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 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 " If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good 
 play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes ; 
 and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What 
 a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insi- 
 nuate with you in the behalf of a good play ! I am not furnished like 
 a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me : my way is to conjure 
 you ; and I will begin with the women. 
 
 "I charge you, women, for the love you bear to men, to like as 
 much of this (tale) as please you ; and I charge you, O men, for the 
 love you bear to women, — as I perceive by your simpering none of 
 you hates them, — that between you and the women the (tale) may 
 please." — As you Like It.
 
 LAUTERDALE 
 
 % Stovw of <Etoo Generations 
 
 IX THREE VOLUMES.— I. 
 
 STRAHAN & CO. 
 
 56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON 
 
 1872
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PKINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO. 
 
 CITY HO AD.
 
 2D3 rt 
 
 DEDICATED 
 TO MASTERS AND MEN IN ENGLAND, 
 
 IN THE HOPE OF CREATING 
 
 A BETTER FEELING 
 
 BETWEEN THEM. 
 
 
 Sydenham, 
 
 August, 1873.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE NEW MANAGER 
 
 II. " THE FORGE POOL " 
 
 III. LAUTERDALE 
 
 IV. THE DALE HOUSE 
 
 V. THE FORGE . 
 
 VI. THE MILLER 
 
 VII. THE GIPSY . 
 
 VIII. THE METHODY8 
 
 IX. THE PREACHER 
 
 X. SILAS CLAYTON 
 
 XI. THE PERKS FAMILY 
 
 XII. THE PHILANTHROPIST 
 
 XIII. THE VICAR . 
 
 XIV. RACHEL FLETCHER 
 
 XV. THE STUDENT 
 
 XVI. FRIENDS IN NEED 
 
 XVII. THE MERCHANT . 
 
 XVIII. RIVALS 
 
 XIX. ON THE RIVER . 
 
 PAGE 
 . 1 
 
 . 19 
 . 33 
 . 45 
 . 54 
 . 67 
 . 78 
 . 91 
 . 103 
 . 112 
 . 125 
 . 138 
 . 149 
 . 161 
 . 179 
 . 192 
 . 209 
 . 222 
 . 234
 
 Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XX. TWILIGHT 
 
 XXI. CLOSING IN . 
 XXII. MUDDING THE POOL 
 XXIII. DARKNESS . 
 XXIV. DESOLATION 
 
 PAGE 
 254 
 
 . 271 
 . 285 
 . 300 
 . 310
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE NEW MANAGER. 
 
 " Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, 
 
 And the winter winds are wearily sighing : 
 Toll ye the church-hell sad and slow, 
 And tread softly and speak low, 
 For the old year lies a-dying." 
 
 Tenxysox. 
 
 4 BOUT thirty years ago — when railways had just 
 penetrated the northern and midland counties 
 of England — there existed on the summit of a large 
 cinder-mount, close to some outlying furnaces of a 
 great iron company in a north-western county, the 
 most forlorn and dismal-looking railway station which 
 the ingenuity of an unskilful engineer, sadly deficient 
 in taste, and equally at a loss for funds, could possibly 
 have contriyed. 
 
 Preyious to his operations it was a bleak, desolate 
 spot, where the scoriae and cinders of centuries of iron 
 manufacture had been piled in huge heaps, bearing 
 witness to the industry of bygone generations ; but the 
 erection of a rickety platform and an unsightly pas- 
 senger shed, both painted a sombre hue, and fast 
 yoL. I. B
 
 A LAUTERDALE. 
 
 settling down amidst the surrounding chaos, together 
 with a gallows-like signal-post much out of perpen- 
 dicular, added to the weird, uncanny aspect of the 
 place, and marked it out as the Ultima Thule of railway- 
 progress and the end of all things, so far as locomotion 
 by steam in that quarter was concerned. 
 
 The waste tip mounds of numerous "pit workings," 
 with hideous engine- sheds and blackened head- gear, lay 
 scattered around, lit up by the name of a solitary blast 
 furnace at full work, which shed a fitful glare over the 
 cinder heaps and the bleak moorland beyond. 
 
 On a board which hung flapping from a shaky fence 
 some local artist had inscribed the word "Bright- 
 moor," in crooked straggling letters, and close beside 
 it, with his left ear cocked in a listening attitude, care- 
 fully balancing himself on one good leg and a timber 
 substitute for the other which was missing, generally 
 stood Jem Bit son, who discharged the functions of 
 station-master, porter, and booking-clerk in one, filling 
 up his spare time by carving the initial letters of his 
 name on such of the fence rails as had survived the 
 continuous assaults of his clasp-knife. 
 
 The branch railway which came to an undignified 
 end at Brightmoor was private property, and was 
 worked on economic principles — its chief passengers 
 being rough miners and colliers willing to ride on any- 
 thing, no matter how hard and uncomfortable, so long- 
 as the fare was only a few pence. 
 
 Twice on each week-day a clumsy composite carriage, 
 having one first-class compartment, was attached to the
 
 THE NEW MANAGER. 3 
 
 tail of a mineral train, drawn at an average speed of 
 six miles an hour to and from the junction with the 
 great railway from Birmingham to the north, about 
 twelve miles distant ; and patiently waiting for the advent 
 of this fast phenomenon, now more than an hour over- 
 due, on a cold December Saturday night in the year 
 18 — stood the aforesaid Jem Bit son, like a heron on 
 one leg, in an attitude of painful and tensile attention. 
 
 It had been snowing lightly for some hours, but had 
 recently " changed for the waur," as they say in the 
 north. A chilling sleet now blew right in the direction 
 from whence the expected train should arrive, adding 
 materially to the difficulties already experienced by the 
 driver of the strange-looking high-built locomotive, in 
 appearance like a grasshopper, upon whose noisy efforts 
 and over-taxed powers the regularity of the service 
 depended. At the best of times the engine was said 
 to be "hard set" to surmount the severe gradients, and 
 grind round the sharp curves of this crooked branch 
 line, which had originally been laid as a horse tramway, 
 and recently converted into a railway. Indeed, to get 
 out and shove behind was by no means an uncommon 
 expedient with the exasperated passengers when it was 
 announced by the engine-driver that "she was dead 
 bet, and couldn't draw another pund, not if she was 
 screwed down and fired up to busting." 
 
 On this December night the rails were slippery with 
 snow and sleet ; but by dint of hard firing and the fre- 
 quent application of the shoving process before men- 
 tioned, the train had at length reached the station next
 
 4 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 to that ruled over by Jem Ritson, where the iron and 
 coal waggons were detached for the neighbouring 
 works, and the grimy colliers who formed the chief 
 part of the passenger load departed to their cottages, 
 cursing the unlucky locomotive as " an old kettle not 
 ht to tie to a dog's tail," and vowing that it would be 
 much easier and cheaper to walk. 
 
 Relieved from the greater part of his charge, and 
 refreshed by a pull at a can of cold tea, the half-frozen 
 driver remounted the foot-plate of the engine, where 
 the stoker was busy shovelling coals into the fire-box. 
 "Fire at 'er, Ben! fire at 'er, lad!" he said briskly; and 
 then having ascertained, by opening and shutting 
 mysterious cocks and valves, that there was steam 
 enough and water enough to do the last half-mile of 
 his journey, he intimated to the world in general his 
 intention to proceed by grasping the handle of the 
 steam- whistle, and causing the usual ear-piercing 
 scream to rush forth like the wail of a lost spirit on 
 the night, despite of wind and sleet penetrating even 
 to the expectant ear of Jem Ritson, now on the verge 
 of despair and almost frozen to an icicle on the distant 
 platform at Brightmoor. 
 
 Upon Jem the effect was magical and alarming. 
 Shaking the snow from his moleskin garments he 
 responded to the whistle by a shout, and then pirouetted 
 on his timber toe, with a skill and rapidity which bore 
 witness to long and diligent practice. 
 
 He continued this revolving process until the red 
 lamp of the engine appeared rounding a curve in the
 
 THE NEW MAXAGEK. 
 
 adjacent cutting, when he made a dash at the station 
 signal and frantically jerked the handle up and down, 
 as if performing on a refractory pump ; but inasmuch 
 as the connecting-rods were broken, and as there was 
 no lamp attached to the post, and no visible effect pro- 
 duced overhead in any other way, it was on the whole 
 a work of supererogation. Having partially exhausted 
 himself by this violent exertion, Jem next indulged in 
 a sort of windmill exercise by vigorously beating his 
 arms about his body, and thus, by the time the engine 
 with the single carriage and a break-van drew up at 
 the platform, he was totally cleared of snow, and far 
 on towards a rapid thaw. 
 
 "Noo then, ye daft bodie," exclaimed the engine- 
 driver, jumping from the iron step before the train had 
 ceased moving, "leuk alive efter yon van. Guard's 
 got off at Lawley Bank, and she's chuck full o' luggage. 
 Fust-class passenger a blowin' off at forty pund on th' 
 inch for last twa 'oors, an's wife and childer maist 
 froze. How in the name o' conscience is he to get 'em 
 into Dale at this 'oor o' nicht ? " he muttered to himself 
 as he proceeded to unlock the carriage-door, at which 
 the first-class passenger alluded to was violently ham- 
 mering with fierce impatience. 
 
