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 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/blueribbon01tabo
 
 THE BLUE PiIBBON. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 ST. OLAVE'S," "JANITA'S CROSS,' 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 ' . . . . She enjoys true peace for evermore, 
 As -weather-beaten ship arrived on happy shore." 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 1873. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 LONDON ; 
 
 PRINTED BY MACDONAU) AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE, 
 
 BLENHEIM 8TBEET, OXFORD STBEET.
 
 -J. I 
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 ; CHAPTER I. 
 
 I 
 
 I A NYONE going along the High Street of 
 
 ■^-^ Cruxborough one sunshiny Summer 
 '- morning five and thirty years ago, and look- 
 ing up to the second-floor windows of Mr. 
 Ballinger s office, might have seen that gen- 
 ^s tleman readinsf a note, in which he was 
 j-v( invited to walk over some fine afternoon, 
 ^ and take a glass of wdne with his friend and 
 ^^ client, Hiram Armstrong, of Wastewood. 
 
 Mr. Ballinger knew well enough what 
 that glass of wine meant. Business ; neither 
 more nor less than business. Old Hiram, 
 who for the last twenty years had been 
 adding house to house, and field to field, 
 
 VOL, T. B
 
 2 THE BLUE BIBBON. 
 
 had his eye most likely on some fat farm 
 and eligible site of building-gromid ; or a 
 writ was to be served on a shuffling tenant, 
 who had got into arrears with his rent ; or 
 — for gout and good living were carrying the 
 old gentleman at an easy trot to his grave 
 — it might be the settlement of his aifairs 
 that was upon his mind, the due and 
 righteous disposition of that snug fortune of 
 thirty or forty thousand pounds, whose 
 ownership made Hiram, as times went then, 
 one of the most substantial men in Crux- 
 borough. At any rate, the turning of a 
 penny was involved, and as penny-turning 
 was an occupation after Mr. Ballinger's own 
 heart, he lost no time in accepting the invi- 
 tation. 
 
 Hiram Armstrong was a bachelor of sixty- 
 five, or thereabouts. He had the reputation 
 of being a coarse, easy, somewhat free-living 
 man, whose manners had not improved with 
 the improvement in his circumstances. In
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 6 
 
 his early days he had been a cattle-dealer, 
 and his talk was generally of the earth, 
 earthy. But still there was a stratum of 
 good will under the old man's coarseness ; 
 and after a good dinner, a good bottle of 
 wine, and a pipe or two of good tobacco, 
 Hiram would have promised anything in the 
 world to his friends, and then next mornino 
 have forgotten all about it. 
 
 Wastewood was an ill-kept, uncomfort- 
 able-looking house, about half a mile out of 
 Cruxborough, on the Willowmarsh Road. 
 Generally, when Mr. Ballinger had gone 
 there, he had been admitted by an elderly 
 widow, a dapper, obsequious little woman, 
 who curtseyed to him with the reverence 
 due to one of the city's most respectable 
 men. But on the occasion of his first visit 
 after receiving Mr. Armstrong's note, the 
 door was opened by a stranger — a curious, 
 foreign-looking woman, oddly-dressed, dark- 
 complexioned, defiant ; who, after glancing 
 
 b2
 
 4 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 keenly at him, ushered him, with very scant 
 . show of respect, into the dining-room, where 
 her master, enveloped in a genial cloud of 
 tobacco-smoke, sat in his arm-chair, behind 
 the decanter of old port which formed the 
 ostensible object of the invitation. 
 
 " Glad to see you, Ballinger — glad to see 
 you. Thought this would bring you out 
 pretty soon," saicl the old gentleman, wink- 
 ing at his glass as he held it up to the liglit. 
 " You won't do it comfortably now, will 
 you, and join me with a pipe? I always 
 say, you know, that port and pipes go to- 
 gether as naturally as beans and bacon." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said Mr. Ballinger, 
 bowing, and rubbing his hands ; " smoking 
 is a luxury in which I never indulge." 
 
 And indeed one might have told that by 
 the look of him. Nathan Balhnger was not 
 a man who indulged in anything, save that 
 afore-mentioned penny-turning which was 
 the chief purpose of his life. But he ac-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. O 
 
 cepted Mr. Armstrong's offer of a glass of 
 port ; and then — for he was far too cautious 
 a man to hurry the business, whatever it 
 might be, for which he was summoned — he 
 directed the conversation into an indifferent 
 channel, wisely judging that it would work 
 its own way by-and-by to something more 
 interesting. 
 
 " You have made a change in your do- 
 mestic arrangements," he began, having a 
 somewhat galling impression that he had not 
 been admitted with the respect due unto 
 him ; " and if I might venture to express an 
 opinion, Mr. Armstrong, if I might venture 
 to express an opinion, I should add, a change 
 which most of your friends will scarcely 
 consider an improvement." 
 
 "Change !" and old Hiram blinked through 
 the cloud of tobacco-smoke which enveloped 
 him. " Oh, yes, of course. Patch opened 
 the door to you. I've had her about the 
 place a good while, but she never came to
 
 b THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 the front until a week or two ago, when 
 old Betsy, the widow, 3'ou remember, 
 dropped off. She's a queer sort, is Patch, 
 rather touched in the upper story, I fancy, 
 but a decent woman, as faithful as a dog, 
 and as honest as the day. I never happen- 
 ed to tell you, did I, how I picked her up, 
 poor body ?" 
 
 "You did not, sir; and really, now that 
 I have seen her, I must confess to a certain 
 amount of curiosity upon the subject. In 
 fact, her manners and deportment " 
 
 " Oh ! never mind her manners and de- 
 portment. Patch never pretends anything 
 she doesn't feel, but she's as sound as a 
 drum, for all that. It was in this way : 
 About two years back, as near as I can 
 recollect, I was set here, with my pipe and 
 my glass, and I just happened to look 
 out, and there she was, out in the road 
 opposite, up to her ankles in mud and snow, 
 singing ^ My lodging is on the cold ground.'
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 7 
 
 Now you know I'm not a bad-hearted man, 
 Ballinger — not at all a bad-hearted man." 
 
 "On the contrary, my dear sir, quite the 
 reverse," and Mr. Ballinger bowed. 
 
 " No, and I used to sing that song my- 
 self when I was a boy, and it sort of touched 
 me up, because I don't like to forget old 
 times ; so I tapped at the window for her 
 to come across, and I declare, when I set 
 eyes upon her near-hand, she looked that 
 starved and hungry I couldn't for shame 
 send her away without a bite of something 
 to eat." 
 
 " Very kind of you, sir — exceedingly 
 kind — but quite what a gentleman of your 
 well-known liberality " 
 
 *' Yes, yes ; and so I took her into the 
 kitchen to Betsy, and set her down to a 
 basin of hot broth ; and while she fastened 
 upon it, which she did pretty sharp, I can 
 tell you, I found out who she was, and 
 where she came from — Naples, I think, it
 
 8 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 was, or somewhere that way — and she'd 
 been in the musical line, and lost her voice 
 and her luck, poor thing, too, and seemed 
 to have had rather a rough carrying on of 
 it, one way and another. I cross-questioned 
 her pretty closely, I can tell you — for I'm 
 not a man that's easy took in, Ballinger — 
 and when I'd satisfied myself that it was all 
 fair and above-board, I told her, if Betsy 
 had no objections, she might stop and have 
 a nisrht's lodo;infy in the void loft. Not w^hat 
 everybody would have done, was it ?" 
 
 " Not at all, sir. In fact, I think I may 
 be permitted to say that, considering the 
 peculiar nature of the circumstances, and 
 the entire absence of any familiarity on 
 your part Avith the previous character and 
 habits of the party in question, it might, 
 upon the whole " 
 
 " Yes, yes, just so," said old Hiram, im- 
 patient of Mr. Ballinger's long paragraphs ; 
 " but it turned out all risrht. I've never
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. \) 
 
 had any call to repent it. Next morning 
 she made herself so handy about the place, 
 while Betsy said she didn't see but what 
 we might let her stop another day; and that 
 got to another, and another, and she fell 
 into the work, and behaved herself so well 
 that the end was, she stopped on with us 
 regular ; and when poor Betsy fell ill, a 
 month ago. Patch nursed her night and day 
 to her death ; and since then she's stopped 
 and done for me altogether, and I don't 
 know as I could better myself." 
 
 " Most remarkable, sir — quite a little 
 romance, and one which, so far, has eventu- 
 ated much more successfully than might 
 have been expected from the woman's un- 
 gainly appearance." 
 
 " Oh ! hang appearances ! I never care 
 anything about them. She's a good sort, is 
 Patch — a very good sort. I haven't a word 
 against her, except when there happens to be 
 anything going on in the music line, and then
 
 10 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 I'm blessed if I know what to make of her. 
 Why, at the last Festival here, she was like 
 a mad creature, shooting off to Cruxborough 
 all times of the day, and prowling about 
 round the hotels where the singers were 
 staying, and never any certainty when you'd 
 have your dinner, or whether you'd ever 
 get it at all. But I don't mind her being a 
 bit flighty now and then, if she goes on all 
 right between-whiles. What can you expect 
 from foreigners, you know ?" 
 
 " That depends. In my opinion it is 
 best to keep them at a judicious distance. 
 And may I ask, with regard to her name, 
 how she came to be provided with so singu- 
 lar an appellation ? " 
 
 *' Why, as to her name, she gets just 
 what a woman can claim, and that comes to 
 a third — doesn't it, Ballinger ?" said the old 
 man, chuckling at his own joke. *' Just a 
 third. She said it over to me a dozen times 
 before I could make either head or tail of it,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 11 
 
 and then at last she wrote it out on a piece 
 of paper — Paccioli, or something like that, 
 as near as I can remember. Of course I 
 wasn't going to put up with any such fan- 
 danglements about my premises. I hate a 
 name that sticks to your teeth like badly- 
 boiled toffee ; give me something that comes 
 out short and sharp, and you've done with 
 it. So I told her if she liked to be plain 
 Patch, she might ; and Patch she was, and 
 Patch she is, and Patch she will be to the 
 end of the chapter — and that's about all. 
 And now, BaUinger, there's a little matter I 
 want to talk over with you. Help yourself 
 to another glass first. There's plenty more 
 where that came from." 
 
 Mr. Ballinger's face assumed a blandly 
 cautious expression. He rubbed his hands, 
 bowed complacently, and leaned towards 
 his host with a smile of intense benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 *' My services are entirely at your com-
 
 12 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 ID and. In foct, ni}^ dear sir, I may say that 
 anything in the world I can do for you " 
 
 "Thank you — thank you. I suppose I 
 may call it a little matter of business ; and I 
 don't suppose anyone will see me through it 
 better than you will. It's those Monke- 
 stons, Ballinger, down at the Willow- 
 marshes, you know. I've been turning it 
 over in my own mind a good bit past ; I 
 would like to give them something of a lift." 
 
 " Exactly so, sir. A case of wasted op- 
 portunities — very w^asted opportunities." 
 
 " I daresay — likely enough. We've all 
 of us wasted a good many opportunities, one 
 way or another, in our time ; but that's 
 neither here nor there when it comes to a 
 matter of business. And, you know, there's 
 a kind of connection in the family. Old 
 Andrew Monkeston's cousin married a half 
 brother of one of my aunts — at least, if she 
 didn't marry him, he made her an offer. I 
 can't be sure if it ever came to a wedding.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 13 
 
 But it's a connection, anyway, and I like to 
 remember old times, Ballinger — I like to 
 remember old times." 
 
 " Precisely, sir, and your intentions are 
 most creditable ; in fact, I may be permitted 
 to say, highly commendable, the connection 
 between the two families beincy, as I mav 
 express it, so exceedingly hieroglyphic." 
 
 After Mr. Ballinger had got the word 
 out, he rather thought it ought to have been 
 '* apocryphal " ; but Mr. Armstrong seemed 
 to accept it as equally applicable, and went 
 cheerfully on — 
 
 " Yes, old times hadn't oudit to be for- 
 gotten. Ralph Monkeston's father and me 
 used to be very good friends. I don't mind 
 telling it to you, Ballinger, for you're not a 
 man that talks, but if it hadn't been for the 
 old farmer giving me a shove when I was 
 at the bottom of the ladder, I might have 
 been there now, Ballinger, — there nowT 
 
 " Indeed, sir. You don't really say so !"
 
 14 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 replied that worthy gentleman, with as 
 gracious an air of surprise as if he had not, 
 at least a dozen years ago, unearthed the 
 fact of Mr. Armstrong's obligation to the 
 wealthy old farmer of Willow marshes. 
 
 " Yes ; that's about it. You know Mar- 
 tinet's Bank, in High Street ? Thirty years 
 ago that bank was beginning to pay its way 
 tidily, and old Stives, the cattle-dealer, that 
 I'd done a good turn for, gave me the chance 
 of buying a dozen shares without premium. 
 You know he'd a deal to do with the banks, 
 had Stives — director, and all that sort of 
 thing; and I talked to Andrew Monkeston 
 about it, and he said it wasn't a chance to 
 be let go, and as I hadn't the cash to turn 
 to, he down with it there and then, and no 
 word of interest, only I was to pay it back 
 at my own convenience. I don't think the 
 fag-end of it ever did get paid off at all, for 
 it was up-hill work with me then, and I 
 wanted my ready money for the cattle-deal-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 15 
 
 ing, and I'm pretty sure old Monkeston let 
 me off the last fifty or so. But that was the 
 beginning of my luck, Ballinger, the begin- 
 ning of my luck. Little makes much, you 
 know, and much makes more, and the bank 
 kept getting on, and all that I could lay by 
 I put into it in shares ; and Fm not such a 
 fool as to go and talk about it to anyone, 
 but the original shareholders in that bank 
 get their five-and-twenty per cent, now." 
 
 *^ A most wonderfully satisfactory invest- 
 ment," said Mr. Ballinger, with a solemnity 
 worthy of the subject. 
 
 *• Ay, you're right there. And I've been 
 thinking it wouldn't be a bad way of clear- 
 ing off old scores if I did something now for 
 poor Ralph. He's about got to the end of 
 his tether, I fancy, and when a fellow's at 
 that length, strangling pretty often comes 
 next, if somebody don't give him a pull the 
 other way. Only, you see, Ballinger, Ralph's 
 a man that brings his ninepence to nothing,
 
 16 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 as sure as ever he lays his hands on it, and 
 if I gave hira a good round lumping sum 
 to-day, it would be in half the public-houses 
 in Cruxborough to-morrow." 
 
 '' Most likely, sir, most likely. A lament- 
 able fact." 
 
 "Yes. I might get over that maybe by 
 giving it to his wife instead, but Mrs. Monkes- 
 ton's a woman I never could abide, and 
 that's the plain English of it. She's over- 
 much given to speaking her mind, and a man 
 like me don't get on with that sort of thing, 
 Ballinger. Why, she came to me once, not 
 long after Monkeston began to go to the dogs, 
 
 and she told me to my face that I'd made 
 her husband love his glass, by asking hira 
 
 night after night to the ' Crown and 
 
 Cushion,' and drinking with him there. A 
 
 nice thing that, don't you call it, to fling in 
 
 a man's face ?" 
 
 " Most unjustifiable, my dear sir, but just 
 
 like the woman," said Mr. Ballinger, bowing 
 
 again.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 17 
 
 '^ I don't deny either but that there may 
 be a bit of truth in it. Ralph's a jolly fellow, 
 and I'd rather treat him to a glass than 
 drink half-a-dozen by myself; but a man 
 don't like to hear himself abused, reason or 
 no reason, and when he's always stood the 
 reckoning too, and maybe a night's lodging 
 into the bargain, for Ralph often came out 
 that shaky he'd have been in the djke fifty 
 times over, if I'd have let him go back to 
 Willowmarshes on his black mare, and the 
 road that dark you couldn't scarce see your 
 hand before your face. But I never got 
 any thanks from Mrs. Monkeston for it — 
 no, not if I'd kept him from breaking his 
 neck either, as I've done many a time, when 
 the mare's been skittish, and his temper 
 up with liquor, as I used to say to him, 
 * Ralph,' I used to say, ^ you stop with me 
 and we'll have another glass or two com- 
 fortable, and I'll give you a night's lodging, 
 and you'll sleep it off by morning ;' and then 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 she coming to me, and saying how she'd sat 
 up o' nights waiting for him. Well, and 
 hadn't she better sit up o' nights waiting for 
 him than have him brought home with his 
 neck broke ? — fill your glass again, Ballinger 
 — and he there with the farm going to rack 
 and ruin on his hands, as everyone says you 
 can scarce keep a pig upon it now, the land's 
 that good for nothing. No, Mrs. Monkeston's 
 a woman I can't abide, and she shan't have 
 the fingering of my money, w^hile I can help 
 it. 
 
 And Hiram took a long, deep draught of 
 the old port, and puffed away for a few 
 minutes in mute indignation. Mr. Ballinger, 
 filling his glass, replied blandly, 
 
 " I agree with you, sir, Mrs. Monkeston is 
 a woman who has always roused my an- 
 tagonism. Indeed, I think I may be per- 
 mitted to say that I seldom come into con- 
 tact with her without being deprived of my 
 temper."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 19 
 
 " I don't care what you're deprived of, 
 she shan't deprive me of a penny of my 
 money. I've got my purse in my pocket, 
 and I'll keep it there. But I'm willing to 
 do poor Ralph a turn, for all that, and that's 
 why I've sent for you. There's ten shares 
 in Martinet's Bank — an odd lot, as I bought 
 a year or two back, when old Stives died. 
 Now I'm wanting to have them shares trans- 
 ferred to you, and you'll give me an agree- 
 ment, signed, and all proper, to pay over 
 the interest of 'em, once a quarter or so, to 
 Ralph, as you see it'll help him on. He 
 was talking to me a bit since about the 
 little lad, as he would want putting to 
 boarding-school afore long; and thenthere'd 
 be binding him to something, and them 
 shares would about do it comfortable. It's 
 a fair thimz, Ballincrer — noudit but ridit. 
 I've thought many a time — not as Mrs. 
 Monkeston put me up to it, for I'd never let 
 a woman go meddling with me — but I've 
 
 c2
 
 20 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 thought maybe Ralph might have been a 
 steadier man if he'd never set eyes on me ; 
 and that isn't a nice thing for a man to feel ; 
 and I can't say but what it's laid awkward 
 upon me sometimes, when I've been set 
 quiet. " 
 
 " My dear sir, there is not the slightest 
 need for you to trouble yourself," and Mr. 
 Ballinger put the whole responsibility easily 
 away with a wave of his hand. Though 
 poor Ralph Monkeston was distantly con- 
 nected with himself, and though he had a 
 sort of family interest in his decent be- 
 haviour, still it was better to keep matters 
 quiet. Let the old man do as he liked 
 about the shares, but it w^as no use disturb- 
 ing the pleasant relations between them, by 
 allowing that anything had been done which 
 could call for reprobation, or even mild 
 reproof. " I assure you, if a man has the 
 disposition to go wrong, he will do it, quite 
 apart from any temptations which may be
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 21 
 
 presented to him in an external direction. I 
 believe I am justified in saying that there is 
 not the slightest need for you to criminate 
 yourself on the present occasion." 
 
 *' To what?" said old Armstrong, rubbing 
 his eyes, for the old port and the tobacco 
 smoke together had somewhat dimmed 
 them. "I can't get on with your fine 
 words ; but if you mean I don't need to 
 bother about it more than what the money 
 can cure, it's all right. And yet you know, 
 Ballinger, I've had many a glass with him — 
 ay, many and many a one, when, if it hadn't 
 been for me, he'd have been set at his own 
 fireside, maybe. However, that's neither 
 here nor there. It'll be a stone in the other 
 pocket if the little lad gets his schooling, and 
 is put apprentice and that ; and as for his sis- 
 ter, poor wench, why, no schooling can do 
 her much good. I reckon she'll have to 
 foot it pretty rough to the end of the chap- 
 ter, unless they can manage to put by a
 
 22 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 little for her, which doesn't seem very likely, 
 as things are going now. You'll see after 
 them shares then, Ballinger? " 
 
 " With pleasure," said Mr. Ballinger, 
 rising, for the old man seemed almost too 
 far gone to transact much more business. 
 " The necessary arrangements shall be en- 
 tered into forthwith ; and I will bring the 
 agreement, duly signed. After that I will 
 take upon myself the entire conduct of your 
 wishes." 
 
 " Ay, that's right. That's what I w^ant — 
 not to be bothered about it any more, you 
 know. And I don't want folks telling of it 
 neither, to set 'em talking. It's between 
 you and me, Ballinger, between you and me, 
 and nobody else has got nothing to do with 
 it. I never was a man to like other people 
 talking about what I did, or what I didn't 
 do ; and so the snugger you keep it the 
 better." 
 
 " Your wishes shall be attended to with
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 23 
 
 the utmost of my ability," said Mr. Ballinger, 
 courteously. 
 
 *' Ay. And when we've got the agree- 
 ment signed, I think I shall begin to trouble 
 you about that little property of mine which 
 wants squaring up for kingdom come, you 
 know. That nice little property, eh, Mr. 
 Ballinger ?" 
 
 And old Mr. Armstrong chuckled. Such 
 a nice little property indeed, of thirty or 
 forty thousand pounds, and all in such good 
 investments, too. 
 
 '' You are facetious, sir. But I shall be 
 ready to wait upon you at any time. I am 
 exceedingly glad that you see it advisable to 
 settle your affairs. I always recommend 
 testamentary precautions, especially in the 
 case of important effects. It saves immense 
 trouble and anxiety. You may rely upon 
 my services at any moment." 
 
 " Thank you. You won't have another 
 glass, will you ? It's a good sort, and plenty
 
 24 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 more where that came from. And maybe 
 week after next you'll look in, and we'll 
 begin to put things together. I don't mean 
 to forget yourself, Ballinger, for you've 
 done a tidy lot of business for me in your 
 time, and a friend's worth his price when 
 you know he's there. There's another odd 
 lot of shares in that bank of Martinet's as I 
 shouldn't mind. But I'm a bit sleepy to- 
 night ; I think you'd maybe best go, if 
 you're not in the mind for another glass." 
 
 Mr. Ballinger departed. Patch shut the 
 door after him with a contemptuous click, 
 which spoke volumes ; she had no fancy for 
 men who bowed, and salaamed, and always 
 said " Exactly so, my dear sir." 
 
 Mr. Hiram Armstrong had a couple more 
 glasses, which made him unusually com- 
 municative. When Patch came into the 
 room again he told her all about what he 
 had been doing, and the arrangement which 
 had been made for the benefit of Ralph
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 25 
 
 Monkeston. He also said that he intended 
 to remember her too ; but Patch had been 
 told that so often before that the prospect 
 had ceased to have any charms.
 
 26 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 I^f R. BALLINGER was not ill-pleased 
 ■^^-*- with the confidence reposed in hira. 
 He enjoyed being benevolent at other 
 people's expense, and he keenly appreciated 
 the authority which the office of almoner 
 would give him in Ralph Monkeston's 
 family. 
 
 Perhaps the old man was right ; there 
 might be an obligation on his part. When 
 a man who can drink his half-dozen glasses, 
 and stand steady after them, has well-nigh 
 ruined a shiftless scapegrace, whose one 
 tumbler of toddy has power to rouse the 
 demon within him, and send him home a 
 curse to his wife and family, it is only fitting 
 that the offender should appease his con-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 27 
 
 science by investing a trifling sum for the 
 benefit of the unfortunate children whose 
 natural protector he has taken away from 
 them, and whose prospects he has blasted ; 
 and if, with a certain soft-hearted shame- 
 facedness, not unnatural under the circum- 
 stances, he dislikes to clean the path which 
 his own footsteps have fouled, why, then, 
 let him dip just a little deeper into his well- 
 lined purse, and pay a scavenger to sweep 
 him a road to heaven through the mud of 
 his own self-indulgence. 
 
 So the transaction was completed, the 
 scrip transferred from old Hiram Arm- 
 strong's cash-box to the iron safe in Mr. 
 Ballinger's office, and the agreement drawn 
 up by which the latter engaged to pay a 
 certain proportion of interest quarterly, or 
 half-yearly, as the case might be, to Ralph 
 Monkeston, of Willowmarshes, for the relief 
 of his own immediate necessities, or the edu- 
 cation of his son.
 
 28 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Drawn up, but not yet signed, Mr. Bal- 
 linger was w^aiting for a spare evening to 
 step down to Wastewood with the document, 
 on which evening Mr. Armstrong was to 
 send for a couple of friends as witnesses to 
 the signature ; and a snug rubber, with a 
 few glasses of toddy after it, was to wind up 
 the agreement. 
 
 But before that spare evening came, death 
 knocked at the rich man's door. Old 
 Hiram Armstrong's gout went to his heart, 
 the easy trot of the pale horse quickened to 
 a gallop, and at a moment's notice Hiram 
 was hurried away, his will unmade, his 
 affairs unsettled, no disposition of his pro- 
 perty arranged, save that which, as we have 
 seen, had handed over the shares in Mar- 
 tinet's Bank to the proprietorship of Mr. 
 Ballinger. 
 
 Moreover, it so chanced that, within a 
 week of Hiram Armstrong's decease, Ralph 
 Monkeston, the frank, jovial, shiftless scape-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 29 
 
 grace, also departed this life — departed it, 
 as many of his friends had prophesied he 
 would, by falling into the dyke as he was 
 riding home one dark night on that skit- 
 tish mare whose propensities had often 
 given poor Hiram excuse for keeping her 
 jolly owner to an extra glass at Wastewood, 
 instead of letting him go to his waiting, 
 anxious-eyed wife at the Willowmarshes. 
 
 And now whose should those shares be, 
 which, without cost or payment of his, were 
 lying so safe in Nathan Ballinger's strong- 
 box? 
 
 Give them to the widow and children, 
 said Conscience, that great solemn voice 
 which, heeded or not, does always speak 
 above the chattering babble of self-interest 
 and policy. But Nathan Ballinger paused. 
 It was not well to do anything in a hurry, 
 he said to himself, as he looked over the 
 scrip, and the little scrap of paper — the 
 sole, mute record of his obligations to the
 
 30 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 dead and the living — which kept him from 
 its honest possession. 
 
 Then, passing the paper slowly through 
 his irresolute fingers, he took counsel with 
 himself. Old Armstrong disliked Mrs. 
 Monkeston ; made no secret of his dislike ; 
 had said she should never have the handling 
 of his money. Any claim of hers, then, to 
 it might safely be set aside — nay, more than 
 safely — that was not the word; it might 
 justly be set aside. Nay, again, Mr. Ballin- 
 ger might say that in strict justice Mrs. 
 Monkeston ought not to have the money. 
 
 If, then, Ralph Monkeston were ignorant 
 of the transaction — and most likely he was, 
 but that must be found out — what need was 
 there that he, Nathan Ballinger, should say 
 anything more about that slip of paper, or 
 the obligation to which it bound him ? 
 
 Mrs. Monkeston was a stern, independent, 
 self-reliant woman, intolerant of help and 
 authority. She would almost rather be with-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 31 
 
 out money than receive it through his hands. 
 Would it not, then, really, after all, be bet- 
 ter, more to the interest of the children, and 
 therefore more according to the wish of his 
 respected client, Mr. Armstrong, if, instead 
 of paying down the money by these humili- 
 ating instalments — and Mrs. Monkeston was 
 a woman whose whole soul would rebel 
 against " instalments " — he were to destroy 
 the agreement, keep the shares in his own 
 possession, and, as a compensation for them, 
 give the widow what professional advice she 
 needed in her present extremity, look after 
 placing the little girl in an orphanage, and, 
 in the course of a year or two, take the boy 
 into his own office, and so give him a fair 
 start in life ? 
 
 Really, when Mr. BaUinger came to think 
 the matter over, that seemed to be the best 
 way of settling it. AVhy, the mere fact of 
 taking the boy into his office without pre- 
 mium, or at the rpost a trifling consideration
 
 32 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 of a few pounds, which Mrs. Monkeston could 
 easily raise on the farm, would more than 
 wipe off the sum which he was appropriating ; 
 and then there would be the professional 
 services, and the advice, and all the rest of 
 it, as a free gift to the widow. Mr. Ballinger 
 thought, on the whole, he was rather a gene- 
 rous man than otherwise. And then there 
 was this to be said — that, in any case, Mr. 
 Ballinger would have been expected to do 
 something for the family. Being trustee 
 under old Andrew Monkeston's will, and con- 
 nected with him by a relationship much less 
 apocryphal than that which partly instigat- 
 ed Hiram Amstrong's act of reparation, his 
 wife being niece to Andrew, and therefore 
 cousin to Ralph, people would naturally 
 look to him to stand by the family, and help 
 to keep Mrs. Monkeston on her feet in some 
 respectable way, until she was able to turn 
 round for herself Therefore, since, under any 
 circumstances, he must do something, how
 
 THE BLUE KIBBON. 33 
 
 much better it was that he should be able to 
 pay himself for that something, whatever it 
 might be, out of this definite, tangible sum of 
 money, which seemed to haye come into his 
 hands for the very purpose ? He would thus 
 be saved from loss — for really, when he 
 came to think about it, a professional man's 
 time was his money, and Ralph's affairs 
 would take a deal of winding up — he would 
 be able to give much more time to Mrs. 
 Monkeston's relief than he could possibly have 
 afforded if the services had been purely gra- 
 tuitous, and he would preserve his reputation 
 as a thoroughly benevolent, painstaking, reli- 
 able friend of the family, a true succourer 
 of the widow and orphan, a man who, under 
 any circumstances, was ready to do his duty 
 by coming generously to the help of those 
 whom a mysteriously-disposing Providence 
 had placed in a position to need his bounty. 
 Mr. Ballinger, however, would not burn 
 that agreement until he knew for certain 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 that it had never been mentioned, except 
 between himself and Hiram Armstrong ; so 
 he put it back into his strong box, and went 
 over, meanwhile, to the Willowmarshes, to 
 consult with Mrs. Monkeston about the ar- 
 rangements for Ralph's funeral. 
 
 i
 
 35 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 rriHE funeral was over, so, also, was the 
 -*- solemn conclave of eating wherewith 
 English people, for the most part, signalize 
 the burial of their dead ; and now Mr. Bal- 
 raain, Ralph Monkeston's doctor, and Mr. 
 Ballinger, were driving home in the doctor's 
 stylish little trap, beguiling the time with 
 those brisk, cheerful dashes of conversation 
 which never seem so welcome as when they 
 may be indulged in by unconcerned specta- 
 tors of the tedious ceremonials of death. 
 
 " But, by the way, doctor," said Mr. 
 Ballinger, suddenly giving the dialogue a 
 more practical turn, " you don't happen to 
 know, I suppose, if poor Monkeston had 
 any idea of being helped out of his difficul- 
 
 d2
 
 36 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 ties ? Of course you could not have come 
 much into communication with him without 
 perceiving that his affairs were in a some- 
 what embarrassed condition ; but possibly 
 he may have had some hope of extricating 
 himself by means of rich friends. You 
 know he had one or two very good friends 
 in Cruxborough." 
 
 Mr. Balmain, a jolly, cheerful man, whose 
 digestion apparently did its office upon fune- 
 ral baked meats as readily as upon those 
 which had the brightest of wedding blessings 
 said over them, looked with a somewhat 
 puzzled air at the lawyer. That Mr. Bal- 
 linger, who was well known to have the 
 private affairs of Cruxborough at his fingers' 
 end, should need to make inquiry respecting 
 the pecuniary position of his own cousin, 
 seemed rather strange. And besides, in a 
 general way, Mr. Ballinger never asked 
 questions about anybody. But just now he 
 was so intently employed in trying to hit
 
 THE BLUE EIBBON. 37 
 
 with his whip a fly which had settled on the 
 mare's neck, that he did not see the look of 
 surprise, and could not, therefore, be ex- 
 pected to take any notice of it. 
 
 *' Not that I know of," said the doctor. 
 *' I always fought shy of money matters 
 with poor Monkeston. I never knew but 
 that he might come down upon me with a 
 request for an odd fifty or so, if I asked 
 any questions about that sort of thing. It's 
 rather risky, you know, being too confiden- 
 tial with fellows who are so hard up as he 
 generally was." 
 
 ** Precisely," said Mr. Ballinger, still 
 switching at the fly; 'MDut yet I thought, 
 perhaps — old Armstrong, you know." 
 
 '* Oh ! yes, old Armstrong — exactly, the 
 rich old fellow who died ]ast week. Won- 
 der who'll get all that fine property of his ? 
 No, I don't fancy Monkeston had any notion 
 of being helped out in that quarter. You 
 see, Armstrong wasn't a man to make ducks
 
 38 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 and drakes of his money, and that's pretty 
 much what it would have come to in Monkes- 
 ton's hands. Indeed, now I come to think 
 about it, the poor fellow told me himself, 
 only the last time I went over to smoke a 
 cigar with him, that he didn't know what 
 would become of him ; he hadn't a leg to 
 stand on, either of his own or anyone else's, 
 and he wouldn't have said that if he'd had 
 any idea of Armstrong coming forward. Of 
 course I shifted the conversation as soon as 
 I could after that, for it was getting on to 
 dangerous ground ; but things had come to 
 an awkward pass, hadn't they, for him to 
 say it ?" 
 
 Mr. Ballinger whistled cheerfully to the 
 mare, and gave himself a brisk shake of 
 general adjustment, as if, looked at from his 
 point of view, the situation was not by any 
 means so awkward as it appeared to Mr. 
 Balmain. 
 
 " It isn't clear to me," continued that
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 39 
 
 gentleman, " whether the state of his aifairs 
 hadn't something to do with his being picked 
 up out of that dyke. Of course it wasn't 
 for me to say anything about it at the in- 
 quest ; it makes things so uncomfortable for 
 the friends when a verdict of suicide is 
 brought in. It had much better be sup- 
 posed that the mare pitched him in, even if 
 he happened to be the worse for drink at 
 the time, than that he walked himself in, 
 out of sheer desperation. But between you 
 and me, Mr. Ballinger, that's what I think 
 it was." 
 
 Still Mr. Ballinger made no reply, and 
 soon afterwards the conversation resumed 
 its former cheeriness. 
 
 Meanwhile the village children loitered 
 in the churchyard, looking at the newly- 
 made mound there, and stooping over 
 sometimes to touch a wreath of flowers 
 which the widow had laid upon it. Little 
 knots of people gathered at their doors to
 
 40 THE BLUE KIBBON. 
 
 talk over the funeral, and others clustered 
 on the village green, whence could be 
 seen, scarce a stone's throw away, the so 
 lately death-visited house. It was a low, 
 rambling, irregularly-built farmstead, stand- 
 ing back from the road, having on one side 
 an empty stack-yard, a wagon hovel with no 
 wagons in it, an implement-shed, containing 
 nothing but a few bundles of faggots, and a 
 fold -yard, in which two or three vagrant 
 pigs wandered disconsolately about ; evi- 
 dently not a place that was paying its way 
 in the world, as well-to-do farmers from 
 neighbouring villages said, passing it on their 
 road to Cruxborough market. 
 
