I W^lV I W>Trtl il W IMi W I «H>^1l'ni>nWT<1T»TH>l>li> r r sstscsssBsssssssssasa BWWWJMMtWWflVXl^,^ : PO^BIDDE To A^^ By MKS.G.LlHhV ^ Return this book on or before the Xjin Latest Date stamped below. Hoi ijOU University of Illinois Library "I excep remai' time i charaj deseri "I manlier looa tnan tuut wueI•e^v^^u nuvciinuo L161— H41 Graphic. MORE THAN CORONETS. "An exceedingly -.vell-written story." — Birmingham Daily Gazette, THROUGH THE NIGHT. TALES OF SHADES AND SHADOWS. " Let him read these stories for himself, and he will be rewarded." — Manchester Guardian. "It is a fascinating book." — Glasgow Serald. THE WATCHMAKER'S DAUGHTER, AND OTHER STORIES. " Incident abounds, and there are some quaint and curious studies of manners and sketches of character. Altogether it is a good last volume." — Academy. MANCHESTER : Abel Heywood & Son. LONDON : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. ; and all Booksellers. ALSO, RIPPLES AND BREAKERS. Poems, by Mrs. Gr. Linn^us Banks. Illustrated. Square 8vo, 5s. " Mrs. Banks writes with fluency and animation ; her vein of sentiment is pure and earnest.'^ — Athencetim. " The poems are thoughtful, and their beauty will strike to the heart and mind at once." — Lloyd's. " A healthy volume of verse." — Academy. LONDON : 0. Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. Wrr^ik^n 4^ .&r 'h\ yt / £J./^r''-^' FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. BY MRS. G. LINN^US BANKS, AUTHORESS OF " GOD'S PROVIDENCE HOUSE ; " "THE MANCHESTER MAN ; " " GLORY," &C., &C. AY THREE VOLUMES. VOL. 1. LONDON : F. \. WHITE k CO., 31, SOUTHAMPTON ST., STRAND. ^ 1883. PRINTED UV KKl.I.Y AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN"? INN FIELDS ; AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES. ^. / :n ^^ CONTENTS. ; CHAPTER PAGE I. — Preliminary 1 II. — Settled , . 19 III. — Travellers .32 IV. — At the Forest House .... 55 V. — Ked Riding-Hood and Her Friends . . 79 VI. — Left with the Misses Briscoe . . 102 "^ VII. — Muriel's New Life 118 VIII. — Mrs. Hopley's Postscript .... 140 ': IX.— A Proposal .163 C; X. — Sam's First 185 V "XL — Muriel's Eeturn Home . . . 203 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. CHAPTER I. pkelt:mixary. :HAT ! nursing again, Muriel ! What is Betty doing, and where is thy mother ? " cried Mrs. Bancroft, the furrier, as she walked into the back parlour of her son- in-law's house, the mere turn of a handle havimr opened the front entrance for her, without the ceremony of knocking. It was only when rioters or other rough people were about that doors were bolted during daylight in the last century, or indeed in the early years of this. A slim girl, not more than eleven years of age, was pacing the floor with a baby-brother in her slender arms. She answered cheerfully ; VOL. I. B 2 FOB BID BEX TO MARBV. " Betty is washing dishes iii the back kitchen, and mother is upstairs putting the clean clothes away. I have not had Georgey very long, grandmother. And I don't mind nursing him one bit when he doesn't cry. He has given over now." " Oh ! then he has been crvinof ? " and there was some acerbity in the old lady's tone, as if she had '-minded" very much. '• A little. Poor fellow, his teeth plague him, mother says ; " and Muriel D'Anyer bent over the big boy in her arms with such a look of pitiful affection in her large dark-brown eyes, as clearly told she was in earnest, though he did make her arms ache, and her heart too when she could not still his complaining. '' I suppose Anna and Marion are both at school?'"' again questioned Mrs. Bancroft. " And where is Sara ? " " Upstairs with mother. Hsh, hsh," — this to the infant, whose lip was again curling to a cry. The old lady's chintz gown of printed linen was open in the front over a quilted petticoat, PBELIMIXARY. 3 though tucked up behind to keep her train out of the dust, and on each side, under this open robe, a pannierdike pocket balanced its fellow. By a bright steel chain depended from her waist the sheathed scissors and plump pincushion, without which no good housewife was equipped. Her keys would have dangled from another chain, but that out of doors they were slipped into the right-hand pocket, and were consequently invisible, even the chain beinsr lost under the over-sown. It was summer-time, and a scarf-like mantle of black silk covered her shoulders, as mittens covered her arms, leaving her fino'ers bare and free to use ; the bonnet on her head towered high above her lappet-like cap, and assisted by her high-heeled shoes (buckled across the instep) imparted height and im- portance to a short figure. Emptying from one pocket a store of cherries, and cakes from the other, she kissed the girl on the forehead, and said, " Divide these amongst you," and witliout waiting for thanks quitted the room and marched upstairs. B 2 4 FOBBILDEX TO MABRY. She found her daughter, Mrs. D'An3'er — quite a young-looking woman to be the mother of five children — on her knees in front of a carved oaken coffer, her own gift to tlie married couple. She was counting and arranging her household sheets and napery fresh from the airing, with little Sara, a fair-haired beauty of three years, watching her movements, and hindering under tlie pretext of help. Without a word of prelude Mrs. Bancroft liegan, in a broader vernacular than I care to inflict on my readers, common as it was then to the manufacturing class ; " I tell thee what, Ellen, I shall not leave Muriel here any longer to be kept from school, and sacrificed to that boy. She is not strong enough." Mrs. D'Anyer rose to salute her mother, but her gentle " How do you do ? " changed to a faltering apology, " Well, mother, I should not have kept her at home to-day, but I was very busy " " And always will be " interrupted her TBELIMINARY. 