 ""Where's the guard?" shouted a sharp-looking, 
 active man, springing from the compartment as soon as 
 egress was permitted. " Are we to be penned up like 
 cattle for hours on this wretched line of yours and 
 frozen to icicles ? " he inquired in wrath. " Where's 
 the guard ? and where are we now ? " he exclaimed,
 
 6 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 turning from the engine-driver to Jem Ritson, who 
 was silently inspecting the new arrival by the aid of a 
 dim oil-lamp he had produced from the depths of 
 his coat-pocket, where it had hitherto been secreted 
 for the purpose of warmth. 
 
 "There baint no guard," said Jem, to whom the 
 engine-driver, perceiving a storm, had handed over the 
 indignant traveller. "Where'syerticket?" hecontinued. 
 
 "No guard ! " said the irate passenger, stamping up 
 and down the platform in the snow ; " and pray what 
 are you r 
 
 " Station -meister," said Jem, with stolid indifference, 
 at the same time extending his hand for the ticket, and 
 planting his wooden limb right in the path of the 
 excited gentleman, who evidently suspected the guard 
 was concealed in the van, until he had satisfied himself 
 by personal inspection that it was occupied solely by 
 his own luggage. 
 
 " This is Broitmoor" continued the offended official, 
 " t' train goos no furder." 
 
 " Goes no further to-night ? " said the traveller, 
 with surprise. 
 
 " No, nor in daytime neetkerr," said Jem Ritson 
 tartly ; " Oi tell thee this is Broitmoor steechun, and Oi 
 wants yer tickets." 
 
 On this occasion Jem used the plural, "tickets," 
 observing that a lady, closely muffled up, was slowly 
 emerging from the carriage, and rightly calculating 
 that she was the property of the irascible individual 
 whose further movement he was determined to hinder
 
 THE NEW MANAGER. 7 
 
 until tie had received the tickets, which he felt it his 
 bounden duty to obtain the instant a passenger set 
 foot on his wooden platform. 
 
 " John," said the lady timidly, in the tone of a 
 woman who was much exhausted, and suffering from 
 cold, " are we at our journey's end, and may the 
 children come out ?" 
 
 "I don't know where we are in this cursed country," 
 replied her husband ; "better get in again, Mary, until 
 I find a conveyance, if there is such a thing in this 
 God-forgotten place." 
 
 " Tell me," he said, turning angrily on the engine- 
 driver, who had again cautiously approached on seeing 
 the lady, in the hope of a lull in the threatened storm 
 under female influence, " Tell me, how far is it to 
 Lauterdale, and can I obtain a conveyance ? I am 
 Mr. Forster, the new manager, and I understand this 
 is the Dale Company's line ; can I not have any other 
 assistance than that of this one-legged idiot ? " 
 
 Here Jem advanced his despised wooden limb a step 
 closer, and sullenly repeated his formula, " Oi want yer 
 tickets." 
 
 "The gen'leman travels free," said the engine- 
 driver. " Muster Wilson at the Junction said we 
 was to tak' 'im and fam'ly to Broightmure to 
 meet the Company's trap and a waggin for the boxes ; 
 hev you seen aught on 'em, Jemmy ? " 
 
 Thus enlightened, and suddenly awake to the danger 
 of offending an individual who was an exception to the 
 general rule as to tickets, Jem explained that the trap in.
 
 8 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 question had been there over an hour since, but had left 
 because the train was not expected, and, as he believed, 
 " to save t' hosses from clemmin' wi' cold," adding, 
 for the passengers' consolation, " Oi clunna think t' lad 
 meaant to coom back till daylight, leastways Oi 'eard 
 'im say he wudna if the snow kep on, as Muster 
 Forster 'ud be saafe to sleep at Junction." 
 
 However, as " Muster Forster " had not adopted that 
 wise course, but insisted on travelling on, despite of the 
 advice of every one, and was now left without any con- 
 veyance at this desolate place, the question was, how was 
 he to get out of it, and down to Lauterdale ? which, on 
 inquiry, he learned was about two miles distant. At this 
 moment the stoker, who had been attentively listening in 
 the background, joined the council assembled round the 
 carriage-door, and put in a word of advice, directed to 
 no one in particular, and delivered in a hoarse, deep 
 voice, which sounded as from the depths of an iron pump. 
 
 " Mawbee," said this huge, grimy fellow, speak- 
 ing slowly over the edge of a greasy woollen com- 
 forter, swathed round his neck and ears, "Mawbee, 
 Muster Forster 'ud as lief walk to Dale as wait 
 here for yon trap, an' ef so be, Oi kin tak' 'im by a 
 short coot doun t' tram, and carry aught under 
 quarter o' a ton in the way o' luggige." 
 
 To this proposal Mr. Forster readily assented as the 
 only chance of reaching his destination that night, and 
 after some delay in extracting two half-frozen boys 
 and a pale, shivering little girl from amongst the 
 frowsy cushions of the old carriage, and sorting out
 
 THE NEW MANAGER. 9 
 
 such baggage as was absolutely required, lie prepared 
 to start in the wake of the friendly stoker, who secured 
 the heavier articles to his broad shoulders by the aid of 
 numerous leather straps, which he unhitched from 
 various parts of his person without any apparent effect 
 on the stability of the garments they had hitherto 
 supported. 
 
 " You'll not foind t' tram ower nice walkin' for t' 
 lads, Muster Forster," said Jem Ititson at parting, " and 
 yow'd better tak' the little gell on yer back, or happen 
 she'll slip in t' brook. Keep atween the metals," he 
 added, "until ye reach the big yew at t' forge pool, 
 when you'll foind t' path bearin' t' left 'ull tak' you 
 stret in t' Dale." 
 
 " But you'll just hev big Ben in front o' ye, and 
 dinna lose sight o' him," said the engine-driver. " I'd 
 go wi' ye myseP, but ma hoos lies t'other road, and 
 I'm jest wearied oot wi' yon wretched ingin. You'll 
 find folks stirrin' in the hottle," he added with a 
 wink, " and tho' they're daft silly 'totallers, they'll no 
 refuse ye a drop o' summit het, ef requoired in the 
 nature o' maydcine ; — nae doot the missus and the bairns 
 'ull no' be the waur o' a stoup." 
 
 The engine-driver was a north-countryman, who 
 believed in the benefit of strong beverages in 
 cases of emergency like the present ; although 
 whilst on his engine, like many of his hard-worked 
 class, he never tasted anything but the cold tea 
 we have seen him imbibing earlier on this miser- 
 able night, such being one of the terms of his hiring.
 
 10 LATTTEKDALE. 
 
 He would sooner have perished of cold than have 
 deviated from these to the extent of a thimbleful of 
 Scotch whisky whilst on duty, a deprivation for which 
 he abundantly consoled himself on other occasions. 
 
 Mr. Forster stepped out stoutly after the friendly 
 stoker, carrying his little daughter on one arm and 
 a carpet-bag on the other, and followed by his silent, 
 shivering wife, who led the younger of the two boys 
 by the hand. The speed of the guide seemed mar- 
 vellous considering the load he had undertaken, and 
 he never once looked back to see whether his un- 
 fortunate followers were in sight or not, but strode 
 through the darkness like a huge phantom Atlas, 
 bearing away their worldly possessions. 
 
 The rear- guard of the little procession was brought 
 up by the eldest boy, a lad of about sixteen years of 
 age, who carried a small bag, and obeyed his father's 
 sharp commands in a nervous manner, indicating that 
 the law of fear was more generally imposed than the 
 law of love where John Forster was concerned. For a 
 little distance the path was lit by the flame of the 
 neighbouring blast-furnace reflected from the snow, 
 but this flickering fitful light faded out as they pro- 
 ceeded, and the horse- track between the angle irons 
 which formed the tramway became difficult and dan- 
 gerous for such small feet as those of the poor half- 
 frozen boys. Silently, and almost mechanically, they 
 followed their stern parent, whose word was a law 
 never disobeyed by them in the smallest matter with 
 impunity, but whose heart and soul were bound up in
 
 THE NEW MANAGER. 11 
 
 the frail little creature he carried on his shoulder, who, 
 as she clasped him tightly round the neck, looked back 
 with loving, anxious eyes at her sad mother, walking 
 silently behind them. In a little while it became 
 evident they must proceed in single file, and there- 
 fore Mrs. Forster was compelled to relinquish the 
 hand of her son, who soon fell back and joined his 
 elder brother. For some distance the space between 
 the rails of the tramway was frozen hard, so that 
 walking on the crisp snow was tolerable, but afterward 
 the ground became soft and slushy, and was much cut 
 up by the feet of horses into deep holes between the 
 rough wooden sleepers to which the iron angle rails 
 were secured, and over these the little party travelled 
 slowly and painfully, stumbling at every step. 
 
 The tramway had been recently worked, and the 
 rails were not yet quite hidden by the light snow which 
 had fallen. The footsteps of the stoker were also still 
 visible, and once or twice a glimpse of his tall body 
 surmounted by their luggage was caught where the 
 road ran straight for any distance ; but as they advanced 
 the course became more sinuous, and frequently crossed 
 and re-crossed a running brook, which could be heard 
 rippling close by beneath its crust of ice. The two 
 boys fell gradually behind ; and in trying to find easier 
 walking outside the rails on either side, they tripped 
 against the jagged ends of the cross timbers, which 
 were hidden by the snow, and floundered off the narrow 
 embankments into the concealed ditches at the side in 
 which the drift had accumulated, from whence they
 
 12 IAUTERDALE. 
 
 gathered themselves up with rueful countenances, and 
 returned as sadder and wiser little men to the beaten 
 track in the centre. They were obliged to stop alto- 
 gether occasionally to blow upon their half-frozen 
 fingers, or to wipe away the tears which the sharp 
 wind brought into their eyes. The elder lad, 
 whose name was Robert, was frequently compelled to 
 lay down his burden in order to help his weaker 
 brother, who was three years his junior and of much 
 slighter build, and who had been christened James 
 after an uncle, who was said to have died abroad about 
 the date of that event, but whose name, for some 
 unexplained cause, was now never mentioned by the 
 parents in the hearing of their children. 
 
