid of the undertaking.”

“And you, Miss Grey?”

“No. Mamma says, I have enough to do with my history and my music; especially while my cousins are here. I began German once, but mamma thought I was growing awry, and so I left it off. I find Mrs. Rowland means Matilda to learn German.”

“We are all disposed to have my little nieces learn whatever Miss Young will be kind enough to teach them; they will gain nothing but good from her.”

“She is very learned, to be sure,” observed Sophia.

“And something more than learned, I should think,” said Hester; “I fancy she is wise.”

“How can you have discovered that already?” asked Mr. Enderby, whose fingers were busy dissecting a stalk of flowering grass.

“I hardly know; I have nothing to quote for my opinion. Her conversation leaves a general impression of her being very sensible.”

“Sensible, as she is a woman,” observed Margaret; “if she were a man, she would be called philosophical.”

“She is very superior,” observed Sophia. “It was mamma’s doing that she is the children’s governess.”

“Philosophical!” repeated Mr. Enderby. “It is a happy thing that she is philosophical in her circumstances, poor thing!”

“As she happens to be unprosperous,” said Margaret, smiling. “If she were rich, and strong, and admired, her philosophy would be laughed at; it would only be in the way.”

Mr. Enderby sighed, and made no answer. Before any one spoke again, Mr. Hope and his little companions came up.

“How quiet you all are!” exclaimed Sydney. “I’ve a good mind to come and fish here again, if you will only go on to be so drowsy.”

Sophia declared that they had been talking, up to the last minute, about Miss Young, and learning German, and being philosophical.

“And which of the party have you made out to be the most philosophical?” inquired Mr. Hope.

“We have not so much as made out what philosophy is for,” said Hester; “can you tell us?”

As she looked up at Mr. Hope, who was standing behind her, Sydney thought her question was addressed to him. Swinging his fishing-rod round, he replied doubtfully that he thought philosophy was good to know how to do things. What sort of things? Why, to make phosphorus lights, and electrify people, as Dr. Levitt did, when he made Sophia jump off the stool with glass legs. Sophia was sure that any one else would have jumped off the stool as she did. She should take good care never to jump on it again. But she wondered Sydney did not know any better than that what philosophy was for. Her cousins said Miss Young was philosophical, and she had nothing to do with phosphorus or electrical machines.

Mr. Enderby explained to Mr. Hope that he had said what he was ready to maintain; that it was a happy thing for any one who, like Miss Young, was not so prosperous as she had been, to be supported by philosophy.

“And, granting this,” said Margaret, “it was next inquired whether this same philosophy would have been considered equally admirable, equally a matter of congratulation, if Miss Young had not wanted it for solace.”

“A question as old as the brigg at Stirling,” replied Mr. Hope; “older, older than any bridges of man’s making.”

“Why Stirling brigg? What do you mean?”

“I mean—do not you know the story?—that an old woman wanted to cross the Forth, and some ferrymen would have persuaded her to go in their boat when she was confident that a tempest was coming on, which would have made the ferry unsafe. They told her at last that she must trust to Providence. ‘Na, na,’ said she, ‘I will ne’er trust to Providence while there is a brigg at Stirling.’ The common practice is, you know, with the old woman.—We will not trust to the highest support we profess to have, till nothing else is left us. We worship philosophy, but never think of making use of it while we have prosperity as well.”

“The question is whether such practice is wise,” said Margaret: “we all know it is common.”

“For my part,” said Mr. Enderby, “I think the old Scotchwoman was right; Providence helps those that help themselves, and takes care of those who take care of themselves.”

“Just so,” said Hope. “Her error was in supposing that the one course was an alternative from the other—that she would not be trusting in Providence as much in going by the bridge as in braving the tempest. I think we are in the same error when we set up philosophy and prosperity in opposition to each other, taking up with the one when we cannot get the other, as if philosophy were not over all, compassing our life as the blue sky overarches the earth, brightening, vivifying, harmonising all, whether we look up to see whence the light comes or not.”

“You think it a mistake, then,” said Margaret, “not to look up to it till all is night below, and there is no light to be seen but by gazing overhead?”

“I do not see why we should miss seeing the white clouds and blue depths at noon because we may reckon upon moon and stars at midnight. Then again, what is life at its best without philosophy?”

“I can tell you, as well as anybody,” said Mr. Enderby, “for I never had any philosophy—no, neither wisdom, nor the love of wisdom, nor patience, nor any of the things that philosophy is understood to mean.”

“Oh, Mr. Enderby!” cried Sydney, “what pains you took to teach me to fish, and to make me wait patiently for a bite! You say you are not patient!”

“My account of life without philosophy,” said Mr. Enderby, proceeding as if he did not hear the children testifying to his patience with them—“my account of life without philosophy is, that it slips away mighty easily, till it is gone, you scarcely know where or how.”

“And when you call upon philosophy at last to give an account of it, what does she say?” asked Margaret.

“I do not understand how life can slip away so,” said Hester. “Is there ever a day without its sting?—without doubt of somebody, disappointment in oneself or another, dread of some evil, or weariness of spirit? Prosperity is no more of a cure for these than for sickness and death. If philosophy is—”

“Well!” exclaimed Mr. Hope, with strong interest, “if philosophy is—”

“Happy they that have her, for all need her.”

“Hear a testimony at least as candid as your own, Enderby. If you really find life steal away as easily as you now fancy, depend upon it you are more of a philosopher than you are aware of.”

“What is philosophy?” asked Matilda of Sydney in a loud whisper, which the boy was not in any hurry to take notice of, so little was there in the conversation which seemed to bear upon phosphorus and electricity.

“A good question,” observed Mr. Enderby. “Hope, will you tell us children what we are talking about—what philosophy is all this while?”

“You gave us a few meanings just now, which I should put into one. Call it enlargement of views, and you have wisdom, and the love of wisdom, and patience, all at once: ay, Sydney, and your kind of philosophy too:—It was by looking far and deep into nature that men found electricity.”

“Did Dr. Levitt find it out?” asked Matilda: “he is so very short-sighted! I don’t believe he would see those fish snapping up the flies, if he sat where I do. What was that that fell on my bonnet? Is it raining?”

Sydney, tired of fishing, had climbed into the oak, and was sending down twigs and leaves upon the heads of the party. Sophia desired him to come down, and even assured him that if he did not, she should be angry. He replied, that he would only stay to see whether she would be angry or not. The experiment was cut short by the whole party rising, and moving homewards. The sun was setting, and the picked cowslips must not have any dew upon them.

As the group passed up the street, Sydney in advance, with his rod and basket, on Mr. Hope’s horse, Mr. Hope himself following with Hester, and the tall Mr. Enderby, with Sophia and Margaret on either arm, all, like the little girls, laden with cowslips, the gossips of Deerbrook were satisfied that the stranger ladies must have enjoyed their walk in the meadows.