5 mother : " every clay brings its own duties, and every houseliold its own work ; only con- trivance and management can keep the hour's work to the hour. But busy or not busy, I'm not going to see Muriel grow lopsided with lugging a great lad about, and grow up in ignorance Avhilst her sisters are being properly educated. Thah must have a nurse if Betty has no time. I know thah't not so stronsf as thah should be — all the fruits of marrying too young — and thah needs help ; but I don't think John will mind thee keeping a stout lass to nurse that lad of ]us. If he does, /'// pay her wages ; and as I mean to take Muriel off your hands altogether, that will square ac- counts." Mrs. D'Anyer, a mild, timid little Avoman, stood in no small awe of her prompt, ener- getic mother, but she also stood in fear of her husband, and ventured a sort of expostulatory protest, to which the old lady paid no sort of heed. "I tell thee, Ellen," she maintained, " the eldest girl in a large family is always made a 6 FOB BID DEN TO MABBY. drudge to the rest ; it was so in my case, but I'll take care it shall not be Muriel's lot. She shall go home with me ; I'll see her educated. John won't miss her. I don't think he has cared for the lass since the illness that seamed her face and spoiled her beauty ; " and she wiped a handkerchief over her own face, warm with the excitement and energy of her speech. "Oh, mother!" was all the younger woman could interject in remonstrance, as she placed tlie last pile of linen in the coffer and closed the heavy Ud. " Ah, thah may say, ' Oh, mother ! ' but thah knows its true. I'll go and have a talk to John in the warehouse. I suppose I shall find him there;" and off she went, determined not to let her project cool. It has been said that Mrs. Bancroft was a furrier. It may be added that she had for many years carried on most successfully the -extensive wholesale business of her dead husband, in premises situated in the rear of Jier handsome double- fronted red brick house PBELIMIXABY. 7 on Eed Bank, Manchester, and was accounted a wealthy woman in her sphere. Wealthy, that is, as the world goes ; her possessions could be reckoned in houses and land, bought and sold as merchandise ; but she had scarcely the true riches, though she went regularly to church, stood in good repute, and had a pro- found veneration for religious profession in others. Dingy enough now is the thoroughfare known as Eed Bank ; even fifty years ago the deterioration had begun, smoke doiug more than the fins^er of Time to tone down tints of brickwork and stone ; nay, a pubHcan had set his sign over what had been Mr^?. Bancroft's door, there were shops where had been private houses, and inferior structures were creeping up the steep hill-sides to ob- literate every trace of grass or of the red sand from which the road took its name. Yet was the verdant country close at hand in Mrs. Bancroft's time, grass and flowers and bushes were plentiful atop of the rugged red- banks left on either side by successive lower- 8 FORBIDDEX TO MARRY. infrs of the liill, over which then ran the main road to Eochdale and Bury from Scotland Bridge and the valley of the Irk upwards, and Mrs. Bancroft's house at the foot of the brow was a residence of some pretensions. Twelve years prior to this decided enuncia- tion of opinion relative to her favourite grandchild Muriel, her own daughter Ellen was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, vivacious dam- sel of sixteen, the youthful roundness of whose cheeks softened the high cheek-bones, whicli age or illness might define and sharpen as they had done for the elder woman. They were alike short in stature, alike active and notable, but the resolute set of mouth and the energy of the woman had no signs of development in the girl. At that period dancing was an accomplish- ment more for the aristocracy than for traders, but a certain Madam Bland had opened an academy in a fashionable part of the town for such as could afford to pay well for instruction, and Mrs. Bancroft did not hesitate to enrol Ellen amoniT the select circle of Madam PBELUnXAEY. 