 At length all traces of the stoker ahead of them 
 were lost; his huge bulk was no longer visible through 
 the gloom, and it was impossible to recognise his foot- 
 steps amongst those of the four-footed animals who 
 had preceded him. Another tramway from some ad- 
 jacent workings here joined that on which they had 
 hitherto been travelling, and the additional traffic had 
 evidently been recent and heavy, as the space between 
 the rails was churned by the horses' feet into a mass of 
 black, treacherous mud, slightly crusted over by the 
 frost, mixed with snow, and full of deep holes and ruts. 
 
 To step from one cross-sleeper to another, about a 
 yard apart, was now the only means of comfortable 
 progress ; both parents had tried the side-path with 
 similar results to those experienced by their boys 
 behind them, and once Mr. Forster, whose vision was
 
 THE NEW MANAGES. 13 
 
 somewhat obscured by bis burden, bad a narrow 
 escape from going rigbt over into tbe brook, and was 
 inwardly anathematizing the company, their servants, 
 and all their works, especially that particular tram- 
 way and the "misbegotten fireman " who had per- 
 suaded him to venture thereon. That individual had 
 probably reached his destination at the Dale Inn ere 
 this, where no doubt he would be foimd imbibing any 
 strong drink he could obtain in the " nature o' mayd- 
 cine," provided he could persuade the strict landlady 
 that his case was one of such pressing need as to 
 warrant a special deviation from the ordinary rules 
 of her temperance establishment. 
 
 By this time Mr. Forster in his annoyance had for- 
 gotten the parting instructions of the despised JeniRitson 
 as to "the pathway bearing to the left," and the "big 
 yew" and the "forge pool," and coming suddenly on a 
 wide sheet of water on the right hand, he did not observe 
 that a narrow pathway led away on the other side 
 from the foot of a large tree, which, being now covered 
 with snow, did not strike him as belonging to any 
 particular species, as it might have done at another 
 season or in the daylight. This footpath, which really 
 led to his destination in the Dale, was at present nearly 
 invisible by reason of the snow, and unfortunately he 
 passed it by unnoticed, followed by his weary family. 
 The tramroad, on which they still proceeded, now 
 wound round the edge of the water, on whose surface 
 a thin covering of ice had formed. It was apparently 
 a large reservoir retained by damming across the steep
 
 14 LATJTEKDALE. 
 
 valley through which the coals descended in trucks to 
 the iron works in the lower and larger valley of the 
 river "Lauter." 
 
 Their route was now absolutely dangerous, the tram- 
 way being carried on a high embankment with steep 
 slopes, on the one side of which ran the rapid stream, 
 of whose depth and size they were ignorant ; on the 
 other was the still, dark pool, with its treacherous 
 covering of ice, evidently increasing in depth as they 
 proceeded, and widening out rapidly towards the great 
 dam below. 
 
 Here the tramway, being more exposed, had suffered 
 most from the snow-storm. The central path was 
 broken by a series of soft holes, into which they sank 
 over the ankles ; the cross-sleepers were round and 
 slippery, and were fixed at irregular intervals. 
 
 Laden as he was, Mr. Forster stumbled and fell 
 twice, barely saving his little daughter from injury at 
 the risk of his own limbs. The boys had also " come 
 to grief " more than once, especially the younger lad, 
 one of whose short boots had got jammed under a 
 cross-timber, and whose whimperings his father heard 
 with anger behind him. Mrs. Forster returned to give 
 the lads such assistance as she could, but the unfortu- 
 nate boot could not be recovered, and she was reluc- 
 tantly obliged to call to her husband for aid. 
 
 He placed the little girl on the driest spot he could 
 find on the embankment, and then returned to the 
 foundered party in the rear, and having groped in the 
 wet mud for the missing boot until his hands were
 
 THE NEW MANAGER. 15 
 
 soiled and bruised, at length discovered and extri- 
 cated it. 
 
 By this time his overtaxed temper was roused, 
 and the moaning of the boy, whose foot was wounded 
 and cold, annoyed and irritated him, showing, as he 
 thought, a want of that self-reliant manliness which 
 it had been his principal object to instil into his 
 children by precept and example. 
 
 He struck the boy heavily with the iron heel of the 
 strong boot. "Don't, John! oh, don't!" said Mrs. 
 Forster, rushing between them ; "he has had no food 
 for many hours, and is weak and cold ; do not beat 
 him now, for mercy's sake." His only answer was a 
 muttered oath and a sharp request that she would go 
 on and take charge of the little girl " Jenny," who, he 
 said, "might fall over the bank into the water ;" and 
 seeing that he was assisting the boy to get his boot on 
 again, and fearing also for her little daughter, left 
 alone in the darkness, she hastily obeyed, and pro- 
 ceeded on in front with tears in her eyes, leading the 
 child by the hand. 
 
 The little girl was thus enabled to walk with her 
 tiny feet on the smooth iron rails, steadied by her 
 mother, and balancing herself with much dexterity. 
 She seemed to enjoy this mode of progress, and to 
 appreciate the change to the maternal guardianship as 
 a decided improvement. Presently they came to a 
 narrow timber bridge, with a slight hand-rail at one 
 side only, carrying the tramroad across the brook, 
 which here fell into the reservoir over a stone weir,
 
 16 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 and made a loud noise beneath, where, from the fall 
 and rush of the water, the ice had not been able to 
 form in the pool. 
 
 The child now crept closer to her mother's side, and 
 nervously clutched her dress as they passed over. 
 
 The bridge was an old structure made of beams and 
 open planks, through which the water could be seen as 
 it fell white and hissing into the pool beneath. 
 
 There was no protection at the outer side next the 
 reservoir, and the little girl's heart beat quickly whilst 
 they crossed over, and for some distance beyond, where 
 the tramroad made a sharp bend, and was evidently in 
 better repair and more used by foot-passengers. Here 
 there was a great post on the margin of the reservoir, 
 from which a strange whirring and moaning noise pro- 
 ceeded. Mother and daughter stood still listening to 
 this dismal melody, which at times rose high with the 
 wind, like the loudest tones of an iEolian harp. 
 
 Meanwhile, the recovered boot, roughly cleared of 
 mud and snow, had been forced on the cold foot of 
 James Forster by his father. 
 
 The severe blow the lad received had an immediate 
 and singular effect on him. He ceased to cry, and 
 sullenly submitted to the operation, which was painful 
 in the extreme in the present state of his foot. His 
 brother remained standing near, grieved and silent ; 
 but, seeing Mr. Forster about to proceed, he said, in a 
 hesitating voice, as if afraid to suggest anything, — 
 
 " Father ! I think we've passed the yew-tree and 
 the footpath the man spoke of. This must be the
 
 THE NEW MANAGER. 17 
 
 forge pool. I hear hammering on the other side, as 
 on an anvil, and there are sparks issuing from a 
 chimney." 
 
 In an instant it dawned on Mr. Forster that the 
 large dark tree with a canopy of snow which he had 
 recently passed was the " big yew " of Jem Ritson, 
 and, therefore, he knew they had unluckily missed the 
 place at which they ought to have left the tramroad, 
 and were now on a wrong track altogether. 
 
 "Why didn't you say so before, Robert?" he 
 exclaimed in a tone of vexation. " Where's your 
 mother gone to ? " he inquired ; and then, remem- 
 bering she had proceeded on as directed, he shouted 
 at the top of his voice, "Mary, come back — back at 
 once ! " 
 
 Mr. Forster had good lungs and a clear voice, and 
 his wife and daughter, waiting beyond the wooden 
 bridge, and curiously listening to the moaning noise 
 which the inanimate post seemed to emit, heard him 
 distinctly. 
 
 "Wait here, Jenny," said Mrs. Forster; "I'll go 
 back to your father." And then, fearing some fresh 
 calamity had happened to the boys, she hurried back 
 rapidly over the bridge. 
 
 Left alone in the darkness so suddenly, in the 
 vicinity of that strange wailing music, and still excited 
 by the sight of the torrent under the old bridge, the little 
 girl, who was about eight years of age, cowered down 
 at the foot of the great post in fear. A new sound 
 presently reached her quickened ear, and increased her 
 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 alarm ; it was the clanging beat of hammers on an 
 anvil reverberating across the reservoir. 
 
 This noise had caught the ear of Robert Forster a 
 little sooner, and led him to associate a " forge " and 
 the " pool " before them, and the " large tree " they had 
 passed, with the instructions given by Jem Bitson to 
 find the pathway to the Dale. Again her father's 
 shout, " Come back, I say, come back," rang out on 
 the night, and echoed across the water. At the same 
 moment a door opened in some hitherto unnoticed 
 building at the other side of the wide pool, and a 
 broad gleam of red light shone like a path of flame 
 across the dark ice, and over the glistening snow at 
 her feet. 
 