 Behind the house a grassy plot sloped 
 down to the River Yelland, a sluggish stream, 
 which scarce stirred the flag-leaves and 
 water-weeds along its course, and which 
 seemed to have imparted its own laziness to 
 the shoals of minnow and pike which in- 
 habited it, for they shifted themselves quietly
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 41 
 
 alonpf from shallow to shallow in the most 
 leisurely manner possible, and made an 
 occasional dart at a stray fly, as if it were 
 not of the slightest consequence whether he 
 accepted the attention or not. Two tall 
 poplars, clothed down to their very roots 
 with green branches, stood at the bot- 
 tom of the garden, and between them a 
 flight of steps, worn, damp, and mossy, led 
 to the water. On the bottom step a 
 matronly-looking grey cat sat watching the 
 fishes as they floated along just under the 
 surface, putting down her paw now and then, 
 in the quite vain hope of catching one, and 
 then, with a comically disgusted expression 
 of face, drawing it back, shaking it, and 
 folding it neatly under her, until another 
 lazy shoal beguiled her into trying again. 
 
 Two children, a boy and a girl, sat on the 
 step above, fishing with a bit of string and a 
 crooked pin, — fishing, too, with about as 
 much success as pussy, except that they
 
 42 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 appeared to gain more amusement from the 
 performance. The lad, Roger Monkeston, 
 was a handsome little fellow of ten or 
 twelve, with thick, tumbling locks of black 
 hair, and a pair of honest blue eyes, looking 
 forth from a healthy, sunburnt face. Jean, his 
 sister, was three years younger, a pale, puny, 
 under-grown child, with a disproportionately 
 large head, and a tower of forehead, which 
 seemed as if it would one day topple over 
 and crush the wasted little features under it. 
 One look into that face, with its strange, 
 unnatural expression of mingled wisdom, 
 quaintness, and suffering, was enough to tell 
 that nature, or what men miscall chance, had 
 laid upon Jean Monkeston the heavy burden 
 of deformity ; that the sorest cross a woman 
 can bear, that of being an object of pity in- 
 stead of love, was hers to carry until the 
 sweet soul within, released by death, found 
 a more shapely dwelling-place. 
 
 But such cross had in no wise pressed
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 43 
 
 heavily upon the child as yet. She had 
 found small need of pity, nor been much 
 burdened by it ; her great brown eyes were 
 lighted up with eager interest, her little 
 face was one pathetically ugly smile, as, 
 with her new black frock carefully pinned 
 up round her, and a holland pinafore tied 
 over it, she crouched by her brother's side 
 on the mossy steps, watching the minnows 
 glide lazily along, and from time to time 
 making a dive for them, after pussy's fashion. 
 
 *' I've caught one at last," she said trium- 
 phantly, as a fine fat fellow steered right 
 into the trap of her bony little fingers. 
 " Oh ! how funny he does feel !" 
 
 *' Let me see. Oh ! you stupid, you've 
 let him go again ! What for did you do 
 that?" 
 
 " I didn't let him go, Roger, he went 
 of his own accord, and I couldn't hold him 
 very fast, for fear of hurting him. But I 
 don't want to fish any more now."
 
 44 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 " And I don't either," said Roger. '' You 
 don't get on fast enough. Let's go to the 
 waterfall and make a raill. I learned about 
 it in my Natural Philosophy last day I was 
 at school, and it's as easy as can be, if only 
 you have the water. Come along." 
 
 Whilst the children were amusing them- 
 selves and enjoying the unwonted freedom 
 which had been procured for them by what 
 might be called the melancholy incident of 
 the day, Gurtha, the maid-of-all-work, a 
 rough, broad-shouldered, loud-spoken York- 
 shire las3, stood behind her tub at the back- 
 kitchen door, washing up the things which 
 had been used at the funeral feast, and 
 handing them over to Mrs. Bratchet, a come- 
 ly-looking widow woman, who dried and 
 packed them away in piles. Mrs. Bratchet 
 belonged to Cruxborough, and was by oc- 
 cupation a washerwoman, but many years 
 ago she had been a servant in the Monkeston 
 family, and always now, when there was a
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 45 
 
 press of work, she came over to help at 
 the Willowmarshes farra. 
 
 " You'll have to make up a dozen and a 
 half of them best pudding plates, Mrs. Bratch- 
 et," said Gurtha ; " they're best counted 
 afore you put 'em back into the store-closet, 
 and four and twenty meats, and this here that 
 I've got in my hand makes six tureens. My ! 
 but this is a washing up, and no mistake !" 
 
 " Yes," replied the widow cheerily ; " but 
 I never grudge any trouble when I'm wash- 
 ing after a funeral. Poor man ! he couldn't 
 ha' been better done to, if he'd been the 
 squire of the parish. The missis '11 have it 
 to think of to her dying day, that she did 
 everything for him as was proper. I always 
 says bury 'em respectable, let 'em be what 
 they may, for it's the last thing you can do 
 for 'em ; and when you've done it, there's an 
 end. By what I've heard tel], he wasn't much 
 good though, and I'm afeard he hasn't left 
 the missis a deal to turn round with."
 
 46 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 ^' I don't know ;" and Gurtha put a fresh 
 pile of plates into the tub; "that isn't my 
 look-out. Thins^s has been shifting off tho 
 farm this two year past, while there's scarce 
 enough left on it to feed a pig ; but where 
 the missis goes, I mean to go, wage or no 
 wage. I'd rather serve her for nought than 
 hire out to a fresh place, and her doing her 
 own work, as was never brought up to it." 
 
 " You'll never serve one of the Lord's ser- 
 vants for nouQ^ht," said Mrs. Bratchet, sen- 
 tentiously ; " there's a blessing comes with 
 it, more 'n silver and gold, and I'd do the 
 same for Mrs. Monkeston, myself — ay, that 
 I would, over and over, afore I'd see her 
 want. And the poor little maid yonder — 
 bless her ! it'll be hard lines for her, I reck- 
 on. The world's roudi enous-h for them as 
 has to start with a leg tied up, as you may 
 say. Was it a accident, do you know, did 
 it?" 
 
 '• Ay, most like," replied Gurtha ; " and
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 47 
 
 thirteen plates makes four and twenty, and 
 then there's the sauce-boats, all ready. I 
 think I'll get 'em off to bed first, though ; 
 you never know where you are whilst there's 
 childer about amongst the work." 
 
 And with that, Gurtha, who evidently did 
 not wish to go further into the subject of 
 poor little Jean's affliction, went off to look 
 for the children. 
 
 " Hallo there !" she shouted, as she caught 
 siofht of them dabblinsr about at the water- 
 fall. ^' Come your ways in, both of you, 
 and have your supperses, and go to bed like 
 good bairns." 
 
 '' Go to bed !" cried Roger, disdainfully, 
 climbing down the bank, to scoop out ano- 
 ther handful of clay for his dam. " Go to 
 bed? — I should think not, it isn't half-past 
 six yet." 
 
 " It's time for the likes o' you to clear 
 out o' my way, anyhow. It's been going 
 on for seven this long while past."
 
 48 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 ''Don't you go, Jean," said Roger to his 
 sister, who was unpinning her black frock, 
 and preparing to trot away, like a good little 
 girl; " Gurty's cheating us. I say, Gurtha." 
 And he raised his voice in the direction of 
 the stalwart damsel. " You're telling a 
 story. The shadow of this big poplar there 
 gets round to Stack's mill exactly at half- 
 past six on Midsummer day, and this is Mid- 
 summer day, and it isn't nearly there yet. 
 Going on for seven, indeed ! — it's going on 
 for no such thing." 
 
 " Did ever anyone hear the likes of that 
 boy?" said Gurtha to herself; "he's alius 
 a reason at his tongue end, catch him where 
 you will. I could come round over many a 
 grown man better nor what I can with him. 
 To think, now, that he should have telled 
 me what o'clock by the shadder of them 
 there trees ! I made sure I had him fast, 
 for I put the kitchen clock forrard on pur- 
 pose."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 49 
 
 *• Well, well, come your ways," she con- 
 tinued, with a perceptible diminution of 
 authority in her manner, for she had been 
 over-matched — '^ come your ways in ; it's a 
 throng night, and I want the house clear. 
 You shall have summut nice for your sup- 
 perses if you come right off." 
 
 The last appeal had the desired effect. 
 Down went the handful of clay, which, if 
 Gurtha had persisted in her '' story," would 
 have been hurled at her ; aud Roger came 
 tumbling head over heels to the back-kitchen 
 door, leaving Jean to follow at a steadier 
 pace. 
 
 " What have you got for us, Gurtha ?" 
 
 ** Come your ways in and see," quoth the 
 maid, and pointed with a soup-ladle in her 
 hand to the half-open door of the larder. 
 
 A goodly sight indeed — enough to make 
 any little boy hold his breath in respectful 
 astonishment. Segments of blanc-raange 
 hemispheres, defaced pyramids of sponge 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 cake, towers of translucent jelly, with their 
 keeps and battlements overthrown, wedges 
 of plum-pudding, slowly assuming the rigid- 
 ity of coldness ; open tarts, with sugary 
 tops ; partly excavated pies, revealing un- 
 derneath thin toppling crusts, mines of de- 
 licious treasure ; besides sundry small ware 
 of little cakes and biscuits, which, in pre- 
 sence of the more substantial realities, seem- 
 ed scarcely worth mentioning, though at 
 any other time they would have been 
 enough to justify the most hasty retreat 
 from mill-building and dam-constructing. 
 
 '' What a jolly turn-out !" said the child, 
 apparently not realizing that his father's 
 burial-feast had furnished the materials of 
 the unwonted display. " Don't they look 
 good?" he continued to Jean, who had 
 come up meanwhile, and was peeping over 
 his shoulder. " Which of it shall we have, 
 I wonder ? I should like some of that 
 white stuff, with the pink sugar over it.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 51 
 
 May we have some of the white stuff, 
 Gurtha ?" 
 
 " White stuff, indeed !" said Gurtha, fetch- 
 ing plates and spoons. ^' It's isinglass bo- 
 longe ; and a pretty bother I had to make 
 it, too, with the sun broiling down. It had 
 to be put in a pan of cold water to set, and 
 me standing over it, driving off the chickens 
 all the time, so as they shouldn't peck it. 
 Only Mrs. Bratchet said it was the proper 
 thing for a funeral ; and I'd made up my 
 niind that your poor pa should have every- 
 thing as was proper. I don't see, though, 
 but what I may as well let you have a bit 
 on it." And Gurtha, who was still feeling 
 slightly humiliated about that shadow of the 
 poplar, and anxious to make up for her 
 little deviation from the path of strict recti- 
 tude, divided the '' bolonge " into two por- 
 tions ; and then, by way of fully expiating 
 her offence, added a shaving of clear golden- 
 coloured jelly to each, and told the children 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 to go out on the grass-plot with it, and be 
 quick, for she wanted them off to bed before 
 she took the crockery away. 
 
 But Gurtha had little knowledge of child- 
 nature if she expected Roger and Jean 
 Monkeston to be in any hurry over the treat 
 she had placed before them. As if children, 
 with the faintest rose-tinge of poetic feeling 
 about them, or the mildest fibre of sensi- 
 bility, ever did make haste over such deli- 
 cacies as only fall to their share at funerals 
 or wedding feasts ; as if the morsel of cake 
 were not disintegrated plum by plum, with 
 a leisureness comparable only to the almost 
 imperceptible encroachments of the tooth of 
 time ; as if the biscuit were not nibbled into 
 the quaintest devices, and made to assume 
 almost as many shapes as the bits of glass in 
 a kaleidoscope, thus adding the loftier de- 
 lights of imagination and design to the lower 
 gratification of gastronomic tastes, and feed- 
 ing the noble artistic faculty, even whilst
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 53 
 
 the joys of actual possession translate them- 
 selves slowly into that of memory. The 
 child who demolishes with incontinent speed 
 his portion of birthday-cake or Christmas- 
 pudding, lacks all the elements of spiritual 
 beauty. In after-life he will attack with 
 equal rapacity the subtler delicacies of that 
 period, and sweep off his manhood's portion 
 with vulgar haste — so missing all the sweet, 
 long-drawn-out delight of meditation and 
 analysis, and turning the grand artistic ban- 
 quet of life into a mere pot-house feast. No, 
 there is to a thoughtful mind something 
 wonderfully suggestive in that lingering 
 leisureliness wherewith a child, whose tastes 
 are of the nobler sort, expatiates over his 
 little supper slice, looks at it, as it were, 
 from a thousand points of view, and makes 
 it yield to him a world of enjoyment in 
 imagination, ere he accepts it in its material 
 form. 
 
 So Roger and Jean Monkeston, squatting
 
 54 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 side by side on the grass plot at the back- 
 kitchen door, accomplished the demolition 
 of their " bolonge " by the smallest possible 
 stages; and, moreover, raadeitminister to their 
 ingenious fancy by cutting it into all sorts of 
 shapes before allowing it to fulfil its other, 
 and now quite secondary, function of satisfy- 
 ing their appetites. Jean cut hers into thin 
 slices, and notched them with her spoon 
 into an imitation of the fret-work on the 
 west front of Cruxborough Minster; then 
 she made a Gothic window, piercing out the 
 lights with her thimble, and some battle- 
 ments over it, and a spire surmounting all. 
 But the plate ending about half-way up the 
 spire, the remainder of the design had to be 
 carried out on her pinafore, which produced 
 a second declamation from Gurtha. 
 
 A still more brilliant idea struck Roger. 
 About a fortnight before, old Dr. Boniface, 
 the Vicar of Willowmarshes, with whom the 
 little lad was a great favourite, had taken
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 55 
 
 him over to an astronomical lecture at Crux- 
 borough, where the various phenomena of 
 the solar system had been illustrated by 
 magic-lantern slides. Since then the boy's 
 imagination had been full of planets, sate- 
 lites, comets, nebulse, and the like ; and 
 what so delightful now as to cut his blanc- 
 mange into a solar system, and cover his 
 plate with isinglass planets, ranged in proper 
 sizes and positions, with a monstrous comet 
 dashing in amongst them, as per diagram ; 
 and the more so as the very pattern of his 
 plate lent its aid to such a flight of fancy, 
 being a white ground, with five blue con- 
 centric rings upon it, answering admirably, 
 if only there had been a few more of them, 
 to the requirements of the primary planets. 
 And Jean's thimble, when she did not want 
 it to pierce lights in her Gothic windows, was 
 the very thing to shape out Mercury, Venus, 
 the Earth, Mars, and the rest of the heavenly 
 bodies. So Roger set to work, and pre-
 
 56 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 sently no astronomer-royal, poring over 
 calculations which are to hand his name 
 down to posterity, could have been more 
 absorbed in his task than was the little vil- 
 lage lad in his blanc-mange universe. 
 
 But Gurtha could not stand that sort of 
 thing any longer. After various little attacks 
 of sharp-shooting, directed towards the un- 
 conscious children, she came down with a 
 fierce cannonade upon the young astronomer, 
 as he was attempting to deposit a somewhat 
 flabby and unmanageable Jupiter in its 
 proper orbit, and investing herself for the 
 time with even more than the force of Jove's 
 thunderbolts, she seized a dish-cloth, and 
 swept the solar system into dire confusion 
 therewith. 
 
 '' A plague on your tricks, I'll have no 
 more of 'em ! Get away to bed, will you, 
 both of you, and finish your supperses right 
 off. If I'd known what you were going to 
 be after, I'd have given you nought but a
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 57 
 
 bite o' seed-bread as was spared from last 
 baking, i'stead of that stuff to go messing 
 and mauling. Side it out at once, will you, 
 or I'll give it to the pigs, as sure as you're 
 alive." 
 
 Thus rebuked, Roger put Jupiter into his 
 mouth, instead of into its orbit. Saturn 
 followed, and Herschel, and a spoonful of 
 moons. Then, hastily demolishing the chaos 
 lump out of which other worlds were to 
 have been made, he returned the plate, now 
 representing empty space, to Gurtha, and 
 disappeared, followed by Jean, who had 
 meanwhile swallowed a whole row of arches 
 and a cathedral spire. 
 
 "There now, be off quick!" shouted 
 Gurtha ; '' and don't forget to go and say 
 good night to your mother." 
 
 The children hurried away, glad to be out 
 of the reach of Gurtha's noisy tongue, which 
 was always to be dreaded on busy days, and 
 ran through the front kitchen and passage, to
 
 58 THE BLUE RIBBON". 
 
 a door at the other end of the house, 
 which they pushed open, and then paused 
 for awhile, as if surprised, before they went 
 further. 
 
 Their mother, a quiet, rather grave-look- 
 ing woman, in widow's weeds, was sitting in 
 the room by a lattice window which looked 
 out into the back-garden. Her spinning- 
 wheel was at her side ; mechanically she 
 turned it, dipping her fingers from time to 
 time into a saucer of water to wet the thread. 
 But her face had a musing, absorbed expres- 
 sion, far enough away from the mere hand- 
 labour with which she was occupying herself. 
 
 " Come in, little ones," she said, seeing 
 them stand there irresolutely. 
 
 They came forward, looking curiously at 
 her, and then at each other. 
 
 " Gurtha said it was time to go to bed, 
 and she gave us some blanc-raange for sup- 
 per, and told us to come and say good night 
 to you."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 59-' 
 
 '^ Yes, you had better go. Poor Gurtha 
 has had a hard day. I daresay she wants 
 4o have the house quiet. Don't give her 
 any more trouble than you can help." 
 
 *' No, mother." And Roger, who was at 
 her side, now laid his rough brown little 
 hand w^ith a caressing touch upon his mo- 
 ther's shoulder. " But, mother " 
 
 " Well, what is it, Roger ?" she said, still 
 mechanically working on at her wheel. 
 
 " How queer you look, mother ! — what a 
 funny cap yon have got on, and your hair 
 all out of sight I I never saw you look like 
 that before ; it isn't pretty. Do you have it 
 so because father is dead ?" 
 
 " Yes, my child. You will get accustom- 
 ed to it by-and-by, for I shall never wear 
 any other now ; and then, perhaps, you will 
 like it better." 
 
 "Never at all, mother?" 
 
 " Never at all !" said Mrs. Monkeston, 
 drawing Jean nearer to her, and arranging
 
 60 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 the folds of her new black stuff dress. 
 " And now, good night. I must be alone." 
 
 " Shan't we sin or you our hvmn first, 
 mother ?" asked Jean, glancing timidly into 
 that grave, musing face. 
 
 " Ah ! yes. I had forgotten the hymn ; 
 sing it now." 
 
 Roger straightened himself, threw out his 
 chest, and then, in a firm, clear, boyish 
 treble, began to sing the Evening Hymn. 
 He had a fine voice, and was the pride of 
 the village choir, where he helped Dr. 
 Boniface's daughter to lead the singing. 
 Jean put in a low contralto, which made 
 sweet music with her brother's more ring- 
 ing tones. When they had finished, their 
 mother drew them to her and kissed them. 
 
 ^' Now go to bed quietly, and by-and-by 
 I'll come and hear your prayers." 
 
 " All right, mother," said Roger, briskly, 
 and went away, followed slowly by the 
 little hunchback Jean, on whom Mrs.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 61 
 
 Monkeston's gaze now rested with a linger- 
 ing wistfulness. So slowly, with such feeble, 
 faltering steps, she must follow all through 
 life. 
 
 The bedrooms which the children occu- 
 pied opened into each other, and were at 
 the end of a long passage in the western 
 gable of the house. No light reached this 
 landing, except through the door of Roger's 
 room, which was pierced in its upper panel 
 with a round hole, surrounded by eight 
 smaller ones. The low light of the evening 
 sun, falling on this door, passed in long 
 shafts of rays through these holes, and 
 rested in as many round bright patches on 
 the opposite wall. Roger came to a full 
 stop when he saw it. 
 
 " Oh ! how jolly 1 I say, Jean, it's just 
 like the magic lantern at the lecture, where 
 the man told us about the seasons. There's 
 the sun in the middle, and the little balls 
 round for the earth. Let's play at having a
 
 62 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 lecture ; it's such capital fun, and you shall 
 be the people, except — oh! what a bother! — 
 there only ought to be four little balls for 
 the four seasons, and that stupid door's got 
 eight in it What shall we do ? We can't 
 play, after all." And Roger looked so dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 " Couldn't we block up some of them ?" 
 suggested Jean, whose intellect, if not so 
 searching as her brother's, was of a more 
 practical turn. 
 
 " So we could, only Gurtha's in such a 
 bad temper, she wouldn't give us anything 
 to block them with, and mamma said she 
 must be alone. I know ; I've got my pocket- 
 handkerchief, and you've got yours too ; 
 we'll tear them in two, and that'll just stop 
 the four holes." 
 
 " But what will Gurtha say when they 
 go into the wash ?" urged Jean. 
 
 "Oh! bother Gurtha! — she's always com- 
 ing in the road ; we can't stop to think about
 
 THE BLUE KIBBON. 63 
 
 her ; and besides, you know, we must block 
 them up with something, or we can't get 
 on." And in half a minute Roger had riven 
 the handkerchiefs into four portions, which 
 he stuffed into four of the holes, and then, 
 darting into his room, and pulling the lath 
 out of the blind, he came back triumphantly, 
 and began his lecture. 
 
 '^ Ladies and gentlemen, this diagram 
 represents the phenomena of the seasons. 
 
 You will observe Oh ! and, Jean, what 
 
 do you think?" he continued, dropping sud- 
 denly into the colloquial style, " what do 
 you think ? He says the moon is full of 
 hills and valleys, just like our own earth, 
 and with Lord Rosse's telescope — that's an 
 immense big one, you know — you can see 
 them as plain as can be ; and when the sun 
 rises, the tops of them get it first, like little 
 bits and drops of gold. My ! Jean, wouldn't 
 you like to see it ?" 
 
 " Yes, perhaps," said Jean, propping up
 
 64 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 her wear}^ little back against the wall. " But 
 please go on lecturing." 
 
 '' Oh ! that's lecture, all the same, only I 
 don't say it just like the man did. But, 
 Jean, look at the diagram ; it's gone ever so 
 much nearer the top of the wall. What 
 ever makes it move up like that? I won- 
 der if I could find it out in my ' Natural 
 Philosophy.' " 
 
 "■ Bother your philosophy ! Will you 
 ever get away to bed, then, both of you ?" 
 sln)uted the ubiquitous Gurtha, appearing 
 suddenly on the scene with her dish-cloth. 
 "Did ever anybody see the likes? — and 
 going on for eight o'clock, as it's been this 
 ever so long past ! You shall never have a 
 bit of bolonge again for your supperses — no, 
 that vou shan't — as lonor as the breath goes 
 
 ./ DO 
 
 up and down in my body, you shan't !" 
 
 " You shut up there, Gurtha," said Roger, 
 bursting open the door of his room ; where- 
 upon the diagram suddenly disappeared,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 65 
 
 and rushing to the window, which com- 
 manded a prospect of that terribly truth- 
 speaking gnomon, the poplar-tree. " There's 
 the shadow, and it's only a very little 
 bit " 
 
 " A plague upon your poplar-trees !" 
 stormed Gurtha, stamping with impotent 
 vexation. " You piece of imperence, you ! 
 — you good-for-nothing young vagabond ! 
 And after that bolonge, as you couldn't 
 have had it better — no, not if you'd been 
 a born prince hisself. I'll teach you to 
 sauce me, with your sh adders and such 
 like rubbish ! Get away with you this 
 minute, do, and if I have to come and speak 
 to you again I'll give you summut as '11 make 
 you remember it, see if I won't — yes, if 
 you'd all the poplarses in Willowmarshes to 
 stuff down my throat !" 
 
 *' Oh ! Gurtha," pleaded little Jean, " don't 
 be so cross ; he was only giving me a lecture 
 about astronomy." 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 " Lecture, indeed !" said Gurtha, with 
 magnificent contempt. " It's himself wants 
 it ; and such argyments at his tongue end, 
 while he'd persuade you black was white 
 afore your very eyes. I never see his like 
 for giving an answer back again. He'll 
 come to no good with it, see if he won't. 
 Get away to bed, both of you, or you'll not 
 get a bite of anything for your supperses to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Roger went into his room, calmly tri- 
 umphant. Going to bed was a duty, but the 
 shadow of the poplar-tree was a fact, and 
 there was the confidence of a little Galileo 
 in his face as he began pulling off his jacket. 
 
 "Help me, Gurtha — I'm so tired," said 
 Jean, stretching out her lean, bony arms as 
 she propped herself against the banisters. 
 
 "Ay, that will I!" And Gurtha raised 
 the little cripple in her sturdy grasp, a quick 
 change coming over both face and voice as 
 she carried her into the bedroom. "It's
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 67 
 
 tired 3^ou'll be right on to the end of the 
 chapter, I warrant. Eh, honey, but if he 
 knowed it he'd none rattle on that way, not 
 him ! 1 don't know but what it might do 
 him good sometimes to give him a bit of a 
 check, only the missis sets herself against 
 it. He'll have to face it some of these days, 
 though." 
 
 '' Face what, Gurtha ?" 
 
 '' Never heed, honey, never heed ; I was 
 only a-talking to myself It's a way I've 
 got with living maid-of-all-work where there 
 isn't another kept." 
 
 And Gurtha bustled about, and never 
 spoke another word until the little cripple 
 was safe in bed. 
 
 As the twilight began to fall, Mrs. Monkes- 
 ton came up. She heard Jean's prayers 
 first, kissed the wan, worn little face, and 
 then passed on to the other room, where 
 her eldest-born, Roger, strong, bold, hand- 
 some as a young Hercules, lay fidgeting and 
 
 r2
 
 68 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 tumbling on his bed. She knelt beside him 
 whilst he said his simple prayer ; it was soon 
 over ; then he unclasped his hands, and look- 
 ed up for the usual good-night kiss. 
 
 " But, Roger, you haven't asked God to 
 forgive you for any wrong you may have 
 done." 
 
 " No, mother," said the boy, thoughtfully 
 and seriously. " I don't know that I've 
 done anything wrong to-day. I don't need 
 to ask God to forgive me." 
 
 Mrs. Monkeston was a wise woman. She 
 did not at once, with the sharp scythe of 
 doctrinal reproof, mow down this little 
 shoot of innocent satisfaction in the boy's 
 heart. She knew that his honest self-con- 
 sciousness would do that in its own time 
 — do it perhaps the sooner for this very 
 fearless assumption of rectitude, which could 
 not kneel to ask forgiveness for an unfelt 
 fault. She only said, gravely, 
 
 " My boy, that is for yourself to decide.
 
 THE BLUE EIBBON. 69 
 
 I cannot tell. But if you have nothing to 
 be forgiven, is there nothing you want to 
 ask God for ?" 
 
 *'No, mother. I've asked Him to take 
 care of everybody I love, and there's no- 
 thing else. There is something I do want 
 very much — ever so much, but it's no use 
 asking God for it. If I had a telescope, 
 mother," and the boy's eyes flashed brightly, 
 ''a real, great telescope, that would show 
 the mountains in the moon, I should be quite 
 — quite content ; but it would cost ever so 
 much, and God doesn't give people things 
 like that when they ask Him." 
 
 " Perhaps not, Roger ; but you might ask 
 Him to help you to be a brave, industrious, 
 honest boy, and then some day you may be 
 able to buy a telescope for yourself. That 
 would l)e God giving it to you, just the 
 same." 
 
 "Not just the same, mother ; but I'll try. 
 Now kiss me, and good night."
 
 70 THE BLUE KIBBON. 
 
 An hour later, when the night-shadows 
 liad quite gathered round, Roger called to 
 his sister — 
 
 " Jean, are you asleep ?" 
 
 " No," answered a weary little voice. 
 
 " Because I've found out now why our 
 diagram went up to the top of the wall ; be- 
 cause the sun had been going down all the 
 time. I could show you it beautifully if I 
 only had a candle, but Gurtha would be so 
 cross ! You know it's the sun that sends 
 the rays across, and as one end goes down 
 the other must go up, just like a see-saw — 
 can't you understand ?" 
 
 " I understand a see-saw, but I can't see 
 what it has to do with the round spots — 
 and I'm so sleepy." 
 
 '' You're a little stupid, Jean ! I don't 
 mean I'm vexed, but it's so stupid not to 
 want to find out thinsrs ! But I'll get a 
 candle to-morrow and show you, first thing,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 71 
 
 before I forget. Perhaps it'll be in the 
 ' Natural Philosophy,' too !" 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Monkeston kept her 
 solitary watch by the lattice-window, look- 
 ing away to the far-off dim grey towers of 
 Cruxborough Minster, and the dim grey 
 years of the life which must be travelled 
 alone now, even to its end.
 
 72 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 rjlWELVE years before this night when 
 -*- Mrs. Monkeston sat in her house a 
 widow and desolate, she had come to it a 
 happy bride, with such hope, such trust, 
 such joy, as may fill the heart of a loving, 
 noble-spirited woman, whose own cup of 
 life's good is to measure its fulness by that 
 which she can put into the lives of others. 
 She was two or three years older than her 
 husband, but still young and fair, and of that 
 somewhat stately presence from which the 
 slow lapse of time takes little of its beauty ; 
 and, as they sat side by side in church the 
 first Sunday after their home-coming, — she, 
 according to the fashion of the time, in all 
 her bridal bravery ; he, proud, gay, light-
 
 THE BLUE EIBBON. 73 
 
 some — the village maidens looked enviously 
 upon her, and the elder women hoped all 
 would be well. 
 
 For a while it was. That old gabled 
 house, standing back a little way from the 
 green, belonged to one of the best farms in 
 the parish of Willowmarshes. There were 
 no empty stackyards, no deserted sheds, no 
 unoccupied folds, when old Andrew 
 Monkeston, retiring from business a year or 
 two before his son's marriage, handed over 
 to him the entire concern ; handed also 
 with it the heritage of a name respected in 
 the place for generations past, and the not 
 less precious heritage of a constitution hale, 
 sound, and strong enough to have carried 
 its owner, were he so minded, to a hearty 
 old age. 
 
 Were he so minded. But character 
 does not descend with a good name, nor 
 power to hold wealth with the broad acres 
 and well- filled purses of thrifty forefathers.
 
 74 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Ralph Monkeston was one of those jolly, 
 selfish, pleasure-loving men who get out of 
 the world as much good as it can give, and 
 then hang on, a helpless burden, to any one 
 who will lend them a helping hand. After 
 a few months of married life, Mrs. Monkeston 
 found that she had made a fatal mistake in 
 promising love, honour, obedience, to a man 
 wdio could command none of them. Slowly 
 there dawned upon her the conviction, 
 surely the bitterest of any which can force 
 itself upon the mind of an honest woman, 
 that all noble effort, all worthy striving, all 
 earnest endeavour after the right, must come 
 from herself alone ; that she must be her 
 own guide, her own support over the rough 
 ways of life ; that, instead of receiving, she 
 must for ever give, and spend her strength 
 in hiding the faults of him whose steadfast 
 goodness should have been her pride and 
 pleasure. 
 
 Mrs. Monkeston bore her trouble bravely.
 
 THE BLUE EIBBON. 75 
 
 For a while she so shielded her husband's 
 weakness that his good name in the village 
 was untouched. The birth of lier two 
 children, and, soon after, the accident which 
 made the younger of them, little Jean, a 
 cripple for life, nerved her to new courage 
 and energy. Love for her children made 
 her strong to do that which respect for their 
 father could no longer inspire. For their 
 sakes she toiled and laboured, looked after 
 the house, kept her husband's books, trans- 
 acted his business so far as a woman could 
 do it, dismissed all needless servants, retain- 
 ing only the rude, but honest Gurtha, and 
 in her scant hours of leisure taught her 
 children, and made or mended their clothes ; 
 whilst their father, who could sing a song, 
 or tell a story, or take a hand at whist as 
 well as anyone in the parish, was delighting 
 his companions at the village inn, or booz- 
 ing with Hiram Armstrong at the " Crown 
 and Cushion," in Cruxborough.
 
 76 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 But in time that sort of life tells its own 
 story. A woman cannot do battle with 
 wrong, injustice, untruth, and selfishness — 
 do battle with them too when they are 
 cloaked under a guise of good-fellowship 
 which makes their possessor the most popu- 
 lar man of his set, and keeps all the while a 
 smiling lip and an unwrinkled brow. The 
 bitterness of hope unfulfilled, the terrible 
 struggle to keep love from turning into con- 
 tempt, will leave their mark in the sad, stern 
 face of the woman who has felt them. Peo- 
 ple began to take note of Mrs. Monkeston's 
 altered manner ; to find her not so pleasant 
 a companion as in the early years of her 
 married life ; to remark a certain grave re- 
 pression about her, a restraint and hardness, 
 which unfitted her for pleasant social cour- 
 tesies, and made her at last a woman rather 
 to be respected for her uprightness than 
 loved for her sweetness. 
 