9 Bland's pupils, as a finishing touch to an education which had, to say the least, cost much. No retail trader could have gained admis- sion for son or daughter into that circle ; the line was drawn at merchants and manufac- turers ; but of all those who did most honour to Madam's professorship was John D'Anyer, who, though but the son of a Manchester manufacturer, yet boasted he had blue blood in his veins as in his name. He was barely twenty, yet he stood six feet high, and had a figure as finely propor- tioned as his handsome face. Dancing was only one of his many accomplishments, but it was the one in which his peculiar graces of form and manner were most likely to move impressionable hearts ; and Ellen Bancroft was only one of the damsels who sighed for him. But in her case the attraction w^as mutual. And not alone in minuet or cotillion had they seen and admired each other. The Bancroft and the D'Anyer pews in the Colle- giate Church adjoined, there was speaking lo FOBBIDDEN TO MAREY. acquaintance between the elders, and the two 3^oung people might be said to have grown up under each other's eye. In Madam Bland's academy the acquain- tance ripened rapidly ; it furnished occasions for mutual intercourse unsuspected at home, and led to a step not in the Terpsichorean programme. One sunny morning when early May blos- soms scented the air. Miss Bancroft, arrayed as for a fashionable assembly in a dress of cherry colour-and-white satin brocade, her hair elaborately coiled by the peruquier, was lianded by her admiring mother into a sedan chair at the door of the house on Eed Bank, as was customary on dancing days, and it sUghtly struck the mother that "the lass was in an unusual flurry." Be this as it may, the chairmen bore the sedan, not to Madam Bland's, but to the Collegiate Church ; and when they again set lier down at her unsuspecting mother's door fshe was the wife of John D'Anyer. No one's advice had been asked, no one's PEELIMINARY. ii counsel taken. The girl, captivated by a handsome face and graceful figure, had allowed his dominant will to control her. Had any reason existed for secrecy beyond their immature age, it was unknown. Three months later a loud ran- tan, tan, tan, tan, on the heavy knocker, startled the echoes in the Eed Bank house. Mrs. Bancroft had just come in from the warehouse for her four o'clock tea, and a maid was carrying the mahogany tea-board, with its freight of tiny handleless cups and saucers, into the house- hold room, and almost dropped it in her fright. The clang on the knocker had not ceased when she opened the door, and Mr. John D'Anyer, in a fashionable suit of plum- coloured kerseymere, with silver buckles at his breeches' knees and on the instep of his high-heeled shoes, crushed past her into the lobby, and in thick but imperious tones demanded to see his " wife." Margery insisted that he had mistaken the house, and failing to convince him, turned hack to seek her mistress in the kitchen. FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. To her amazement he followed her, not too steadily, down the passage, to be confronted by Mrs. Bancroft, wlio stood with her face towards him, by the white deal table, under the broad window, at which Ellen was washing, in a large bowl, lace ruffles and lawn kerchiefs, too dainty to be sent to a common clear-st archer. It was evident the young man had taken too m.uch wine ; his three-cornered hat was awry, the ruffles ac his wrists, the falling neckcloth edged Avith lace, were sullied and disordered ; and so Mrs. Bancroft thought were his wits, as he repeated, " I have come for my wife ; I want my wife.'' " Your wife ? " she echoed, and would have added, " There is no Avife of yours here," but she chanced to glance towards her daughter, and the words died upon her lips. It needed not his iteration of " Yes, Ellen ; — my wife ! " that white face, that shrinking, trembling figure told all. Whether in wrath, or to keep the girl from fainting, she could never decide with herself, PBELIMiyARV. 13 she took up tlie earthen bowl and dashed its contents, water and lace together, upon the daughter who had deceived her. " Take your wife, take her ! and never let her darken my doors again ! " she cried, sternly, and passed out of the kitchen, not to return until the door had closed upon them both, as she had closed the door of her heart. Though an only daughter, Ellen was not an only child. She had a brother three years her senior, training to succeed his mother in the business. His intercession for his sister might have been expected. Nothing of the kind occurred. Samuel Bancroft had not a thought beyond self. He sat down to the tea-table, after a rough pre- liminary scrub in the scullery, rendered neces- sary by his duties in the skin-yard — was briefly told what had occurred, bidden never to name his sister ag^ain, — and had no desire to transsfress. He could have told, had he been so minded, that he had been deputed to break the secret 14 FORBIBBEN TO MABRY. to his mother ; but he preferred to assume ignorance, and wipe his clean hands of the offending pair, as he hoped to wipe his sister out of the mother's will by-and-bye. Months went by — months which sharpened and hardened the outlines of Sarah Bancroft's face. An idol had been shattered, and nothing had replaced it. Her seat in the Old Church was vacant ; she resolutely passed its walls and trudged forward to St. Ann's (there being no church nearer home at that time) ; but thouo^h she heard the words '-Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation," Sabbath by Sabbath, she refused to take their import to herself. If there was any softening of her heart, it was unknown ; the silence peremp- torily enjoined at the outset became habitual ; her business did not throw her in the way of the D'Anyers, and she knew nothing even of her daughter's whereabouts. Whether she felt more keenly the barb of her child's ungrateful secrecy, or the prolonged estrange- ment, could not be told ; but unspoken feeling of some kind brought out more sharply the PBELIMIXABY. 