 This was the climax of her terror. Clasping her 
 little hands to her ears to shut out these dreadful 
 noises, the child ran madly back over the old slippery 
 bridge in the direction in which she had seen her 
 mother depart, and from whence her father's voice pro- 
 ceeded. Flying along close to the outer edge of the 
 slippery planks, when near the centre of the bridge 
 her foot caught in some projecting ironwork, and she 
 plunged with a great splash and a loud cry over the 
 side into the dark water beneath.
 
 AY 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 "THE FOEGE POOL." 
 
 11 He sunk ! The impetuous river rolled along, 
 The sullen wave betrayed his dying breath ; 
 And rising sad the rustling sedge among, 
 The gale of evening touched the chords of death." 
 
 Kirke White. 
 
 HEX the sound of the great splash which accom- 
 panied the fall of the little girl into the water 
 fell on the ears of the other members of the benighted 
 family, scattered at slight distances apart on the tram- 
 road, it needed no interval of time to convey to the 
 mind of each one the nature of the disaster which had 
 occurred. The despairing cry of the poor child, as she 
 plunged headlong beneath the freezing waters of the 
 deep pool, smote like a sharp sword through the hearts 
 of the listeners. 
 
 The distracted mother, who was nearest to the scene 
 of accident, fled back to the bridge in an instant, and 
 on bended knees, convulsively clutching the slippery 
 planks of the crazy structure, peered into the darkness 
 beneath, with outstretched body and straining eyes. 
 Her affrighted husband was beside her in another
 
 20 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 moment, and with frenzied strength tore the timber 
 handrail and stanchions from the other side of the old 
 bridge, with the intention of obtaining some floating 
 substance to aid in rescuing his child from the clutch 
 of that dark and miserable water, whose troubled 
 surface whirled round in eddies beneath him. 
 
 He glared down into its depths with the eager, 
 ravenous intensity of a madman, in the hope of catch- 
 ing some stray glimpse of his darling, if but for a 
 moment, in order that he might fling the long timber 
 rail he had torn away within her grasp as she rose to 
 the surface. He could not swim ; but he would have 
 plunged into the Maelstrom itself could he but see for 
 an instant the precious object for which his starting 
 eyeballs were in search. The dark shadow of the old 
 bridge, and of the high banks on either side, rendered 
 it all but impossible on such a night as this to discover 
 anything distinctly on the surface of the water beneath. 
 At one moment, when a mass of white foam wheeling 
 in the eddy at the foot of the weir broke away from 
 the outermost circle, and drifted slowly towards the 
 edge of the sheet of ice beyond, he was on the point of 
 dashing in headforemost, trusting to Providence for 
 power to fight his way out again from those unknown 
 but suspected depths ; but, suddenly recognising the 
 true nature of the object, he sprang to his feet, and 
 uttered a wild cry in the direction of the forge at the 
 other side of the pool, from the open door of which he 
 had observed the broad beam of light emerge a minute 
 previously.
 
 THE FORGE POOL. 21 
 
 " Help ! help ! " lie shrieked; " light ! help ! for the 
 love of God ! " 
 
 At the same moment he saw the eldest boy standing 
 beneath him, on the very edge of the water at the foot 
 of the slope forming the abutment of the bridge, 
 divested of cap and coat and vest, and bending for- 
 ward. The other lad had just reached the top of the 
 bank overhead, and was evidently uncertain whether 
 he should descend to his brother or advance on 
 the bridge to his parents. Suddenly the strong light 
 which flashed from the open door of the forge opposite 
 swept over the surface of the pool, and rested on 
 the bridge, lighting up the agonising scene above and 
 beneath, and gilding the tiny waves and hissing foam 
 of the noisy little whirlpool. The next instant young 
 Robert Forster sprang from the bank, and was seen 
 for a second beneath the surface of the water as he 
 plunged downwards with a surging splash, which smote 
 on the mother's ear like the death-knell of another mem- 
 ber of her family. For a space, which seemed a lifetime 
 to the parents, there was no object visible but the 
 glistening water, resuming its whirling circles over the 
 bodies of those for whom their heartstrings cracked. 
 They held their very breath with painful tension. The 
 father's teeth were set deep in his nether lip, from 
 which the blood oozed down his short grizzled beard, 
 already glistening with white frosty beads. The 
 mother's fingers dug convulsively into the old planks 
 as she strained her body at a perilous distance beyond 
 the crazy platform from whence her child had fallen.
 
 22 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 Suddenly, with an upward rush, like a bird from 
 the depths, came the head and one arm of the brave lad, 
 far out from the spot at which he had entered the water, 
 and in dangerous proximity to the edge of the thin 
 sheet of ice, whose margin they could distinctly trace 
 in a sharp semicircle around him. The light from the 
 forge door quivered for a moment on his form, and to 
 those entranced gazers it was now apparent he bore the 
 object of his search in the cold depths, tight clasped 
 to his side with one arm, whilst he battled bravely 
 against the current with the other. He was a good 
 swimmer and a strong youth, and he faced round 
 with a determined effort to reach the shore, — but, alas ! 
 he seemed to make no way in that direction, and 
 his powerful strokes grew wilder and more rapid every 
 moment. 
 
 Mr. Forster instantly launched the long wooden rail 
 he had held poised until now, as near as he could 
 safely do to the struggling youth, and then he tore from 
 his own shoulders his long overcoat, and, placing his 
 foot on one portion, rent it in strips from skirt to collar, 
 and rapidly proceeded to knot the ends together as a rope 
 to cast to the boy ere his strength became exhausted. 
 When this hasty contrivance was completed, it was un- 
 fortunately discovered that it would do little beyond 
 reaching from the platform of the bridge to the water 
 beneath, and with maddening anguish Mr. Forster 
 now saw that his children were being borne by the 
 current to the edge of the ice, over which the boy 
 flung one arm, raising to view with the other the
 
 THE FORGE POOL. 23 
 
 white face and tangled hair of his little sister, whom 
 he was endeavouring to keep as high as possible out of 
 the water, aided by the slippery support to which he 
 clung. They could see his face turned in the direction 
 of that broad ray of light with an anxious expression 
 of eager hope, as if expecting help from the other side, 
 whilst it was painfully evident he was being slowly 
 drawn under the ice by the current beneath, notwith- 
 standing his stoutest efforts. He made one attempt to 
 raise himself on the edge of the thin ice, but it bent 
 and cracked beneath his weight, and at length a wide 
 piece on which his arm was extended parted from the 
 remainder, and slid beneath, eluding his frantic clutch. 
 He turned again towards the bridge, but his head was 
 now deeper in the water, and his feet were seen planted 
 for an instant against the edge of the firm portion of 
 the sheet of ice beyond him ; then with a last mighty 
 effort he shot away from it, arid threw his arm across 
 the floating rail cast into the water by his father, 
 which had been slowly drifting towards him. His 
 position was a little better now, if he could only hold 
 out, and endure that intense cold until help came ; but 
 he felt the chill grasp of death like a vice tightening 
 close round his breast. At the first plunge he felt no 
 cold at all, although the blood seemed to be driven 
 suddenly to his heart. All physical feeling had been 
 suspended from the instant in which he had caught 
 sight of the little form of his sister drifting beneath 
 the surface, lit up for a moment by that sudden 
 glorious beam of light, until he had risen with her in
 
 24 LAITTEKDALE. 
 
 his grasp, after a dive which appeared to him like an 
 eternity, in which an age of life seemed to pass 
 through his brain, as he glanced upward from the 
 dark depths to the bright glittering surface overhead. 
 But now, there ran through his frame a shock like 
 galvanism ; his strong heavy boots, of which he could 
 not divest himself at such short notice, felt like lead 
 weights, a sudden spasmodic contraction of muscle shot 
 through his left leg, and drew it up to his body, and 
 like lightning flashed through his mind the dreadful 
 terror of the stoutest swimmer's heart, — "The Cramp!" 
 As yet he had uttered no sound ; his teeth were hard 
 set in a deadly fight for life, and breath was too 
 valuable to be wasted in cries ; but now he began to 
 fear that there was no hope, and that he must perish 
 with his beloved sister. He felt the " undertow " of 
 that strong current drawing him to certain death, like 
 a stealthy hand beneath the ice. That deadly pang 
 was spreading like paralysis from his lower limb up 
 his left side, and clutching like a fiend at his stout 
 heart. He thought with cruel mental agony, that 
 those mute figures standing in helpless stony fixedness 
 on the dry land were neglecting to do anything to 
 rescue him. To him it appeared they might readily 
 cling together and so reach one hand to save him, 
 forming of their bodies a living chain to cross the 
 narrow space between him and them. It seemed to be 
 so easy to do, and yet so hopeless to be done. But ere 
 he would yield up his brave spirit and face the dread 
 unknown, he thought again unselfishly of her for whose
 
 THE FORGE POOL. 25 
 
 life he had risked his own, and in a clear firm tone his 
 voice rang out on the night air, — " Father ! Mother ! 
 James ! I am going ! save Jenny ! I can do no 
 more ! " 
 
 Then he lifted her slight form across the sinking 
 rail, so as to relieve the latter from his own weight ; 
 made one effort to shove it with its little burden 
 towards the bank, and in the effort sank slowly back- 
 ward beneath the surface of the water out of sight. 
 