 Still the big, well-established old farm-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 77 
 
 stead at the Willowmarshes had attractions 
 sufficient to draw town people thither in the 
 Summer time. Ralph Monkeston, so all his 
 friends said, was certainly an idle, good-for- 
 nothing fellow. His wife had long ago lost 
 her brightness, and was now chiefly valuable 
 as an authority in pickling and preserving ; 
 but for all that the old house was a pleasant 
 place to go to on a sunny June afternoon. 
 Sweet was the wind which blew across its 
 meadows in hay-time ; soft and juicy the 
 peaches which nestled their cheeks on 
 the south wall ; round and ripe and rosy 
 the apples which lay almost ankle-deep in 
 the orchards ; and rich beyond compare the 
 cream which Gurtha was ever proud to skim 
 from her bowls for the '' quality." So Wil- 
 lowmarshes was not without its visitors, 
 even when the tide of prosperity had mani- 
 festly begun to ebb from it. Mr. Ballinger 
 found nothing more convenient than to drive 
 over occasionallv with his wife, and two or
 
 78 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 three little Ballingers, to spend a long day 
 at the farm, leaving one of the children 
 behind perhaps for a week, for a breath of 
 country air was such a fine thing for it, 
 and might come between it and an 
 unpleasantly long doctor's bill. And Mrs. 
 Ballinger, who, like her husband, enjoyed 
 being benevolent at other people's expense, 
 and had a great objection to giving dinners 
 at her own house, when nothing w^as to be 
 gained by them, found it a wonderful ac- 
 commodation to pay oflP her social debts by 
 bringing three or four lady-friends out to 
 Willowmarshes, and giving them a splendid 
 day amongst the peaches and apricots of the 
 old farm-garden. And then the best of the 
 arrangement, both for the lady -friends and 
 for Mrs. Ballinger, was that they might with 
 perfect impunity urge Mrs. Monkeston to 
 return the visit when she came to Crux- 
 borough, because everybody knew that, 
 except to go to church or to market, she
 
 THE BLUE KIBBON. 79 
 
 never set foot out of her own door from 
 month's end to month's end, poor thing ! 
 Mr. Balmain, the doctor, too, though fitrht- 
 ing shy of more intercourse -with Ralph 
 Monkeston than was absolutely needful to 
 keep up the professional connection — there 
 was his character to be considered, as well 
 as that troublesome risk of beinc^ asked for 
 odd fifty pounds now and then — had no 
 objection to drive his children out in hay- 
 time for a day's frolic in the meadows ; and 
 if Mrs. Monkeston sent them home laden 
 with bottles of cream, pats of butter, or 
 satchels full of rich orchard fruit, why, so 
 much the kinder of her ; and some day, 
 when nothing else came in the way, Mrs. 
 Balmain quite meant to ask Roger and Jean 
 to come over to Cruxborough, and take it 
 out by going to see the city sights. Only 
 of course a doctor's wife had so many claims 
 upon her time, and position was a thing that 
 required a good deal of consideration, and
 
 80 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 really those little Monkestons were not 
 always dressed in a fashion which made it 
 agreeable for a lady of her standing in 
 Cruxborough to walk them about the streets. 
 So that in Summer time, when the old 
 place was at its best and brightest, Mrs. 
 Monkeston was seldom without guests ; until, 
 one dusky June night, death put an end to 
 the miserable failure of a life which had 
 worked so little save evil, either for itself or 
 others. Ralph Monkeston was brought home 
 dead. He had been thrown from his horse 
 and killed, said the newspaper, with consider- 
 ate courtesy. He had fallen into the dyke 
 whilst coming home drunk from a carouse 
 at the " Crown and Cushion," said most of 
 the companions who had praised hini living 
 as a jolly fellow, "the best hand in the world 
 at a song or a story." He had drowned him- 
 self in a fit of despair and remorse, said one 
 or two who knew how, under all that crust 
 of selfishness and appetite, there glowed at
 
 THE BLUE KIBBON. 81 
 
 tioies a little spark of soul, just enough to 
 show the man to himself, and madden him 
 by hinting what he might have been. 
 
 And so, as we have seen, Mrs. Monkeston 
 was left a widow, and the village children 
 had a rare treat in watching the funeral 
 trail its slow length across the village green, 
 and there was a solemn dinner, after which 
 the guests went cheerily home, much relieved 
 that all was over. 
 
 Mr. Ballinger was still further relieved by 
 the conversation which took place between 
 himself and Mr. Balmain, respecting poor 
 Monkeston's prospects of assistance from his 
 rich old crony, Hiram Armstrong. There 
 was now no further difficulty about the 
 matter of the scrip ; it might be set down 
 with impunity to his own account, and the 
 value of it made up to Ralph's widow and 
 family by that professional help and advice 
 which would really be far more precious to 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 tlieiD than a few pounds doled out from time 
 to time in trifling instalments. 
 
 For Mr. Ballinger had looked into the 
 aiFairs a little already, and they were, as he 
 had expected, very much entangled. Any 
 other- solicitor in Cruxborough, he was 
 quite sure, would have charged Mrs. Monkes- 
 ton the value of the scrip over and over 
 again, for reducing them to anything like 
 order. She might think herself very fortu- 
 nate in having a man like himself to stand 
 by her. It would be a serious labour, a 
 very serious labour, to square matters up. 
 And then, even when they were squared up, 
 there would be the family to look after ; 
 Jean, poor child ! to get into an orphanage, 
 or something of that sort ; and the boy to 
 educate, and the wddow to be put into the 
 way of earning a respectable living ; a house- 
 keeper's situation at a distance, he thought, 
 would be the most desirable opening fur 
 her; because, of course, it would be very
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 83 
 
 unpleasant for himself and Mrs. Ballinger, 
 with their children growing up about them, 
 and a position to be maintained, to have 
 a person even distantly connected with them 
 living in poverty anywhere in the immediate 
 neighbourhood, or perpetually sponging 
 upon them for money to keep herself from 
 being a disgrace to the family. No ; Mrs. 
 Monkeston must get in somewhere as house- 
 keeper or companion, and then, with tlie 
 children disposed of as aforesaid, there would 
 be an end of serious inconvenience. 
 
 But Mrs. Monkeston astonished him very 
 much by taking matters into her own hand. 
 Finding how Mr. Ballinger was intending to 
 dispose of her, she quietly excused him from 
 further interference in her affairs. The pro- 
 perty on the farm was valued, the bills called 
 in. When the accounts were balanced, she 
 found that, after all just debts and funeral 
 expenses were paid, she would have, apart 
 from her own marriage settlement of fifty 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 pounds a year, about half that sum in ready 
 money to becrin the world with. 
 
 How, under so small an amount of sail, to 
 convoy even the tiniest bark past the quick- 
 sands of debt and embarrassment, and bring 
 it safely to port, was a problem which njost 
 women would have found difficult of solu- 
 tion. Mrs. Monkeston took long counsel 
 with herself and her trusted friend, old Dr. 
 Boniface, the vicar of the parish. At all 
 hazards, she determined to accept nothing 
 from Mr. Ballinger. She knew help from 
 him, if given at all, would be given from 
 the cold hand of patronizing condescension, 
 and from that hand the pride which had 
 come down to her from an honest old family 
 forbade her to take it. 
 
 Dr. Boniface had told her of a little 
 quaint, old-fashioned house, just under the 
 east end of Cruxborough Minster. She knew 
 it well. It seemed to have grown like an 
 excrescence out of one end of the ancient
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 85 
 
 episcopal palace, which, long ago deserted 
 by its original occupiers, and now let out in 
 separate tenements, formed one side of the 
 road leading from that end of the Minster 
 into the market-place. A great bow- window 
 looked out into the street, opposite the Min- 
 ster front, but the rest of the house faced a 
 little walled-in garden, out of which nothing 
 could be seen but the two west towers, and 
 the tall chimneys of the new palace and 
 deanery on the north side of the Minster. 
 This little house belonged to the Dean 
 and Chapter, and had been unoccupied for 
 some time, so they were willing to let it at 
 a reduced rate, with immediate possession. 
 Mrs. Monkeston went over to Cruxborough 
 a few weeks after her husband's death —the 
 luxury of unlimited retirement being one in 
 which she was unable to indulge — took 
 the old house, arranged with the clerk for 
 its being put into habitable order, and 
 on her return to Willow marshes, sent an
 
 86 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 advertisement to the Cruxhorough paper, 
 announcing to her friends and the public 
 that it was her intention, in the following 
 October, to open a shop at No. 2, Minster Pre- 
 cincts, for the sale of liome-made linen, 
 fancy-work, and embroidery. 
 
 That was the first move. She then ad- 
 vised with Dr. Boniface again, who was one 
 of the Cathedral canons, and he promised to 
 use his influence with the Dean to Qet little 
 Roger into the Minster choir, where he 
 would have ten pounds a year and free edu- 
 cation. That was easily accomplished, for 
 Roger's fine, well-trained voice was daily 
 gaining strength and beauty, and promised 
 some day to be a mine of wealth to him. 
 Then Mrs. Monkeston selected from the 
 large, rambling old farm-house such furni- 
 ture as would be needed for their more 
 straitened quarters atCruxborough, and from 
 the sale of the remainder, found herself in 
 possession of money enough to stock the little
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 87 
 
 bow- windowed shop at the east end with 
 such store of goods as she hoped would at- 
 tract passers-by. 
 
 This done, she informed Mr. Ballinger of 
 her plans. 
 
 That worthy gentleman was divided be- 
 tween astonishment, indignation, and satis- 
 faction — astonishment at the faculty and 
 independence of his cousin's widow ; indig- 
 nation that anyone, even distantly connected 
 with a respectable family like his own, 
 should dare to compromise his position by 
 coming without his sanction and setting up 
 a shop in the very city to whose most se- 
 lect circle of society he hoped one day to be 
 admitted ; and satisfaction that the care of a 
 fatherless family had thus, without anything 
 that appeared like shirking duty on his part, 
 been removed from his shoulders, — removed 
 too, in such a manner as to give him, even 
 whilst rejoicing at the relief, an opportunity 
 of expressing a certain amount of aggrieved
 
 88 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 sensibility, which would now stand in the 
 place of his own personal trouble. 
 
 Accordingly, when the widow came over 
 to Cruxborough to tell him of her arrange- 
 ments, Mr. Ballinger did not lose a moment 
 in expressing that aggrieved sensibility. Of 
 course, when there was nothing left for him 
 to do, it was comparatively easy for him to 
 say what he could have done, and what, in 
 fact, he might say, he fully intended to have 
 done for the family, if Mrs. Monkeston had 
 from the first thrown herself upon his bene- 
 volence, and left the conduct of her affairs 
 to his more mature judgment. But — and 
 Mr. Ballinger rubbed his hands complacent- 
 ly as he sat before his desk in the private 
 office — as she had chosen to take matters 
 into her own keeping, he would not com- 
 plain ; he would only say that she had his 
 best wishes, his very best wishes. Nothing 
 would give him more pleasure than to learn 
 that the shop — here Mr. Ballinger's lip
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 89 
 
 curled slightly ; but then Cruxborough was 
 such a frightfully aristocratic little place — 
 was paying its way. And when Roger was 
 old enough to be placed in something per- 
 manent, he might perhaps — of course he 
 would nut bind himself to anything of the 
 kind — but he might perhaps find him a 
 place in the office, if Mrs. Monkeston's own 
 superior judgment — and Mr. Ballinger em- 
 phasized this very strongly — did not lead 
 her to some more brilliant opening for him. 
 As for Jean, poor child, he might hint that 
 he had been naming the case to numerous 
 friends of influence and position, both in 
 Cruxborough and the metropolis, and he 
 thought it highly probable she might have 
 been admitted into an institution for incur- 
 ables ; but, of course, Mrs. Monkeston's in- 
 dependent action had quite put a stop to 
 anything of that sort, and, therefore, he 
 could only say, in conclusion, he hoped she 
 would find she had done as well for herself
 
 90 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 as those whom Providence had pointed out 
 for her natural friends and helpers would 
 have been willing to do for her. 
 
 And with this splendid deliverance of his 
 sentiments, Mr. Ballinsrer bowed the widow 
 out of his office. 
 
 " A plucky woman — a very plucky wo- 
 man !" he said to himself, as, shuttincr the 
 door after her, he turned to his strong-box 
 to look at that agreement again — " a very 
 plucky woman indeed !" And now, c>f course, 
 Roger's education being provided for in the 
 Minster choir — a capital education, too, 
 quite good enough for the lad — old Hiram 
 Armstrong's benevolent intentions were al- 
 ready satisfied. Those bank-shares would 
 be alienated from their original purpose if, 
 under present circumstances, they were 
 handed over to Mrs. Monkeston. She was 
 a woman wdio could do well enough for 
 herself; no need to burden her with the 
 charity of a man whom she had set at defi-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 91 
 
 ance. He, Mr. Ballinger, had done his 
 duty. He had offered to help her far be- 
 yond the value of the money ; she had re- 
 fused that help — flatly, almost insolently, 
 refused it. Did not common justice, then, 
 demand that she should be let alone ? 
 Would it not be insulting a woman of her 
 spirit to offer her money ? Besides, was 
 there not to have been a consideration to 
 himself for the time he had spent in going 
 backwards and forwards at various times, 
 consulting with the old man ? Had not 
 Mr. Armstrong said, as plainly as words 
 could speak during their last interview, that 
 it would be made up to him ? That inten- 
 tion certainly was quite as clear as the other 
 intention about helping Ralph Monkeston, 
 and only death prevented it — most unfortu- 
 nately for himself, he must say — from being 
 carried into effect. Therefore, Mrs. Monkes- 
 ton, having virtually declined the money, 
 or, at any rate, the equivalent of it, his ser-
 
 92 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 vices, would it not be both just to himself, 
 and entirely in accordance with his respected 
 client's known wishes, if he appropriated 
 the bank-shares in place of the consideration 
 which was to have been paid ? — especially 
 as there were great demands upon him 
 now ; the children were growing up, and 
 being very expensively educated, public 
 school for Reginald, private foreign gover- 
 ness for Matilda ; and next would come their 
 introduction into society, when that new 
 house on the Portman Road was finished, and 
 the family had removed into it. Mrs. Bal- 
 linger said she meant her children to be in 
 the best circles, so that they might have 
 suitable chances of settling in life ; and that 
 sort of thing could not be kept up without 
 means, and where were means to come from, 
 he should like to know, if a man did not 
 take what rightfully belonged to him ? 
 
 But still he would wait a little longer be- 
 fore he destroyed that scrap of paper con-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 93 
 
 taining the agreement. Caution could do 
 no harm. The shares were already trans- 
 ferred to himself; no one else knew of the 
 agreement. The interest would be duly 
 paid to him. He would let matters stand 
 over a week or two, and then decide. 
 
 So, for the second time, he put the un- 
 signed paper back again, and went home to 
 consult with Mrs. Balling^er about the fur- 
 nishing of the new house which they were 
 building on the Portman Road.
 
 94 
 
 B 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 UT though Mrs. Monkeston had thus 
 ruthlessly deprived her philanthropic 
 relative of the pleasure of ministering to her 
 needs, that was no reason why Mrs. Bal- 
 linger and the brood of little Ballingers 
 should be deprived of the privilege of 
 luxuriating in the farm-house garden during 
 the fruitful time which elapsed between the 
 settlement of poor Ralph's affairs and the 
 opening of that ready-made hnen shop under 
 the east end of Cruxborough Minster. 
 
 Accordingly the Ballinger matron and 
 children came as usual, and helped them- 
 selves to what could be had for the gather- 
 ing, Mrs. Balhnger giving a sort of promis-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 95 
 
 sory-note for the obligation, by saying how 
 glad she should be to mention the shop to 
 her numerous friends in Cruxborough ; she 
 was sure a word from her would be 
 sufficient to ensure their custom, and she 
 had no doubt Mrs. Monkeston would find 
 the business answer quite satisfactorily. It 
 was an excellent move, she thought ; people 
 with shops of that kind always did seem to 
 get a living, and she had no doubt Canon 
 Boniface, too, would drop a hint to his own 
 set, which would make them willing to 
 patronize her. Indeed, she should not be 
 in the least surprised if Mrs. Monkeston 
 soon began to save money by it. But no 
 word of coming to call upon her in that 
 snug little parlour behind the shop, or of 
 asking her out to the new house in the 
 Portman Road, which was to be finished by 
 Christmas; whereat Mrs. Monkeston rather 
 wondered, so many invitations to come over 
 and spend long days at Cruxborough having
 
 96 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 been lavished upon her during the Summer 
 raids of the Bahnains and Ballingers in 
 years gone bv. But she said nothing, 
 thinking the hospitality would perhaps be 
 more ready for that it had not been ar- 
 ranged beforehand. 
 
 It was on one of these last visits that 
 Master Resfinald and Miss Matilda Ballino^er 
 accompanied their mamma. Master Regi- 
 nald, a lad of thirteen, was home for his 
 holidays from a fashionable school for the 
 sons of sentleman only ; and whilst fullv 
 alive to the charms of ripe gooseberries and 
 cherries, was equally sensitive to the exact 
 minimum of respect due from his important 
 self to the son of a farmer who had left his 
 affairs in an unsatisfactory state, and whose 
 widow, moreover, was about to keep a shop 
 in Cruxborough. ]\Iiss Matilda was a year 
 younger than her brother, a perfect little 
 grown-up woman of the world. Her French 
 governess had already succeeded, greatly to
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 97 
 
 Mrs. Ballinger's satisfaction, in making her a 
 model of propriety ; and the child could 
 enter a room and entertain her mamma's 
 guests in conversation, with a self-possession 
 which promised boundless success when she 
 should be admitted to the full benefits of 
 society. 
 
 The children got on very well for awhile. 
 Matilda patronised little Jean, told her all 
 about the town fashions, the new frocks her 
 mamma had bought for her when poor Mr. 
 Monkeston died. " Quite complimentary 
 mourning, you know, dear, because your pa 
 was such a distant relation, and we are onlv 
 to wear it three months. Black doesn't suit 
 my complexion at all, ma says ; but every- 
 thing has been made as fashionably as can 
 be." 
 
 And Miss Matilda looked with pitying 
 condescension upon Jean's black stuff frock, 
 which was neither of the finest quality nor 
 the newest cut, and which hung in sad 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 creases over her misshapen shoulders. But 
 then, as Matilda said to her, with the greatest 
 cheerfulness, it was not so important for 
 children like her to be particularly dressed. 
 Nobody would ever take any notice of what 
 she had on, and whether it suited her or 
 not ; an assurance which Jean received in 
 perfect good faith, seeing in it as yet only 
 the promise of an unbounded liberty to run 
 about and dabble as much as she liked in 
 the waterfall or on the mossy steps by the 
 river's brink. And she listened with wide- 
 eyed wonder, not touched with the faintest 
 streak of envy, as the town-bred little girl 
 told her about the Christmas parties they 
 went to in Cruxborough ; real parties, where 
 they were dressed in white muslin and kid 
 gloves, and had flowers and ribbons in their 
 hair, and were asked to dance by the young 
 gentlemen, and handed in to supper, exactly 
 like grown-up people. 
 
 It was enchanting, Miss Matilda said, as
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 99 
 
 she looked with gracious pity upon this 
 benighted little heathen of a country child, 
 who had never had white kid gloves on in its 
 life, and whose black straggling locks were 
 ignorant as yet of the civilizing effects of 
 rose-coloured ribbon. There ought to be 
 missionaries, Matilda thought, to people 
 like these. She was quite sure they wanted 
 them as much as the Hindoos who embroid- 
 ered that delightful muslin and those lovely 
 shawls which ladies sometimes wore when 
 they came to call upon her mamma. 
 
 At last Jean, who was beginning to be 
 rather tired of hearino^ about dressmakinsf 
 proposed that they should go into the fruit- 
 garden, where Master Reginald had been 
 taking his pleasure for some time. That 
 was altogether a pleasant change. A girl of 
 twelve, come she from under the tuition of 
 ever so fashionable a governess, must be very 
 far gone in worldliness if it can assert its in- 
 fluence over her in the midst of a full ripe bed 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 of gooseberries, or whilst standing under a 
 cherry-tree, holding up her apron to catch 
 its luxurious crimson rainfall. Here, at last, 
 Miss Matilda manifested her share in the tastes 
 which are common alike to the Brahmins 
 and Pariahs of society, stuffing herself to re- 
 pletion with fruit of all sorts ; whilst Mas- 
 ter Reginald, indulging in the same pleasing 
 task, wisely relaxed the restraint proper to 
 be observed between the upper and lower 
 classes, and allowed Roger to pelt him with 
 unlimited showers of cherries, or fill his pock- 
 ets with any quantity of juicy, golden egg- 
 plums. 
 
 So for a while all went merrily enough in 
 tlie farm orchard. But it would seem that" 
 fulness of fruit has a somewhat similar effect 
 to fulness of bread upon those who have 
 reached it. When he had satisfied himself 
 with cherries and plums, Master Reginald 
 declined any longer to observe the courtesies 
 ijf life with the country cousin who was 
 treating him so generously.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 101 
 
 Roger's spirit was as intolerant of inso- 
 lence as of unreasonable contradiction, and 
 the two boys came to high words. Reginald 
 wanted to break off a large branch from the 
 cherry-tree, and carry it to a seat in the 
 corner of the orchard, that he might, with 
 greater comfort to himself, pluck the fruit 
 and tie it into bunches, to take home with 
 him. Roger resisted this proposal, as being 
 dishonest to the gentleman who had taken 
 the farm, and, along with it, the orchard 
 trees. Master Reginald fired up at what he 
 was pleased to call an imputation on his 
 gentlemanliness. 
 
 " You little stable-boy !" said the young 
 scion of the upper classes, swelling him- 
 self out like an indignant turkey-cock, 
 " I'll teach you to call me dishonest. Your 
 rascal of a father owed money to nearly 
 every gentleman in Cruxborough, and you 
 talk about doing what is right and just ! 
 There, sir, take that for your impertinence,
 
 102 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 and next time 3^ou speak to a gentleman, 
 try to do it properly." 
 
 And Reginald hit his young host a blow 
 over the face. 
 
 Roger's eyes flashed ominously, but he 
 did not strike back again. A vague notion 
 of honour kept him from fighting a lad who 
 was for the time being a guest in his mo- 
 ther's house. 
 
 *' Yes, and that too, you coward," pursued 
 the lad, thinking that Roger's silence was 
 caused either by shame or fear, and hitting 
 him another blow. " I shall tell my papa 
 when I go home that you're a coward. You 
 say insulting things to gentlemen, and then 
 you daren't defend yourself. As if my papa 
 couldn't buy your truuipery orchard over 
 and over again !" 
 
 Here Jean came forward as fast as her 
 weak little limbs could carry her, and stood 
 between them. 
 
 " Oh, Reginald ! how can you ? Roger
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 103 
 
 wasn't doing you any harm. He didn't 
 mean to say you were dishonest. He only 
 said it wouldn't be right to break the cherry- 
 tree, now that it doesn't belong to us. Do 
 let us all be friends again." 
 
 Master Reginald looked down upon the 
 tiny mediator, and replied with lofty con- 
 tempt, worthy of a youth who had been 
 educated at a school " for the sons of gentle- 
 men only," 
 
 "You little brown-faced hunchback ! 
 who cares for you, I should like to know ? 
 You'd better go and tie yourself to your 
 mother's apron-string — it's the safest place 
 for you." 
 
 That was too much for Roger. His ideas 
 of honour only prevented him from aveng- 
 ing insults offered by guests to himself Let 
 those who offered them to his sister 
 look out ! With the red glow of passion 
 burning in his young face, he threw off his 
 jacket, dashed at Master Reginald, and the
 
 104 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 two were soon locked in close battle, Jean 
 and Matilda running off in dismay to a distant 
 part of the garden, leaving their brothers to 
 fight it out by themselves. 
 
 They took refuge in the Summer-house. 
 Matilda made a few wise observations on the 
 iniquity of fighting, but as she had no doubt 
 her brother would be able to give Roger a 
 good thrashing, she did not feel called upon 
 to go and tell her mamma ; and poor Jean, 
 frightened and trembling, never thought of 
 doing it. 
 
 " If you please," said the child at last, 
 looking up into Matilda's face, " what did 
 Reginald mean by calling me a brown-faced 
 hunchback ? Nobody ever called me that 
 before. Is it anything naughty ?" 
 
 "Oh ! dear no — not in the least," said 
 Matilda, delighted to be able to set her un- 
 fortunate little cousin right on another point. 
 " Of course it was very rude of him ; but 
 then, you know, boys will be boys, and he
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 105 
 
 didn't mean any harm. You know you are 
 rather deformed," — here Matilda laid her 
 hand with dignity upon Jean's crooked shoul- 
 der — " and that makes you different from 
 other children ; and you must not expect, as 
 you grow up, that people will take much no- 
 tice of you, or be very fond of you." 
 
 " Won't they ?" said Jean, her great brown 
 eyes dilating with a vague, mysterious fear. 
 
 "No. I wonder your mamma has never 
 explained it to you before. My mamma 
 says she has often meant to say something 
 about it. But, of course, you must try to be 
 very good, and then, even if people don't 
 like you, it will not signify so much." 
 
 Jean had slipped quietly from her seat, 
 and with quivering lips was going towards 
 the house. 
 
 " Oh I don't go away. I want you to 
 show me where the large purple plums 
 are ; it is very rude to leave your friends by 
 themselves ; and you know I can't go back
 
 106 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 to the boys now. I shall tell mamma that 
 you are very rude." 
 
 But Jean did not hear. The tears, first 
 drops of many an after-rain of sorrow, were 
 falling slowly upon her pinafore. When 
 she saw Matilda following her, she made a 
 desperate effort and darted through a goose- 
 berry bed, which was the nearest cut to the 
 back-kitchen door. Matilda's new dress 
 kept her in the broad path, and so Jean 
 escaped. 
 
 Meantime the two boys had been fighting 
 on, and in their fight had rolled, struggled, 
 and tumbled from the cherry-tree end of the 
 orchard to a wicket-gate opening from the 
 opposite side of it into a field through which 
 there was a bridle-road to Cruxborough. 
 For a time the victory seemed to be on 
 the side of Reginald, who was taller, 
 stouter, and stronger tlian his adversary. 
 Over and over again Roger staggered and 
 nearly fell, but over and over again he re-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 107 
 
 turned to the charge, determined not to give 
 in until he had avenged the insult offered to 
 his sister. At last the right prevailed, help- 
 ed perhaps by the undigested mass of cherries 
 and plums which were beginning to press 
 ratheruncomfortably upon Master Reginald's 
 internal arrangements. At any rate, that 
 young hero succumbed to fate ; a well plant- 
 ed blow from Roger sent him backwards into 
 a bed of nettles, from whose stinging em- 
 braces he poured forth yells of mingled rage 
 and mortification. 
 
 " Hollo ! hollo, youngsters ! Hold hard 
 there ! What's all the row about?" 
 
 And a little man with grey hair, wlio had 
 been riding leisurely along the bridle-road, 
 pulled up, and looked over the wicket-gate. 
 
 '' Why, Master Reginald Ballinger, is that 
 you ? What on earth have you been doing ? 
 Crying, too !" 
 
 "Mamma brought us to spend the day at 
 Willowmarshes, and this rude boy has been
 
 108 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 fighting me, " roared Master Reginald, 
 making frantic efforts to disentangle himself 
 from the nettles. 
 
 " And beating you too, I think," said the 
 old gentleman, drily. " What did you fight 
 for? Don't you know it is very naughty for 
 little boys to fight?" he continued, with 
 rather a funny twinkle in his eye, address- 
 ing himself to Roger, who, with head thrown 
 back and chest squared, was standing over 
 his fallen foe, ready to receive submission or 
 renew the onslaucrht. 
 
 " He called my sister a little brown-faced 
 hunchback, sir, and told her nobody cared 
 for her," answered Roger, the red anger-fire 
 kindling again in his eyes. 
 
 " And is she a hunchback ?" asked the 
 gentleman, gravely. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Roger; but the anger 
 had died out now, and his voice was full of 
 tears. 
 
 '' I shall tell my papa," screamed Regi-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 109 
 
 nald, who, after many spasmodic kicks and 
 flings, had regained his feet. " I shall tell 
 my papa, and he'll make you beg my par- 
 don. Who did any harm to your ugly 
 little brat of a sister, I should like to 
 know?" 
 
 Roger sprang upon him like a young 
 tiger, and down went Master Reginald into 
 the nettles again. 
 
 " You shall pay for this !" he yelled. " I 
 shall tell my papa, and he'll have the law 
 out of you." 
 
 '' I think," said the old gentleman, quietly, 
 " you had better not say anything to your 
 papa about it. It isn't a fine thing for a big 
 boy to be beaten by a little boy at any 
 time ; but especially when the big boy has 
 been calling the little boy's sister bad names. 
 It would be more to the purpose if you were 
 to ask the little boy's pardon for what you 
 have said." 
 
 " Catch me !" growled Reginald. And
 
 110 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 then, under his breath, he added, " You're 
 an old fogie, you are !" 
 
 "Now, my little man," said the gentle- 
 man, " if this big boy says he's sorry, are 
 you ready to shake hands and be friends ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, if he'll promise not to do it 
 again." 
 
 '' Of course. Now, Ballinger, what do 
 you say about it?" 
 
 But Master Reginald walked majestically 
 away in the direction of the gooseberry beds. 
 
 "What am I to do, sir, now?" asked 
 Roger, simply. 
 
 "Do? Why, just go about your busi- 
 ness, and when you come across him again, 
 behave as if nothing was the matter. I 
 don't think he'll tackle you again, but if he 
 does, you can't do better than serve him out 
 the mixture as before. I don't like fighting 
 myself, when anything else will do ; but 
 sometimes it won't." 
 
 And having thus successfully read the
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. Ill 
 
 Riot Act over the young insurgents, the 
 gentleman rode away towards Cruxborough, 
 a half-sraile playing over his keen, yet 
 kindly face. 
 
 " I'll see that little man again," he said to 
 himself. "There's stuff in him, if I mis- 
 take not."
 
 112 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ~j3 OGER'S first thought, after the igno- 
 -*-^ minious retreat of his foe, was for 
 Jean. He sought her all over the garden 
 in vain ; he went to their favourite play- 
 place on the mossy steps by the river's brink 
 — she was not there. He climbed down 
 the bank to the waterfall, where they had 
 been making the mill on their father's fune- 
 ral-day ; but the place was empty. At last 
 he applied to Gurtha, who was scouring the 
 back-kitchen. She pointed with her thumb 
 in the direction of the two little rooms at 
 the top of the dark landing. 
 
 " I seed her flew up that way a bit since. 
 I lay a penny one of them fine stuck-up 
 pieces from Cruxborough has been a-flyting
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 113 
 
 of her. rd serve 'em out, I would, if I 
 could lay hands on 'em." 
 
 Roger raced up the stairs to the first of 
 the little rooms. Jean lay on the crib, with 
 her face to the wall. Her pinafore was 
 crushed up under her cheek, and wet with 
 tears ; her fingers were tightly clasped. Only 
 a long, low, wailing sob broke now and then 
 the silence of the room. 
 
 " Jean," said Roger, trying to speak as if 
 nothing very sad had happened, though, 
 indeed, he guessed that the poor little heart 
 had been sore wounded — " Jean, what for 
 won't you come and play? It's all right 
 now. I've given him a beating, and I don't 
 think he'll do it again. Let's go and gather 
 them some plums to take home with them." 
 
 But Jean only moved wearily away, and 
 fresh tears rolled down the thin brown 
 cheeks. 
 
 ** Jean," and Roger lay down beside her, 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 and pulled her face round to him, " what 
 for won't you speak to me ?" 
 
 For he had never seen her grieved like 
 this before. A harsh word, a careless push, 
 would send her away silent for awhile, if, 
 as they played together, his boyish spirits 
 got the better of his patience, and he chafed 
 at her slow, halting ways. But then kind- 
 ness soon brought the sunshine back again. 
 Her merry, quaint laugh welled out fresh 
 as ever, her queer little face lighted up with 
 fun ; the harsh word was forgotten — for 
 Jean never bore malice, never went to tell 
 tales — and before the tears had had time to 
 dry on her cheek, everything was right again. 
 Now she looked worn out, and there were 
 shadows under her eyes, and the hands 
 which he was trying to unclasp were cold 
 as lead on that sunny Summer day. 
 
 " Jean, let's go and do something," said 
 the boy ; " it's so stupid for you to stop 
 here. Is anything very bad the matter ?"
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 115 
 
 She turned to him listlessly. The pas- 
 sion of her grief had spent itself now, but 
 instead there was a patient hopelessness in 
 her face, which, could he have understood 
 it, was far, far sadder. 
 
 " Roger, is it true ? Won't anybody care 
 for me now, because I am crooked and 
 ugly? Why didn't you and mother tell me 
 before ?" 
 
 " You're not ugly, Jean," and Roger 
 squeezed her up so tightly in his strong 
 arms that the poor child cried for pain. 
 " Reginald's a liar to tell you so ! And mo- 
 ther loves you as much as ever she can, and 
 I love you too, and it doesn't matter what 
 anyone says, we shall keep on loving you. 
 Come along, Jean ; I'll go down to the 
 steps with you, and we'll have a play by 
 ourselves, if you like. I don't want ever to 
 see that boy again — I don't ; and we'll just 
 keep to ourselves, and it'll be so nice. Do 
 come, Jean. I don't want for you to stop 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 up here, and your eyes are so red, and you 
 look just as you did after you'd had the 
 measles." 
 
 " I remember that," said Jean, brighten- 
 ing up a little ; "it was nice, and you were 
 ill too, and we always had mother, and I'm 
 quite sure she loved me then, because she 
 used to kiss me so often. Matilda says I 
 must be good, and then it won't make so 
 much difference." 
 
 " Bother Matilda ! I wish she'd kill her- 
 self with eating plums ! She was standing 
 at the tree, stuffing as fast as she could, 
 when 1 came along here, and she called to 
 me to ask where the peaches were, and said 
 she hoped I wasn't hurt. But come along, 
 Jean — do let us go downstairs." 
 
 Jean washed her face, and smoothed her 
 hair, and stroked down the crumpled pina- 
 fore, which would nevertheless tell its own 
 sad story of tears. But Roger suggested 
 that, when they got down to the steps, she
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 117 
 
 should take it off, and they would fold it 
 up ver}^ small, and he would sit upon it all 
 the time whilst they fished, and that would 
 be the same as mangling it, which seemed a 
 quite satisfactory solution of the difficulty. 
 So the children went hand in hand to their 
 little play-room by the river's brink, a 
 strange new tenderness, which he had never 
 felt before, almost a man's chivalrous in- 
 stinct of protection, binding him to the little 
 sister whose cause he had avenged. 
 
 He thought she would soon forget all 
 about the trouble, and be full of quiet fun, 
 as before. But Jean never forgot. The 
 bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge, pressed 
 upon her that day by no seeking of hers, 
 was the beginning of a new life. Hitherto 
 she had known nought but love, nor felt 
 the difference between herself and others, 
 save that her weakness made them care for 
 her the more. Now she must live in the 
 shadow of a life set apart, unblest, so she
 
 118 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 bad been told, by much cherishing or fond- 
 ness. She was old enough to feel, with a 
 sort of dim, unreasoning fear, the terrible- 
 ness of that life. The blessing which might 
 descend on all its pain, she could not yet 
 feel ; nor the consecration which might make 
 its loneliness sublime. A few careless words 
 had flung open wide the gate which led out 
 of her childish Eden into the world's great 
 wilderness, and forth through that wilder- 
 ness now, for good or for evil, she must 
 travel until all the weary years were done. 
 
 Master Reginald Ballinger, after driving 
 his mamma and sister home in the cool of 
 the evening, walked round to the office, for 
 he could not delay the statement of his 
 grievances until Mr. Ballinger came from 
 business. Of course he gave his own ac- 
 count of the affair, wisely avoiding any 
 mention of the taunt which had led to the 
 fight, or the opinion expressed thereupon by
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 119 
 
 the little gentleman who happened to be 
 riding past. 
 