15 prominence of her cheek-bone, and ploughed fresh Knes on her brow. She had several brothers and brothers-in- law in different trades ; but their places of business lying away across the town, they did not often meet. One sleety afternoon in the following Feb- ruary, as she was shaking hands with a Bolton hatter, to whom she had sold a larixe parcel of rabbit-skins (to be felted into veri- table beaver), her brother Ealph, a cotton merchant, stepped into the warehouse, amongst piles of skins, and barely waiting until the hatter's back was turned be^an, — "Sarah, dost thah know the tale that's goin' about the town ? " " What tale ? " said both eyes and Hps. " Why, that thy daughter Ellen was turned out of the house wringin' wet, with no clothes but what she stood up in, and is now livin' on the charity of the D'Anyers! " Mrs. Bancroft changed countenance. " Wringing wet ! " " No clothes ! " she echoed, as if unaware how literally Ellen's i6 FOBBIVDKN TO MABBY. dismissal had been taken, but her pride caiiglil lip the one word " charity," and her breast lieaved as with a pent-up burden. " Charity ! charity!" she exclaimed. "My daughter living upon cliaritij ! I'll see about that! " and to her brother's surprise, before he was aware of her intentions, she was across the yard, in the liouse, and out again at the front, with the hood of her scarlet cloth cloak over her bonnet, and lier pattens on her feet, hurrying throu^^h the wet to the smallware manufac- turer's in Cannon Street, panting as she went with suppressed and contending emotions. " I liear tliat my daughter is said to be living on your charity, Mr. D'Anyer," she began abruptly, as the old smallware manu- facturer presented himself before his unex- pected visitor. " Nay, nay, Mrs. Bancroft, Ellen is as wel- come as th' flowers i' Ma}^ I put another loom down when she came, that's all, and I mean to put another down now th' little lass hath come ! I always put a fresh loom down when a fresh mouth comes to be filled ; and PEELIMiyABY. 17 the more the merrier, say I. I only wish JSTelly herself was stronger; but she has never fairly got over the wetting you gave her. " Mrs. Bancroft felt herself rebuked, though she did not take in the full purport of his speech. " Well, sir," said she, ignoring the censure, " you can put the profit of your looms to other uses. I do not intend my daughter to live an any one's charitij. If your son has neither business to maintain his wife, nor home to take her to, it is time he had. And I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll fur- nish them a house, and I'll be five hundred pounds towards setting him up in business, if you'll be another five hundred ; and they can come to my house until they have one of their own. But no living on charity ! " and the word came out with a gasp. " There has been no charity, my good friend," said Mr. D'Anyer, with a genial smile. " No one regretted John's secret and precipi- tate match more than myself and Mally " (his wife), " but my son's wife is my daughter, and as such we made her welcome. And I shall VOL. I. c i8 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. be glad to meet you half-way in giving them a start in life, either in my trade, or yours, or one of your brothers'. But they will have to stay here until they have a house of then- own. We are not so tliick on the spot as we were, and the place is big enough to hold us all. Besides — Ellen cannot be removed, and I don't think it would be safe for you to see her just yet ; she must not be agitated. But there's naught to hinder you seeing the httle lass." "What little lass?" Mrs. Bancroft would have asked, but he was out of the room, and she who had gone tliere in higli-handed pride and indignation, was left to institute com- parisons and ponder his meaning. Presently he returned wath a long-robed infant in his patriarchal arms — and then she was en- lightened. Pride, indignation, resentment, dissolved in tears over her first grandchild's face. Little Muriel had come as a pacificator. CHAPTEE II. SETTLED. f^^o THOUSAND pounds was a goodly capi- y^M tal to commence business with in 177S, when John D'Anyer elected to turn fustian manufacturer, a term at that time of very wide signification. A warehouse was found and fitted for his trade in Sugar Lane, not far from his own father's thread and small- ware manufactory in