 At the same instant there glided suddenly into the 
 open space, lit up by that strong light, and emerging 
 from the shadow of the steep bank beyond the bridge, 
 a strange- shaped boat like a coffin, with square sides 
 and flat bottom, surmounted by two upright posts, 
 one at either end, like short masts capped by iron 
 rollers. 
 
 Standing in the bow, and dexterously wielding a 
 long boat-hook, with which she rapidly urged the boat 
 from the bank towards the drowning child, was a tall 
 lithe girl apparently about seventeen years of age, with 
 handsome features and coal-black hair, which fell over 
 her neck in a tangled mass. Her strong arms were 
 bared to the shoulders, and her dark eyes flashed with 
 excitement as the light fell on her face. The strange 
 craft shot out so rapidly between the watchers on the 
 bridge and the poor child on the floating spar, that 
 there was not time for any of the party to speak to 
 this wild-looking stranger, ere they saw her stoop 
 suddenly, and almost in the same instant the parents 
 beheld the body of their child lifted by the girl over
 
 26 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 the edge of the boat. Another figure was now observed 
 seated in the stern, as it emerged into the beam of red 
 light still streaming over the pool. It was that of a 
 dark man with broad shoulders and a large shaggy 
 head begrimed with smoke. In his hands he held a 
 long flat paddle, which he drove deep into the water at 
 each powerful stroke. 
 
 " Canna' thee see t'other one ? " he shouted in a 
 harsh strong voice, and in the dialect of the district ; 
 "drop the child i' the cobble, and tackle un wi' the 
 boat-hook, lass, or he's food for the jacks." 
 
 The young girl hurriedly placed the child on the 
 flat bottom of the boat, and plunged her long boat- 
 hook into the water near the spot at which they had 
 seen Robert Forster disappear. " Howd thee hand 
 down, lass," he cried; "howd thee hand down!" 
 whilst she moved it rapidly round and round in the 
 water in search of the youth, but without success. 
 Then she looked back to the man in the stern with a 
 distressed aspect, and shook her head. " Gie it me, 
 lass ! " he said hurriedly, " gie it me ! " and, with two 
 or three strokes of his paddle, he brought the end of 
 the boat in which he sat over the place where the boy 
 had sunk, and seized the long pole, which was shod 
 with a formidable iron hook. He peered closely into 
 the water for a moment, and then thrust the instru- 
 ment away as far as he could reach under the ice, 
 against which the stern of the boat had been impelled, 
 sweeping it rapidly from side to side. 
 
 Presently he seemed to touch something, and shouted
 
 THE FORGE rOOL. 27 
 
 again, "Keep her steady, lass! steady! sit down I 
 tell thee ! he's away wi' the stream agin ! " He now 
 struck the thin ice in front of the boat several rapid 
 blows with the iron-shod end of the pole, and drew the 
 craft forward into the opening thus made, by hooking 
 on to the firm sheet beyond. Again he probed the dark 
 depths beneath in the direction of the current, his swarthy 
 face lit up with the excitement, and his broad forehead 
 knit into deep furrows. He suddenly made a rapid 
 short stroke at something deep under water, and then 
 he commenced cautiously and steadily to haul in the 
 boat-hook hand over hand. 
 
 The girl had taken the body of the little child on 
 her lap, and parted the wet tangled hair from the fore- 
 head. She pressed her hand over the child's heart, 
 but there was no responsive beat ; she placed her ear 
 to the cold, colourless lips, but no sound or breath came 
 forth to intimate that life still clung to its frail tene- 
 ment. The eyes were open, but were fixed and glassy, 
 and the fingers were tight shut upon the palms of the 
 hands. 
 
 Suddenly the stranger pressed her warm lips on 
 those of the inanimate child, and gently breathed her 
 hot breath into the lungs half charged with water. 
 After a few respirations she stopped and listened 
 intently at those voiceless portals from which life had 
 apparently fled, and then sadly shook her head as she 
 glanced round at the parents on the bridge, who were 
 kneeling with hands uplifted to the dark sky overhead, 
 praying for the success of her efforts.
 
 28 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 " Oh ! try again, young woman," said Mrs. Forster 
 in despairing tones, " and Heaven will bless you;" 
 
 " She has not been long in the water," said her 
 husband ; " try again, my good girl, for the love of God." 
 
 Once more the lips of that dark, coal- stained, gipsy- 
 looking creature were fastened on the white small mouth 
 of the unconscious child ; she breathed a long full 
 breath into the little form now resting all limp and 
 clammy on her knees, and drew back the air again 
 into her own broad chest — her dark long hair envelop- 
 ing the fair head of the little girl, as if to hide the 
 mystery of the life-giving operation from the straining 
 eyes of the distracted parents, almost jealous in their 
 wild excited love of the good-natured efforts being made 
 to restore their beloved child to consciousness, in which 
 they were unable to assist in the slightest degree. 
 
 For three or four minutes that poor, untaught girl, 
 with the instinct of her sex, did for the half-drowned 
 child the only thing which could revive into a flame 
 the nickering embers of its feeble life, and that which 
 probably the most skilled surgeon in England would 
 have shrunk from or hesitated to do, except for 
 his own offspring, until at length those cold little 
 hands unclasped, and instinctively clutched themselves 
 again more tightly round the girl's neck ; those fixed 
 eyelids closed slowly on the glazed eyeballs, to reopen 
 with the gentle look of life therein ; the child's breast 
 heaved with a great sigh, a faint tinge of colour stole 
 back to her white lips, and there came, borne faintly 
 on the night air, to the enraptured ears of those two
 
 THE FORGE POOL. 20 
 
 tortured beings on the old bridge, a feeble cry of 
 "Mother! mother ! " 
 
 At the same moment as the girl raised her head, 
 and flung back the dark hair which had fallen over 
 her face, she saw the body of young Robert Forster 
 lifted over the side of the boat by her father, and laid 
 along the flat bottom in the stern. The body fell with 
 a dull heavy sound on the rough boards, face down- 
 wards, and apparently lifeless. " Back wi' 'em to the 
 bridge, lass," he said, as he resumed his paddle and 
 speedily shot the craft te the foot of the slope where 
 James Forster stood waiting. 
 
 Both parents now rapidly descended the sloping bank 
 to the spot where their younger boy stood ; he had 
 seized the bow of the boat, into which Mr. Forster 
 leapt at once, snatching his little daughter from the 
 arms of the strange girl who had so skilfully brought 
 her back to life, and covering her wet face with kisses. 
 
 The mother followed him immediately, and pointing 
 silently to the apparently lifeless form at the other end 
 of the boat, took possession of the little girl, who sud- 
 denly relapsed into a semi-conscious state, although, as 
 Mrs. Forster strained her to her breast, she could feel 
 the slight ebbing pulse of her heart, and on her cheek 
 the flickering breath which told that life was still 
 trembling in that cold, listless little frame. 
 
 Her husband raised the body of the boy, and drew 
 his head upon his knees ; but the youth's features were 
 fixed and rigid, and although a faint smile seemed to 
 linger roimd the mouth, there was neither pulse nor
 
 30 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 breath. Mr. Forster turned anxiously to the boatman 
 to ask assistance, and for the first time observed that 
 the latter was a singular cripple, apparently without 
 any lower limbs, unless such stumps as were concealed 
 in a sort of leather saddle or cushion in which he 
 sat, which was suspended by long straps from his 
 shoulders. His arms were long and powerful, and 
 reached to the ground ; and by means of them, and two 
 small wooden stools or rockers, which he grasped in his 
 strong hands, he managed to swing himself close to the 
 boy, and placed his large hand on the region of the 
 heart, thrusting it beneath the shirt, and feeling over 
 the boy's breast with the air of a professional adept. 
 
 " We mun go to the forge, Bessie," he said ; " the 
 lad's nigh gone. In wi' ye," he exclaimed abruptly 
 to James Forster, who was holding the head of the 
 boat to the bank, and who instantly obeyed the com- 
 mand. The cripple then swung himself back to his 
 perch in the stern, and seizing his long paddle, im- 
 pelled the boat back by the same route along the edge 
 of the bank where there was open water, through which 
 she had been brought so providentially to the spot, in 
 the nick of time, by the strong arms of this strange- 
 looking man and his daughter. The latter resumed 
 her pole, and drove the boat rapidly onward by shoving 
 from the bottom, until they reached the wooden post on 
 the edge of the pool, which had been partly the inno- 
 cent cause of the disaster. Here they now observed a 
 thick iron wire strained across the water from this post 
 to another similar stout upright at the other side near
 
 THE FORGE POOL. 61 
 
 the forge, from the door of which had suddenly streamed 
 the strong light, now evidently dying away. 
 
 The iron was hung with tiny icicles, and the sharp 
 breeze cutting through these, and across the tightened 
 wire, caused the strange weird note which had pre- 
 viously appeared to Mrs. Forster and her child to issue 
 from the post itself, and so unfortunately checked their 
 progress. The sound rose and fell with the wind, and 
 sometimes resembled the wail of a human voice, at 
 others the loud whirr of machinery in motion ; and no 
 doubt many of my readers who have come suddenly 
 on the telegraph wires and poles of the present day in 
 frosty weather, under a fresh breeze in the open country, 
 have been puzzled by similar strains. The use of the 
 wire in the present instance was at once apparent ; the 
 girl hitched it under the pullies attached to the fixed 
 uprights in the boat, and then seizing the wire in her 
 hands, impelled the clumsy craft rapidly across the deep 
 pool, which had apparently not been allowed to freeze 
 here, as there was a narrow channel formed by the pas- 
 sage of the boat to and fro in this rude ferry fashion, 
 then and still in use on many parts of the river Severn. 
 