 Mr. Ballinger was quite ready to receive 
 his son's version ; indeed, just at that par- 
 ticular time few things could have given 
 him greater satisfaction than some distinct, 
 definite wrong on the part of the Monkes- 
 tons, whose punishment might authorise 
 him to carry out that deed of injustice 
 which now he was lono^inor, and vet afraid 
 to do. He was not the man, however, to 
 fire into passion at an insult. He did not, 
 as Master Reginald desired, write at once 
 to Mrs. Monkeston, requiring from her an 
 unqualified apology for her son's behaviour. 
 Something much more tangible than satis- 
 faction of that sort was to be worked out of 
 the occasion. Moreover, such a requisition 
 would involve a dispute, perhaps a quarrel ; 
 and it was not to his interest to quarrel with 
 Mrs. Monkeston. An attitude of calm bene- 
 volence, always ready to help, but never
 
 120 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 making an actual move in that direction, was 
 what he wished to preserve towards the 
 widow and her family. He therefore coun- 
 selled forbearance, and sent his son away 
 somewhat unsatisfied, with an exhortation to 
 the forgiveness of injuries as part of a gen- 
 tleman's education. *' Revenge," he said, 
 ^' was a weak thing, a wrong thing. It 
 would be nobler to overlook the whole 
 affair, and trust to Roger's own good feeling 
 for an apology at some future time." 
 
 But when Reginald had gone away, Mr. 
 Ballinger opened that strong box, and took 
 out the agreement. So this little rip of a 
 country lad had insulted his son ! Well. 
 Fought him. Very well. Knocked him down. 
 Very well indeed. And this was the boy 
 for whose education he was to provide out 
 of the interest of those shares which in strict 
 justice belonged to himself, as a considera- 
 tion for the trouble he had taken about old 
 Hiram Armstrong's affairs. Apology indeed !
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 121 
 
 Master Roger's apology should be something 
 more to the purpose than a mere pen-and- 
 ink begging of pardon. Little farm-house 
 rustics must not be allowed to insult the 
 sons of gentlemen quite so cheaply as that. 
 
 And with a cold sardonic smile upon his 
 face, Mr. Ballinger put the agreement into 
 the flame of the candle, holding it there 
 until it was a heap of grey ash. 
 
 So now that little matter was finally 
 settled.
 
 122 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 mOWARDS the end of the Summer 
 -*- months, anyone going down Bishop's 
 Lane to Cruxborough Minster, might have 
 seen, on the closely-shuttered bow-window 
 of the little gabled house at its further end, 
 a printed notice, intimating that the premises 
 would shortly be opened for the sale of 
 plain and fancy needlework. About the 
 same time paper-capped workmen began to 
 invade the privacy of the walled-in garden. 
 White washers and paperers took the queer 
 old-fashioned rooms in hand, and the place 
 was put into a complete state of repair ; 
 more complete, perhaps, than would have 
 been the case if old Dr. Boniface, who de- 
 lighted to do a good turn for those who
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 123 
 
 deserved it, had not spoken a word or two 
 to the Dean in Mrs. Monkeston's behalf. 
 
 Later on, wagon-loads of furniture — 
 harvest wagons, bearing the now almost 
 forgotten name of Ralph Monkeston, farm- 
 er, Willowmarshes — drew up alongside 
 the wall ; a stout, red-faced damsel with 
 broad shoulders and brawny arms, might 
 have been seen careering hither and thither 
 through the funny up-and-down little 
 rooQis, unrolling carpets, fitting furniture, 
 putting up curtains and blinds, sorting 
 crockery, and arranging things generally 
 into ship-shape. Later still, in the dusk of 
 Autumn evening, a tall, grave woman, 
 dressed in widow's weeds, with a crooked, 
 brown-faced little girl on one side, and a 
 stout, handsome boy on the other, opened 
 the heavy old iron-studded door, and, going 
 in first, turned to kiss the children as she 
 welcomed them to their new home. And, 
 just one week after that, the juvenile popu-
 
 124 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 lation of Bishop's Lane gathered in little 
 groups to stare at the shop which had, for 
 the first time, unveiled its blushing front to 
 public gaze. 
 
 It was a very pretty shop, and Mrs. 
 Monkeston and Gurtha crossed the road 
 many a time that day to see how it looked 
 from the opposite side. According to a 
 suggestion from Dr. Boniface, part of the 
 window was devoted to a collection of 
 engravings of different parts of Cruxborough 
 — for Bishop's Lane formed the chief 
 entrance to the Minster from the east end of 
 the town, and a goodly amount of custom 
 might be picked up from chance trippers 
 who would be glad to carry away some 
 little memento of their visit to the old place. 
 The rest of the window was filled with 
 embroidery or materials for fancy-work, 
 and at the back of the shop were piles of 
 ready-made linen, of which Mrs. Monkeston 
 had been preparing a stock ever since she
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 125 
 
 decided to settle in Cruxborough. On the 
 whole, it was as tidy a little place as one 
 might wish to see, and with a certain air of 
 refinement about it, as though more than 
 mere handicraft had been at work there. 
 
 Dr. Boniface had kept his promise of try- 
 ing to interest the Dean in behalf of Roger. 
 Some weeks before the Monkestons left 
 Willowmarshes, Mr. Grant, the Minster 
 organist, who was a friend of the doctor, 
 went over to the Rectory, and Roger was 
 sent for to sing to him. The lad acquitted 
 himself so well — for he had really a superior, 
 well-trained voice — that Mr. Grant put his 
 name down at once on the list of reserve. 
 His salary was not to commence until the 
 time of his actual engagement in the choir, 
 but he was to take his place amongst the 
 supernumerary singers as soon as the family 
 removed to Cruxborough ; and meanwhile 
 he was to attend the choristers' school, be-
 
 126 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 sides having the advantage of daily practice 
 with them. 
 
 Mr. Ballinger, too, came forward, with a 
 generosity worthy of himself. Just before 
 the opening of that little shop under the 
 Minster front, he had lost his office-lad. In 
 order, therefore, to save himself the ex- 
 pense of a successor to sweep out the cham- 
 bers or run errands, he proposed that Roger, 
 now a brisk, bright, active lad, should go 
 into the office by way of gaining an insight 
 into the profession, and so being ready for 
 anything that might turn up. Cruxborough 
 nodded its head approvingly, and said how 
 very kind Mr. Ballinger was to do this. 
 Not every man, it was quite sure, with sons 
 of his own to advance in life, would have 
 taken a stranger into his employ without 
 either premium or recommendation ; and it 
 hoped the fortunate youth would endeavour 
 to prove his gratitude by a diligent per- 
 formance of every duty required of him.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 127 
 
 Gurtha came with her mistress. Mrs. 
 Monkeston had intended to dismiss her, and 
 take in her place a little girl, to train for 
 kitchen-work; for Gurtha was a first-rate 
 dairy-maid, and could command much better 
 wages in a farm-house than she was ever 
 likely to have in that little shop at Crux- 
 borough. But Gurtha, who was sound and 
 faithful at heart, though somewhat given to 
 scolding, and not perhaps implicitly to be 
 trusted, when there were no poplar-trees to 
 keep her in check, utterly refused to take 
 another situation. 
 
 " Never heed the wage," she said, in her 
 rich, rough Yorkshire brogue, when Mrs. 
 Monkeston advised her to take service else- 
 where — " never heed the wage. I've got 
 clothes to my back as'll stand me over two 
 year or more ; and by that time the 
 shop'll have got agate of paying its way. 
 I'm not goin' to better myself by leavin' 
 you to do your own work, so if your-
 
 128 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 self's content, I am, and there's an end on't." 
 So Gurtha stayed ; and helpful indeed 
 were those strong arms, and that rough, yet 
 steady good-will in the new home. 
 
 The shop prospered tolerably. Mrs. Bal- 
 linger and Matilda came on its opening day, 
 and spent a guinea in the purchase of ready- 
 made linen ; but the lawyer's wife very 
 decidedly declined Mrs. Monkeston's invita- 
 tion to go through into the parlour behind 
 the shop, and very shortly after the invita- 
 tion, took her leave. Mrs. Balmain, too, 
 came and bought a few yards of edging, 
 which she asked to have sent down to her 
 house by Mrs. Monkeston's servant ; but 
 she also declined the offer of a seat in the 
 back parlour, and did not greatly encourage 
 conversation, except so far as it related to busi- 
 ness. Several of the ladies, too, who had help- 
 ed themselves so bountifully to the peaches 
 and apricots of the farm-garden, and had sat 
 down with such excellent appetites to deli-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 129 
 
 cious country teas in that snug room, whose 
 lattice-window looked riverwards across the 
 pleasant lawn, dropped in from time to time 
 for lengths of embroidery or pennyworths of 
 cotton, gave Mrs. Monkeston their very 
 best wishes, and expressed loud praises 
 of the comfortable little shop, which they 
 hoped would prove an excellent speculation ; 
 and they should have the greatest satisfac- 
 tion in recommending it to their friends, for 
 really the articles were so tasteful, and the 
 linen so well made, and the prices so mode- 
 rate, it was quite a pleasure to send custo- 
 mers to such a place. But nothing was 
 said about asking the widow to come to see 
 them, nor even the remotest hint given 
 about that early cup of tea which had been 
 pressed upon her so often, and with such 
 unlimited kindliness, when her shut-up life 
 at the Willowmarshes farm made the invita- 
 tion perfectly safe. 
 
 Mrs. Monkeston, knowing little as yet of 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 "society," and judging others by herself, 
 thought that these kind people who had so 
 often in former times expressed their wish 
 to see her, were waiting until she got com- 
 fortably settled ; perhaps at Christmas time 
 would ask the children for an evening's quiet 
 amusement, or suggest to her to bring some 
 of that plain sewing which occupied all her 
 leisure now, and sit by their cheerful fire- 
 side, where a little friendly chat, and per- 
 haps a word or two of sympathy, would help 
 her to do it with more spirit. 
 
 So by degrees life shaped itself into some- 
 thing like comfort at the little house in 
 Bishop's Lane. Gurtha took the entire 
 management of household affairs. Mrs. 
 Monkeston sat behind the counter, always, 
 except when she was waiting upon custo- 
 njers, stitching away at the plain work, 
 which she found pay as well as any tiling 
 else. Whilst doing this, she was able to 
 teach Jean, who sat in a quiet corner of the
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 131 
 
 shop with her slate and books. At night, 
 after shutting-up time, they gathered round 
 the fire in the little back-parlour, where 
 Ro2fer, when not running^ errands for Mr. 
 Ballinger, had his school-work to prepare, 
 and his thorough-bass exercises to write out; 
 or the children would sinoj together from 
 old church music, which Roger had to copy, 
 or Jean helped him in his favourite amuse- 
 ment of cutting out pasteboard wheels, and 
 making little orreries, with sealing-wax balls 
 for planets, after plans set forth in an old 
 book of astronomical diagrams which Dr. 
 Boniface had given him. Dr. Boniface sel- 
 dom came over to Cruxborough without 
 looking in upon his friends in the little house 
 at the east-end ; and seeing Roger s taste 
 for mechanical handiwork, brought him 
 books sometimes on the subject, and helped 
 him with his little contrivances, and occasion- 
 ally took him to an astronomical lecture at 
 the Mechanics' Institute; so fostering the 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 lad's ingenious tendencies, and, at any rate, 
 making for him a quiet little resource of 
 interest in a life which would else have 
 been almost too full of dull, unboylike 
 labour. 
 
 For Mr. Ballinger seemed determined 
 that the authorised employer of idle hands 
 should find no mischief for Roger's to do. 
 That mysterious process of gaining an insight 
 into business was being diligently carried on, 
 though what insight into business could be 
 gained by perpetual sweeping of offices, 
 mending of fires, and running of errands, 
 was a problem which Roger could not clearly 
 make out. But then, as Mr. Ballinger said 
 to him one afternoon, when, coming in tired 
 and wet from his round of messages, he 
 tramped up and downstairs to fill the office 
 coal-pans, before going to afternoon service 
 at the Minster, work was such a fine thing 
 for a boy — there was nothing in the world 
 so good for a boy as plenty of work. If
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 133 
 
 little Monkeston — this was the name b}^ 
 which Mr. Ballinger always addressed his 
 cousin's child — if little Monkeston would 
 take the trouble to read that small volume 
 of biographies of great men which had been 
 presented to him on the twelfth anniversary 
 of his birthday, he would find that all the 
 celebrated characters immortalised in those 
 pages had inaugurated their career by an 
 apprenticeship — if he might so express it — 
 to hard labour of some sort in the great 
 workshop of life. Life was a workshop, and 
 those who went into it must make up their 
 minds to work, if ever they meant to be 
 masters. He had worked hard himself, if 
 he might be permitted to refer to his own 
 youth — here Mr. Ballinger pulled up his 
 collar, and looked pompously over his spec- 
 tacles at Roger, who was shovelling coal on 
 the fire, and devising within himself how 
 the sealing-wax moon in his little orrery at 
 home might be made to incline properly in
 
 134 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 its orbit — and rose majestically from his office- 
 chair, and leaned his knuckles on the desk, 
 and bent forward, as if addressing a com- 
 pany of Bluecoat boys, or ragged-school 
 children, from that favourite vantas^e-sround 
 of his, the Cruxborough Town Hall orchestra. 
 He had worked very hard himself, if, as he 
 said, he might be permitted to refer to his 
 own career, and see what it had done for 
 him. Look at his offices, thronged with 
 clerks, and crowded with clients ; look at the 
 manner in which he was enabled to bring 
 up his family ; look at the home which he 
 had provided for then) ; look at his position, 
 thouL^^i he would not be understood to refer 
 to it in anything like a boastful spirit, es- 
 teemed by his fellow-citizens, respected, he 
 might venture to say, by all classes of 
 society ; and what, he would ask his dear 
 young friends, what had been the beginning 
 of all this prosperity ? Work ; hard work ! 
 And therefore he would impress upon
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 135 
 
 them that, if they wished to end where he 
 had ended, they must begin where he began, 
 and not shrink from the manlv doino^ of 
 their duty, distasteful though it might ap- 
 pear to the proud and aspiring instincts of 
 youth. 
 
 And here Mr. Ballinger subsided into his 
 chair again, still looking pompously over his 
 spectacles at Roger, who, standing helplessly 
 there in the middle of the floor, coal-pan 
 and shovel in hand, was supposed to repre- 
 sent in his small person an entire Blue-coat 
 school. A pause followed, during which 
 Mr. Ballinger appeared to be listening to 
 imaginary rounds of applause. Indeed, this 
 was a private rehearsal of the speech which 
 he intended to make at a Cruxborough 
 charity-school meeting, some time during 
 the following week ; and at this point he 
 was to refresh himself with a glass of water, 
 by way of giving the audience time to ex- 
 press their feelings.
 
 136 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Then, he continued, bearing down more 
 especially upon Roger's own affairs, little 
 Monkeston must look at what was expected 
 from him in that station of life to which it 
 had pleased Providence to call him. He 
 had a widowed mother, which was under 
 any circumstances a great responsibility for an 
 only son, but particularly where the blessing 
 of abundant temporal prosperity had been 
 graciously withheld, doubtless for some wise 
 purpose. His mother would naturally look 
 to him to be the prop of her declining days, 
 to supply to her the place of that natural 
 protector, whose character and career, he 
 was sorry to say, had not been such as to 
 render them worthy of imitation by his sur- 
 vivors. And he had an afflicted sister. 
 
 Roger winced as he thought of the quaint 
 little brown face at home over which so 
 seldom now the happy child-laugh passed — 
 so seldom since Reginald Ballinger's cruel 
 taunt.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 137 
 
 An afflicted sister, Mr. Ballinger con- 
 tinued, whose claims upon him were of a 
 peculiar nature, since it was by his own act, 
 not intentional, of course, he would not 
 for a moment be understood to insinuate 
 that little Monkeston had any idea of the ter- 
 rible consequences which would follow, but 
 still, at the same time, it was by his own act 
 that this most lamentable affliction had been 
 brought about, which rendered his sister 
 incapable either of earning a livelihood for 
 herself, or of looking forward with any hope 
 to having it earned for her by a natural 
 protector. She was therefore, he might 
 say, laid in a peculiar manner upon her 
 brother's sympathy, and it would be his 
 duty through life to make atonement, as 
 far as he could, for the misery which had 
 been produced by himself. 
 
 As this slow, rolling avalanche of speech 
 kept increasing to its final majestic bulk, the 
 expression on Roger's face had passed from
 
 138 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 pain to vacant astonishment, and then into 
 terror. What had he done? What did 
 Mr. Ballinger mean ? All thought of the 
 sealing-wax !noon and pasteboard orbit 
 which he and Jean had been puzzling over 
 the night before was gone now, and only 
 one thing had any clearness — namely, that 
 his master was fastening down upon him 
 the blame of that terrible misfortune whose 
 bitterness, as his sister would have to suffer 
 it all through life, had onlv of late betxun 
 to unfold itself to him. Jean, whom he 
 loved so much, even before Reginald's taunt 
 had crushed the childish mirth out of her, 
 but whom ever since he had loved with a 
 boyish agony of sorrowful compassion — 
 what had he ever done to Jean but protect 
 her weakness, and try to make the rough 
 ways of life smooth for her weary little feet ? 
 " If you please, sir, T don't know what 
 you mean," he said at last, a great sob 
 chokinsj his voice.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 139 
 
 Mr. Ballingei' saw the state of the case 
 at once, and rose to its solemnity. Here 
 was a fine opportunity for that flow of ex- 
 hortatory eloquence on which he so much 
 prided himself, and which made him so popu- 
 lar on the platforms of Cruxborough. Little 
 Monkeston's mother, poor woman, through a 
 mistaken fear of woundinE^ his feelins^s, had 
 evidently kept the truth from him ; but the 
 lad must know it sooner or later — the 
 sooner the better, perhaps. He, Mr. Bal- 
 linger, was not the man to shrink from a 
 painful duty. There was such a thing as 
 sinful timidity in withholding from children 
 the knowledge of their oruilt, and its con- 
 sequences. The lad was of an age now to 
 know what he had done ; and, if his mother 
 shrank from giving him pain, there were 
 others, fortunately, with a clearer sense of 
 right who would supply her deficiency. 
 
 Accordingly, Mr. Ballinger cleared his 
 throat, and commenced in the swelling
 
 140 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 periods which were so dear to him, Roger 
 trembling all the while with a cold, creep- 
 ing horror. 
 
 " I assume, little Monkeston — that is to 
 say, your behaviour intimates that you have 
 been kept in ignorance of a fact, the due 
 explanation of which, had my advice been 
 taken upon the subject, I should have coun- 
 selled at a much earlier period of your ex- 
 istence. I have no doubt, young as you 
 are, your memory extends to the time, some 
 years distant now, when your unfortunate 
 sister Jean was in possession of the usual 
 facilities for locomotion, and the usual per- 
 sonal qualifications of children healthily 
 born and brought up. Am I right in sup- 
 posing that you remember that time ?" 
 
 Roger tried to speak, but no words came. 
 
 " We will waive the point, as it is of com- 
 paratively slight importance. At a very 
 early period of her life, however, those 
 powers of locomotion suffered a check, and
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 141 
 
 those personal qualifications became impair- 
 ed by a slow process of decay, which has 
 eventuated in her present condition of 
 helplessness. In the absence of any definite 
 information conveyed to you by your pa- 
 rents on this subject, it now becomes my 
 duty to inform you that your sister's afflic- 
 tion was caused by a blow which, in a mo- 
 ment, I will not say of anger, but probably 
 of childish thoughtlessness or impatience, you 
 inflicted upon her, causing her to fall from 
 a considerable height, and producing those 
 injuries which it is needless for me now to 
 describe, their nature being familiar, from 
 the constant presence of them." 
 
 Dimly, as when people awaking remem- 
 ber a dream, which afterwards comes back 
 with the distinctness of actual vision, Roger 
 seemed to see that mossy bank by the water- 
 fall in the Willowmarshes garden, and Jean, 
 a little dot of three years old, toddling 
 along its brink ; and then — but how or why
 
 142 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 he could not recall — she fell, and Gurtha 
 had scolded him for letting her get her 
 clothes covered with amd. And then for a 
 long time they never played together in the 
 garden again, and ever after that he was 
 bidden to be so careful of her. But he 
 only struggled after the dim remembrance ; 
 it would not show him itself clearly. And 
 Mr. Ballinger kept going on in that slow, 
 pompous, measured tone. 
 
 " Not, as I repeated before, that you had 
 any malicious intention, but the effect was 
 the same — namely, that your sister sustained 
 an injury resulting in a permanent affliction, 
 which is to all her friends, as doubtless it 
 will be to yourself, when you are able to 
 comprehend its seriousness, a cause of deep 
 and lasting grief" 
 
 " I am glad," Mr. Ballinger continued, 
 seeing the look of white horror on Roger's 
 face — " I am glad that you receive this
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 143 
 
 painful communication with a fitting sense 
 of its seriousness. I argue from such a 
 condition of mind that you will not shrink 
 from accepting the responsibility which this 
 bygone act of childish folly has placed upon 
 you, but will consider it the duty of your 
 whole future life to repair in such small 
 measure as you can the terrible consequences 
 of your fault. To this end I inculcate upon 
 you diligent application to your present 
 work — that perseverance which refuses 
 neither labour nor drudgery, but cheerfully 
 accepts present toil as a means to future 
 success. I will not further detain you, as I 
 hear the Minster bells chiming, and the 
 rules require punctuality in yourduties there ; 
 but 1 shall wish your attendance at the 
 office this evening to execute some errands 
 in the city." 
 
 And having thus acquitted himself of the 
 painful duty which Mrs. Monkeston's re-
 
 144 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 missness had forced upon him, Mr. Ballinger 
 wiped his spectacles, and began to look 
 through a few papers relative to old Hiram 
 Armstrong's affairs.
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 T)OGER went out into the dark. The 
 -^ ^ rain was coming down in torrents ; 
 the north wind — for it was Mid-winter now 
 — drove fiercely in his face. He ran wildly 
 along, finding in the storm a kind of relief 
 to his pent-up feelings, and neither knowing 
 nor caring whither he went, until, turning 
 the corner into a narrow street in quite an 
 opposite direction to the Minster, he stum- 
 bled against Dr. Boniface. 
 
 '* What, you here ?" said the doctor, 
 " and the Minster bells chiming this quarter 
 of an hour past ! Why, what on earth's 
 the matter?" he continued, looking into the 
 lad's face, pale, excited, tear-stained — 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 " anything gone amiss at home ? — Jean 
 ill ?" 
 
 " No, no," said the boy, wildly, Jean's 
 name rousing an agony of pain in his heart 
 again — "please, sir, it's nothing — it's nothing 
 at all." 
 
 And snatching his hand out of the doctor's, 
 he rushed away at a more frantic pace than 
 ever. 
 
 Dr. Boniface looked after him. Some- 
 thing was wrong. He hoped the boy had 
 not got into disgrace at the office. Mr. 
 Ballinger was not a man to overlook any- 
 thing of that sort. It would go hard with 
 Roger, very hard, if he had done anything to 
 damage his reputation there. And yet what 
 else, if all was well at home, could have 
 sent him driving through the streets in that 
 way, with such evident marks of distress and 
 fear upon his face ? The good doctor was 
 very troubled about it, but he wisely kept 
 his trouble to himself for awhile.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 147 
 
 Roger, somewhat brought to his senses 
 by this encounter, hurried away to the 
 Minster, reaching it just in time to put on 
 his surplice and join the procession, which 
 was already on its way to the choir. With 
 mechanical correctness he went through his 
 part in the chanting, though his young heart 
 seemed almost burstinsr with this, its first 
 great load of grief. To the end of his life, 
 Roger Monkeston never forgot that hour in 
 Cruxborough Minster. It stood up like a 
 great, dark, solemn pillar of remembrance 
 between him and the boyhood which before 
 it had been so bright and lightsome. The 
 whole place in that dim December gloom 
 seemed full to him of mysterious rebuke. 
 The sculptured martyrs, standing with folded 
 hands and flowing robes in their canopied 
 niches under the clerestory windows, looked 
 upon him from under bent brows, with sad 
 majestic anger for the wrong that he had 
 done. The sweet angel faces, which many 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 and many a time from his place in the choir 
 he had watched bending down from lofty 
 carven capitals over the altar, as if to read 
 its mysteries, wore now a stony aspect of 
 horror and rebuke. From boss and corbel 
 those weird unearthly shapes which the 
 old monks had chiselled, seemed writhing 
 towards him, mocking Jean's deformed 
 limbs. If he tried to lose himself in the 
 music, its piercing melody was the wail of 
 Jean's voice ; if he listened to the prayers, 
 they were only full of her sad complain- 
 ings ; if he shut his eyes, her pale, wan little 
 face, strangely mixed up with those of the 
 leering figures above, pressed upon him like 
 a nis^htmare. 
 
 At last Roger could bear it no longer. 
 With a stifled cry of misery, he stole out 
 from his place, threw off the surplice, which 
 seemed all too white and fair for him who 
 had done such grievous wrong, and then 
 wandered out into the tempest again. There
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 149 
 
 was a sort of relief in letting it spend itself 
 upon him. It was almost like an atonement 
 to Jean that the rain should be drenching; 
 him and the north wind drifting him before 
 it, whilst she sat warmed and comforted by 
 their mother's side. And, as he wandered 
 aimlessly up and down the deserted streets, 
 that past which Mr. Ballinger's words had 
 touched came back so clearly to him. He 
 remembered so well playing with Jean on 
 the mossy bank by the waterfall, giving lier 
 that little push which sent her rolling over 
 the edge ; her faint cry of fright, and then 
 how quietly, how very quietly, she had lain 
 amongst the grass and water-weed at the 
 bottom. He had thought she could not be 
 much hurt, she was so still. And ever since 
 that, things had been different. Their 
 mother had been so careful — so tender over 
 Jean. Even their father, who scarcely ever 
 took any notice of them except to bid them 
 get out of his way, would sometimes lift
 
 150 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 little Jean up and give her a kiss ; and 
 Roger remembered how, seeing him do 
 this, a pang of jealousy had once gone 
 through him, and he turned coldly away 
 from the child who seemed to be having 
 more of love's cherishing than himself. That 
 thought made the tears come back, and 
 Roger could have cried out in his pain. 
 
 Late, quite late, he came home. They 
 had not missed him much, for Mr. Ballinger 
 often kept him all the evening, taking mes- 
 sages. He crept quietly away to his room 
 and Avent to bed, and when Mrs. Monkes- 
 ton came to say good night to him, he hid 
 his face, that she might think he slept. But 
 there was no sleep for Roger that night. If 
 a few moments of unconsciousness came, he 
 started with a cry of terror. Stony faces, 
 all of them like Jean's, stared down upon 
 him ; grinning figures writhed and twisted 
 round hin]. With the dull grey light of the 
 moft-ning came shivering and pain. He tried
 
 THE BLUE KIBBON. 151 
 
 to get up, but the room seemed to turn 
 round with hhn. He could no longer think, 
 he could no longer remember; he could 
 only lie still and suffer. 
 
 No more singing in the Minster choir for 
 many and many a long day after that ; no 
 more feeding of office fires, nor running of 
 errands, nor hearing of pompous exhorta- 
 tions from Mr. Ballinger. The white sur- 
 plice was laid away, so were the pasteboard 
 wheels and diagrams, and the sealing-wax 
 planets, which with such care and pains had 
 been made at last to move properly in their 
 orbits; and Mrs. Monkeston, taking them 
 out sometimes, and looking at them through 
 blinding tears, wondered if the boy would 
 ever want them again. 
 
 For it was fever, low nervous fever, 
 Mr. Balmain said, which had seized him ; 
 and none could tell yet how it would fare 
 with the poor lad, or which should have the 
 victory in that battle which death and the
 
 152 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 strong young life were fighting so closely. 
 And soon, from bis ravings, Mrs. Monkeston 
 learned all, learned who had told him over- 
 soon the sad truth, which, when he was wise 
 enough to know its meaning, she meant 
 most lovingly to have taught him. 
 
 ^' Jean ! Jean !" he would cry out, when 
 the fever was strong upon him, " I didn't do 
 it on purpose ! I didn't mean to push you 
 over! I couldn't help it! Don't look at 
 me, Mr. Ballinger, in that way — I can't bear 
 it ! They are all pushing me, the stone 
 figures ! I shall fall ! T can't sing when 
 they look at me like that ! Jean, tell them 
 I didn't do it on purpose." And then the 
 poor child would fancy he was in his place 
 in the choir, and begin to chant the psalms 
 in a sweet sad voice that almost broke his 
 mother's heart. 
 
 No time now to wonder why the Crux- 
 borough people never came to see her, 
 never asked her to go to their houses. For
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 153 
 
 many days she never left Roger's room. 
 Gurtha and little Jean between them at- 
 tended to the shop. Mrs. Bratchet, good 
 soul ! came every alternate night to sit up 
 with him, a service for which she would 
 take neither thanks nor payment, saying it 
 was the Lord's work, and would bring its 
 own blessing with it. And to lighten the 
 house-work, which pressed heavily upon 
 Gurtha now, she took all the washing away 
 to her own little room in the college yard, 
 and did it there because, as she said, work 
 was slack, and she had plenty of time ; and 
 if Mrs. Monkeston didn't mind finding soap, 
 she didn't mind finding hands to use it. So 
 she said, bringing back week after week her 
 upheaped basket of snowy linen ; but she. 
 never told Gurtha, and she never told any- 
 one else, that many an hour of sleep had 
 been knocked off her already shortened 
 nights, to bring that little offering of service 
 to her old mistress ; and perhaps the good
 
 154 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 woman herself did not know, nay, would 
 not have believed, that those labour-rough- 
 ened arms of hers, carrying her basket week 
 by week to the old gabled house, were 
 building up a remembrance in heaven nobler 
 than all the subscription -lists in Cruxborough 
 put together could raise. 
 
 At last the wrestler Death was thrown. 
 Once more Roger Monkeston, not proud 
 and triumphant now, though, but trembling, 
 for the fight had been very sore, stood over 
 the foe who had so nearly conquered him. 
 Thanks to Mrs. Monkeston's admirable 
 nursing, his own careful watching of the 
 case, of course, and the lad's admirable 
 constitution, Mr. Balmain said — also, per- 
 haps, though Mr. Balmain did not say it, 
 owing to the fact that God had some work 
 yet for Roger Monkeston to do in the world 
 — he won slowly back to life. After those 
 weeks of slow pain and watching came the 
 sweet dawn-light of returning health ; and
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 155 
 
 the gladdest service love can ever do, that of 
 leading up its own from the river's brink 
 into the fair fields of life again, was done in 
 the little world-forsaken house in Bishop's 
 Lane. 
 
 Not until one sunny Spring morning, three 
 months after the beginning of his illness, 
 did Roger and Jean go forth, hand in hand, 
 across the Close, and enter the old Minster 
 at service time. They sat in Jean's favour- 
 ite corner, away from comers and goers, in a 
 niche where once, before Thomas Cromwell's 
 men deprived him of his office, a stone arch- 
 bishop stood to bless the people. And there 
 Roger, to whom both time and place brought 
 back the great day of his pain, told Jean all 
 about it. 
 
 She only put her little brown hand into 
 his, and looking into his face from the 
 depths of those great wistful eyes, which 
 already had the pathos of her lonely future 
 pent up in them, said,
 
 156 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 •' Mother told me, and I love you." 
 And it seemed to them, as the music gave 
 
 its sweet Amen to her words, that they would 
 
 belong to each other always.
 
 157 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 T) OGER'S illness did one good thing for 
 -*-^ him — it delivered him, for the pre- 
 sent, at least, from the dreary treadmill 
 round of errand-running, office-sweeping, 
 and coal- carrying, by which Mr. Ballinger 
 kindly proposed to give him an insight into 
 the profession. Mr. Balmain said the lad 
 must have rest. He might still go to the 
 choristers' school in the morning, and do a 
 little practising, by way of keeping up his 
 musical education ; but, that done, all the 
 rest of the day must be given to health. 
 
 So there were fine times for Roger now 
 — better, he thought, than if he had never 
 been ill at all. For the days, except that 
 little bit of morning-school and the two ser-
 
 158 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 vices at the Minster, were one long delight- 
 ful holiday, in which not even the semblance 
 of work needed to be done. Three months 
 of rest — that was w4iat Mr. Balmain pre- 
 scribed, before even half-days were to begin 
 at the office again ; and, most fortunately 
 for Roger, the three months fell to him just 
 at the beginning of Dr. Boniface's term of 
 residence in the Canon's Lodge, scarce a 
 stone's-throw away from the little shop 
 under the east front of the Minster. 
 
 The good old man had felt a pang go 
 through his heart when, not long after 
 meeting Roger on that cold December night, 
 he learned the real cause of the lad's wild, 
 excited manner. He felt then as if he 
 could scarcely do enough to atone for the 
 suspicion which, though told to no one else, 
 had really crossed his mind. Constantly 
 during the first weeks of that long dreary 
 fever-time, he used to come over from his 
 Rectory at the Willowmarshes with some
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 159 
 
 delicacy for the invalid, or some more sub- 
 stantial gift in kind, which, under pretext 
 of supplying Roger's wants, he left in the 
 widow's hands, knowing well enough how 
 tight the grasp of poverty must sometimes 
 be now in that home ; and if Mrs. Boniface's 
 numerous brood of grandchildren had been 
 quadrupeds, or even centipedes, they could 
 scarcely have required such constant relays 
 of little socks and boots as the kind-heart- 
 ed old lady was continually ordering from 
 Bishop's Lane. 
 
 Then, later on in the Spring, when they 
 came into residence, there was an unfailing 
 supply of books for Roger from the Canon's 
 library — books after the lad's own heart ; 
 " Ferguson's Life," that joy of joys to a 
 mechanical boy, with its quaint old story of 
 difficuhies overcome and prejudices beaten 
 down ; of nights spent out in the dew- 
 spangled fields, making maps of the stars 
 with beads and string. Oh ! how Roger
 
 160 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 longed to have a night out himself on the 
 greensward of the Minster Close, only Mrs. 
 Monkeston would never give in to it ; and 
 that watch, that delightful old wooden 
 watch, which the stupid farmer trod upon 
 and smashed ; and the three- wheeled orrery, 
 which Roger had already copied many and 
 many a time ; and the slow, steady climbing 
 up to knowledge and fame of the rude, 
 rough-handed shepherd's boy. And books 
 full of experiments in mechanics, and in- 
 structions how to make dials, and pictures 
 of all sorts of them which could be copied 
 on cardboard, with gnomons cut out and 
 stuck on, so as to tell the right time — at 
 least, within half an hour or so — when 
 taken out on sunny days, and placed at a 
 proper angle in the little bit of grass plot in 
 front of the house. What joy filled Roger's 
 heart one morning, when, after a week's 
 plodding over a dial from " Ferguson's 
 Mechanical Exercises," copied upon the top
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 161 
 
 of a pasteboard box out of the shop, and 
 furnished with an elaborately-carved gno- 
 mon, he took it out into the garden, set it 
 by the proper directions, saw the shadow 
 fall upon the half-way mark between eleven 
 and twelve, and then, running round to the 
 great clock above the west door of the Min- 
 ster, found that that was indeed the right 
 time ! No prince could have been happier 
 than Roger then. 
 