Cannon Street. Then Mrs. Bancroft, reconciled to the young people, furnished for them, solidly and well, a house in Broom Street close by, tlie exclusive res- pectability of which was maintained by posts and chains to bar the ingress of unprivileged vehicles. Whatever the street may be now, it was then genteel— and dull ; but Broom Street and Sugar Lane met at a sharp angle, and there was the advantage of communication at c 2 20 FOBBIDDEN TO MAJRBY. the back between house and warehouse. Steam power had not been introduced into manufactories, and very few were fitted up with elaborate machinery. Outlay was chiefly for raw material and work-people's wages. In John D'i\nyer's, for instance, warpers — generally women — carried home great hanks of yarn in their canvas bags, or " pokes," and brought it back on their heads in huge flat balls, warped ; that is, threads of sufficient number and length for the piece of cloth, arranged and grouped together sys- tematically by means of pegs in the warper's cottage wall. The handloom weavers took home the warp, with twist for the weft, and brought it back in the piece ; again it went out to be bleached or dyed, and, in the case of fustians, to be cut. In these days so many processes are carried on in one set of premises that immense capitals are required. Then John D'Anyer was considered to start under very favourable auspices, and expected to make a fortune, as others had done before him. SETTLED. 21 But they were plodders, he was not. He was proud to be his own master, and the master of others ; had taken to the business kindly, and was not too proud to doff his coat and lend a hand either to putter-out or packer. Then, being vain of his penman- ship, he conducted his own correspondence, not a very onerous duty, and kept his own books, with a clerk under him ; and was as good a buyer and seller as any on 'Change. But he was vain of liis person as well as of his penmanship, and was apt to vary the monotony of the Exchange Eoom with a stroll under the trees of St. Ann's Square, the adja- cent fashionable promenade, or arm in arm with friend or cousin of his own age, who had more money than wit, finish the day at the cockpit, or it might be in a carouse. And in this John D'Anyer must not be judged by our standard. Temperance had not become a creed : a man amongst men was he who could carry most liquor with the steadiest legs and the clearest head; and so long as a man was up and about his business during the 22 FOB BID BEX TO MAR BY, day, no one troubled himself how he spent his nii^hts. That concerned no one but the people at home. And it must not be supposed that John D'Anyer's proclivity for convivial society was such as to interfere with his business, or make him other than a c^entleman, although he had demanded his girl-wife in most unseemly fashion. He was wont to say he " would not give a button for aay man wlio could not be anything in any society," and certainl}^ the polished gentleman occasionally descended. He was, however, a strict disciplinarian in business or out, and his devoted little wife, who had not her mother's strength of will, was too timid to oppose act or word of his, too nervous to propose aught to which he might object ; and neither years nor mother- hood brought her self-reliance. Mrs. Bancroft was loth to admit it even to herself; but Ellen DAnyer had never quite recovered from the effects of the Avetting she had given her twelve years before. Her im- prudent and impetuous young husband, too SETTLED. 2 excited to reason, had liurried lier away at Mrs. Bancroft's harsh bidding, drenched as she was ; and thongh he hailed the first sedan chair they met, there was nearly a mile to traverse between Eed Bank and Cannon Street, and explanations to follow, before dry garments could be substituted. Eheumatic fever was a natural sequence, and life -long delicacy ; mental suffering having been super- added to the physical. Her long illness had, however, been borne with patient resignation, and had served to draw her nearer to her Creator. The seventeen -years-old wife had laid down her self-will before Muriel was born. It was therefore with no slight trepidation she awaited, with her boy in her arms, the return of her energetic parent from the ware- house that summer afternoon ; having no clear idea of the proposal to be made, or of her husband's mood to receive it. Nor was she much more assured by the triumphant smile on Mrs. Bancroft's face as she walked into the back sitting-room and bade Muriel " take Sara and her doll into the kitchen." 