 The strong crippled man in the boat's stern, which 
 was now driven first, and did not differ much in shape 
 from the other end, still plied his long paddle, and in a 
 few minutes they touched a rude landing-place on the 
 opposite bank, from which a footpath led up to the open 
 door of the forge. 
 
 Up this path the strange boatman swung himself 
 with surprising speed, and disappeared into his dwell-
 
 32 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 ing, calling to the rest of the party to follow him — a 
 behest which they instantly obeyed. 
 
 Mr. Forster carried the head and the girl the feet 
 of the unconscious youth, assisted by the younger son, 
 whose tears now flowed freely over that which he 
 believed to be his brother's dead body. Mrs. Forster 
 followed with the little girl wrapped in her cloak, and 
 thus the melancholy procession entered beneath the 
 low threshold of the hovel known in the neighbourhood 
 as " The Gipsy's Forge."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 LAUTERDALE 
 
 " In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, 
 With woody hill o'er hill encompass' d round." 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 fFHE valley through which flows the little river 
 Lauter to join the fair Severn, and hide its coal- 
 stained waters in the bosom of the larger current, has 
 been the seat of the manufacture of iron ever since the 
 time of the Romans, the remains of whose " workings " 
 are still to be traced in the adjacent hills, and the 
 foundations of whose massive furnaces, on the river 
 bank lower down, attest the magnitude of their opera- 
 tions at a time when their great northern highway led 
 through the villas and streets of Uriconium. 
 
 Old Roman implements — spear-heads, fibulae, and 
 coins — are still found amongst the cinder-heaps which 
 disfigure an otherwise beautiful part of England, and 
 often in the upper levels of the neighbouring coal- 
 mines the old driftways of those active conquerors 
 seriously impede the larger and later operations 
 of their successors, and lead to much perplexity and 
 cloudy thought on the part of the colliers, which no 
 
 vol. i. n
 
 34 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 amount of the good Dale home-brewed beer, always re- 
 sorted to on such occasions, seems to render any clearer. 
 
 The art of brewing appears to have gone hand-in- 
 hand everywhere with the art of smelting, as if nature 
 required some potent beverage to slake the human 
 clay exposed for hours to the fierce heat of mighty 
 furnaces, and long before those twin leviathans, Bass 
 and Alsopp, had erected their huge establishments on 
 the Trent, the beer of Lauterdale had acquired a wide 
 reputation, and exercised a somewhat beneficial in- 
 fluence in keeping at a distance more fiery and excit- 
 ing liquors, which previous to the time I write of were 
 almost unknown and uncared for amongst the great bulk 
 of the workmen. 
 
 Some few instances of drunkenness had recently 
 occurred amongst the lower class of artisans on Satur- 
 day nights and holidays, and had caused no small 
 scandal in the Dale, especially as it was strongly sus- 
 pected that the raw spirit which rapidly intoxicated 
 the men had been distilled and sold at no very distant 
 spot. But no one had yet ventured to say where lay 
 the precise locality of the illicit manufacture, notwith- 
 standing a considerable reward offered for its discovery 
 by the proprietors of the Dale ironworks, who were 
 themselves strict teetotallers, as were their fathers 
 before them, but who did not in any other way than by 
 personal example inculcate total abstinence upon the 
 workmen or their families. 
 
 For more than a century the iron and coal works of 
 Lauterdale, extending over a great breadth of country
 
 LAUTERDALE. 3 
 
 and for several miles up the valley, had been in the 
 hands of a great Quaker family, who worked them in a 
 steady, jog-trot fashion, without availing themselves 
 much of the march of science, but still on sound busi- 
 ness principles, giving short credit to others and 
 requiring none themselves ; a course which had inva- 
 riably led to increasing wealth, and involved few bad 
 debts amongst their numerous customers. 
 
 Not far from Lauterdale the first attempt was made 
 to construct a steam-engine of any size ; and yet all 
 the principal collieries in the neighbouring Black 
 Country were drained by the powerful Cornish engines 
 of Boulton and "Watt before the cautious ironmasters of 
 the Dale had made up their minds to invest in so 
 expensive and new-fangled a machine, about whose 
 ways there seemed to them to be something apper- 
 taining to the powers of darkness. 
 
 At Lauterdale appeared the first iron rails ever laid 
 in England, on which small coal-trucks were trans- 
 ported to the riverside by simple gravitation more than 
 two hundred years ago ; and yet, long previous to the 
 time of which I write, the heads of the firm had met 
 and consulted and separated many times in indecision 
 on the question of allowing the new railway to be 
 extended from Brightmoor to their works in the Dale 
 below, and at length had determined to hold fast by 
 their well-worn tramway and stout horses for at least 
 one generation longer. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that the "Dale Company," as they 
 were called, possessed more old-fashioned machinery,
 
 36 
 
 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 and a more antiquated class of artisans, than any other 
 firm in England, and were decidedly falling behind the 
 age and in need of reform. 
 
 The workmen in the Company's service differed 
 materially in one respect from their brethren in other 
 manufacturing districts. The wages received by them 
 were much lower on the average than were paid else- 
 where at the period ; and yet, strange to say, the men 
 were far more contented than better-paid hands, 
 because there were no " slack times " and no " strikes." 
 Steady men were never discharged, and " strange 
 hands/' " tramps," or "delegates," seldom ventured 
 into the district, which was somewhat isolated from 
 the great central coal-field of England. 
 
 Each man with a family held a small cottage under 
 the Company at a moderate rent, dependent for " tenant- 
 right " more on his good behaviour and sobriety than 
 upon punctual payment of his rent. 
 
 I wish it could be said that these cottages were 
 healthy, or properly adapted to the people who were 
 obliged to live in them ; but as a rule they were 
 wretchedly constructed, at a period when everything 
 beyond mere shelter and warmth was deemed super- 
 fluous. 
 
 As yet no regular hospital existed in Lauterdale, 
 although severe injuries were of frequent occurrence, 
 because of the clumsy machinery in use ; and fevers 
 were prevalent at all seasons, as sanitary precautions 
 were practically ignored. 
 
 Pigs were allowed to exist in sties close to the doors
 
 LAETERDALE. 37 
 
 of such of the inhabitants as desired to keep them, and 
 the little river Lauter was polluted with the drainage 
 of the whole district ; so that in some places low down 
 in the valley, where the population was dense, it was 
 actually an open sewer. 
 
 Schools had been built for children and infants, but 
 any advanced education of the people had hitherto 
 been discouraged on principle, as a thing tending to 
 make them discontented and troublesome. 
 
 Good water was very scarce, and was in little 
 request ; but beer was allowed to be brewed in each 
 cottage, under certain limitations, and formed the 
 staple drink of the people, including the children, whom 
 it was believed to strengthen, and for whom it probably 
 was better than the doubtful fluid to be had from the 
 wells. 
 
 The sale of intoxicating spirits of every kind was 
 absolutely prohibited within the territory owned by the 
 Company, which embraced a population of about ten 
 thousand souls, about one-third of whom were actually 
 engaged in the ironworks and collieries. 
 
 On religious matters there was perfect toleration and 
 equality ; the greater part of the workmen and their 
 families were Dissenters. The proprietors of the works, 
 and most of their principal clerks and officials, were mem- 
 bers of the Society of Friends, who made no converts 
 on principle, but twice a week threw the doors of their 
 large " Meeting-house " wide open to all comers, and 
 received those who ventured in with courteous, grave 
 civility; but it does not appear that many persons
 
 33 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 availed themselves of the opportunities thus afforded 
 them. 
 
 Occasionally an open-air address was delivered by 
 itinerant members of the Society, who appeared at 
 long intervals, clad in sober drab, with spotless linen 
 and broad beaver. They were listened to attentively 
 by the workmen, more out of respect for the ruling 
 powers than admiration for the zealous preachers, who 
 reasoned like Paul " of righteousness, temperance, and 
 judgment to come," and then went their way for a 
 season to edify some other community. 
 
 There were many dissenting chapels, of divers 
 denominations — those of the Wesleyans being most 
 numerous ; and a large, handsome Gothic edifice was 
 approaching completion on the hillside, at the date of 
 which I write, intended for the worshippers of the 
 Established Church, hitherto unprovided for. 
 
 About this new church many strange stories were 
 rife amongst the " Dale folk," and it was hinted that 
 its erection had been the cause of trouble and dissen- 
 sion between the two Brothers, who were now the last 
 male representatives of the old family which had ruled 
 in Lauterdale through successive generations for at 
 least two centuries. These Brothers were known wher- 
 ever iron and coals were sold in England, by their oft- 
 recurring family names of Joshua and Jediah Field, 
 trading under the name and style of the Lauterdale 
 Company. They were at this period both advanced in 
 life, although there was considerable difference in years 
 between them, and the elder brother Joshua lay
 
 LAETERDALE. 39 
 
 dangerously ill in the Dale House on the night in 
 which this story opens. 
 
 The relations between the ironmasters of Lauterdale 
 and their workpeople had hitherto partaken much of 
 the patriarchal character. The men looked up to the 
 heads of the old firm as to superior beings, endowed 
 with great wealth, and in whom was vested the right 
 of mining for coal and iron for the special purpose of 
 employing a vast number of workmen, who had a clear 
 claim on them for regular employment and wages. 
 