 And later still, when the Summer days 
 began to give him back a little strength, 
 and half-time at the office was talked 
 of again, Roger used to saunter down the 
 streets, looking at the opticians' shop win- 
 dows, those delightful windows, where, 
 strangely enough, as it seemed to him, people 
 scarcely ever stayed ; where there were 
 microscopes and telescopes, and celestial 
 globes with the constellations marked out 
 upon them, and spirit-levels, and barome- 
 ters, and the real, actual instruments them- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 selves, of which he had only seen the 
 pictures in Dr. Boniface's books. And 
 sometimes, when he was strong enough to 
 go so far, he would get quite away to the 
 Woolsthorpe works, close to Hiram Arm- 
 strong's old house at Wastewood ; the won- 
 derful Woolsthorpe works, named, as Dr. 
 Boniface had told him, after the birthplace 
 of the great philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, 
 and whose owner, Matthew ArnclifFe, had, 
 by his own honest effort, raised himself from 
 a raw little country boy, to be one of the 
 foremost scientific men in England ; a fellow 
 of the Royal Society, and a member of 
 nearly all the great European Institutes. 
 
 Roger did not know much about Royal 
 Societies and European Institutes, but he 
 had made a little orrery with three wheels, 
 and constructed a dial that would tell the 
 time ; and he knew something about how 
 telescopes were made, for he had tried to 
 put one together out of Ferguson's book ;
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 163 
 
 and often, in chance times which he could 
 spare from that everlasting errand-going and 
 coal-carrying, he had run off to the great 
 astronomical instrument works, and looked 
 in through the closed iron gates, and seen 
 the long lines of workshops, and the wheels 
 and bands of the steam lathes moving so 
 regularly to and fro, and a tall, tent-like 
 shed in a corner of the works, under which 
 — but he had never seen it except once, 
 when it was being freshly adjusted — was the 
 monster telescope, better even, and more 
 powerful. Dr. Boniface told hiu], than Lord 
 Rosse's, which had been ordered for the 
 observatory at Greenwich, and which had 
 already taken a whole year in making. 
 With keen, almost awful interest, he had 
 heard Dr. Boniface talk about this telescope, 
 its great glasses, not yet ground and 
 polished, but worth so many hundreds of 
 pounds, and always kept in an inner room, 
 locked and guarded ; its wonderful wheel- 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 work, the perfect accuracy and delicacy of 
 its huge machinery, until it seemed to him 
 like some mysterious living creature, and the 
 tent which hid it from him was like the 
 vesture of an actual human spirit, through 
 which he longed to pierce, and touch the 
 inner life. 
 
 Ah ! if he could be even an errand lad in 
 those great Woolsthorpe works, and some- 
 times go near the black tent, and peep at 
 the strange creature within, and live his life 
 amongst the lathes, and telescopes, and 
 chronometers, and wonderful instruments 
 which were slowly growing to their perfec- 
 tion under the long lines of workshops, how 
 happy he should be ! He used to watch the 
 men coming out at noon ; not all men, 
 though, some of them boys, not so much 
 older than himself; and he longed to put 
 on one of their smutty blouses, instead of his 
 own neat, dapper little round jacket, and 
 work at the lathes, and go in and out
 
 THE BLUE KIBBON. 165 
 
 amongst the machinery, and learn all about 
 the engine, and find out how the things 
 were put together. But, no. He must go 
 on getting an insight into the profession, for 
 it was such a fine opening for him. Every- 
 one said how good Mr. BalHnger had been 
 to take him in, and what a man he mio^ht 
 make of himself, if he would only stick to 
 work. He might even, with industry, and 
 twenty or thirty years of application, become 
 a second Mr. Ballinger, and what more could 
 he wish than that? Then there was Jean, 
 Jean who would never have a home of her 
 own, or anyone to work for her except him- 
 self; Jean whose life he had so sorely 
 spoiled, for whose sake he must toil now, 
 and give himself to the work, their mother 
 said, which would soonest win bread for her. 
 Could he pick and choose for himself, 
 whilst she sat still at home and starved ? 
 
 And Roger used to turn away back again 
 to the coal-carrying and the errand-running.
 
 166 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 for which, by-and-by, when he was better 
 up to his work, Mr. Ballinger had promised 
 to give him half-a-crown a week. 
 
 It w^as one of the sunshiny afternoons, 
 just before the blessed three months of rest 
 would come to an end, that the boy stood 
 with his hands in his pockets, and his face 
 — somewhat pinched yet, and hollow-cheeked 
 — pressed closely against the iron gates of 
 the Woolsthorpe works. So closely, in- 
 deed, that he did not see a little gentleman 
 with grey whiskers stand behind him for 
 some moments; nor was he conscious of any- 
 thing save awe for that wonderful telescope, 
 slowly growing, like a living creature, under 
 its tent, until a hand was laid on his shoul- 
 der, and a kindly voice said, 
 
 "Now, my little man, if you would just 
 be so good as to step on one side." 
 
 Roger started, as if he had been caught 
 in some dishonest trick, and his face red- 
 dened quite up to the roots of his curly hair
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 167 
 
 as the gentleman looked at him with a half 
 recognising expression. 
 
 " I've seen you before, somewhere," he 
 said, as he held one half of the iron gate 
 open (a workman coming out just then 
 touched his cap respectfully) ; " only I can't 
 remember where it ^vas." 
 
 " Please, sir," and Roger flushed a still 
 deeper scarlet, " you came past the gate 
 when Master Reginald Ballinger and I were 
 fighting in the orchard." 
 
 ^' Ah ! so I did ; and you put him down — 
 put him down into the nettles," said the 
 little gentleman, bringing his hand on 
 Roger's shoulder with a thump. "I re- 
 member it now as well as can be. And if 
 I'm not mistaken, I've seen you a good 
 many times looking in at these gates. But 
 not lately — not lately, have I ?" 
 
 " No, sir, not lately. I've been ill a long 
 time, and I'm getting better now, before I go
 
 168 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 to work again. I only used to come, sir, 
 because — because " 
 
 " Nay, nay, it's all right," said the gentle- 
 man, seeing that Roger fidgeted and looked 
 uncomfortable. " You are welcome to 
 look in through the gates as much as ever 
 you like ; only it isn't every boy that cares 
 to stand staring in at a row of workshops. 
 Would you like to go in now and have a 
 look round ?" 
 
 And Matthew Arncliffe — for the little 
 gentleman with the grey whiskers was the 
 owner of the Woolsthorpe works. Fellow 
 of the Royal Society, and Corresponding 
 Member of the Institute of France — held 
 the door open for him. 
 
 " Oh ! please, sir," said Roger, just step- 
 ping in far enough to see where a bit of the 
 curtain had been folded aw^ay, revealing the 
 glistening brass-work of the telescope-stand 
 — " oh ! please, sir." And then, his face 
 suddenly changing to blank disappointment,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 169 
 
 he went on, '' But I'm going to the Minster. 
 I'm a Minster boy, sir, and the bell's been 
 chiming ever so long ; I must be there be- 
 fore it gives over." 
 
 "All right," said the little man. " Keep 
 to your duty; there's never any harm in 
 doing that. You'll be past, maybe, some 
 other time. Don't know what that is, I 
 suppose — eh ?" he added, pointing to the 
 great tent in the corner. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, sir, I do ; Dr. Boniface has 
 told me all about it. It's the great achro- 
 matic telescope, that's going to be sent to the 
 Observatory at Greenwich ; and it shows 
 you the craters in the moon, doesn't it, 
 Sir? 
 
 " Craters in the moon ! What do you 
 know about craters in the moon ?" 
 
 But there was a keen, quick look in Mr. 
 ArncliiFe's face as he waited for Roger's 
 reply. 
 
 "I don't know anything, sir, only Dr.
 
 170 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Boniface told me about it ; and he lent me 
 ' Ferguson's Astronomy,' and told me how I 
 could make a telescope — a very little one ; 
 and he gave me the two glasses, and I made 
 a tube out of cardboard, and I cut a cotton- 
 reel into slices for the eye-pieces, and I fixed 
 it up ; and Dr. Boniface said it was all real, 
 only I couldn't see very much with it." 
 
 " Then you've made a telescope ? So, so. 
 And have you made anything else?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Roger, brightening up, 
 as the sharp yet kindly face smiled upon 
 him. " I tried to copy an orrery out of 
 Ferguson's book, and the earth goes round 
 very nicely indeed, only the moon sticks 
 fast in its orbit sometimes. I have to push 
 it rather often to make it go on." 
 
 " Most likely," said the little man ; "but 
 if it stirs at all, that's a great deal to say for 
 it. And now, let us see. What do you 
 say you do when you're all tight and 
 strong ?"
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 171 
 
 ^' Please, sir, I go to Mr. Ballinger's 
 office. He said he would take me in for 
 nothing, and I sweep out and go errands ; 
 and then, sir, I'm a Minster boy, and I get 
 my schooling that way." 
 
 '' Oh ! going to make a lawyer of you, 
 eh ? Prayers twice a day, and school and 
 practice, and errand-boy at Mr. Ballinger's 
 into the bargain, and you find time in be- 
 tween to make orreries and telescopes out 
 of ' Ferguson's Astronomy,' eh ?" 
 
 And the little man looked more keenly 
 than ever into Roger's face, whilst the boy, 
 blushing and uncomfortable, fumbled at the 
 corner of his shabby jacket. 
 
 "Well, well, time you were off now, I 
 suppose ; but some day, before you start 
 work again, you may come here, if you 
 like, and I'll take you round, and maybe 
 we shall find something more handy for 
 making a telescope than mother's cotton 
 reels. Let me see, come to-morrow, if
 
 172 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 you like — day after — any day — I'm always 
 here. Ask for Mr. ArnclifFe — say I told 
 you to come." 
 
 " Oh, sir !" and the big tears came into 
 Roger's eyes. 
 
 '' Never mind — never mind — don't bother 
 me," said the gentleman, dashing hastily away 
 into a little office on the right hand of the 
 gate, leaving Roger to find his way out as 
 he could. But as he unlocked an inner 
 door, and began carefully to examine two 
 large discs of glass, w^hich, swathed in the 
 finest cotton wool, were reared against the 
 wall, he muttered to himself — 
 
 " Make that lad a lawyer ! — humph ! — 
 rubbish !"
 
 173 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 I^EXT day, long before the stroke of 
 ^^ three, the hour appointed by Mr. 
 Arncliffe, Roger was waitmg at the gates of 
 his Paradise. How he envied the work- 
 men ! — those fine, keen, intelligent-look- 
 ing men, some of them in such greasy, 
 blackened blouses, who kept going in and 
 out. How happy they must be ! Roger 
 wondered they were not always singing and 
 whistling, as he was sure he should be, if he 
 had to work on such enchanted ground. 
 And as for wages, why, he would rather 
 toil there all his life for nothing, than make 
 a fortune amongst the tape and sealing-wax 
 and parchment of Mr. Ballinger's office. If 
 only — and he thought of Jean, little Jean,
 
 174 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 whose stay, and shelter, and protection were 
 to be his trust, even as the need of them 
 had been his fault. 
 
 " Ready !" said the master, wheeling down 
 upon him with a cheery smile and a hearty 
 shake of the hand, as the clock over the 
 gates struck the hour of three. '' Punctual 
 as a chronometer! That's right; nothing 
 like keeping time to the minute. Come 
 along," and he led the way across the court- 
 yard. " I think we'll go right away first to 
 the heart and brain of the whole concern." 
 
 "That's you, isn't it, sir?" said Roger, 
 looking shyly up into the sharp, shrewd 
 face, with its keen grey eyes and deep lines 
 of thought. 
 
 "Well, no, I won't exactly say that." 
 But the little man looked amused as he 
 took Roger along to an engine-shed, where 
 a huge iron monster was puffing and labour- 
 ing away, pouring out of its great strong 
 valves the current of life which kept the
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 175 
 
 pulses of the system round it working with 
 clock-Hke regularity. 
 
 " There, that's what I call the heart. You 
 may call me the brain, if you like — I've no 
 objection ; but it's little work I could do 
 here without this tough old fellow to help 
 me." 
 
 Mr. ArnclifFe stood apart, and closely 
 watched the lad as he walked round and 
 round, examining the works, looking eagerly 
 in, tracing the machinery — how one part 
 moved another, and all worked towards 
 one common point. It was no stupid won- 
 der which shone in Roger's eyes, though he 
 seemed almost confounded by the vastness 
 of the force thus compressed. 
 
 " Ready for something else, eh ?" he said 
 at last, smiling, when the lad, having satis- 
 fied his curiosity, came up to him with a 
 look of dumb wonder in his face. " Shall 
 we go and look at the hands, now we've got 
 a notion of the heart ?"
 
 176 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 And then followed for Roger, the little 
 chorister boy of Cruxborough Minster, the 
 greatest treat he had ever had in his life, for 
 Mr. ArnclifFe, beginning at the very lowest, 
 took him through all the workshops, from 
 the moulding-shops and casting-sheds, where 
 the rough brass was turned out of its sandy 
 form, right on to the finishing-room, where, 
 bright and smooth as the most polished 
 mirror, it formed part of some delicate 
 astronomical instrument. He saw the pro- 
 cess, too, by which the wheels were cut, 
 the number of the teeth calculated, — a diffi- 
 culty which had puzzled poor Roger greatly, 
 for how to make the same number of teeth 
 in each different sized wheel of his paste- 
 board orrery, had cost him many a wakeful 
 night. And then, after showing him the 
 steam lathes at work, and the putting toge- 
 ther of the various instruments, Mr. Arn- 
 cliffe took him into a room where there 
 was a real orrery, giving the motions of
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 177 
 
 all the planets, together with their different 
 eclipses, occultations, and conjunctions, which 
 might be calculated for any number of 
 years. Roger understood about this better 
 than about the steam-engine, for he had 
 mentally constructed the whole thing so 
 many times from the plates and descriptions 
 given in Ferguson's book, that he seemed 
 quite on familiar ground whilst examining 
 the wheels which produced the different 
 movements. Mr. Arncliffe apparently took 
 but little notice of him, just letting him go 
 round, and take his own notes of things, 
 answering a question now and then, briefly 
 and clearly ; but all the time he was ob- 
 serving the lad's intelligence, watching as 
 keenly as possible the expression of his 
 face, which showed just how much he under- 
 stood of each thini]^. He had conducted 
 many a lord and duke over those works 
 with less pleasure than he felt now in watch- 
 ing Roger Monkeston examine with such 
 VOL. I. • N
 
 178 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 eager, boy-like interest the various instru- 
 ments ; ay, and many a lord or duke too, 
 with a whole course of university education 
 at his back, had manifested far less insight, 
 and entered with far less understanding into 
 the explanations given, than did this little 
 schoolboy, whose life seemed to be spent 
 between psalm-chanting and office-sweeping. 
 Last of all, Mr. ArnclifFe took his little 
 friend across to the tent, under which the 
 great telescope stood. Involuntarily as they 
 entered, Roger took off his cap, and stood 
 bareheaded, as if in the presence of some 
 one nobler than himself. Mr. Arncliffe saw 
 the act, and it touched him deeply, though 
 he took no notice of it, only set it down 
 along with the other things by which he 
 had been judging of Roger's character. 
 Something was to be hoped for, thought 
 the shrewd man of science, from the little 
 lad who took off his hat to a telescope, see- 
 ing in it a sort of incarnation of the highest
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 179 
 
 type of intellect. Such reverence would not 
 stop there, he thought — it would climb on 
 and on until it learned to understand what 
 now it only dimly and dumbly wondered at. 
 Roger never spoke as they walked round 
 and round the large instrument ; he scarcely 
 looked at it closely, as he had looked at the 
 other things. It seemed enough to be there, 
 in its presence, holding a kind of silent 
 communion with it. At last, with a quiet 
 "Thank you, sir," he came out. 
 
 " Well, now I think you've seen enough 
 for once. Stay, though, I said I would look 
 out for something better than your mother's 
 cotton reels to make an eye-piece for that 
 telescope of yours." And Mr. Arncliffe led 
 the way into a great lumber-room, where 
 bits of brass-work and remains of instruments 
 of all sorts were scattered about. " Here's 
 just the thing you want," and he picked out 
 a piece of tubing; "and perhaps some of 
 these little globes would be useful to you — 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 they must have belonged to an orrery once ; 
 but we don't make that sort of thing now, 
 and so you may have them if you like." 
 
 Roger's eyes sparkled as Mr. Arncliffe 
 filled his pockets for him with little globes 
 of different sizes, representing the different 
 planets, and showed him how to fix each on 
 its axis ; and then he gave him some wheels 
 and a brass dial-plate, with nothing wanting 
 to its completion but the gnomon. Truly, 
 this was a day much to be remembered. 
 
 " And now, good-bye," said the good- 
 hearted man, as he shook hands heartily 
 with the bright-eyed boy. " Some of these 
 da^'S I shall look in upon you, and see that 
 three- wheeled orrery of yours. Little house, 
 isn't it, just under the Minster? Yes, I 
 know it is as well as can be ; queer little 
 place with two gables that look as if they 
 were winking at you. Very comfortable, 
 though, I daresay. And so mother lives 
 there, does she ? — and that sister Jean you
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 181 
 
 were fighting about when you put Master 
 Reginald into the nettles — ha ! ha ! Won- 
 der how he liked it ? Good-bye, good-bye. 
 No, no, I don't want any of your thanks. I 
 tell you, you may come and see the works 
 whenever you like ; and if you want a bit of 
 telescope tube or a planet any time, just tell 
 me, and we'll make it all right." 
 
 But again, as he went into the inner office, 
 and prepared to make his calculations for 
 the grinding of the great telescope glass, Mr. 
 ArncliiFe said, 
 
 " Make that lad a lawyer ! Humph ! — 
 rubbish ! I'll see old Ballinger at Jericho 
 first !" 
 
 Before many days had passed, he made 
 his appearance in the little back-parlour be- 
 hind the shop. He insisted on seeing all 
 Roger's mechanical performances, nodded 
 his head with great satisfaction over the 
 three-wheeled orrery, listened gravely as the
 
 182 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 boy, utterly unconscious of anything extraor- 
 dinary in his attainments, talked about the 
 problems he had been puzzling out from 
 " Howe on the Globes," and the dials he 
 had been constructing from the Mechanical 
 Exercises which Dr. Boniface had lent him. 
 He expressed no surprise, paid no compli- 
 ments — only said he might come to the 
 works whenever he liked, and promised to 
 lend him books which would be more useful, 
 perhaps, than those of Ferguson. 
 
 But when, at the bidding of the Minster 
 bells, Roger had disappeared to his place in 
 the choir, Mr. Arncliffe had a long talk 
 with his mother about him, and asked if her 
 plans for his future employment were quite 
 fixed — because, if not, he should like to 
 suggest his devoting himself a little more to 
 the studies for which he seemed to have such 
 a natural aptitude. 
 
 Mrs. Monkeston, like most other practical, 
 domestic women, was astonished to find that
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 183 
 
 this perpetual wheel-cutting and orrery-mak- 
 ing, this chipping about with empty cotton- 
 reels, and planning out of dials on the tops 
 of her pasteboard boxes, indicated anything 
 beyond a taste for experiment which might 
 stand in the way of her son's success in life. 
 But she had common sense enough to see 
 the wisdom of Mr. Arncliffe's arguments, 
 when he showed her how unadvisable it 
 would be to tie the lad down to work for 
 which the bent of his mind so completely 
 unfitted him. He told her he had been 
 thinking the matter over since he had taken 
 Roger round the works, and found with 
 what intelligence he had observed the dif- 
 ferent processes ; and he had come now to 
 propose taking the boy into the workshops 
 at once, if that could be done without in- 
 volving anything unhandsome to Mr. Bal- 
 linger. He said he had no doubt, from 
 what Roger had made out already by his 
 own industry, and in spite of many obstacles,
 
 184 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 that, if he had a fair chance given him, he 
 would make a good scientific and practical 
 man. Therefore, he proposed putting him 
 into the very lowest department first, and 
 thence letting him work up step by step to 
 the finest departments of mathematical in- 
 strument making — that of course depending 
 upon whether his talent and application 
 would carry him so far. Until thus stop- 
 ped, he should go right on. He added that 
 Mrs. Monkeston need not trouble herself 
 about a premium — he would take the lad's 
 love of science in place of that ; and as soon 
 as his labour began to be worth anything, 
 he should be paid for it. 
 
 Mrs. Monkeston knew the value of such 
 an offer. Dr. Boniface had said to her 
 more than once what a splendid thing it 
 would be for Roger if, with his fondness for 
 mechanical and astronomical pursuits, he 
 could be got into the celebrated Wools- 
 thorpe works. But then it was so difficult,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 185 
 
 he said, to get a lad in there, except simply 
 as an apprentice to the brass-working de- 
 partment, in which he would never be more 
 than a common journeyman. As for enter- 
 ing him as a private pupil, that was quite 
 out of the question, it being considered a 
 favour even for wealthy and highly-educated 
 boys to be taken into the mathematical 
 department, and there trained under the 
 master's own direction. Yet now Mr. Arn- 
 clifFe had made the offer himself, laid open 
 to Roger the very path he would have 
 chosen, and promised that nothing but his 
 own failure should stop him from following 
 it out to the end. She was trying to ex- 
 press her thanks, but the little man stopped 
 her in his brusque, decided way. 
 
 ** Nothing of the sort, madam — nothing 
 of the sort. I — in fact, I'm just pleasing 
 myself, and there's an end of the whole 
 matter. If you are willing to give me my 
 own way, I don't want any of your thanks.
 
 186 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Excuse me, I know that's a queer way of 
 putting it ; but you will understand what I 
 mean. I always think it's an unfair thing 
 to pretend to be doing a lad a kindness, 
 when all the while you're only pleasing 
 yourself." 
 
 *' But without any premium, Mr. Arn- 
 clifFe ?" said the widow, thinking how, only 
 a few days before, Mr. Ballinger had sent 
 for her to his office, and told her by how 
 many instalments, paid down at stated 
 periods, he would receive the sum of one 
 hundred pounds, which he thought was the 
 lowest possible figure at which he could 
 engage to initiate Roger into the profession ; 
 and even then only in a second-hand, pupil- 
 teacher sort of fashion, much sweeping and 
 errand-running being still required to sup- 
 plement the deficiency — " without any pre- 
 mmm : 
 
 "Well, well," said Mr. Arncliffe, with that 
 bluff, blundering awkwardness which always
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 187 
 
 came over him when people began to thank 
 him for anything he was doing. " If you'll 
 just hand the lad over to me, and let me 
 make what I can of him, or at any rate put 
 him in the way of making what he can for 
 himself, I don't think there'll be much of a 
 balance of thanks to strike between us. So 
 you'd best say nothing more about it. I'll 
 look in at Ballinger's some of these days, 
 and hear what he's got to say about it. No 
 agreement with him yet, is there, or any- 
 thing of that kind ?'' 
 
 Mrs. Monkeston was thankful now to 
 say there was not. A few days ago she 
 would have been so thankful to say there 
 was. 
 
 " All right ; then it's plain-sailing. Good 
 night, little Brownie, he continued, nodding 
 to Jean, who had been casting shy glances 
 upon him from behind the shelter of her 
 mother's chair. " I think by the look of 
 that forehead of yours, we ought to be able
 
 188 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 to make something of you too ; only I sup- 
 pose mother will want to keep you quiet at 
 home. Bless your little pale face !" 
 
 And in his sudden, abrupt way, he turned 
 round and laid his hand for a moment, with 
 a gentle, caressing touch, on the child's soft 
 curls. Then he whisked out of the house, 
 and away to his two meanly-furnished little 
 rooms at the Woolsthorpe works, where he 
 began to put his things together for a jour- 
 ney to London on the morrow. For it was 
 the annual dinner of the Royal Society, 
 and amongst all the people who gathered 
 there, peers and princes, besides those 
 grander kings whom art or science crow^ns, 
 none would be received with more honour 
 than Matthew Arncliffe, once the untutored 
 country lad, but now one of the foremost 
 men in England's book of greatness.
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF course Mr. Ballinger had a great deal 
 to say on the subject, when, accord- 
 ing to promise, Mr. Arncliffe went over to 
 speak to him about the proposed change in 
 Roger Monkeston's life. It was scarcely to 
 be expected that he should submit to the 
 loss of his quick-footed errand-boy without 
 some little effort to express to Mr. Arncliffe 
 the extent of the sacrifice which he was 
 making. 
 
 In fact, he thought he might venture to 
 say that, setting aside the unbounded respect 
 he had always felt for the master of the 
 Woolsthorpe works as a man of science, 
 and one of the most distinguished ornaments 
 of his native county, nothing but a truly
 
 190 THE BLUE KIBBON. 
 
 disinterested regard for the prosperity of 
 the widow and fatherless — here Mr. Ballin- 
 ger assumed the platform style, and beamed 
 over his office desk upon an imaginary 
 audience — nothing, he might say, but that 
 regard would have induced him to forego 
 what he might perhaps be justified in con- 
 sidering as his lawful claim upon the ser- 
 vices of young Monkeston. 
 
 " Oh ! then there was an agreement," sug- 
 gested Mr. ArnclifFe, curtly. " Didn't know 
 anything about it — sure I didn't know any- 
 thing about it. Mrs. Monkeston gave me 
 to understand none had been made." 
 
 Mr. Ballinger begged to be excused. He 
 had not, if Mr. ArnclifFe would pardon him 
 for the correction — he had not stated that 
 there was any agreement, save that which 
 he might say a gentleman had a right to 
 expect when, after many acts of kindness, 
 and much expenditure of valuable profes- 
 sional time, he had reduced the affairs of
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 191 
 
 the late lamented Mr. Monkeston to some- 
 thing like order, and instead of accepting 
 any pecuniary remuneration for that expen- 
 diture, had still further added to the obliga- 
 tion by taking the son into his office, for 
 the purpose of training him to the profes- 
 sion. Mr. Ballinger thought he might be 
 pardoned for suggesting that such a course 
 of action constituted a claim perhaps as 
 binding as a written agreement, which he 
 was bound to say certainly did not exist. 
 
 ** Were you going to take the lad, and 
 stick to him till you'd made a man of him ?" 
 asked Mr. ArnclifFe, jerking out each word 
 with a short, quick emphasis of irritability, 
 for Mr. Ballinger's paragraphs were a nui- 
 sance. 
 
 Mr. Ballinger declined to waste his re- 
 spected friend's valuable time by entering 
 into any detailed statements with regard to 
 his intentions. Suffice it to say that he had 
 cherished plans of his own which might —
 
 192 THE BLUE KIBBON. 
 
 he would not of course bind himself to say 
 that they would — but which might have 
 eventuated favourably for him, when, after 
 a few years of application to the lower duties 
 of his office, he had begun to gain an insight 
 into business. But he would let that pass. 
 It was not his place to enlarge upon what 
 he meant to have done, any more than upon 
 the sacrifices which, out of respect to Mr. 
 ArnclifFe, he had felt himself compelled to 
 make. He would only say it was a disap- 
 pointment to him — a slight disappointment, 
 not to put it more strongly than that ; but 
 young Monkeston had his best wishes, his 
 very best wishes. He was sure nothing 
 would give him greater pleasure than to 
 advance in every possible way the youth's 
 prospects in life. Furthermore, and in con- 
 sideration of the circumstances, he would 
 waive the ceremony of a formal notice, and 
 allow the youth to quit his present sphere 
 of labour at the expiration of three months,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 193 
 
 a relinquishment of obvious rights, which he 
 thought Mr. ArnclifFe would receive in the 
 spirit in which it was offered. 
 
 Mr. Arncliffe thought that where there 
 was no agreement and no payment, there 
 was scarcely need of a three months' notice. 
 
 " I want the lad now," he said gruffly. 
 " He's been feeding your fires and running 
 your errands long enough." 
 
 Mr. Ballinger declined to enter into the 
 technicalities of the law on that point. Mr. 
 Arncliffe would perhaps pardon him for 
 saying that it was sufficient to state the fact 
 without going at length into the arguments 
 which midit be adduced in its defence. 
 However, as Mr. Arncliffe had doubtless 
 acquainted himself with the capabilities of 
 the youth, and was convinced of the desir- 
 ability of speedily securing his services, he 
 would not selfishly insist on his own rights. 
 He was proud to say that he had never been 
 a man selfishly to insist upon his own rights. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 He had always allowed private considera- 
 tions to fall into the background, where a be- 
 nevolent object was to be obtained. He 
 should, therefore, be willing — nay, he 
 thought he might go still further, and add 
 that he should have pleasure, since Mr. 
 ArnclifFe wished it, in at once relinquishing 
 his claims upon young Monkeston's services. 
 It was not what every man in his position, 
 and under similar circumstances, would have 
 done, and he trusted Mr. ArnclifFe would 
 pardon him for suggesting that it was a sa- 
 crifice ; but if the welfare of one who al- 
 ready owed him much gratitude required it, 
 he was ready to put aside his own personal 
 feelings, and thus add one more to the 
 many benefits which the family of his de- 
 ceased relative had received from him. 
 Having made these remarks, he hoped Mr. 
 ArnclifFe would think he had explained him- 
 self sufficiently on the subject. 
 
 Most likely Mr. ArnclifFe did think so—
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 195 
 
 most likely he had thought so for a long 
 time. He had listen ed, on the whole, very 
 patiently, only with an occasional twinkle 
 of humour amongst the crow's feet at the 
 corners of his little grey eyes, whilst Mr. 
 Ballinger enlarged upon his intentions and 
 sacrifices ; and once or twice he had felt 
 very much inclined to call " hear, hear !" 
 when, after having toiled to the summit of 
 some long paragraph, Mr. Ballinger made a 
 slight pause, and reached out his hand in 
 search of a possible glass of water, which 
 was supposed to be placed before the chair- 
 man for use whilst the audience was ap- 
 plauding. Perhaps, joined to that splendid 
 power of scientific investigation which made 
 Matthew ArnclifFe one of the great men of 
 his time, was just so much quiet insight into 
 character as made him value Mr. Ballinger's 
 intentions and sacrifices at their right estimate. 
 However that might be, he accepted them 
 both without further ado, and went straight 
 
 o2
 
 196 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 from the office to the little shop in Bishop's 
 Lane, to tell Mrs. Monkeston that all was ar- 
 ranged satisfactorily. 
 
 Just one month from that time, Roger 
 Monkeston, aged thirteen, put on for the 
 first time his fustian suit, and took his place 
 in the engine-sheds of the Woolsthorpe 
 works. With that, a glad new era in his 
 life began.
 
 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 rriEN years passed away. Quiet unevent- 
 -*- ful years, judging events by those 
 stormy waves of joy and sorrow which 
 break upon the shore of life, and, retreating, 
 leave them strewn with blackened driftwood 
 from many a wrecked hope, or spangled 
 with rare and delicate fragments of deep-sea 
 blossom and rainbow-coloured shells, cast 
 up to tell of the treasures of some far-off 
 and yet unknown world of beauty. 
 
 Cruxborough, at least that respectable por- 
 tion of it represented by the professional 
 and retired classes, went on its way as usual, 
 well-dressed, well-behaved, exercising a 
 most wise doctrine of selection in the matter 
 of its acquaintances, specially holding itself
 
 198 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 aloof from anything like familiar intercourse 
 with people who were foolish enough or 
 unfortunate enough to keep shops for the 
 sale of plain and fancy needlework. For 
 though the place was benevolent and bene- 
 ficent in the extreme, no cathedral town in 
 England more so, it preferred to practise its 
 good qualities on people who were decided- 
 ly of the poorer classes, — people whose mis- 
 fortunes placed them quite far away on the 
 wrong side of that cord which society draws 
 so scrupulously between the reserved and 
 back seats of its great public entertainments. 
 Cruxborough would get up no end of 
 bazaars, and give the proceeds of them to 
 ragged little street-Arabs, brown-stuff charity 
 children, and Church of England orphans, 
 who, in return for the same, sang touching 
 hyums in public, invoking the blessing of 
 heaven upon their benefactors. But that 
 other sort of charity which shakes hands 
 with dubiously destitute people, widows who
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 199 
 
 were once almost as respectable as itself, 
 and orphans who can even yet remember 
 sitting in the reserved seats ; which invites 
 thera to tea now and then, stops to speak 
 to them in the streets, and is not afraid of 
 asking them to meet its own familiar friends, 
 — that sort of charity was a nuisance in 
 Cruxborough, a great nuisance. Indeed, it 
 was wisely swept out of the way altogether, 
 along with other more palpable and ma- 
 terial nuisances which the City Commis- 
 sioners took under their own control. 
 *' Here are our guineas and oar half-sove- 
 reigns," said Cruxborough select. " Take 
 them, ye presidents and secretaries of bene- 
 volent institutions, clothe squalid poverty 
 with cheap flannel petticoats, teach it its 
 Church Catechism, and feed it with the 
 wholesomest of oatmeal porridge that can 
 be contracted for at a profit ; but for the 
 love of respectability, for the credit of our 
 position," and the sake of the grown-up
 
 200 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 daughters who are crying to us for a suitable 
 settlement in life, do not ask us to give 
 struggling worth the entree into our parlours, 
 or smirch our visiting-lists with the names 
 of widows who keep ready-made linen- 
 shops." 
 
 And who shall blame little Cruxboroagh 
 for this wise doctrine of selection ? 
 
 So that Mrs. Monkeston had plenty of 
 customers, but no callers — none at least of 
 a sort that was likely to raise her social 
 position in the place. Mr. Arncliffe certain- 
 ly did look in very frequently, but that was 
 mere kindness, as Mrs. Balmain said — mere 
 kindness ; and of course he never asked 
 them to his own house, being an old 
 bachelor, and living, when he was not up 
 in London amongst the scientific societies, 
 in a couple of plainly-furnished rooms at 
 the Woolsthorpe works, with an antiquated 
 female to look after him. Nothing at all, 
 that sort of acquaintance, to be proud of
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 201 
 
 And Dr. Boniface used to look in occa- 
 sionally, she thought, — kindness again, no- 
 thing but kindness. Everyone knew that 
 Dr. Boniface was a man who would drink a 
 cup of tea with his own washerwoman, if he 
 thought it would please the poor thing. 
 She had heard, too, but most likely it was 
 only report, that Mr. Grant, the Minster 
 organist, had taken his wife across to hear 
 Jean Monkeston play, and that they had her 
 over in an evening sometimes at their own 
 house. Well, possibly ; the girl did play 
 most beautifull}^ and had a great deal of 
 talent in other ways. There must be talent 
 in the family somewhere — most likely on 
 Mrs. Monkeston's side. Mrs. Monkeston 
 was a capable woman, there was no denying 
 that ; and if she had been content to let 
 her own relations manage for her, put Jean 
 into an orphanage, and keep the boy at a 
 respectable solicitor's office, whilst she got 
 out as companion to a lady, why, nobody
 
 202 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 would have liad anything to find fault with. 
 But she had always been a woman who 
 would have her own way, and of course 
 people who would have their own way must 
 pay for it. 
 