24 FOliBIDDEN TO MARRY. " Well, it is settled," she began ; "I am to find you a respectable and capable nursemaid, and Muriel is to be turned over to me." " You are not cfoin^? to take Muriel from me," put in Mrs. John D'Anyer faintly. " Yes, I am ; so have her box packed by this day week. I'll see you have a nurse before then ; and, by-the-bye, put nothing in that is half Avorn. I'll see she has a fresh rig out before she goes." " Goes where ? " asked the wonderimr youno- mother. " Why, to Chester, with me. Did I not tell you I was going to send her to school ? " Mrs. John D'Anyer's heart sank. She dearly loved her first-born, if the father did not ; and the announcement was like a sen- tence of banishment to lier. " Cliester I Oh, mother, surely there are good schools in Manchester ; you would not send the dear girl so far away. And such a dangerous road — that terrible forest to cross. How could she ever come home for her holi- days ! " SETTLED, 25 " She will have no holidays. — You need not look so blank. I will see to the lass. And I'll get thy father's kinsman, the- Eev. Thomas Bancroft, to look after her, so she'll be well off, for lie's a good man. She would only be put upon at home ; be at every one's beck and call ; be nursemaid and scapegoat for the whole lot, and I've set my mind on making a clever woman of her. Aye, and a happy one into the bars^ain. She is o^oinf^ amoncfst ladies, to be treated like a lady. I'll see to that." Tears sprang to tlie mother's eyes. " Now, don't be silly," cried the observant grandmother ; " the child's not gone yet, and won't go till Chester Fair ; so there's all the time between this and Michaelmas to reconcile yourself, if you are so foolish as to need reconcilini]^ to a chancre which is for her good." ''But what of Muriel? it will break her tender heart ! " " Leave her to me, there shall be no break- ing of hearts. I'll see to that. There might be some breaking of back if she stayed here 25 FOEBIBBEX TO MARRY. much lonofer. And now call lier in, and let us have tea. John will be in directly." During this colloquy Marion and Anna, the one nine and the other seven, had come skip- ping home from school ; but, kept in check by Muriel with grandmother's cherries and cakes, had remained discreetly in the large bright kitchen. And as children were seldom permitted to take tea with their elders, there was no hardship in sitting down at the round oak table to their brown bread and cans of milk, whilst father, mother, and grand- mother drank tea and ate white bread and butter in the parlour ; and unknown to them, two strong minds strove to convince a weak but warm-hearted mother that it was well the daughter she loved should be taken from her. The hardship came to the children a week afterwards, when Sister Muriel went to stay with Grandmother Bancroft, and a stout girl of fifteen, rough and ready in her handling of them, was the only substitute. They had no forecast of the longer parting in store, 3'et they cried themselves to sleep. SETTLED. 27 ]^s"or had Muriel when slie was sent every morning up Eed Bank for a drauglit of new milk at the farm-house by the stocks, " to brinir a colour into her cheeks," as her fjrand- mother said ; or even when she was measured for new frocks, and shoes and bonnets and caps, and was provided with a fur muff and tippet of grey squirrel, and was told that slie was oroinsf with Grandmother Bancroft to Chester Fair. Chester Fair ! Did not her father and uncles talk of it, and the business down there, for weeks before and after ; and had she not seen the preparations made for her father's departure, the packing of his saddle-bags, the loading of his pistols ! Surely it was a great event to her, a somethino- to look forward to Avith glee. Muriel had no prescience and no fears. But the tender mother had ; and though she had been enjoined to say nothing, and to let the child go away quietly ; and thou^rh she knew that Muriel was dearer to " Grandmother Bancroft " than all her posses- sions, and that the resolute old lady was 28 FOB BIDDEN TO MARRY. actuated by a sincere desire to promote the child's welfare, she could not let her go under a false impression, to waken to reality among strangers, and that without a word of fare- well warninij^ and counsel. She took tlie opportunity when Muriel, taller, stronger, and rosier for her four months' residence and rambles in the fresh air and green fields around lied Bank — the latter shared with Milly Hargreaves, a favourite cousin, whose father's dye-works lay between Eed Bank and the Eiver Irk — was permitted to spend a couple of days in Broom Street prior to the eagerly anticipated journey to Chester Fair. Never to be forgotten by Muriel so long as she lived, was that hour with her mother in the privacy of her chamber, an hour dark as was the mahogany furniture and heavy moreen draperies, for there she first learned that her journey to Chester was not a mere pleasure-trip. It was sad for both ; not that the Misses Briscoe's school had terrors for Muriel, or to Mrs. John D'Anyer ; it had been SETTLED. 