 The masters took a similar view of their responsi- 
 bilities, and felt it incumbent on them to carry on the 
 works and provide employment for the men in good 
 times and bad times alike, so that whether trade was 
 brisk or dull it made little difference. When iron 
 could be sold at a profit, it was sold and delivered ; 
 when the price fell beneath the actual cost of manufac- 
 ture, which it often did, it was held back from the 
 market and accumulated in vast piles to wait for 
 better prices ; and to go on steadily increasing the 
 stock during many successive years was by no means 
 unusual. 
 
 It was not to be wondered at, then, that the 
 paternal government which had its head-quarters in the 
 Dale House was looked on with great respect, as one of 
 more importance to the district than that other distant 
 Government represented by the local tax-collector and 
 a few policemen, whose duties were chiefly confined to 
 inquiries as to the ownership of stray dogs and a 
 regular exhibition of uniform on market days.
 
 40 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 There is always something interesting in an old 
 mansion which has been connected with the history of 
 a family for a long period. Its associations appear to 
 exercise a subtle influence on the characters of those 
 who, like the Fields, have resided under the same 
 roof, all their lives following closely in the footsteps 
 of revered predecessors, and insensibly inheriting or 
 acquiring the virtues and failings of their forefathers, 
 whose portraits look down on them from the walls like 
 silent monitors. As a rule, Friends at that period did 
 not approve of portraits in their houses, but the 
 founder of the family had no such prejudice, and was 
 exhibited at full length standing by an anvil and 
 leaning on a huge sledge-hammer, the background 
 being relieved by forked flames issuing from clouds of 
 smoke. His successors had followed his example, and 
 thus formed a goodly array of bygone ironmasters, 
 without the suggestive adjuncts of the original picture. 
 In other respects, the series might be inspected in vain 
 for any varying types of character. 
 
 They had also been gallant enough to hand down to 
 posterity the likenesses of their wives, but it was mar- 
 vellous how they all came to be so much alike. The 
 secret of the similarity probably lay in the Quaker 
 dress, which had altered little or nothing since the 
 days of Penn, that great leader of the sect about whose 
 principles such varying opinions have been held ever 
 since Lord Macaulay unwisely stirred up the contro- 
 versy. 
 
 Through all the male portraits there ran over the
 
 LAUTERDALE. 41 
 
 high foreheads tlie same rigid lines of thought, and 
 there was visible the same firm massive outline of 
 jaw devoid of beard or whisker, softened away by a 
 wax-like smoothness of pale cheeks, and lit up by the 
 benevolence of large ox-like eyes, shining forth in 
 goodness under a canopy of bushy eyebrow. 
 
 The female portraits were like those of so many wax 
 figures at Madame Tussaud's, arn^ed in the whitest 
 and stiffest cambric, and encased as to the body in 
 high stiff corsets of pearl- grey silk ; but at either side 
 of the great fire-place in the dining-hall appeared some 
 new faces of a different type, evidently the last painted 
 in the collection, and of a recent date ; one being that 
 of a young woman of exquisite beauty, clad in a light 
 blue robe trimmed with snowy ermine, displaying an 
 amount of swelling bosom and white shoulders enough 
 to bring the stiff old ladies portrayed in the adjacent 
 pictures right out of their frames with astonishment. 
 
 Rich auburn curls of the true tint, which seems 
 alternately to absorb and reflect light at every turn, 
 fell in heavy masses on her fair neck and clustered 
 round a forehead which recalled the exquisite head of 
 Clytie, in splendid contrast with the square outlines of 
 the prim dames around, disfigured as they were by 
 ugly caps and smoothly banded hair. 
 
 The eyes of this lady were deep blue, large, and 
 lustrous, and the artist had caught in them a saddened 
 far-reaching gaze, as if the soul within looked forth 
 from amidst that gloomy company on some happier 
 distant scene.
 
 42 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 Beneath this picture was hung another containing 
 two smaller portraits of a boy and girl taken at an 
 early age. The brown locks of the former were cut 
 square across the forehead in the quaint fashion seen 
 in the pictures of Holbein and lately revived in 
 England ; the features of the girl were like those of 
 her mother portrayed above, but the child's flowing 
 tresses had been allowed to grow as nature meant them 
 in golden wavy curls. 
 
 The portrait on the other side of the fire-place was 
 that of the lady's husband, who was not represented in 
 the Quaker dress ; it was the likeness of a man in the 
 prime of life, with an eager intelligent face, dark eyes 
 and hair, and yet it bore stray points of family resem- 
 blance to the line of placid men, whose eyes seemed 
 to look askance at this descendant, who had been the 
 first to leave the straight and narrow paths of the 
 sect in which the Fields had walked for generations. 
 
 He was the only son of the old man whose laboured 
 breathing in the chamber overhead told of approaching 
 dissolution, and, alas ! he had gone before on the path 
 through the dark valley so soon to be trodden by his 
 father, having been lost at sea some years previously, 
 when on a distant voyage, under painful circum- 
 stances. 
 
 In the carefully kept burying- ground of the Friends, 
 not far from the Dale House itself, were two green 
 mounds having one iron tablet between them, the only 
 memorial visible in that place of grassy quiet graves, 
 on which was written the simple inscription —
 
 LAUTERDALE. 43 
 
 RACHEL FIELD, 
 
 AND HER ONLY SON- 
 ROBERT FLETCHER FIELD, 
 
 REST HERE IN THE HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 And from that lonely resting-place, to the little wicket 
 in the garden-wall, there was trodden a narrow path, 
 on which for three years past, until this last fatal ill- 
 ness, might be seen once every day at eventime the 
 stately form of the old ironmaster pacing slowly to 
 the same spot at the foot of that simple memorial, 
 where he would stand for a long time in silent 
 meditation, and then as quietly steal back to his own 
 solitary room. 
 
 There were two other members of the family who 
 resided with the elder brother. His sister, Rebecca 
 Field, who was an elderly lady and a great invalid, 
 much absorbed in religious meditation ; she had at one 
 time managed the domestic arrangements, after the 
 death of Mr. Field's wife, but now rarely conversed 
 with any one, except that at long intervals, when 
 " moved by the spirit/' she would burst forth sud- 
 denly at the meetings of the Society, which she still 
 attended, in exalted strains, like one " who had been 
 within the veil and had seen the glory." 
 
 " With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt, 
 Enriched with ancestral merchandise, 
 And for them many a weary hand did smelt 
 In torch-lit mines and noisy factories." 
 
 There was also Mr. Joshua Field's grand-daughter, 
 Esther Field, the surviving child of his lost son, who
 
 44 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 had been his constant companion for some years past, 
 and was the sole representative of the family in the 
 new generation. She was at this time an interesting 
 child about ten years of age, being the original of the 
 small portrait before referred to ; and, as my readers 
 will have future opportunities of making her acquaint- 
 ance, I defer any further notice of the little lady at 
 present.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DALE HOUSE. 
 
 ° The rich man built a house, both large and high ; 
 He enter' d in and sat him down to sigh ; 
 He planted ample woods and gardens fair, 
 And walk'd with anguish and compunction there." 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 ^FO understand the manner of life of the Messrs. 
 Field, and certain events which I shall have to 
 narrate later on, it is necessary here to describe the 
 " Dale House," as it was called, in which the brothers 
 were born and had resided all their lives. 
 
 It had been originally designed by a foreign archi- 
 tect, in the time of Dutch William, and looked like 
 a wing lopped off from Hampton Court Palace, and 
 dropped on the hillside overlooking the ironworks in 
 the valley beneath, yet far enough removed from them 
 to escape the evil effects of the smoke. 
 
 The edifice was built of those small red bricks 
 formerly imported from Holland, to the durability of 
 which many of our old manor-houses owe their long 
 existence. The windows and doors had white stone 
 dressings, with carved keystones. The sashes were
 
 46 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 mostly formed with the stout bars and small squares of 
 the period in which the house was erected, but in some 
 of the principal rooms these had been removed and 
 replaced by modern casements. The basement story 
 contained many vaults and strong rooms, in which it 
 was popularly believed were deposited large sums of 
 gold and silver, the accumulated savings of several 
 generations of thrifty and industrious men, represent- 
 ing in the precious metals the post bills and notes 
 which the present firm circulated to a considerable 
 extent as bankers in the district, under the name of 
 the "Lauterdale Bank," the paper of which, even 
 when stained and torn, was preferred, for miles 
 around, to the crisp, white notes of hand of Mr. 
 Matthew Marshall, although issued with the sanction 
 and approval of the Old Lady in Threadneedle Street 
 herself. 
 
 No wood was used throughout the mansion but the 
 best of English oak, and this had evidently been 
 used with an unsparing hand, and carefully selected by 
 the builders. 
 
 Entering the large central hall, the visitor was 
 struck at once with the strength of the great beams 
 which supported its roof, and with the beauty of the 
 rich, dark wainscot of the walls and the polished 
 panels of the lofty ceiling. 
 
 There was not much carving, but such as had been 
 executed was simple in character, highly wrought, and 
 strictly confined to floral forms, as " the likeness of any 
 thin": living in heaven above or the earth beneath, or
 
 THE DALE HOUSE. 47 
 
 the waters under the earth," was not permitted to 
 appear in the dwelling-houses of " Friends." 
 