 And that young man, — that Roger? 
 Had Mrs. Balling^er seen him latelv? It 
 was Mrs. Balraain who thus talked the affairs 
 of the Monkestons into shape one day, 
 whilst spending a few hours with the solici- 
 tor's wife. Had Mrs. Ballinger seen him 
 lately ? It was really quite disgraceful to 
 meet him sfoingr backwards and forwards 
 from those works, just like an ordinary 
 mechanic, with grease-spotted blouse, and 
 not a bit of white linen showing about him, 
 and such hands. Mr. Balmain said he had 
 gone into the surgery once to take a poor 
 man who had been hurt in the engine-shed, 
 and really you might have thought he was 
 apprenticed to a blacksmith. It was dis- 
 graceful, simply disgraceful. What Mrs.
 
 THE BLUE EIBBON. 203 
 
 Monkeston could have been thinking about 
 when she let him be taken out of a respect- 
 able office to go into that sort of thing, she 
 could not imagine. And his manners, too, 
 so off-hand and independent. Not a bit of 
 consciousness of his position. He would raise 
 his dirty cap to you in the street if he hap- 
 pened to catch your eye, with as much self- 
 possession as if he had been the finest gen- 
 tleman. Mrs. Balraain could not endure 
 that sort of thing. Could Mrs. Ballinger 
 endure it ? 
 
 Mrs. Ballinger could not endure it either. 
 It was disgusting. And after the manner 
 in which Mrs. Monkeston had behaved to 
 her husband, too ! But her daughter 
 Matilda had been obliged to cut him com- 
 pletely, and so had Reginald. They said 
 it really compromised them to have to move 
 to him in the street. 
 
 '' And I supported them in it, Mrs. Bal- 
 main — I did indeed," said Mrs. Ballinger,
 
 204 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 drawing herself up with matronly dignity, 
 and looking round complacently upon the 
 splendid dining-room of that new mansion 
 in the Portman Road. "I don't approve 
 of having my children's feelings wounded in 
 that way. I think position is a thing you 
 cannot be too careful about." 
 
 Mrs. Balmain thought Mrs. Ballinger was 
 quite right to support them in it. For her 
 own part she had dropped the acquaintance 
 some time ago — indeed, ever since her 
 daughters were old enough to go into 
 society. She thought it was so very im- 
 portant to keep young people select. She 
 had nothing against young Monkeston in a 
 moral point of view. He might be all 
 right, she hoped he was ; and if he had 
 been wise enough to have kept in Mr. 
 Ballinger's office, where by this time he 
 would have had quite an insight into the 
 profession, she should not at all have minded 
 asking him in now and then for an evening
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 205 
 
 — a young man was useful sometimes to fill 
 up a gap, especially in a place like Crux- 
 borough, where male society was scarce. 
 But as things were now, she would sooner 
 let Eclie and Graeie practise their part-songs 
 without a bass voice at all, than ask a young 
 man out of an engine-shed to join them. 
 
 So would Mrs. Ballinger. And now that 
 the shop was succeeding, there was no need 
 for even patronage. That carved wood- 
 work of Jean Monkeston's seemed to be 
 quite a hit. Very pretty, certainly ; and it 
 was a great mercy the poor girl was able to 
 make a little money for herself so. It 
 would keep her from being such a helpless 
 burden on her mother and brother. Mrs. 
 Ballinger must say, though, she had never 
 gone to the shop except out of a sense of 
 duty. Mrs. Monkeston, after the first few 
 months, seemed so very distant, quite above 
 her position — vexed perhaps that they were 
 not called upon ; and if that coarse servant-
 
 206 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 girl, Gurtha, came in to wait, she grinned at 
 you as if she had known you all her life, 
 just because she happened to be at the Wil- 
 lowmarshes when Mrs. Monkeston's friends 
 went out to visit her in the time of her 
 prosperity, poor thing ! In fact, it was — 
 
 Mrs. Ballinger stooped down with a look 
 of extreme disgust, to shake off an earwig 
 which had had the presumption to crawl 
 out of some flowers upon her elegant cam- 
 bric costume. That was just what it was. 
 
 But Mrs. Ballinger floated on the very 
 smoothest waters of society now. Her hus- 
 band was one of the most prosperous men 
 in Cruxborough. Those bank shares had 
 come just at the right time. As old Hiram 
 Armstrong said, little made much, and much 
 made more. The number of his shares had 
 increased tenfold, as opportunities came for 
 buying others, until now the interest of them 
 alone — Martinet's bank being the best in- 
 vestment in the place — brought him in a
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 207 
 
 handsome income, independent of the profits 
 of his profession. A few people, envious 
 souls, who could not bear to see Mrs. Bal- 
 linger driving into town in that elegant little 
 pony-carriage, or Miss Matilda smiling su- 
 premely in laces and cameos at the fashion- 
 able district church, talked wisely about the 
 imprudence of putting too many eggs into 
 one basket. Five-and-twenty per cent, was 
 rather a high rate of interest, they thought, 
 to last for ever. If they were in Mr. Bal- 
 linger's shoes, they would sell out whilst 
 shares were at such a splendid premium. If 
 a panic did come — and nobody could tell 
 whether it might or might not — things would 
 begin to look awkward. What would be- 
 come, then, they should like to know, of 
 that sumptuously-furnished mansion on the 
 Portman Road, and the elegant pony-car- 
 riage, and the silk and the satin, and the 
 scarlet and the velvet, in which some people 
 they could mention seemed to put their
 
 208 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 trust ? But most likely Mr. Ballinger knew^ 
 what he was about. It was not their place 
 to talk. 
 
 Most likely Mr. Ballinger did know what 
 he Avas about, too, when he began to 
 launch out to such an extent as caused his 
 wife and family to ride proudly enough upon 
 the topmost wave of Cruxbo rough society. 
 And if he was, perhaps, living just a little be- 
 yond his means,, and if he did feel slightly un- 
 comfortable when the bills came in for those 
 dinners, and balls, and evening parties, which 
 Mrs. Ballinger insisted upon giving, still now 
 was not the time to retrench. He must 
 keep up his position a year or two longer, 
 at any rate. For Mr. Stanley Armstrong, 
 old Hiram's nephew, who had come into all 
 the property, had returned to England, 
 bringing, in addition to his uncle's thou- 
 sands, a snug independence of his own, ac- 
 cumulated in the colonies ; and he had 
 pulled down the old place at Wastewood,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 209 
 
 and built a splendid new mansion, in which 
 he had lately taken up his residence ; and a 
 pleasant acquaintance, a very pleasant ac- 
 quaintace, had sprung up between him and 
 the Ballinirers ; and he seemed, according^ to 
 present appearances, not ill-disposed towards 
 Matilda, for whou] her parents could wish 
 no loftier destiny than that she should take 
 possession of Wastewood as Mrs. Stanley 
 Armstrong. To this end, therefore, it would 
 be expedient to keep up appearances a 
 little longer ; and, to the same end, it was 
 equally expedient that the Ballinger visit- 
 ing list should not be choked with people 
 who kept shops, and allowed their sons to 
 go about the streets like blacksmiths' ap- 
 prentices. 
 
 So that things looked very dark for the 
 Monkestons. Indeed, it was wonderful how 
 they managed to exist at all under such a 
 cloud of social deprecation, still more how 
 they could look so bright and comfortable 
 
 VOL. I. • P
 
 210 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 when Dr. Boniface or Mr. ArnclifFe — out 
 of pure kindness — looked in upon them. 
 The shop, too, that heie noire of Cruxborough 
 respectability, had begun to put on a differ- 
 ent character. The plain linen had retired 
 quite into the back-ground, and the paste- 
 board boxes, containing materials for ladies' 
 fancy-work, had been pushed almost entirely 
 aside, to make room for the daintiest little 
 carved wood crosses, brackets, paper-knives, 
 and pen- trays, which, tastefully disposed 
 amongst the engravings, gave the window 
 quite an artistic appearance. These things 
 were the work of Jean Monkeston, who had 
 developed an aptitude for design and execu- 
 tion almost as rare as her brother's mechani- 
 cal ability. That love of ecclesiastical art 
 which in her childhood manifested itself in 
 the shaping of her " bolonge " into gothic 
 arches and foliated tracery, had blossomed 
 out of late years into skill which promised 
 fair to afford her the means of earning her
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 211 
 
 own living. Perhaps it might be the con- 
 tinual presence and companionship of the 
 grand old Minster, with its wonderful 
 wealth and variety of ornament, which had 
 fostered this taste in the mind of the girl ; 
 or perhaps it was her natural love of form 
 and beauty, for ever denied expression in 
 her own person, which thus struggled up 
 and found for itself an outlet in this artistic 
 direction ; but, at any rate, her labours 
 were appreciated, for the fret-work corner 
 of Mrs. Monkeston's window was seldom 
 without admirers, and Jean's spare time 
 was fully occupied in replacing the gaps 
 which customers made amongst her pretty 
 collection. 
 
 Jean was a girl of nineteen now, — nay, a 
 woman. For knowing none of the rosy 
 dawn-light which comes with brightening 
 maidenhood, and never having felt the 
 sweet consciousness of power to charm by 
 the magic of her beauty, or the melody of 
 
 p2
 
 212 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 her graceful presence, Jean Monkeston had 
 passed at once from the shy, quiet, obser- 
 vant child to the more quiet and observant 
 woman, self-helpful, self-denying. Not for 
 her was there any fair landscape of hope 
 or promise which the morning prime of 
 youth might reveal to her more blessed 
 sisters. Not for her was there any sweet 
 incense of flattery or admiration ; not for 
 her beauty's magic crystal, which, flashing 
 upon the dazzled eyes of men, should bring 
 them to her side, and keep them there, be- 
 neath the happy despotism of love. For 
 her there was only the safe shadow, the 
 plain, straight, level road of duty, the con- 
 stant cutting down and rooting up of 
 those vain longings which could but grow 
 into bitterness and disappointment, until 
 at last, their very springs of life destroyed, 
 she might rest and be quiet for the remain- 
 der of the way. 
 
 Jean did her work, and she had her re-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 213 
 
 ward. As the years went on, they brought 
 her friends, the companionship of sweet and 
 noble thoughts, the quiet sense of duty done; 
 they gave her at hist the speech of art for 
 the expression of that beauty which stirred 
 so strongly witliin her. Through long, long 
 hours, when neither strength nor will served 
 her for anything else, she used to sit alone 
 in Cruxborough Minster, and listen to the 
 music of the organ, and watch the morning 
 sunlight carry down mosaic work of colour, 
 purple, gold, and crimson, through the cle- 
 restory windows, to trace it on the marble 
 pavement beneath. And she read the 
 thoughts of the old monks and sculptors, 
 graven for ever in that boundless wealth of 
 device which clustered round every arch, 
 and column, and window of the temple 
 they had built. She looked at the 
 saints in the pictured windows, until each 
 face seemed to be as the face of a friend, 
 bent lovingly upon her, to bid her be of
 
 214 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 good courage. And ever as she sat there 
 alone, apart, companionless, sometimes in 
 the sunny morning-time, sometimes in the 
 grey stillness of Winter twilight, listening to 
 the chanted music, a strange new language 
 began to speak itself to her, as from the 
 human souls who, centuries ago, had lived 
 their life there, and wrought for God's glory, 
 and laboured to cover their sins w^ith this 
 cunning broidery-work of stone. Then 
 came other speech, chance sentences drop- 
 ping into her soul as from some great poem 
 whose meaning she could not yet under- 
 stand, a word here and a word there ; and 
 she listened, the brown-faced little hunch- 
 back, as she sat there alone, looking forth 
 with such wistful, earnest gaze into her 
 Cathedral world. Only listened at first, 
 and then, in feeble, faltering speech, tried to 
 answer ; answered sometimes in music, some- 
 times in artistic form, giving utterance, as best 
 she could, to the thoughts which were evok-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 215 
 
 ed in her own soul by the poetry of Nature 
 and of Art. Until at last the Spirit of Beauty 
 — the glorious Queen of Fairyland, came 
 down and dwelt within the patient, obedient 
 little heart which had waited for her so 
 reverently ; and then every tone of music, 
 and every form of leaf and blossom, and 
 every glory of colour, shining down from 
 storied window, became to Jean Monkeston 
 a minister of joy ; and her life put on 
 thankfulness and peace, and for her there 
 was no more night. 
 
 Then, in the pleasant Winter evenings, 
 Roger came home from his work, and 
 doffed the blouse which parted him and 
 polite society, and joined his mother and 
 sister in that cosy little parlour behind the 
 shop, and pored over the dialling diagrams, 
 or the problems which Mr. Arncliffe set 
 him. Or he amused himself with making 
 telescopes and orreries, whilst Jean played 
 to him, and Mrs. Monkeston, the grave,
 
 216 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 rigid look upon her face almost gone 
 now, sat in her easy-chair sewing. Some- 
 times Mr. ArnclifFe brought in the London 
 papers, and told them what was going 
 on in the great world of science, or de- 
 scribed in his quaint, simple, half-comical 
 way, his meetings with the famous Euro- 
 pean savans, Roger's bright manly face 
 meanwhile firing with ambition as he 
 thought that he, too, might one day find his 
 place amongst such men. 
 
 So that really, after all, it was not, per- 
 haps, of such very vital importance to them 
 that Mrs. Ballinger had found herself com- 
 pelled to drop those Monkestons.
 
 217 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A ND now the Festival was drawing near 
 "^-*- — that glorious spring-tide of excite- 
 ment, which once in every three years, 
 rolled up and flooded the high and dry 
 old city of Cruxborough. Once only 
 within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, 
 had that ancient and highly respectable 
 place allowed itself to be stirred by any 
 other visitation from its wonted aspect of 
 serene repose, and that was when, some fif- 
 teen or twenty years before, the British 
 Association for the Advancement of Science 
 had held its meetings there ; a memorable 
 time, for bedrooms were let at a guinea a 
 night, and several washerwomen retired
 
 218 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 from business almost immediately after on 
 the enormous profits they had made. 
 
 But the visit of the British Association, 
 thousjh of course an immense honour to the 
 city, and an event greatly to be remembered 
 by the worthy mayor, who had given a 
 splendid banquet on the occasion, was not 
 of a nature to rouse much enthusiasm 
 amongst the ordinary sort of people. Intel- 
 lectual men with huge bald foreheads and 
 long grey beards, German professors with 
 guide-books sticking out of their pockets, 
 ruddy-faced, broad-shouldered Edinburgh 
 philosophers rambling abstractedly down 
 the streets and poking their umbrellas into 
 the faces of unwary passers-by, were all 
 very well in their way, and doubtless very 
 profitable to the hotel-keepers, but they 
 only influenced — except with the afore- 
 mentioned umbrellas — the educated classes. 
 The masses stared at them with ignorant 
 wonder, and felt a sense of relief when they
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 219 
 
 were gone. The Festival, on the contrary, 
 was a treat for everyone. Whatever differ- 
 ence of opinion there might be as to the 
 propriety of turning the Minster into a 
 temple of fashion, and cramming that 
 glorious old nave with a medley of artificial 
 flowers, streamers, feathers, and gew-gaws, 
 gaudy enough to make the sculptured saints 
 in the triforium turn their heads away for 
 very shame, Cruxborough at Festival times 
 was a sight to do one's heart good. Ban- 
 ners floated from every window, flags 
 streamed from the church towers, crowds of 
 people in gala costume thronged the city 
 from all parts, carriages of the county fami- 
 lies filled the Close, lovely women in 
 raiment of purple and crimson streamed 
 through that grand Western entrance into 
 the Minster, whose bells, meanwhile, rang 
 out a merry peal to give them welcome. 
 All Cruxborough, from the Bishop in his 
 palace, to the dingiest little dirt-pie maker
 
 220 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 in his gutter, waxed happy and enthusiastic 
 in Festival times. The city gave itself over 
 to holiday-making, and one great cry of 
 mirth and feasting overpowered for the time 
 all lesser sounds. 
 
 Already the Cruxborough Harmonic 
 Society, under the conductorship of Mr. 
 Grant, the Minster ors^anist, had been for 
 some monthsdiligentlypractising the Oratorio 
 choruses in which it would have to take 
 part. Roger Monkeston, who was now one 
 of the tenor songmen in the Minster choir, 
 was going to his work an hour earlier every 
 morning, to ^ive himself more time for 
 practice. The music of sonje of the 
 Oratorios had so taken possession of him 
 that often, as he worked at his steam-lathe 
 in the telescope-room, he would involuntar- 
 ily break out into some snatch of melody, 
 or even sing to himself whole pages of the 
 tenor solos, . with the steady monotonous 
 workin^j to and fro of the lathe-band as a
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 221 
 
 conductor's baton. The telescope-room, 
 where he worked now, adjoined one of the 
 lacquering shops, in which a number of 
 young women were employed. Roger's 
 business rarely took him into this room, 
 though it was separated from his only by a 
 thin wooden partition, so thin that he could 
 hear the girls sometimes laughing and chat- 
 ting over their work. Strange sound it 
 seemed to him, who heard so little laughter 
 in that quiet old house under the east front 
 of the Minster. Jean's merriment, when it 
 did bubble up and run over, was so different 
 from this ; a low musical ripple, full of quiet 
 content ; and other than hers, save this, he 
 had scarcely ever heard. Roger used to 
 wonder to himself sometimes what other 
 girls were like, and whether he should 
 ever be rich enough and well-dressed enough 
 to go into society, where he might meet 
 them without being snubbed or haughtily 
 passed by. And perliaps — but there was
 
 222 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Jean. His life must be given to her. 
 
 But it so chanced one afternoon, as, after 
 his fashion, he was talking to himself in 
 music whilst shaping the brass work of a 
 telescope, a sweet treble voice on the other 
 side of the partition began the same air. 
 Hearing it, Roger fell into a second, and so 
 the two went on together to the end. 
 Roger was called away then to a distant 
 part of the works, and heard no more that 
 day of his companion singer. But next 
 morning, coming to his work at the same 
 place, he began to sing the tenor part of the 
 duet from the " Creation," " Graceful Con- 
 sort ;" and at the end of it, the same clear 
 soprano which he had heard the day before, 
 took up the air, and with a slightly foreign 
 accent sang it through. When his part began 
 again, she still sustained hers quite correctly, 
 finishing with a soft diminuendo, clear, fine, 
 subtle as a violin note. 
 
 Some girl belonging to the Cruxborough
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 223 
 
 Harmonic Society, most likely. Mr. Grant 
 had some very good voices amongst his 
 choir, and they were practising so in- 
 dustriously now for the Festival. The 
 choruses from the " Creation," too, were just 
 b(^ing done, which made it more likely that 
 she might have taken up some of the other 
 music of the Oratorio. Roger might easily 
 have made some excuse for going into the 
 lacquering room, to find out who sat at the 
 bench next to the partition which divided it 
 from his shop, but the thought never oc- 
 curred to him. As yet he was more interest- 
 ed in the song than in tlie singer, and whilst 
 one was so sweet, he cared not very much what 
 manner of form the other bore. Besides, 
 only a day or two after that, Mr. Arncliffe 
 sent for him and gave him some problems 
 to work out, which kept him in the office 
 until thev were done ; and as Ro^er was 
 generally a whole man to one thing at a 
 time, the mathematics had the best of it.
 
 224 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 But some weeks after, he was coming 
 down a long corridor, into which that be- 
 longing to the lacquering room led, and far 
 off he heard a clear voice carolling out the 
 *^ Graceful Consort " solo. Roger joined in 
 with his second, whilst yet the singer w^as 
 unseen, and not until he reached the corridor 
 where the two ways met, did a laughing girl- 
 face look up into his. Suddenly her song 
 stopped. A smile more glorious still flashed 
 over the red lips ; and meeting his glance 
 with one innocent, fearless, straightforward, 
 she said slowly and carefully, as if the 
 sentence took some trouble to put together, 
 
 " What then ? It is you who do sing." 
 
 So saying, she passed him by, and Roger 
 felt as if a burst of sunshine had suddenly 
 gone out. Before he had time to reply, 
 she was far away, singing like a skylark as 
 she went. 
 
 That was Roger's introduction to Gretch- 
 en Mliller, a lacquering-girl, w^ho had
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 225 
 
 lately come to the Woolsthorpe works. 
 Certainly, the ceremony might have been 
 more formal ; perhaps it ought to have been 
 so, if Gretchen had been a proper-minded 
 young woman, and Roger an equally proper- 
 minded young man. Perhaps Gretchen 
 ought to have shut her lips, and cast down 
 those sunny blue eyes of hers, and walked 
 demurely by, when she found herself face 
 to face with a strange workman ; and Roger, 
 remembering that his grandfather had been 
 a wealthy farmer, and that his own social 
 position, though somewhat unsatisfactory at 
 present, might be said to lean to respect- 
 ability's side, ought to have started, said, " I 
 beg your pardon," and taken care never to 
 repeat the encounter. But, then, if people 
 always did w^hat they ought to do, how few 
 stories would ever be written ! 
 
 Right or wrong, Roger sang many a sweet 
 song at his bench after that — not out of the 
 " Creation " at all, though, and always the 
 
 VOL. I. * Q
 
 226 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 carolling voice replied, sometimes in an 
 English ballad, sometimes in a tender little 
 German song, whose words he could not 
 understand, but whose thought, if it was 
 like the music, must have been bright and 
 delicate as a dewdrop. A new, strange 
 sort of shyness, which he could not under- 
 stand, kept him from making any excuse 
 now for going into the lacquering-room, so 
 he did not see the girl again until after 
 many days of this pleasant singing-talk, and 
 then they met by chance, as the works 
 were closing at six o'clock. She was cross- 
 ing the courtyard with a dark-faced, oddly- 
 dressed woman, who was also employed in 
 the lacquering-rooms. Roger thought she 
 looked prettier than ever, with a hood of 
 coarse blue woollen stuff tied over her gold- 
 en curls, and cloak of the same folded care- 
 lessly round her ; more modest and maid- 
 enly she could not look, spite of the clear, 
 fearless, blue-eyed glance, and the bright.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 227 
 
 surprised laugh with which she met him. 
 
 But when the dark-faced woman saw her 
 pretty companion smile into the eyes of the 
 handsome young workman, she drew closer 
 to her, took her by the arm — almost fiercely, 
 Roger thought, and led her determinately 
 away. 
 
 Roger followed them at a little distance. 
 They walked together down the High Street, 
 past the City Hall, where the woman 
 stopped for a moment to look at the great 
 Festival bills, which were already beginning 
 to make their appearance there, and down 
 a narrow street or two to the entrance of 
 the College yard, where Gretchen was 
 dropped. 
 
 To Roger s great satisfaction, she walked 
 straight across the yard to Mrs. Bratchet's 
 rooms at the farthest corner, opened the 
 door without knocking, and went in. 
 Through the uncurtained window he could 
 see her, by the flickering firelight, take off 
 
 q2
 
 228 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 her hood and cloak, shake back her ruffled 
 hair, which shone like dusky gold in the 
 little room, and then, with careless, weary 
 grace, throw herself down upon the esti- 
 mable washerwoman's tidy, check-covered 
 sofa. 
 
 She was all right, then. Poor and simple 
 though she might be, she must be good and 
 pure, or she would not be at home in a 
 house like that. Mrs. Bratchet, who seemed 
 to have been having a spell of idleness in 
 the twilight, bustled up, stirred the fire into 
 a brighter blaze, and drew the curtain across 
 the window ; while Roger turned home, to 
 apply himself as best he might to those ter- 
 ribly stiflp dialling problems which Mr. Arn- 
 clifFe so often gave him now to solve. 
 
 But there was no dialling for him that 
 night. One face — the rosy, smiling face of 
 the lacquering girl — flashed out upon him 
 through all the parabolic or hyperbolic lines 
 which he vainly endeavoured to describe.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 229 
 
 One voice — her voice, sweet as the ripple of 
 a brook in Summer time, would keep sing- 
 ing on to him, as in a low, half-audible 
 whisper he pondered over his abstruse cal- 
 culations. At last he gave it up. 
 
 '' Oh ! Jean, play to me !'' 
 
 Jean, sitting there carving a bracket in 
 gothic work, looked up in astonishment. 
 She was always as quiet as a mouse whilst 
 her brother sat at the table with those great 
 sheets of figures before him. She knew he 
 required such perfect silence. A chance 
 remark, a careless question, would spoil all 
 his calculations, and send him back wearied 
 to the beginning of the long train of thought 
 again. And he had been at work such a lit- 
 tle time, too, to-night. 
 
 " I can't do it, Jean. It's all got into a 
 muddle. You must play me straight again 
 with one of Beethoven's slow movements. 
 These bothering problems seem to get worse 
 and worse."
 
 230 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Jean played, and Roger stretched himself 
 out on the hearth-rug, his hands clasped 
 under his head, a happy smile coming and 
 going upon his face as he turned it away 
 into the shadow. And by-and-by his 
 thoughts changed to dreams, and the dreams 
 were all of Gretchen Muller.
 
 231 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 npHAT was Mrs. Bratchet's night for 
 -*- bringing home the washing, and she 
 seldom brought it home without coming 
 into that little room behind the shop, and 
 having a few minutes' chat with Mrs. 
 Monkeston. Mrs.Bratchet was a joined mem- 
 ber of the Primitives, and had just persuad- 
 ed Gurtha to become a joined member too, 
 so that there was now a fresh bond of union 
 between her and her old friend of the farm 
 kitchen. 
 
 What a warm, sweet light of home and 
 peace there was in that old parlour, as Mrs. 
 Bratchet, her honest face beaming with a 
 light as warm and sweet, came curtseying
 
 232 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 into it. Curtseying very low, too, for 
 the College yard washerwoman had a 
 keen scent for " quality," and could discern 
 it quickly under whatever cover of humble 
 surroundings it might have crept for shelter ; 
 much more quickly than Mrs. Ballinger or 
 Mrs. Balmain, with all their advantages of 
 birth and education. 
 
 " But they're as blind as moles, is the 
 Cruxborough folks," she would say to Gur- 
 tha sometimes, when the two worthy fellow- 
 members were holding a private band-meet- 
 ing over the kitchen fire ; " they can't see a 
 bit o' worth nowhere without they've a 
 golden candle to light 'em to it, and, law 
 bless you ! when they've got sight of the 
 candle, they don't care for nought else. If 
 the missus, bless her ! would set 'em down 
 on satin and velvet, and feed 'em with the 
 flesh-pots of Egypt, they'd find out she 
 was quality quick enough, let 'em alone for 
 that."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 233 
 
 "Ay," growled honest Gurtha, "a golden 
 candle gives a good light. There's 
 nought like it if you want to see your way 
 plain through Cruxborough." 
 
 Jean ceased her playing as Mrs. Bratchet 
 came in, and w^ent to her own place by 
 her mother's side. "Sirs. Monkeston was 
 knittinpj in the twilidit. No rest for her in 
 shine or shadow yet. But her worn, stately 
 face was full of peace now, and the grave, 
 dark eyes had a look of satisfied quiet, after 
 the long toil of a life that had once had 
 sorer need of rest. And Roger — how 
 handsome the young fellow looked, lying 
 there on the hearthrui?, the firelisrht flashing 
 upon his black curls and richly-coloured 
 face, — albeit the hands still clasped under 
 his head were not of the whitest. Indeed, 
 anything but that, as Mrs. Ballinger said. 
 No wonder she had been obliged to drop 
 the owner of them. 
 
 Having made her curtsey and received
 
 234 THE BLUE ETBBON. 
 
 her money, Mrs. Bratchet began to rub her 
 hands, her usual manner of intimating that 
 she should have no objection to a little con- 
 versation. Mrs. Monkeston understood, 
 and began by a few approving remarks on 
 the getting up of the linen. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am." And Mrs. Bratchet, see- 
 ing that the way was open, subsided into a 
 chair close to the door, with a view to greater 
 comfort in speech. " I don't say but what 
 they're a good sample, though them wrist- 
 bands of Mr. Roger's has took a deal of 
 getting clean. It's the grease, you see, as 
 sets in 'em so, while, as you may say, it 
 wants a miracle to whiten 'em. I'm sure, 
 ma'am, I was a-tellin' Gurtha, only a bit since, 
 when she come in, and I was agate of 'em, 
 I got my sins rubbed away with a vast less 
 rubbing nor what it takes me to get the dirt 
 out o' them there wristbands. But you see 
 it was faith did it then, ma'am, and it isn't 
 faith as '11 do it for the wristbands — only 
 works, as you may say."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. • 235 
 
 " Together with a diligent use of the out- 
 ward means of soap and soda," suggested 
 Jean. 
 
 " Why, yes, miss ; and I put 'em through 
 it well, I did. I never spare a bit o' soap 
 when it's for Master Roger ; and then those 
 wristbands is fit for a prince. I couldn't 
 have done no more for 'em if they'd been 
 to go to the Festival in. I lay, sir, you'll 
 be getting ready for the Festival by this. 
 They allers look to the Minster singers to 
 hold 'em up." 
 
 *' Yes," said Roger, looking dreamily across 
 to the corner where Mrs. Bratchet sat, square, 
 brisk, and upright, as was her fashion. " I 
 expect we shall have to sing in the choruses. 
 It's the first Festival for me, you know, since 
 I was a little boy-singer. Are you going, 
 Mrs. Bratchet?" 
 
 *'Me going. Master Roger? I should 
 like to see myself among all them fine folks. 
 I haven't clothes to fit Cruxborough Festi-
 
 236 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 val, nor ever had, and them choruses is 
 over-much for me. I've heard 'em at 
 Christmas time i' the Minster, and they 
 make me while I don't know whether I'm 
 standing on my head or my heels. No, 
 Master Roger, I'll wait, please the Lord, 
 while I get a front seat ticket for the great 
 Festival up above, and then won't I sing as 
 loud as any of 'em ! Ay, and I will that ! 
 Bless you, I shall never stop, once I get set 
 agate." 
 
 "Nay, Mrs. Bratchet, but if you mean to 
 have a front seat, you must sit still and 
 listen. They don't do any singing there. 
 It's only members of the choir that sing." 
 
 "That's a true word you've spoken. Master 
 Roger, though you thought you'd trip me 
 up with it. You were allers such a one to 
 argy. It'll be poplar-trees and shadders with 
 you to the end of the chapter, I reckon, 
 same as Gurtha never could abide. Yes, 
 it's only the members as has a chance to
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 237 
 
 sing, and, bless the Lord, I'm a member. 
 I've been in that choir this many a year 
 past, and so I'm right for the great Festival, 
 after all, and nothing to pay neither, for the 
 choir goes in free, don't they. Master Roger? 
 It's without money and without price, as the 
 blessed Scriptur says. Hallelujah ! Praise 
 the Lord !" 
 
 And Mrs. Bratchet's honest old face seemed 
 to send out quite a beam of sunshine from 
 that shady corner. 
 
 " You're in a rejoicing frame to-night," 
 said Jean. 
 
 " Why, yes, Miss, I don't ever reckon to 
 be aught else, let alone wet weather, when 
 the damp gets into the house, and draws 
 the starch out o' the fine things, so as you 
 can't iron 'em stiff. There's nothing pulls 
 me down from Pisgah's top like having to 
 put 'em twice through ; it keeps you back 
 with your work so, and they're nought to 
 look at when you've done 'em. But, as I
 
 238 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 was a-goin' to say, ma'am, when I come in, 
 I don't know but what I shall give up a 
 good bit o' the washin' this back end. I've 
 took a lodger to board and do for, as nice 
 a young woman, ma'am, as you need wish 
 to set eyes on, and it's rather more nor what 
 is convenient having 'em both; but she don't 
 belong to these parts, and she didn't seem 
 to have no one, as you may say, to look to, 
 and I thought maybe that was the way the 
 Lord would have me do a fresh bit o' work 
 for Him !" 
 
 Roger rolled lazily over, with his face in 
 the shadow again. 
 
 *' But how came you to hear of her," said 
 Mrs. Monkeston, " if she does not belong to 
 these parts? I don't think we get many 
 foreigners into Cruxborough." 
 
 " It was a woman as conies to help me 
 sometimes when I'm throng, told me, 
 ma'am. A queer woman, and I've never 
 been able to square her up — no, ma'am, that
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 239 
 
 I haven't, for as often as I've tried. She 
 works three days a week at Mr. ArnclifFe's 
 works, ma'am ; and that's how she come to 
 know the young woman, for she works 
 there, too, in the lacquering place, along 
 with a lot more ; and Patch says to me, 
 ' Mrs. Bratchet,' says she, ' you talk a deal 
 about serving the Lord, and I think it 'ud 
 be a good turn for him if you took that 
 young girl, as she wants a decent lodging 
 just now.' And she brought her to me 
 right away, and we settled it, and I don't 
 know but what it's a 2^ood bari^rain for us 
 both. Says she to me. Patch did, ' You 
 take care on her, you do, for little earnings 
 and good looks is a rough road.' And so it 
 is, ma'am, no doubt, though I never got but 
 the half of it myself, and that's the little 
 earnings. And I can't tell what Patch may 
 be to most, ma'am, but she's been a good 
 friend to the mrl. I reckon she's seen a 
 little of the rough road herself, maybe, for
 
 240 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 there's a desperate way about her, and she 
 looks you through and through with such a 
 pair of black eyes as I never see in my born 
 days !" 
 
 " But isn't it troublesome, having a 
 lodger ?" asked Roger, guilefully. 
 
 He knew it was so easy to set Mrs. 
 Bratchet going, and it was so pleasant to lie 
 there on the hearthrug and hear about 
 this golden-haired girl that had sung her 
 way into his young heart. 
 
 " Troublesome ? — why, yes, if you look 
 at it that way ; but as simple as a child, 
 bless her ! and goes round about and helps 
 me as if I was her mother, and looks right 
 at me with her big blue eyes when I start 
 prayin', as if she'd never seed a believer 
 wrestlin' with the Almighty afore. But I'm 
 thinking there ain't many out away where 
 she comes from, in them there furrin' parts. 
 It's a dark place, I'm afeard. When I told 
 her I was a joined member of the Primi-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 241 
 
 tives, she just stared at me, and said she'd 
 never heered tell o' no such a place. I was 
 fair fixed, after that, what to say." 
 