29 painted in the brightest tints ; but the parting, the separation for a long and uncertain period, the distance which must lie between them, had. And to understand this, it must be known that m 1789 there was no direct con- veyance for passengers between Manchester and Chester. Goods were sent on pack-horses, or by the Duke of Bridgewater's new canal ; and horse-drawn packet-boats which met a stage-coach three miles from Frodsham, were also provided for tlie accommodation of pas- sengers. Otherwise the ordinary stage-coach went no farther than Northwich, and people who did not travel on horse-back must hire a post-chaise or a cart, and run the risk of highwaymen and footpads on their route through Delamere Forest, if they wished to reach the Palatine city. These dangers had been too often discussed in Muriel's presence to leave her ignorant. There could be no home-coming at stated times, and her young heart sank ; but when she saw how her dearly-loved mother was overpowered, she put a brave face upon it. 30 FOliBlDDEN TO MARRY. and said ^' perhaps fallier or grandmother might bring her mother over to see her at fair time." She knew that her grandmother had a rehation in Chester, a clergyman, the liead master of the Grammar School there, and had been told that he would be sure to come and see her ; still, he was not her mother, and her mother was all the w^orld to her. But she grew grave and sober as her mother exhorted her to " hold fast by the hand of Christ at all times and in all seasons, whether tried, or tempted, or troubled, and never to let it go." And then her mother put into her hands a thickly bound black volume with massive silver clasps, on which were engraved D.M., 1711, the same initials and date being stamped in gold on either side. " Take this, my child," she said ; " it is the most precious token of my love that I can bestow upon you — the Bible and Pra3^er-book of our ancestress Deborah Massey ; it was her constant companion, the law of her life. Make it yours, Muriel, and I shall never re grct SETTLED. 31 this day. The book has been handed down as a precious treasure ; it has been such to me, let it be such to you." The tears of the mother and daughter mingled on the black cover and on the silver clasps, as the arms of Muriel went round that mother's neck in a clasp as close, and a kiss of assurance sealed the promise that she gave. CHAPTEE III. TRAVELT.ERS. |g|ELAMEEE FOEEST and Cliester Fair ! tflif Tliere was a promise of romance and mystery in the one, of pleasure in the otlier. What o-irl of Muriel's acfc but would have looked forward with excitement and antici- pation ? It was a sad damper to learn that the romance of the hazardous journey, the show and delights of the great fair, were to termi- nate in the reality of a strange boarding- scliool, and long absence from home and the mother she loved so dearly. Gratitude to Grandmother Bancroft, which had been bubbling up from the deep fountain in her breast, as one new garment after another had come from the mantuamaker, and her handsome furs from the warehouse, sank TBAVELLFAiS. 33 to a low ebb when she learned the hidden motive for so much preparation. It was not in her nature to demur openly, but she said to herself over and over again : " But for mother, I might have gone away without knowing ! It was not kind of Grandmother Bancroft! It was not hind. Kow could she do it ? " Her murmurings were, however, stilled by the remembrance that her own mother had said " it was for her good, and that it was very kind of grandmother to take the charge and expense of Muriel's ward- robe and education on herself." " If mother thinks it is good for me, I suppose I ought to be satisfied ; and if grandmother really means it for the best, it is ungrateful to grumble. Only it is so far I Well, as mother says, the Lord can hear me, and see me, and care for me in Chester as well as here, and for them too ! " but she had her fears, missfivino-s, and regrets, nevertheless. It was in such mood Muriel watched her Grandmother Bancroft as she packed new linen and new frocks in a small trunk, covered VOL. I. D 34 FORBIDDEN TO MAUBY. with mottled cow-hide, whereon her initials " M. D." shone in the glory of brass nails. " Who gave thee this ? " asked Mrs. Ban- croft, as the girl tendered the silver-clasped Bible to be packed. " Mother," was the answer, " and see the letters on the back are the same as 'those on the box." " I think Ellen might have set more store by Deborah Massey's Bible than to give it thee. But see thah take care of it, and use it well." She did not say, "Make good use of it," that did not occur to her. " But how is my box to go, grandmother ? '' asked Mnriel, as the key was turned in tlie lock, and a canvas cover fitted ; " if I am to ride on a pillion behind Uncle Sam, our horse could not carry it, and yours will have the saddle-bags. Will one of the pack-horses take it?" " Xo, lass ! I've done with pack-horses, thank goodness ! Your box will go to-morrow along with the bales of furs and peltry to the TEA VELLERS. 35 wharfinger of the Duke's canal, and be sent by boat to Frodsham, or nigh it, and on by carrier's waggon to the Manchester Hall in Chester ; the new hall that thy Grandfather D'Anyer, and me, and your uncles, and other Manchester folk have gone shares to build." So saying, Mrs. Bancroft sent the packing- needle on its last errand through the canvas, drew the stitch tight with a business-like jerk, cut it away with the scissors at her girdle, and rose from her knees. Muriel was curious. " How did you manage, grandmother, be- fore the hall was built ? " " How ? Wh}^, as best we could. Showed our goods in booths in the streets, as had been done for years before, or kept them at our inns, and looked out for customers. But that didn't suit me. I said I'd see about it, and now we've a fine hall to cover us." ''Hundreds of years!" Muriel had ejacu- lated, but Mrs. Bancroft's task completed, she had no mind to linger. She was wanted in the warehouse, else she might have told D 2 36 FOBLIDDEy TO MAURY. Muriel that fairs were of very ancient date, and had their origin in the wants and neces- sities of the people ; and that of the early- English fairs, established and chartered for the sale or interchange of goods and produce, or for the hiring of men and maidservants at a period when towns and villages were scat- tered and far apart, roads few and unsafe, Chester Fair was one of the earliest, and in best repute. Its charter dated back almost to the days of Hugh Lupus, the first Earl of Chester, who held his rich Palatinate by grant from his near kinsman, William the Conqueror. Chester was an important seaport then, and needed a strong hand to fortify the castle the Eomans had left, as well as to protect the commerce of the Dee from the pirates swarm- ing in the Irish Channel. She might have told how the monks of St. Werburgh had represented " mysteries " or " miracle plays," to edify and keep from mischief the idle mul- titudes who thronged to the fair for sport, of wliicli the more modern show was the outcome ; and how none but freemen of the city were TRAVELLERS. 37 permitted to trade within its walls except when a white glove was hung out from the tower of St. Peter's, as a symbol of peace, of the native trade, and of the fair. And she might have justified her own special business at Chester Fair with an old chronicler's sum- mary of its merchandise : — "Hides and fish, salmon, hake, herringe, Irish wool and linen cloth, faldinge, And martens good, be her marchandie, Hartes hides, and other of venerie, Skins of otter, squirrel, and Irish hose, Of sheep, lamb, and foxe, is her chafFare, Fells of kids and conies great plenty," But she could not have told or foretold how " kettles o' steeam " would go whizzing and fizzing over the land with a besom of pro- gression in their train to sweep such chartered fairs clean away as nuisances, not con- veniences. She had told the girl at various times quite sufficient about Chester, its fairs, and its double rows of shops, where the covered pathway to the upper row was riglit over the roofs of the lower set, above which the prominent house-fronts formed a sort of ar- 38 FOBBIDDEX TO MARRY. cade ; quite enough to put the looming school in the background, and after the first tears of parting were dried, to cause Muriel to sit her pillion lightly, and clasp her Uncle Sam's waist in hopeful mood and with a smile on her cheerful countenance. But Muriel had never mounted a pillion before ; the lournev was lonfjf and tedious ; the roads were wofully uneven beneath the horse's feet, and long ere they reached Xorth- wich she was sick with the jolting, and her face proclaimed it. Samuel grumbled hard at the loss of time and money, when his mother announced her intention to remain at the Unicorn until the next morning on the lass's account. "It's not as if you were going right through to Chester," he urged ; " it's only seven or eight miles to Eddisbury, and you know the Kingsleys expect you. When Muriel has had a good dinner and a horn of home-brewed, she'll be as right as ninepence, I'll warrant." It was not customary in the last century to discuss business before young people, or make TliAVELLERS. 39 tliem privy to the plans of their elders, and Muriel took the sharp " Sam ! " and the sig- nificant frown of her grandmother, as a reminder that she was present, and need not be enlightened ; but Samuel, keen and sharp where his own interest was concerned, took it as a hint that there were strangers in the room, and that it was not wise to prate of their path so openly. Irritated as much at his own thoughtless- ness as at the rebuke, he rubbed his hands smartly over his breeches' thiglis, indulged in a brief whistle, and rising, said : " Hang it, what a while they are with that dinner I I'll go and have a look at the horses, and see no tricks are played with them or their feed. One need be sharp in this world ! " and the cunning look in his greenish-grey eyes said people had need to be very sharp indeed to take Mm in. At the door he turned round to say, " And if the lass be so desper- ately tired let her lie down on yon settle by tlie wall, if its cushion's soft enough," a hint Muriel scarcely liked to take before strangers. 40 FOEBIDBEN TO MAEEY. But lier grandmother's quick, "I'll see to that," settled the business, and she lay down, with a saddle-bag for a pillow, glad to rest, and in the sense of repose soon forgot the strangeness of all around, the farmers and others by the hre. Then she began to wonder if she also was expected at Eddisbury, and what sort of people the Kingsleys were, and what sort of a place the Forest House was, and to think how funny it was she should be