 " Perhaps you'll have some one to help 
 you to sing now, Mrs. Bratchet," hinted 
 Roger again. " You know you have often 
 said it would be twice as good if you didn't 
 have to do it all by yourself" 
 
 " Ah ! there you've hit it, Master 
 Roger," said the good woman, setting oif 
 with renewed energy. " You couldn't have 
 spoke a truer word if you'd knowed her 
 your very self I told her from the first I 
 was a believer, and she must come in to my 
 ways if we was to pull comfortable together, 
 and I always had a Bible chapter and a bit 
 of singing to myself of a night, and prayed 
 up loud after. I'd always used to do it 
 when me and Bratchet was together, and 
 I've kept it up ever since ; and she stared at 
 me a sort of wondering like, and said it was 
 all right. So we began first night ever she 
 
 VOL. I. • R
 
 242 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 come; but, bless you! Master Roger, all the 
 people on the stair got down to listen ! 
 They'd never heered nought like it afore — 
 no more had I, for she tuned up that sweet 
 and silvery, you might have thought it was 
 the angels on the plains of Bethlehem. And 
 when I heard 'em standing out there, I says 
 to her, ' Now, honey,' says I, ' we'll have a 
 word of prayer, and then a bit more sing- 
 ing.' And they stayed, you know, ma'am, 
 when they thought there was more to come, 
 and I prayed up loud so as they might hear 
 it, because I thought it might be more to 
 profit than what the singing was ; and ever 
 since that first night I've had 'em on the 
 stair reg'lar, and always prays up loud so as 
 it may be to profit for 'em. I'm going to 
 ask our minister if he don't think it's an 
 opening for a cottage service." 
 
 " And so you see, ma'am," continued Mrs. 
 Bratchet, preparing to depart, "as I say, I 
 don't doubt but what it's a leading ; because,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 243 
 
 you see, Tnfi getting into years now, in a 
 manner, and the petticoats that full of frills 
 and gofFerings as you can't make a profit 
 out of 'em anyway, not if you do your duty 
 to 'em, as I can't abide not to do it. And 
 it isn't a deal she pays me, neither, for I 
 never like to be hard on anybody, ma'am, 
 as has their own bread to addle ; and her all 
 to herself, as you may say, for she's left her 
 kith and kin behind in yon outlandish place. 
 So I said I'd do it all, and her meat too, 
 for six shilling a week, which isn't a deal 
 into my pocket, when there's a good appe- 
 tite, which she's blessed with at the present. 
 But, you see, ma'am, the Winter's getting 
 on, and the nights dark, and it's a comfort- 
 able home for her, if there isn't a deal in it 
 according to the carnal mind, which I don't 
 go for to say there is. And when tlie 
 prayer-meetings is set on — as they say 
 there's a prospect of it afore Christmas — we 
 shall maybe get her a bit of good done to 
 
 r2
 
 244 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 her precious soul, because she don't seem to 
 object going with me to the means reg'lar of 
 a Sunday morning, only she likes the Min- 
 ster of an afternoon, 'cause of the music, for 
 all I tell her there's nothing saving in it ; 
 no more there is, for, when all's said and 
 done, it's only like one that hath a pleasant 
 voice, and playeth well on an instrument." 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Bratchet," said Roger, "I 
 won't have that, and it isn't according to the 
 Scriptures either ; the voice and the instru- 
 ment were saving enough, it was only the 
 people who did not listen properly." 
 
 Mrs. Bratchet looked puzzled. 
 
 " I believe you've got me there, Mr. 
 Roger, and it's just like you to trip me up 
 that way, because I always think I'm safe 
 when I get into the Scripters, which they're 
 my meditation day and night. But I think 
 I'll be going now. It's getting on for eight, 
 I'll be bound, and my young woman goes to 
 the choir practice. Mr. Grant soon found
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 245 
 
 her out and picked her up, as I reckon he 
 don't get many such a one, and as modest 
 and well-behaved, too, as if she was a bet- 
 termost sort, which I don't misdoubt she is, 
 if we only knowed it ; and she said she 
 wouldn't set off while I come back, because 
 of leaving the key in the door. So good 
 night, ladies, and thank you kindly ; and 
 good night, Master Roger, and you'll excuse 
 my mentioning the wristbands, though I 
 shall be thankful when you've got up 
 through all them nasty greasy shops, so as I 
 can do my duty to 'em a bit easier." 
 
 " Ah ! I see, Mrs. Bratchet, you want 
 faith without works ; and that won't do, you 
 know. Somebody says faith without works 
 is dead, so I think you had better keep to 
 the rubbing, hadn't you ?" 
 
 And Roger got up and strolled away, for 
 he belonged to the choir, too. 
 
 '' For shame, Mr. Roger, for shame, to 
 use the blessed Scripters that way ! But,
 
 246 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 law, ma'am, " Mrs. Bratchet continued, 
 turning to his mother as the young man 
 went away, *' he don't mean no harm, he 
 don't. I always did say Mr. Roger was a 
 child of the kingdom, for all he has a free 
 way with him, as you may say. He is 
 such a good lad to his mother and sister — 
 lays hisself out, ma'am, to do what's right ; 
 and works is works, I'll always stand up for 
 that, let faith be as good as it will." 
 
 And with that exposition of her creed, 
 Mrs. Bratchet went away.
 
 247 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 rjlHE members of Mr. Grant's choir met 
 -^ for their weekly practice in the great 
 room of the City Hall, a curious old build- 
 ing in the High Street, where once the 
 different Cruxborough guilds used to hold 
 their meetings. From his place amongst 
 the tenor singers, Roger looked across in 
 vain for the blue hood and fair curls of the 
 rosy-faced lacquering girl; but he soon heard 
 her voice ringing out, clear, full-toned, 
 melodious, unconsciously asserting itself as 
 leader of all the rest. He remembered 
 now hearing it once before at the choir 
 practice, though he had not seen to whom it 
 belonged, for the soprano singers sat in a 
 sort of recess, which was properly the place
 
 248 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 of honour for the mayor and corporation 
 at city banquets. 
 
 When the practice was over, he lingered 
 outside, waiting for the girl to come out, for 
 he thought he might venture to speak to her 
 to-night in other than the song language 
 which had hitherto been their only means of 
 intercourse. But when she came tripping 
 down the stair, with that free, careless, in- 
 dependent step, alone, set apart from the 
 others as much by her simple beauty as by 
 that quaint peasant dress which marked her 
 out as belonsjinG^ to the lower class of Ger- 
 man girls, his heart failed him. He dared 
 not even seek a look from her. He was fain 
 to content himself by following at a distance, 
 and admiring the modest yet fearless bear- 
 ing with which, unsheltered save by her own 
 innocence, she passed along. How different 
 she looked from the rest of the Cruxborough 
 girls of her own rank. How the cleanly 
 coarseness of the blue woollen cloak, held
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 249 
 
 carelessly together over her round supple 
 figure, and the brown serge petticoat, plain 
 as any nun need wear, just stopping in time 
 enouo^h to reveal the lis^ht trim little ankles, 
 
 Do ' 
 
 clad in home-knit stockings, contrasted with 
 the shabby finery, the faded artificial flowers, 
 the tawdry bits of trimming which had dis- 
 gusted him so often when the Woolsthorpe 
 women had been turninsj out from work. 
 He thoudit how his mother and Jean would 
 like this girl ; how her simple honest ways, 
 so frank and yet so guileless, would please 
 them. And he wondered if ever it might 
 be that she should sit at home with them in 
 that little parlour behind the shop — that 
 dim, quiet little parlour into which scarce 
 ever a guest came now, save the old Canon 
 or Mr. Arncliffe, or the organist. But that 
 seemed almost too pleasant to think about. 
 The girl went on, turning neither to 
 the right hand nor to the left, apparently 
 quite unconscious of the attention, some-
 
 250 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 times rude, sometiiues admiring, which her 
 dress and aspect attracted, until she came to 
 the entrance of one of the Cruxborough 
 billiard-saloons, out of which two or three 
 young men were sauntering, wine-flushed, 
 excited, scenting the air with mingled odours 
 of musk and cigar smoke. 
 
 It was not often that the glare of light 
 streaming from the crystal lamp over the 
 entrance of the billiard-saloon fell on so 
 fair a head as that w^iose coronal of sunny 
 rippling hair flashed back its brightness now. 
 Nor did the lower class of Cruxborough girls 
 carry themselves with that simple maiden 
 pride which told itself in every gesture and 
 movement of the graceful rounded figure. 
 So sweet a type of beauty surely must not 
 be allowed to pass without some recognition 
 from those who were qualified to judge. 
 
 " Good evening, pretty one," said the 
 foremost of the young men, laying his 
 hand familiarly on her shoulder. As the
 
 THE BLUE KIBBON. 251 
 
 young girl started back with a slight cry of 
 fear, the others chuckled admiringly. Her 
 figure, thrown back in the attitude of startled 
 surprise, was positively charming. " By 
 Jove ! what a complexion! And that hair," 
 and one of them pulled out a long curl and 
 held it up in the lamplight, whilst poor Gret- 
 chen, mute, trembling, looked pitifully round 
 for someone to help her. 
 
 And help was nearer than either she or 
 the young men thought. With a few strides, 
 Eoger sprang into the midst of the group, 
 laid one young man sprawling in the mud, 
 whilst the others, seeing a policeman in the 
 distance, wisely walked away, not being 
 disposed to educate their sense of the beauti- 
 ful at the risk of five shillings and costs. 
 Roger took Gretchen's hand under his arm, 
 and drew her quietly away, only looking 
 long enough at the young man in the mud 
 to find he was Mr. Reginald Ballinger. 
 With a glad bright smile — for she knew
 
 252 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 him again directly — the girl pressed closely 
 to him, so closely that her ruffled hair 
 almost touched his face. And then she said, 
 sighing the long sigh that only comes after 
 fear, 
 
 " Ah ! that is good. You have found 
 me. I am quite safe." 
 
 " May I go home with you, child ?" said 
 Roger, all his faint-heartedness gone now — 
 nothing left but the chivalrous instinct which 
 makes a man so strong to succour all who 
 need it. 
 
 " You are very good," she replied, walk- 
 ing quietly along beside him, as if quite 
 happy now. And then she said, looking 
 frankly up into his face, " I did hear you 
 sing to-night, I did know your voice again. 
 Did you perhaps hear me, too?" 
 
 '' I should think I did," said Roger, 
 amused at her pretty eagerness to be recog- 
 nised. " I wonder who did not hear you? 
 I could not see you, bui I felt for your
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 253 
 
 voice, and kept singing for it all the 
 time." 
 
 The girl looked pleased, and drew a 
 little closer to him ; yet there was not the 
 faintest touch of coquetry in her manner as 
 she talked on, facing him now and then 
 with her full frank smile. 
 
 *' I thought perhaps you would know 
 again. I did try very much to do my best, 
 and T listened for your voice to come near 
 and touch mine, as we do sing to each 
 other, you know, while I work through 
 those long days. Do you like that I sing 
 to you then ? Yes ?" 
 
 Did Roger like ? What could he do for 
 answer but press the hand, neither soft nor 
 white, but so honest and so clean, that lay 
 upon his arm ? 
 
 "Where learned you to sing?" she asked, 
 after a little silence, that seemed sweeter 
 far to Roger than speech. 
 
 " In the Minster," he said. " I was the
 
 254 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 first treble when I was a little boy, and now 
 I am one of the tenor songmen." 
 
 '' Yes, I know that. I see you when I 
 come to hear the anthem on Sunday after- 
 noon ; and it seems to me that I could 
 always listen. But one day, at your Festi- 
 val, I too shall sing there. The Herr 
 Kapellmeister says my voice is good. I 
 did know that," continued the girl, tossing 
 her head back with innocent pride, " for it 
 has been told to me before ; and he says I 
 shall sing; in the choruses. And vou will 
 listen for me then ? Yes?" 
 
 " I suppose I shall," said Roger, looking 
 up, and finding, to his great regret, that the 
 old portal of the college yard was scarce a 
 hundred yards before them. ^' But tell me, 
 where did you learn to sing? Not in Mr. 
 ArnclifFe's lacquering-room ?" 
 
 A far-off, musing look came over Gret- 
 chen's face ; a mist of longing and regret 
 dimmed the clear blue eyes, and there was
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 255 
 
 a pang of Heimweh in her voice as she said 
 softly, 
 
 " I did learn in my own town of Stutt- 
 gart. There we all do sing ; and I went 
 to the Conservatoire, which was for me a 
 great honour. But at home we all did 
 sing — we did sing when we worked, we did 
 sing when we were happy. Ah ! at Stutt- 
 gart it was beautiful !" 
 
 & 
 
 And half-unconsciously the girl began 
 singinsj to herself in an under-voice a little 
 German air — one of those she had sung in 
 the lacquering-room. Suddenly she stopped. 
 
 "This is the College yard, w^iere I do 
 live. One Frau Bratchet makes for me a 
 home." 
 
 " Does she? I know the Frau Bratchet, 
 as you call her. And now I suppose you 
 do not want me to stay with you any longer? 
 Will you tell me, before I go away, what is 
 your name ?"
 
 256 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 " My name is Gretchen Muller, but every- 
 one calls me only Gretchen." 
 
 "Then I shall call you only Gretchen, 
 too. And are you happy with Frau 
 Bratchet ?" 
 
 " Ah ! well, she is very good, but she 
 does give such long prayers. Surely mein 
 Herr must be weary to listen so much. I 
 do think of Him very often, as I think of 
 ray fatherland, and my people there, but I 
 do not give to Him such long prayers." 
 
 Scarcely knowing what he did, Roger had 
 taken her hand, and was still holding it in 
 his, as they two stood there under the black 
 portal of the College yard. 
 
 " Do you like being in England, Gret- 
 chen?" 
 
 " I know not," she said, half sadly. " I 
 know not anything. I want here no money 
 from my own people, and they are poor. 
 Perhaps, if I am good, and try to do my 
 work well, the Herr ArnclifFe will some
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 257 
 
 day let me come up higher, and I shall have 
 more what you call wages, and I can send 
 some to my mother, that she may not always 
 have to spin. But wherefore," and she 
 drew her hand away from his, to pass it 
 over her eyes — " wherefore do you make 
 me think of home ? I do sing, and I forget, 
 and I am happy. We must be happy if 
 we do no wrong, and if we can hear sweet 
 music. It is to me as my home when I sing, 
 for then I am at peace. Gute Nacht,'' she 
 said, as she turned away, and went, not 
 with a free, elastic step any more, but 
 slowly, thoughtfully, across the College yard 
 to Mrs. Bratchet's door. There she turned, 
 and gravely bent her head to him before she 
 went in. 
 
 Roger stayed under the shadow of the 
 doorway. His heart was full of love, and 
 pity, and passion. He wanted to take this 
 simple girl to himself, and make her life one 
 long, sweet song. But so much lay between 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 25S THE BLUE KIBBON. 
 
 him and that, so much that he dare not look 
 upon it yet. He watched her shadow flitting 
 to and fro upon the checked curtain of Mrs. 
 Bratchet's window. He went nearer. He 
 heard the sound of the good woman's voice, 
 reading their evening portion ; then there 
 was a burst of song. Could it, indeed, be 
 nothing more than a Primitive Methodist 
 hymn tune, which flooded every nook and 
 corner of the old yard, and brought to their 
 doorways and windows groups of men and 
 women, who listened with folded hands and 
 thoughtful faces, as though an angel spoke 
 to them in the music ? Gretchen had gone 
 "home" for a little season ; she was speak- 
 ing to herself in the native language of her 
 soul. She was happy, and she forgot !
 
 259 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " \/[ OTHER, may I go over to Mrs. 
 
 -*-*-■- Bratchet's some afternoon and bring 
 Gretchen Muller to have tea with us? 
 Mr. Grant has been telling me about her. 
 She is poor, and she has no friends, and she 
 needs some one to be kind to her." 
 
 It was Jean Monkeston who said this, as 
 she came home one day from a long visit to 
 the organist. Both Mr. and Mrs. Grant had 
 found out Jean's worth now, and counted 
 her — not, perhaps, out of mere kind- 
 ness — amongst the number of their true 
 companions and friends. Many were the 
 pleasant afternoons she spent in that tall, 
 antiquated old house, at the west end of the 
 Close, playing on the chamber organ, or 
 
 s2
 
 260 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 having long talks about art and music. In- 
 deed, Mrs. Ballinger, and her dear friend, 
 Mrs. Balmain, who had now quite given 
 over even noticing those Monkestons in the 
 street, would have been rather disconcerted, 
 not to say disgusted, if they could have 
 peeped into the organist's library one of 
 these afternoons, and seen the little brown- 
 faced hunchback, as Mr. Reginald still called 
 her, chatting away so brightly and plea- 
 santly, without any apparent consciousness 
 of that yawning chasm, terrible and wide, 
 which ought for ever to part between the 
 Close families and the unfortunate widow 
 who was obliged to keep shop in such a re- 
 spectable little city as Cruxborough. 
 
 It was during one of these pleasant after- 
 noon talks that the organist told Jean about 
 the young German girl who had lately be- 
 come a member of his choir. Of course it 
 was not likely that a voice like Gretchen 
 Miiller's would let its owner remain long
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 261 
 
 unnoticed. After hearing her a few times 
 in the choir, Mr. Grant brought her to his 
 own house, to try her musical knowledge 
 more thoroughly ; and there he was not less 
 surprised by the excellence of her voice than 
 by her skill in managing it, and her readi- 
 ness in reading music. Here was no untutored 
 girl, singing like a bird from simple instinct. 
 Gretchen knew the principles of her art. 
 She was well able to take the place which at 
 once fell to her — that of leading the soprano 
 voices in the choir. The organist had found 
 a treasure at last, a jewel worth the trouble 
 of cutting and polishing and mounting in the 
 great artist diadem. It was a waste of tal- 
 ent, he thought, for Gretchen to be earning 
 eight or ten shillings a week in Mr. Arn- 
 cliiFe's lacquering room, when she ought to 
 be giving all her time to the study of her 
 art. He had been thinking the matter over 
 and talking to some of his wealthy friends, 
 and the end of it all was, that Gretchen was
 
 262 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 to have her choice between remaining in her 
 present situation at the Woolsthorpe works, 
 or being regularly trained for the musical 
 profession; the expense of such training, and 
 her maintenance, whilst she was undergoing 
 it, to be repaid to Mr. Grant when she should 
 have made her own position in the world. 
 
 He had sent for the young girl to talk 
 this matter over with her, one afternoon, 
 when Jean happened to come in. Jean had 
 already heard of her through Mrs. Bratch- 
 et ; and from that report, as well as from 
 Mr. Grant's testimony, was prepared to love 
 the simple German maiden. She had also 
 heard Roger speak of her ; she knew his 
 little passage of romance with the blue- 
 eyed singer, and she thought how pleasant 
 it would be for him, if sometimes, when 
 he came home from those long, weary days 
 of work, a bright young face like Gretchen's 
 mi^ht be waitino^ for him in the little room 
 behind the shop, and a companionship some-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 263 
 
 what more in keeping with his own fresh 
 buoyant self, help him through the quiet 
 evenings. For Jean knew her brother 
 could not always dwell content in his pres- 
 ent surroundings. He must have round 
 him air and sunshine, which she and her 
 mother could not always give. He must 
 have some foam and sparkle on the cup 
 of home life, or he would weary of it, and 
 seek excitement elsewhere. 
 
 Only she sought it for him, and found it, 
 too, in what most people would have deem- 
 ed a strange fashion. Gretchen was poor; 
 she had no friends ; she needed someone 
 to be good to her. Three most cogent rea- 
 sons for preventing the respectable people 
 of Cruxborough generally from taking any 
 notice of her. Poor ? — then by all means 
 let her keep in the background. Poor peo- 
 ple were a nuisance anywhere, but especial- 
 ly when they thrust forth their cotton- 
 gloved hands for invitations to tea and quiet
 
 264 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 evenings. No friends ? — then let Her go to 
 an Institution, or something of that sort ; 
 there were plenty in the country ; or stay, 
 they would give her an order to the secretary 
 of the society for promoting the employment 
 of indigent females — that would be in the 
 highest degree intelligent and effectual. 
 Wanted some one to be kind to her ? — well, 
 yes, of course ; most people wanted some 
 one to be kind to them ; but the question 
 was, what could they do in return for that 
 kindness ? Had they respectable introduc- 
 tions ? Could they make it worth Crux- 
 borough's trouble to show them a little 
 attention ? Could they give back dinner 
 for dinner and supper for supper, and make 
 a genteel appearance in the matter of even- 
 ing dress ? No ; well, then, Cruxborough 
 put its hands into its pocket, and kept them 
 there. 
 
 Well for poor Gretchen that Miss 
 Monkeston judged differently. Well for
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 265 
 
 her that a little of the old-fashioned way of 
 doing good, all for love, and nothing for re- 
 ward, was still left in the ancient and highly 
 reputable old city ; and that the shopkeep- 
 ing widow, who was not thought worthy a 
 place in genteel society, said at once, when 
 the three reasons were laid before her, 
 
 " Bring her, my child, whenever you like, 
 if you think she will care to come." 
 
 So Jean went to Mrs. Bratchet's one 
 Saturday afternoon, when she knew Gretch- 
 en would have left work early, and asked 
 her, without any touch of patronage or con- 
 descension, if she would come over and have 
 tea with them, in that little parlour behind 
 the shop. 
 
 Gretchen came. She did not require 
 the formality of a previous call, nor yet any 
 very lengthy notice to prepare a toilette for 
 this, her first appearance in what might, 
 with a due regard to truth, be called the 
 lower classes of Cruxborough society. Yet
 
 266 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 how fair and fresh the rosy-faced German 
 gh^l looked when Jean led her into the little 
 room, and she curtsied low to " Madame," 
 who with grave yet motherly kindness bade 
 her welcome there. For Gretchen had 
 put on her holiday attire. The brown 
 woollen petticoat was changed for one of 
 bright blue frieze, with a running pattern of 
 hand-wrought embroidery round it, and she 
 wore a kirtle of black stuff, gaily embroider- 
 ed too, over a clear muslin bodice. And 
 she had a knot of blue ribbons in her bosom, 
 and at her side hung the little satchel, which 
 seemed to give its finishing touch of piquancy 
 and coquettishness to the whole costume. 
 There was no shyness about her either, no 
 awkwardness nor restraint, as she took the 
 welcome so freely given. Rather she seemed 
 like a simple child, who, having long missed 
 the loving tenderness of home, finds it again 
 at last and is at rest. 
 
 ^' I am^ so glad you like me," she said.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 267 
 
 when Jean, who had a keen eye for beauty, 
 could not help admiring the pretty appear- 
 ance of their new guest. " This is my festa 
 dress, and I put it on because it is for me a 
 festival that I have tea with you. Ah, but it 
 is so seldom that I want it now ! Here it is 
 work, work only, work always, except 
 for one whole day when you must say your 
 prayers." 
 
 " Never mind, Gretchen. If you will put 
 it on every time you come to see us, I can 
 promise you it shall often come out. Roger 
 will be so pleased. He will think when he 
 comes in that you have stepped down out of 
 a picture. You have heard my brother 
 Roger sing at the Minster, have you not ?" 
 
 •' Yes, and I have heard him sing at the 
 works ; and when I hear him, I sing too, 
 and that is how we talk to each other," said 
 Gretchen frankly, unconscious that this was 
 not the way everybody did in England. 
 " And it makes my work seem to me that it
 
 268 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 is not work. When he comes in, perhaps 
 we shall sing again — yes ? He was very 
 much surprised that I should sing so well, 
 and he asked me where I learned, and I told 
 him in my old home at Stuttgart we all do 
 sing ; it is our life." 
 
 Jean looked at her wistfully ; this bright- 
 eyed, open-faced girl, from whom the 
 beautiful years as they came would keep 
 back nothing, but perhaps the empty honour 
 of a place in society. It gave her a pang 
 sometimes, even yet, to look out from her 
 shadow into the sun's brightness, but never 
 feel its warmth. 
 
 "Shall you be vexed," she said, " if I 
 ask you why you came away from Stutt- 
 gart?" 
 
 " No," answered the girl, very simply. 
 " Why should I be vexed that you ask me 
 everything ? I went to the Conservatoire, 
 what you call the school for music, and the 
 Signor, who came to visit there once, wished
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 269 
 
 that I should go away from my home with 
 him and be a great singer. But my mother 
 did not think it good. He was too grand, too 
 edel^ and she said it must be that I should 
 come away, for the signor did so often come 
 to see me, and we were very poor, and an 
 English lady brought me to London with 
 her, to be what you call a governess for the 
 nursery, because well she knew me, and she 
 was very kind. But I could not be happy. 
 None ever spoke to me of my home and my 
 friends, and I tried to do well, and I worked 
 very hard, but none ever took my hand and 
 said to me, ' Gretchen, thou art a good little 
 maiden.' And then I did hear that one of 
 my own country people worked for the Herr 
 Arncliife, and I thought I would like to 
 earn the money so, and to him I wrote ; and 
 he spoke for me to the Herr, and I come, 
 and I work with the other girls, and one 
 Frau Bratchet makes for me my home, and 
 I do not complain any more."
 
 270 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Quietly Jean put out her hand, and laid 
 it with a soft caressing touch upon Gret- 
 chen's. The girl put it to her lips, then 
 leaned her cheek upon it. 
 
 '^ Mrs. Bratchet is very good," said Mrs. 
 Monkeston. " You will be safe with her, 
 quite safe." 
 
 " What is that ?" said Gretchen, '' safe ?" 
 
 " I mean that no one can do you any 
 harm whilst you are with her — she is a good 
 woman." 
 
 " Oh ! yes — only " 
 
 And there came over the girl's face again 
 that unquiet look, scarcely so much of sad- 
 ness or regret as of longing after something 
 never yet given to her. She looked round 
 upon the little room, so simply furnished, 
 yet so beautiful in its very simpleness, bear- 
 ing everywhere the mark of Jean's exquisite 
 artistic taste ; she stretched herself upon the 
 low couch, and nestled her head into its soft 
 cushions, as if she would reach into the very
 
 THE BLUE KIBBON. 271 
 
 heart of their cosy comfort. And there was 
 almost a touch of disdain in her voice as she 
 said, 
 
 " In the Frau Bratchet's home there is 
 nothing beautiful. All is only for use. At 
 home, though we were poor and my father 
 cut wood in the forest, and my mother, 
 when she had made clean the house, must 
 spin for a long time — still we had always 
 something beautiful. There were little 
 pictures, with the frames as the Frilulein 
 Monkeston makes them here ; and there 
 were flowers everywhere that I brought in 
 from the woods, and I put for my mother a 
 rose into her dress as she did sit to spin. 
 But the Frau Bratchet does wear no 
 rose." 
 
 Jean could not help laughing. It was 
 too funny to picture honest old Mrs. Bratch- 
 et with a rose blushing in the capacious 
 folds of the lilac print which covered her 
 matronly bosom. No, if Mrs. Bratchet
 
 272 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 wore a flower at all, it ought to be a cauli- 
 flower. 
 
 " But, Gretchen, you can have flowers 
 here, if you like. I will tell you where you 
 may find them in the Summer-time, and even 
 now there are Autumn leaves and red berries. 
 Some day I will go with you to gather 
 them ; that is," — and Jean looked down 
 upon her crooked limbs — " if you would 
 not mind going out with me." 
 
 Gretchen kissed the little brown hand 
 again. She knew well enough what that 
 look meant. 
 
 " Why should I not like ? I love you, 
 and it is for me like home when I look into 
 your face. Yes, 1 know there are flowers 
 here. Once I went far out into the woods, 
 and I found the Danuer-hamn that in our 
 country we love so much, and we have a 
 song for it, and I brought some of the 
 beautiful leaves home, and I made with 
 them, ein Kranz, what you call garland,
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 273 
 
 and hung it in the window ; but the Frau 
 Bratchet, when she came home, made only 
 an ugly face, and said it was ' pisen,' some- 
 thing hemlock, she said, and threw my leaves 
 away." 
 
 Jean laughed again. That " pisen" came 
 out so innocently from the rosy lips. 
 
 " And once again," the girl went on, " I 
 brought ivy leaves and long grass, and 
 whilst the Frau Bratchet hung out her 
 clothes in the yard, I arranged them so that 
 it pleased me much ; and I thought the 
 Frau must needs say to me, ' Now, Gretch- 
 en, thou art a good little maid.' But," — 
 and Gretchen shrugged her pretty shoul- 
 ders — " behold, it was her bowl for starch 
 that I had put them in, and she must have it 
 for the Herr Monkeston's wristbands ; and 
 my ivy did go into the fire. So now we 
 have nothing beautiful." 
 
 A bright thought came into Jean's mind. 
 How pleasant it would be to have this girl 
 
 VOL. I. • T
 
 274 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 come and live with them always ! — how 
 much better for her, too, than being with 
 Mrs. Bratchet, whose homely, dutiful life 
 she could scarcely yet comprehend. Safe 
 she might be there, indeed, but for that safe- 
 ty all that was fine and artistic in her nature 
 must starve, whilst what was really good and 
 almost grand in the honest woman's char- 
 acter was lost upon her. Gretchen's soul 
 wanted something beautiful to cherish it 
 into perfection. Then they w^ould read to- 
 gether, and Jean could teach her so many 
 things which, in that peasant life of hers at 
 home, she could never learn ; and at night, 
 when Roger came home, they would all 
 sing together, and he would be so happy ! 
 
 But Jean said nothing yet, only thought. 
 And because that restless look still ruffled 
 the clear brightness of Gretchen's face, she 
 went and played for her until the smile 
 came back again — played whilst the Minster 
 bells chimed and lights began to flicker out
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 275 
 
 from the storied windows, and the chanted 
 music, in which Roger was even now taking 
 part, stole into the little room, and all was 
 rest and peace. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 "pOGER MONKESTON, filled with his 
 -^^' new-found happiness, was fast far- 
 ing towards that " bower of bliss " whose 
 subtle sweetness — did no brave Sir Guyon, 
 with holy palmer attending, cross his path 
 to w^arn him from it — might soon win from 
 him his manhood, and leave him, robbed of 
 all lofty purpose or noble endeavour, a 
 loiterer in the easeful valley, looking toward, 
 but never longing any more to reach the 
 mountain top which once seemed so fair. 
 
 He was in no hurry now to leave that 
 end of the finishing-room in which Provi- 
 dence had appointed his daily labour. Most 
 wholesome and practical seemed to him the
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 277 
 
 sermon which old Dr. Boniface preached in 
 Cruxborough Minster, the Sunday after he 
 had that pleasant walk home with Gretch- 
 en — the sermon in which Dr. Boniface 
 had said that we should not long after 
 change, but stand patiently at the post 
 where a wisdom higher than ours had 
 placed us, never hasting to move from it to 
 a higher sphere. Hasting to remove ? — 
 why, that finishing-room was his Paradise 
 now ! and the only tree of knowledge whose 
 fruit he cared to pluck was that which 
 Gretchen's voice and Gretchen's smile and 
 the touch of Gretchen's hand revealed to 
 him. As for the mathematical department, 
 which was to come next, the inner court, as 
 it were, in which he was to study the higher 
 branches of his art, why, Roger did not like 
 even to think of that, nor of the " higher 
 branches," which must take him further 
 away from Gretchen. For still she sang to 
 him so sweetly on the other side of that
 
 278 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 partition, and laughed out upon hira with 
 her rich bright face if he waited for her 
 in the great corridor when work was 
 done ; and sometimes at night, if Patch 
 were not there like a grim old duenna to 
 guard the girl home, he would follow her 
 and have a few minutes of pleasant speech 
 under the dark portals of the College yard, 
 ending in a hand-clasp, long, soft, and 
 lingering, in which he tried to tell the story 
 that could find no way as yet in words. 
 
 Why should he wish now to be a great 
 man, to plague himself with those weary 
 years of study through which Mr. Arncliffe 
 told him he must work his way so patiently, 
 if ever he wished to take his place amongst 
 the crowned heads of science ? Crowned 
 heads, indeed ! he wanted no crown now, 
 but Gretchen's love. Place amongst the 
 great men of his time! — all that he cared for 
 was a humble little house somewhere, with 
 this German peasant maid for its queen; this
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 279 
 
 peasant maid with her frieze petticoat, and 
 her pretty bare arms, and her coronal of 
 sunny hair, and her voice which could sing 
 so sweetly to him in the long Winter even- 
 ings. What a weariness ever to be striving 
 up, when the valley beneath was so pleasant ! 
 Why should he not stay in that finishing- 
 room, earning mechanics' wages with the rest 
 of the men ? Why should he not ask Gretch- 
 en at once to be his wife, to share such 
 a simple home as he could make for her, 
 without longer waiting for it ? The great 
 people might look down upon him, and Mr. 
 ArnclifFe might be a little disappointed per- 
 haps ; but he and Gretchen would be 
 happy together, and was not that the first 
 thing ! 
 
 And if a thought of Jean came over him 
 sometimes, Jean who was his to care for 
 and cherish all through life, that passionate 
 love, which as yet had only self for its end 
 and aim, swept as with a great ocean wave
 
 280 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 over all such little hindrances, and covered 
 them with a glorious glistening veil of foam. 
 Only in hours of quiet thought, when the 
 tide was low and the wind was still, did they 
 show themselves again, rising like great 
 black solemn rocks amidst the waves of 
 passion which could no longer hide them, 
 and Roger remembered, and a great strife 
 arose within him. 
 
 Such an hour of ebb tide came to him on 
 the afternoon of Gretchen's visit to the little 
 house in Bishop's Lane, when, putting off his 
 working blouse, he hurried away to take 
 his place in the Minster choir. The pure 
 white surplice seemed to bring with it better, 
 holier thoughts. Always to him a robe of 
 joy in which he offered his service of song, 
 it was to-day almost as a priestly garment. 
 Wearing it, he seemed to step into a higher 
 life. As he sat in his place, listening to the 
 voices of prayer and praise, old days came 
 back upon him. He remembered that
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 281 
 
 terrible evening, so far back now, when Mr. 
 Ballinger's words had stung him through 
 with sudden terror. He remembered how, 
 as he stood there trying to sing through the 
 tears which choked his voice, every face and 
 figure in the gloomy old cathedral had 
 seemed to him as the face and figrure of his 
 sister. Jean, pale, stricken, suffering, re- 
 buking ; Jean, whom now he could so easily 
 forget, whom he even wished to forget, 
 whose image now was a dark unwelcome 
 thought, rising above the tide of his new- 
 found joy. 
 
 Again, a child no longer, but a man, with 
 all a man's strength of hope and passion, a 
 man's longing to do and dare, to possess and 
 enjoy, a man's power to fight with con- 
 science, a man's power, too, to feel its piti- 
 less, smiting sting, Roger looked up to those 
 sculptured faces of angel, saint, and martyr. 
 And almost with reproach more majestic 
 than that which had smitten his childish
 
 282 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 heart, they frowned upon him now, calm, 
 sad, regretfuL It was ahnost as if they said 
 to him, 
 
 "Thou art untrue to thyself, untrue to 
 thy love, untrue to thy duty." 
 
 Roger knew it was even so. Tlie tide w^as 
 very low now. Tlie great black rocks of 
 sorrowful remembrance were all too plain 
 around him. And there was a great silence, 
 for the winds and waves of passion were at 
 rest. 
 
 As sometimes on shelvinoj coasts a little 
 brook runs down through cleft and chasm 
 to the sea, minc^lino; its babble with the 
 
 7 DO 
 
 great everlasting murmur of the waves, so 
 in Roger's life two voices had lately been 
 speaking to him, and the chattering brook 
 of easy self-indulgence, because so close to 
 him, had had the better part. It had been 
 so easy to listen to that, so easy to forget 
 the other. Now, sitting there in the old 
 Minster, all round and about him the pres-
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 283 
 
 ence of its gloom and grandeur, that other 
 voice began to speak. 
 
 Far off he heard the solemn sound of the 
 great waves of duty, rolling and breaking in 
 upon the shores of his life. He listened, 
 and the chatter of the little brook now 
 seemed so vain, so shallow. A great long- 
 ing arose within him to do the right — to be 
 led by the highest in himself, not the lowest. 
 To be true to Gretchen, but so true that his 
 love for her should lift them both to a better 
 standing-place ; that they should rise toge- 
 ther, not for ever sun themselves on the 
 lazy level of low content. He would work, 
 he would wait, he would be patient. He 
 would win all that was possible to him in 
 the great world of art and science, and 
 make pleasure the handmaid of right, not 
 its tyrant. 
 
 As from a dream Roger woke up, and 
 found it was time for the anthem ; and then 
 with his whole soul he joined in that glori-
 
 284 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 ous burst of praise from Mozart's " Twelfth 
 Mass," " I will give thanks." Truly it 
 seemed to him as if its glorious tumult of 
 harmony, its flood upon flood of triumphant, 
 jubilant song, were sweeping him along as 
 towards some great gate of thanksgiving, 
 through which his soul should go in to God, 
 who had this day lifted him out of his lower 
 self to the high, pure life of duty. 
 
 So, when all was over, Roger, glad, quiet, 
 reverent, went home. 
 
 As he crossed the east end of the Close, 
 he noticed in the dusk little knots of people 
 gathered about his mother's house, and com- 
 ing nearer, he heard a sweet voice singing 
 one of the German songs he knew so well. 
 It must be Gretchen — no other voice had 
 the silver ring of perfect melody. But how 
 could Gretchen be there? — and how could 
 any dream so soon come true as that in 
 which he had pictured her at home with
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 285 
 
 them in the little room behind the shop ? — 
 or was he dreaming still ? 
 
 No ; for he hurried along, went very 
 silently into the house, and standing in the 
 narrow entry, looked through the half-open 
 door into the parlour, where Jean sat at the 
 piano, and beside her Gretchen, in her 
 festa dress, her whole happy soul looking 
 forth through her eyes as she sang. 
 
 Take that girl and bind her down with 
 him in the dull mechanic's home, which 
 might be his for the asking, now ! Nay, let 
 him rather rise, and lift her with him, until, 
 hand in hand, they might enter on a life 
 worthy of them both. Seeing Gretchen 
 thus, a strange new light seemed to come 
 into his love for her. It was no longer a 
 selfish joy, given to make his own days 
 bright, but a touch as from some divine 
 hand upon the eyelids of his soul, opening 
 them to the Hght of day, and the glory of 
 the great world of hope.
 
 286 THE BLUE EIBBON. 
 
 Jean stopped, and then he went in. 
 
 " I have made a surprise for you, Roger," 
 she said, as she led forward Gretchen, 
 smiling with pretty consciousness of how dif- 
 ferent she must look now. 
 
 And Roger felt so proud as he clasped 
 hands with her in his own home. It seemed 
 as if he had given her away for a little 
 season, that he might receive her again, his 
 own more closely, more beautifully than 
 before. And that his mother was well 
 pleased he could tell by one quick look into 
 her grave, quiet face, so full of motherliness 
 whenever her eyes fell upon the girl. Gret- 
 chen was at home. 
 
 "Is it not good of the Fraulein that she 
 should ask me to come to your house ?" she 
 said, coming to meet him with a frank smile. 
 " It was a great festival for me that I should 
 come ; and Madame speaks to me so kindly. 
 I would that I could do something for you !" 
 
 " You can do something, Gretchen," said
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 287 
 
 Jean. ^^ You can come and see us very 
 often, and you will sing to us, and 
 make us quite bright. But I forgot, you 
 are always at work. I suppose you can 
 only take holiday on Saturday afternoons ?" 
 '' No, for I must work all the time to pay 
 the Frau Bratchet that she makes my home. 
 And then soon I sliall have my clothes to 
 buy. I have not yet wanted to buy any, 
 because my mother made me many when 
 I came with the lady to England. But," 
 and Gretchen's face suddenly lighted up, as 
 if quite a new thought had struck her, *' you 
 know the good Kapell-meister has been 
 speaking with me, and he wishes that I 
 should no longer work at Herr ArnclifFe's, 
 but give all my time to nmsic; and then, you 
 know, I can often come and see you. He 
 says some kind people would pay for me, 
 til at I should not have to w^ork, but that 
 would not please me. It makes me that I 
 seem to beg. My mother taught me it was
 
 288 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 not honourable that the poor should not 
 work ; and look at my hands, they are too 
 strong to take what you call charity. Only 
 I work so long, so very long at Herr Arn- 
 cliffe's, and then I have so little time for ray 
 music ; and to be happy, and to enjoy my- 
 self, I have no time. But what can I do ? 
 I can spin. Would that bring me money ?" 
 
 "Not much now-a-days," said Mrs.Monkes- 
 ton. "They can do it better by ma- 
 chinery. I am afraid spinning would be no 
 better for you than working in the lacquer- 
 incr-room. But can you sew nicely ?" 
 
 "Can I sew?" And Gretchen's eyes 
 sparkled as she ran towards Mrs. Monkes- 
 ton, pulling down the sleeve of her bodice, 
 to show the frilling upon it. "I did this 
 all with my own hands, and all what I wear 
 is of my own hands. And my dress, this 
 pretty embroidery, I did it at home. Can 
 I not, then, sew ? And do you say, can I 
 knit ? Look here."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 289 
 
 And Gretchen pushed out from beneath 
 her embroidered petticoat a foot and ankle, 
 not slender, certainly, but firmly and beau- 
 tifully moulded, to show the grey stocking 
 which fitted so daintily. 
 
 " Can I not knit ? Yes. Ah ! you do 
 wrong that you say to a German maiden, 
 can you sew, can you knit, can you spin ? 
 For do not we at home spend our days in 
 doing these things ?" 
 
 " Well, then," said Mrs. Monkeston, smil- 
 ing at her eagerness, " I think I can give 
 you work enough. I supply a woman now, 
 who is often so busy she cannot do all I 
 want. If you can do it for me, I will pay 
 you for it, perhaps better than Mr. Arn- 
 clifFe pays for your lacquering. You know 
 anyone can do that sort of work, but anyone 
 cannot sew and knit well, so it is worth more 
 money. You will be able to earn as much 
 in half the time, and then you can practise. 
 Will not that be better?" 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Gretchen ran across the room to kiss 
 Madame's hand. 
 
 '*Ah! how you are good! You make 
 me full of gladness ! And now it will not 
 be charity that I stay at the Frau Bratchet's, 
 and give time to my music. But you will 
 have patience with me, will you not ? For 
 my hands are rough now, but I will try 
 very hard, and I will make my stitches ever 
 so small, and you shall never have to say to 
 me, ' Gretchen, thou art a careless child !' 
 Ah ! Madame, how happy I shall be, for I 
 like not that room where the girls do always 
 laugh and talk It is not to me as my 
 home." 
 
 " And so we will never sing to each other 
 again there," said Roger, whose face showed 
 that he, at least, did not think this new move 
 such a very brilliant success. And it had 
 come so suddenly upon him that he could 
 scarcely see yet how good it would be for 
 Gretchen. " Won't you miss it just a little ?"
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 291 
 
 " Ah !" and Gretchen drew in her breath. 
 She had never thought about that. But 
 she soon brightened up again. Apparently 
 those long hours of singing talk were not 
 so needful to her as to Roger. 
 
 " I had forgotten. But you know I shall 
 have to bring my work home to Madame, 
 and perhaps she will sometimes ask me that 
 I stop and have tea with you, like now ; 
 and we shall sing, and always, at the prac- 
 tice, I shall feel for your voice, and come 
 close up to it — close up — and you will know 
 that I am not far off. Yes ? Is not that 
 enough ? And then will come the Festival. 
 Ah ! how I do want that the Festival shall 
 come ! And I shall put on this, my festa 
 dress. The Frau Bratchet is to wash the 
 bodice for me, and perhaps I will have a 
 ribbon in my hair. At the Conservatoire, 
 when I did sing in the chorus, I always had 
 a ribbon in my hair. Ach ! why do I talk
 
 292 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 about the Conservatoire ? I must forget, 
 and do my work." 
 
 " Suppose you forget, and sing instead," 
 said Jean, seeing that wistful look come 
 over the girl's face again, far-off, restless, 
 almost pathetic ; and she drew Gretchen 
 to the piano, and Roger came, and the 
 two sang together ; and it seemed to him 
 that their hearts touched each other in the 
 music, and the subtle harmony was like 
 a long sweet kiss to him, and he never 
 knew that Gretchen's thoughts were far 
 away. 
 
 Then he went home with her. 
 
 " Good night," he said, as they stood to- 
 gether under the doorway of the old col- 
 lege. He had made the way as long as he 
 could, for it was so pleasant to have her all 
 to himself in the gloom and quiet of the 
 streets. " Good night. I must go home to 
 my mother and sister now."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 293 
 
 She repeated his words slowly, letting 
 her hand stay in his all the time, and look- 
 ing up at him with that curious, musing ex- 
 pression. 
 
 " You say I do go home to my mother 
 and my sister. That has to me a sound 
 like music. You do go home to your mother 
 and your sister — I do go home to the Frau 
 Bratchet in the one little room, and I have 
 no mother, and I have no sister, and no one 
 says to me mein Kind. But I sing, and that 
 is my home. Gute JSfachty 
 
 And she flitted from him into the gloomy 
 old yard. 
 
 " Jean," he said tenderly, as he gave his 
 sister her good-night kiss, " it was very good 
 of you to bring Gretchen." 
 
 Jean only looked up into his bright, 
 handsome face, lighted, as it seemed to her 
 now, with a fresh glow from the happy soul 
 within, and gave back kiss for kiss. Per-
 
 294 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 haps in that kiss the brother and sister told 
 each other all. Perhaps Jean, standing in 
 the shadow — for ever in the shadow — had 
 clear vision to see the sunshine's brightness 
 on the faces of them who walked therein. 
 And if so, well ; for she had looked into 
 Gretchen's soul, and found it fresh and 
 pure as the morning.
 
 295 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 GRETCHEN ran across the College yard 
 and into Mrs. Bratchet's room, bright 
 and cosy enough now, for this was Saturday 
 night, and a clear red fire burned in the 
 low grate, and the laces and muslins which 
 would be worn by fashionable Cruxborough 
 at church on the morrow, hung before it, 
 *' airing off," in readiness to be taken to 
 their respective destinations. Mrs. Bratchet 
 herself, rough, wholesome, sweet as one of 
 her own home-made brown meal loaves, 
 stood at her ironing-board, supported on 
 the opposite side by Patch, who always came 
 to help on Saturday nights. 
 
 " Well, honey, and ye've had a good 
 time, I lay. It's thankful you ought to be
 
 296 THE BLUE KIBBON. 
 
 as you're bidden to such 'n a house, for 
 Mrs. Monkeston's a friend as'll stick to you 
 through thick and thin." 
 
 '' Yes," said Gretchen quietly, unclasping 
 her kirtle at once, and taking off her muslin 
 bodice, that she might straighten the frills 
 of it before she put it away. " Madame is 
 very kind, and she has said to me something 
 that makes me glad. She says that I shall 
 work for her, instead of the Herr x^rncliffe, 
 and she will pay me better, as I can earn 
 there ; so I shall sit by you and do my work, 
 save when I must practise for the Kapell- 
 
 meister." 
 
 " Voi /" and Patch raised her black 
 brows. "Then you will be off my mind. I 
 liked not those works for you — and the men 
 coming and going. It has given me a heavy 
 heart many a time. Now you will be safe." 
 
 " I shall be happy^'' said Gretchen, begin- 
 ning to sing herself a little German song. 
 
 When she had done. Patch took up the
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 297 
 
 air and sang it through, finishing off with a 
 brilliant cadenza that would not have dis- 
 graced a concert-room. 
 
 " Ah! w^iere learned you to sing?" asked 
 Gretchen, who could not do roulades her- 
 self. " I think the Herr Kapell-meister 
 should hear you." 
 
 " Oh ! I can sing well enough, and act 
 too, if you like. I've done it in my time. 
 Look here!" 
 
 And Patch, pushing away her iron, threw 
 herself into an attitude, and went clearly, 
 brilliantly, correctly through the whole of a 
 scene from some Italian opera. 
 
 "There," she said, coolly, as she took up 
 her iron again, and went on with one of 
 Mrs. Ballincjer's Valenciennes lace collars. 
 
 Mrs. Bratchet could not stand that, 
 though. 
 
 "Did ever anybody? And a grown wo- 
 man to be carrying on like that ! The folk 
 up the stair '11 think we've gone clean mad !
 
 298 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 If you're bound to tune up, let's have a 
 hymn." 
 
 And the good lady began, in a brisk, 
 cheery voice — 
 
 ' ' We're marching through Emanuel's land, 
 Emanuel's land, Emanuel's land." 
 
 But nobody joined in, and when she had 
 got to the end, Gretchen said, 
 
 " No, please ; we do have so much hymns. 
 Patch does sing very well. I have before 
 heard music like that at the Conservatoire, 
 and I think I do like it better than your 
 hymns." 
 
 " Conservatoire, child ! — what do you 
 know about a Conservatoire ?" said Patch, a 
 light beginning to dance and flicker in her 
 black eyes. " I thought your father cut 
 wood in the forest, and your mother spun." 
 
 " Yes, so ; but I did go to the Conserva- 
 toire, and I did sing very well, and the 
 Signor wished that I should — he wished that
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 299 
 
 I should go with him and learn to be always 
 a singer." 
 
 " Poor child ! But well, well, you did 
 not go." 
 
 "No, my mother said no. She said it 
 was not well for me that I should go with 
 him." 
 
 " If you ever say your prayers, child," 
 and Patch looked fiercely into the girl's face, 
 "thank God that you had a mother, and 
 that she did not let you go away. I had no 
 father and no mother, and no good angel 
 told me I had better stay in my own coun- 
 try. How looked this Signor, that would 
 have had you away with him ? Or have you 
 forgotten all about it ?" 
 
 " Ja wohl ! Ask me do I forget how the 
 sun shines on the flowers in my father's little 
 garden, and it is but since a year that I do 
 not see them. But, ach ! why do you make 
 me that I remember? I would be at rest. 
 I am tired."
 
 300 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 And Gretchen leaned her pretty head 
 back, but, instead of finding the soft welcome 
 of Jean Monkeston's cushion, it only knock- 
 ed af^ainst Mrs. Bratchet's brown earthen- 
 ware starch bowl, which, having done its 
 work for the week, was reared up by way 
 of ornament at that end of the room. 
 Gretchen shrugged her shoulders impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 " Was fiir eine Pest ! I shall go to bed." 
 
 Mrs. Bratchet could not understand 
 Gretchen's little splutterings of German 
 pettishness, but she could well interpret the 
 look of restless weariness in the girl's face. 
 She had seen it there before, sometimes, 
 after practising nights. 
 
 "Ay, honey, you're done up — get away 
 to bed, that's the place for you. And when 
 these things is sided out, I'll bring you a 
 cup of porridge, wi' ginger in it. It's a 
 fine thing for sleeping on, is porridge and 
 ginger."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 301 
 
 " Yes," added Patch, who had been eye- 
 ing the girl keenly, " and take thy quick 
 temper with thee ; it will keep thee warm. 
 Some day thou niayest live to thank them 
 that wish thee well. Buona noite.'' 
 
 With a pouting lip Gretchen turned 
 away, gathering up her muslin bodice and 
 the blue woollen cloak. When her footfall 
 was heard in the room overhead, Mrs. 
 Bratchet began again, 
 
 " Poor wench ! It don't do for her to 
 gad about among her betters. Little folks 
 is best among their own sort, and it always 
 fetches her in the dumps when you set on 
 about them there furrin parts. It's hard 
 lines for them as can't stop by their own kith 
 and kin." 
 
 " I wonder why she could not stop ?" said 
 Patch. 
 
 *' I don't know. I don't ever ask no 
 questions much. But I misdoubt it was that 
 what'n ye call him, as wanted her away with
 
 302 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 "him. The old mother seems a good sort, 
 and happen thought she'd be safer where 
 he wasn't coaimg and going so much, and so 
 she got her fixed with the lady as come 
 to England. I don't wonder she couldn't 
 Settle in London, though, it's a big place, and 
 nobody don't care whether you're dead or 
 alive ; and maybe she's better here, where the 
 folks isn't so thick set. And now Mrs. 
 Monkeston, bless her, has took kindly to 
 her, why, she'll be as safe as a bank." 
 
 " But law, now," continued the good 
 woman, " to think of Mrs. Monkeston doing 
 it, and she that pinched for money whilst she 
 has to look both sides of a penny, as you 
 may say, afore she spends it. But some has 
 it natr'al, that's where it is. They'd part 
 their last crust to them as wanted a bite ; 
 and some, if they had their houses full of 
 silver and gold, accordin' to the blessed 
 Scripters, wouldn't let a farthing of it go out 
 of their sight as didn't ])ring its even back
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 303 
 
 again. I've known both sorts in this here 
 place." 
 
 " Well," said Patch, who looked as if she 
 had been trying to recall something far 
 back, " I like justice. I care not to praise 
 people. And I think Mrs. Monkeston is not 
 so poor. She has money coming to her that 
 the shop does not bring." 
 
 ^' Ay, who says she hasn't? A fifty pound 
 a year, as she brought to her own fort'n, and 
 that scamp of a husband couldn't lay hands 
 on it. And that's what kept 'em all from 
 starving when first the shop was set agate, 
 afore it started to pay. But over that she 
 hasn't a penny as she don't fight for, and 
 Miss Jean, poor thing, bless her, always to 
 be kept, for it don't stand to reason but 
 what the young man '11 go his own gate some 
 o' these days, an wed a wife as lie's picked 
 for hisself, and then where'll Miss Jean be 
 when her mother's gone ?" 
 
 '* No," said Patch. " She has m.ore, and 1
 
 304 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 will tell you how I know it. You remem- 
 ber when I lived with old Mr. Arm- 
 strong ?" 
 
 " Ay, old Hiram, down at Wastewood. 
 Him as they say ruined poor Ralph Monke- 
 ston, with leading him about to one public 
 after another, while he was that drunk he 
 couldn't guide hisself straight." 
 
 " Well, as to that, if people said truly, 
 Ralph Monkeston never could guide himself, 
 drunk or sober. But Mr. Armstrong was a 
 strange man. I knew many things which I 
 never made it my business to tell to other 
 people. I will say for him, though, that 
 he did not try to show himself better 
 than he was. If he did wrong, he owned 
 to it. And he was kind to me. Where 
 should I now have been, if he had not that 
 snowy day brought me in and kept me to 
 be his servant ? In my grave, perhaps. 
 My grave, and my work that I wait for not 
 done."
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 305 
 
 Patch muttered an Italian oath, which 
 fortunately Mrs. Bratchet did not under- 
 stand, and growled like a chained-up crea- 
 ture, as she set the ruffles of an elaborate 
 dress-shirt. 
 
 ''Si And could I have rested there? 
 Ah! Madonna.'' 
 
 " Stuff about your Madonnas ! You 
 did well enough for old Hirain. It was a 
 good day for him when he took you in. He 
 was never so comfortably fixed afore. And 
 talk about your work — why, nobody goes 
 while their work is done. You've many a 
 frill to starch yet. Patch, afore you'll be 
 re'ady for that brave bed-gown as you've got 
 laid by, to be streaked for your buryin'. 
 There isn't a woman in Cruxborough gets up 
 fine things like yourself, though I say it as 
 reckons to do 'em pretty fair myself There's 
 gifts and there's graces, Patch ; and I won't 
 say as you've got the graces, for I don't 
 think you've ever given a thought to the 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 savin' of your soul, for as much as I've been 
 at you in season and out of season to get 
 you to the means ; but the gift is there, and 
 I'm not the woman to deny it." 
 
 Patch curled that scornful upper lip of 
 hers. 
 
 " I never set myself to do anything yet 
 that I did not make an end of it. But I did 
 not begin to talk to you about myself, only 
 that Mrs. Monkeston has more money than 
 you think, and I will tell you how I know. 
 Only a week before my master died, there 
 came to his house that man whom I despise, 
 that Mr. Ballinger ; and they had a long talk, 
 and all the time my master kept drinking. 
 He used to tell me almost everything when 
 he had been drinking. I know all of his 
 life — that he had once been poor, and that he 
 became rich because Ralph Monkeston's fa- 
 ther lent him money ; and that night, when 
 I brought him his supper, he told me that 
 he had been making atonement for his
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 307 
 
 wrong doings, and that he had given Mr. 
 Ballinger large money to pay to Mr. Monke- 
 ston at different times, that the little boy 
 might be taught at school. And I curtsey- 
 ed as was my place, and said, ' Yes, sir.' It 
 was not for me to ask questions, but still I 
 remember ; and, therefore, I know. It was 
 money in shares too, and Mr. Ballinger was 
 to pay the interest." 
 
 " Well," and Mrs. Bratchet began to put 
 away her work, for it was late, "it's none of 
 my business to find out what folks have, and 
 what they haven't. I'm pretty sure of one 
 thing — Mrs. Monkeston isn't a woman to 
 scrape her cheese when she can afford to 
 pare it ; and if she'd had ought settled to 
 turn round upon, I should ha' known it, 
 coming and going as I've been about her this 
 more 'n twenty year. There's many a man, 
 Patch, thinks he'll do a good turn when he's 
 in his cups, but next morning he bites as 
 sharp as ever." 
 
 x2
 
 308 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 " He said he had done it, though," per- 
 sisted Patch. 
 
 " I don't care what he said else, so lon^ as 
 he didn't say as Mrs. Monkeston had hum- 
 bled herself to take it. For as good as he 
 was to you, Patch — and I don't deny but 
 what he was raised up for you in your need 
 — it's my belief, if he'd gone and laid his sil- 
 ver and his gold at Mrs. Monkeston's feet, 
 she'd none have stooped herself to pick 'em 
 up at his giving. And now these things must 
 be took home to Ballinger's."
 
 309 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ROGER worked bravely, steadily on ; so 
 bravely, that Mr. ArnclifFe, who had 
 never been other than satisfied with the 
 young man's industry, was now almost sur- 
 prised at the energy and perseverance which 
 carried him so successfully through his work. 
 Often a keen, questioning look would pass 
 over the shrewd face of the old man, as he 
 handed back to Roger the problems which 
 had been so correctly solved ; the sheets of 
 calculations, crowded with figures, not one 
 of which had needed to be crossed out ; 
 problems and calculations which might have 
 puzzled many a University man, and which 
 even Mr. Arncliffe himself had not mastered 
 without an effort. And though he took
 
 310 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 Roger's word that they had been done by 
 himself, still, he could not help making in- 
 quiries now and then amongst his friends in 
 Cruxborough, to be really sure that the 
 young man w^as not being privately coached. 
 When he found all was honest and 
 straightforward, he began to feel a genuine 
 pride in his pupil He looked forward with 
 confidence now to the time when that young 
 head might hold itself proudly enough in 
 tlie place which he should then have given 
 up, nay, perhaps in a higher place than his 
 own. For Mr. ArnclifFe loved science for 
 its own sake rather than for the fame it 
 brought him ; and there was the touch of 
 fine nobility in him gladly to step aside, that 
 one who could see farther than himself into 
 the sublime secrets of nature might minister 
 as high priest at her altar. That she should 
 be revealed to those who sought her, that 
 was the old man's joy, let the revelation 
 come through whom it would.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 311 
 
 But whoso would serve at that altar must 
 wait long and patiently. Roger must show 
 himself worthy of his work ; and this Mr. 
 Arncliffe meant to give him the chance of 
 doing, by placing in his hands a slowly in- 
 creasing responsibility. A splendid order, 
 the most splendid order ever executed in 
 England, had just been placed attheWools- 
 thorpe works ; a telescope was to be made 
 for the French Institute of Science. It was 
 to be a perfect instrument of its kind — per- 
 fect so far as money, skilful workmanship, 
 and the highest available mathematical 
 knowledge could make it perfect ; and to 
 Mr. Arncliffe, out of all the practical astrono- 
 mers in Europe, had been entrusted the 
 task of turning it out. It was a proud day 
 for the old man when that order came 
 from Paris. He had a genuine pride in his 
 work ; he longed to have a Woolsthorpe 
 telescope in every observatory in the world ; 
 not that his little name might be graven
 
 312 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 upon it, but because lie knew that no other 
 instrument would serve its purpose so 
 well. 
 
 And now was the opportunity to give 
 Roger, as Mr. Ballinger would say, an in- 
 sight into the profession. He should see 
 the whole process, from beginning to end ; 
 he should be at Mr. ArnclifFe's side during 
 every hour which must be spent in that 
 little inner office, making the intricate cal- 
 culations necessary before the grinding of 
 the glasses could be completed. Every step 
 of the process should be made clear to him, 
 for he was sufficiently advanced to under- 
 stand it ; and when the grand instrument 
 was finished, so would be Roger's edu- 
 cation. 
 
 The contract extended over three years. 
 Mr. ArnclifFe was not what is generally 
 called a " man of prayer," but if the in- 
 tensest, unselfish longing of the heart be its 
 truest voice towards God, then verily his
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 313 
 
 whole life was in some sort an unspoken 
 prayer; and the prayer was this, that he 
 might live to see his great work complete. 
 If only he might be spared to carry his 
 pupil step by step with him, until, this per- 
 fect piece of workmanship having been 
 finished by them botli, there was nothing 
 further left to teach, he felt he could die 
 content. He could leave Woolsthorpe then 
 in Roger Monkeston's hands, satisfied that 
 it would never fall from the splendid repu- 
 tation which he had made for it. He had 
 no children of his own to think and care 
 for. These engine-sheds, workshops, steam- 
 lathes, these instruments slowly growing to 
 perfection under his eyes, were to him as his 
 family, his household, and he had little in- 
 terest left in life save to commit them to 
 one who would be to them what he had 
 been. 
 
 So, a few weeks after the contract had 
 been sig^ned, he went over one evening to
 
 314 .THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 the little parlour behind the bow-winduwed 
 shop. He often found his way there now. 
 Nothing pleased him better than to watch 
 Brownie at her work, carving out those 
 delicate leaves and buds, or copying some 
 grand old Gothic design from Dr. Boniface's 
 cathedral books, to adapt it to her own pur- 
 pose. Jean used to wonder often how it 
 was that so many orders were sent to her 
 from people — orders which kept her busy 
 during all the hours which her health al- 
 lowed her to give to work. She did not 
 know that the library of Mr. ArnclifFe's old- 
 fashioned house in Queen Anne Street, that 
 quaint room where so many grey-haired 
 savans used to meet, was almost filled with 
 bits of her workmanship, and that the great 
 folk coming there and admiring them were 
 sent to a certain little bow-windowed shop 
 in Cruxborough for duplicates. That was 
 Mr. Arncliffe's way of befriending people to 
 whom he knew he could not offer help in a
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 315 
 
 more direct way. Kindness, mere kindness, 
 the Balmains and Ballingers said, hearing of 
 it by chance. Very good of the eccentric 
 old man ; there was really no telling what 
 he might do for people he took to. 
 
 And if sometimes, as the master of the 
 Woolsthorpe works sat in Mrs. Monkeston's 
 parlour, watching Brownie at her work, the 
 sharp, shrewd, practical look passed out of 
 his face, and his grey eyes, resting on her, 
 shone through almost a mist of tears, why, 
 that was '* mere kindness " too ; pity that so 
 fair a soul should have so mean a dwelling- 
 place ! Nothing more than that. 
 
 '' Roger, boy, I want you out of the way 
 to-night," he said, coming in and finding the 
 young man poring over some astronomical 
 problems. " Could you clear out anywhere 
 for half an hour ?" 
 
 " All right, sir," said Roger, very cheer- 
 fully, and he packed up his work, and 
 strolled into the Close, soon, however, find-
 
 316 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 ing his way to the College yard, in the hope 
 of catching sight of Gretchen behind the 
 checked curtains of Mrs. Bratchet's little 
 room. 
 
 When he had gone, Mr. ArnclifFe told 
 Mrs. Monkeston what he meant to do. He 
 repeated the promise given ten years ago, 
 that nothing but want of ability, or want of 
 will on Roger's part, should stop his pro- 
 gress in the education needed to place him 
 in the front rank of his profession. His 
 future was in his own hands, to make or 
 mar it ; and whatever was possible to him 
 of success might be realized, if only he 
 would go on as he had begun. He men- 
 tioned the mamificent order which had been 
 placed at the works, and his purpose with 
 regard to it, to carry Roger through all the 
 stages of its progress, so that he might be 
 able to undertake a similar work on his own 
 responsibility ; and then, afterwards, to give 
 him a share in the profits of the works.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 317 
 
 " Not that he's to help rae for nothing, 
 though, all the time, you know, Mrs. 
 Monkeston. I'm not going to serve myself 
 out of such brains as his, without paying 
 him for it. What I catne to tell you to- 
 night is, that I am ready to offer him now a 
 hundred and fifty a year, to be advanced as 
 I see fit, until the close of the contract, and 
 after that, if all goes fair we will start afresh 
 on a new track. But I thought I had better 
 just settle it with you before I had a talk 
 with Roger himself about it." 
 
 The tears, which found their way there so 
 seldom, came into Mrs. Monkeston's eyes as 
 she listened. Roger's future was settled 
 now. She had watched him all these years, 
 working quietly and steadily on, but to what 
 end she could not quite see. Mr. ArnclifFe 
 might not care to keep him at the works. 
 Having taught him his business, he might 
 well think that enough, and so leave him to 
 do the rest himself And how that rest was
 
 318 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 to be done, without means, without patron- 
 age, without influence, Mrs. Monkeston some- 
 times wondered. 
 
 And another anxiety had come to her. 
 Of late she had felt her own health failing. 
 The willing heart found no longer its equal 
 helpmate in the strong right hand. The 
 years of her wifehood and widowhood had 
 been hard years, often bitter years, not such 
 as to lay up for her an after-life of rest. 
 Over-wrought nature was now demanding 
 its price for days of toil and nights of 
 watchfulness; demanding it in a slow, al- 
 most insensible lapse of power, easily mea- 
 sured, though, by the slowly increasing dif- 
 ference between what she could do now, 
 and what she could do when first she came 
 to Cruxborough. She was living on capital 
 instead of interest, and the stock was daily 
 diminishing. 
 
 But Mrs. Monkeston was not a woman to 
 complain. She did her work bravely. She
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 319 
 
 had her reward — the only reward she ever 
 prized — in her children's love and reverence. 
 Whenever death came, if they were only 
 safe, she should not so greatly care. And 
 now a fair future had opened for Roger, and, 
 through hitn, for Jean ; for was not she to be 
 his dependent all through life ? They would 
 be able to do without her soon. Then she 
 might lie down and rest ! 
 
 Mr. ArnclifFe saw the tears shining in her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Never mind, never mind," he said gruff- 
 ly, " don't begin to thank me. I don't want 
 that. It isn't what I came for. I've been 
 looking out these ten years for a man to suit 
 me, and I've hit upon him in your son Roger, 
 so it's as much to my side of the road as 
 yours. I daresay we shall make it all square 
 sometime before long. You know, I'm 
 getting an old man now, and it's time I be- 
 gan to shift a little of the burden off. If he 
 can take it, why where are the thanks to
 
 320 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 come from ? Now I'll be off. We 11 talk it 
 over to-morrow when he comes to the 
 works. Good-bye, both of you." 
 
 But after he had said it, he lingered, 
 watching Jean's face, full now of a quiet 
 sisterly joy. Plain ! — who called the girl 
 plain? What sweeter eyes could a man 
 wish to look into, so only he could find his 
 own love reflected there ? 
 
 " Good-bye, Brownie," he said, letting his 
 hand rest for awhile on her soft hair. " I 
 wonder what the gods would have turned 
 you into, if you had lived in their time." 
 
 " A wood-pecker, most likel}^," said Jean, 
 looking up at him with a demure smile, 
 *' and I should have bored foliated tracery in 
 all the bark I could find. But, Mr. Arn- 
 clifFe, how good you are to us !" And now 
 the tears rose in Jean's eyes too. 
 
 "Oh, let that alone," said Mr. Arn- 
 cliffe, making a hasty start for the door.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 321 
 
 And yet he could have looked into the eyes 
 so long. 
 
 " What a foolish old man !" he said to 
 himself, as he went back to his two little 
 rooms at the WooLsthorpe works. And they 
 seemed so lonely. 
 
 As he went out of the room, Mrs. Bratchet 
 came in. Ever since that conversation with 
 Patch about old Hiram Armstrong, she had 
 had it on her mind to say something to Mrs. 
 Monkeston. For though, as she said to her- 
 self, it was none of her business to find out 
 what folks had and what they had not, yet 
 she thought there was nothing contrary to 
 sound doctrine in telling them their neigh- 
 bours' opinions thereupon. Accordingly, 
 having half-an-hour to spare after taking out 
 her basket of clothes, she spent it in " over- 
 ing" to Mrs. Monkeston the gist of Patch's 
 story, with a few little notes and comments 
 of her own. 
 
 " Ah," she said, as Mrs. Monkeston gave 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 THE BLUE RIBBON. 
 
 an emphatic denial to the whole statement, 
 at least so far as any advantage ever reaped 
 by herself from the seed of old Hiram's 
 good intentions, " I said it was all a make 
 up. Not as Patch 'ud ever tell a story, not 
 if she knowed it, for she's as true as the 
 daylight, for as queer as she looks some- 
 times, and never goes past what she's a right 
 to say ; but I telled her there was many a 
 man washed his sins out in liquor, and then 
 never thought no more about 'em, and that 
 must have been the way with him. He was a 
 man as was always in two minds night and 
 morning, was Armstrong. And I telled her 
 too, as you wouldn't have humbled yourself 
 to ha' took his money, no, not if he'd gone 
 down on his bended knees to ask you, and 
 him the sort he was. Says I to her, ^ Patch,' 
 says . I, * Mrs. Monkeston isn't one to let a 
 man put the meat into her pie. She'll eat it 
 as she makes it, and no other way, and I 
 respect her for it ;' yes, ma'am, and so I do.
 
 THE BLUE RIBBON. 323 
 
 and I wouldn't mind if all Cruxborough 
 heard me say it." 
 
 And with that Mrs. Bratchet made her 
 curtsey and went away. 
 
 "Mother, it is a curious story," said Jean, 
 when they were alone again. 
 
 " My child, say nothing more of it to any- 
 one. I wish it left." 
 
 And Jean obeyed. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BI.ENHE1M HOUSE,