 The floor of this hall was laid in alternating squares 
 of dark and white marble, banded with red porphyry, 
 and from its centre sprang a white stone staircase, 
 branching in wide curves right and left to the corridors 
 and chambers above. 
 
 A large dining-hall at the back, with a handsome 
 library over it, had been added by the father of the 
 present owners, but the house was, in other respects, 
 curiously duplicated on both sides of the great entrance- 
 hall, and might be occupied by two separate families, 
 and indeed had been frequently so occupied in past 
 times, without interference or inconvenience. 
 
 The right-hand suite of rooms was at present in the 
 joint possession of the elder brother, Joshua, who had 
 been married, and of his sister Rebecca. The apart- 
 ments on the left were tenanted by Mr. Jediah Field, 
 who was an old bachelor, and with whom lived the chief 
 cashier and book-keeper of the firm, Josiah Morris, 
 a very important person in this story, and one who 
 had been intimately connected with the affairs of the 
 Company for many years. 
 
 " The three Beavers" as they were called, had lived 
 within these walls for a considerable portion of their 
 lives in peace and harmony, but from causes which 
 will be fully explained later on, the two brothers had 
 been totally estranged for some years past, and the 
 only communication ever held between them on busi- 
 ness or other matters was by means of their trusted
 
 48 LATJTEEDALE. 
 
 cashier, who was a tall, thin man, with silvery white 
 hair and a considerable stoop, and at this period ap- 
 proaching sixty years of age. 
 
 The chief books and ledgers of the firm were kept 
 by this individual, and were written like copper-plate 
 throughout, under the general supervision of Jediah 
 Field, who himself wrote all the more important busi- 
 ness letters, in a hand which was the envy of his 
 correspondents. 
 
 The elder brother, Joshua, had managed the external 
 concerns of the Company for thirty years, and during 
 that period had possessed exclusive control over the 
 workmen. He was a larger and more robust man 
 than Jediah, and. his constant open-air exercise and 
 active habits, frequently involving many hours in the 
 saddle daily, had tended to his physical development ; 
 whilst the sedentary life of the younger brother had 
 had the opposite effect, so that the latter had grown 
 somewhat withered and shrunken, like a winter apple, 
 but it was found by those who did business with him 
 that he still retained all the mental vigour and acute- 
 ness of his youth, sharpened by the experience of a 
 busy life. 
 
 Jediah Field was harsh and incisive in manner, 
 especially whenever he thought any one was not 
 strictly accurate, or was unnecessarily wasting his 
 time, of which he carefully husbanded every minute. 
 In religious matters he was one of the straitest and 
 most consistent of the members of the Society of 
 Friends, and was a vigorous defender of their tenets
 
 THE DALE HOUSE. 49 
 
 and practices, at that period often fiercely assailed by 
 clergymen of the Established Church, to which he 
 bore a determined hostility. 
 
 These reverend controversialists found him no mean 
 opponent, as he was a critical scholar, profoundly read 
 in the Hebrew Bible, which was his constant study ; 
 he was also an ardent collector of old books, and had 
 accumulated a valuable library, in arranging which he 
 spent most of his evenings after business hours, often 
 in the company of his chief clerk, who had taken up 
 the subject of astronomy as a private hobby of his own, 
 but was always to be found in the same apartment as 
 his friend and emploj^er when the nights were un- 
 suitable for his starry observations. 
 
 The cashier carried on these latter in an old tower, 
 situated on an eminence behind the house, which he 
 had been permitted by the brothers to convert into an 
 observatory. Here he had erected his scientific in- 
 struments and telescopes, and was accounted amongst 
 tavam as a painstaking and reliable observer of the 
 heavenly bodies, in whose motions and transits his soul 
 delighted. 
 
 Josiah Morris was also a strict member of the 
 Society of Friends, but divested of the narrow pre- 
 judices which disfigured the character of Jediah Field. 
 He had been married in early life, but with the circum- 
 stances of his married life no one was believed to be 
 acquainted; and he volunteered no information, al- 
 though otherwise he was by no means a reserved man 
 in ordinary intercourse. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 There was one science, then in its infancy, to which 
 both these men were much devoted, and the pursuit 
 of which afforded them the only open-air exercise they 
 allowed themselves. They were both ardent geologists, 
 and had jointly accumulated a considerable collection of 
 specimens and fossils. These they had arranged and 
 classified in one of the large rooms at their side of the 
 establishment, often labouring together in this work 
 very late into the night. They were thus industriously 
 converting a portion of the large residence into a valuable 
 museum and library, from which at present no one 
 but themselves derived any benefit. 
 
 The chief offices of the company were attached to the 
 dwelling-house at the side occupied by Jediah Field 
 and the cashier, and were entered from one of the 
 lower rooms by a short corridor. These offices were 
 modern buildings, designed and erected by the brothers 
 for the specialities of their business, and were fitted 
 with long lines of desks and enclosures for their nume- 
 rous clerks. There were also three private rooms com- 
 municating with each other, over the doors of which 
 were inscribed respectively the names of Joshua Field, 
 Jediah Field, and Josiah Morris ; but the elder brother, 
 Joshua, had not entered these offices for a long period, 
 and would now never cross the threshold again. 
 
 Whilst Mr. Forster and his unhappy family were 
 suffering many things on that cold December Saturday 
 night in endeavouring to reach their destination, Jediah 
 Field and his cashier were comfortably seated in high- 
 backed leather- cushioned chairs in the library of the
 
 THE DALE HOUSE. 51 
 
 Dale House, in front of a large fire of coals surmounted 
 by a huge log of beech, which hissed and sputtered in 
 the flame. They were solemnly discussing the cir- 
 cumstances of his appointment, and the altered arrange- 
 ments which his presence would entail in the present 
 system of management. 
 
 " Our friend John Brown speaks well of the skill of 
 the man and of his great energy," said the ironmaster. "I 
 hope the step we are taking will prove a wise one, and 
 will tend to the benefit of the business and the welfare 
 of those committed to our charge ; but I am much 
 exercised in mind at so great a trust being committed 
 for the first time to a stranger. How does it appear 
 to thee, Josiah, from thy point of view ? " 
 
 Josiah knew very well that the " point of view " 
 referred to was the position he held between the 
 bruthers as one fully in the confidence of both, and 
 that he was expected to give the ideas of the elder 
 brother, Joshua, so far as he knew them, and not his 
 own, in reply. 
 
 " Truly,''* he replied, after a few moments' pause, "it 
 is a serious experiment, and will require much care- 
 ful watching on our part ; but I believe it cannot be 
 avoided. We have tarried long behind the trade, and 
 must needs seek assistance, even from the stranger at 
 our gates, to overtake those who have passed us by in 
 the race. But, nevertheless," he continued more cheer- 
 fully, " our tarrying has not been without profit. We 
 shall have the advantage of much previous costly 
 experience in this man, and it was well that our friend 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINU.v
 
 52 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 and correspondent could spare him to our use. Thy 
 brother is anxious to see him, in order that he may 
 place his great charge in his hands in a becoming 
 manner ; and, indeed, since he hath consented to lay 
 it down, I think his mind is relieved of much anxiety. 
 Perchance, also, his heart is somewhat softened regard- 
 ing thee." 
 
 Here he ceased speaking for awhile, and then, laying 
 his hand on his friend's knee, said earnestly, "I would, 
 Jediah, that thou hadst some kindly speech with Joshua 
 to-night. I fear much it will not be for long that the 
 opportunity will be given thee." 
 
 " Didst thou deliver him my message?" inquired 
 Jediah, after a long interval of silent communion with 
 himself. " Is he still in the gall of bitterness ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the cashier, " I have spoken to Joshua 
 as thou wouldst have me, and he has listened with 
 patience ; but were I in thy place, Jediah, I would 
 see thy brother once more face to face ere he goes 
 hence to be no more seen. This severe weather tries 
 him much, and the physicians look grave as they pass 
 from his chamber : perchance the good Lord may call 
 him this night, and then thou wouldst regret that no 
 word was spoken between him and thee ere he de- 
 parted. Forgive me if I use my freedom of speech 
 overmuch on this occasion, but it hath been borne in 
 upon me, and I cannot hold my peace." 
 
 There was a long silence after this exhortation, and 
 the loud ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf could 
 be heard distinctly for five minutes. At the end of
 
 THE DALE HOUSE. 53 
 
 that time Jediah Field rose slowly, and said, without 
 emotion, " It shall be even as thou wilt, Josiah. Go 
 and inquire if he will see me now, and if it be per- 
 mitted I shall come at once. I would speak with him 
 alone, if he has no objection. " 
 
 As he spoke, the door at the farther end of the 
 library opened slowly, after some little struggle on the 
 part of the intruder with the lock, and a fair-haired 
 child entered the room and came timidly towards the 
 two men, now standing in the strong light of the fire. 
 She held out her hand to the elder one, and said, in a 
 low sweet voice, " Uncle Jediah, thou art to come at 
 once to grandfather's room; he has sent me for thee ; 
 and — " she added, looking up appealingly with her 
 blue eyes to the cashier, who was gazing earnestly on 
 her face, " he is very ill indeed.' ' 
 
 Jediah Field raised the child in his arms and kissed 
 her tenderly. 
 
 " Yes, Esther," he said, " I shall come directly." 
 
 Then he turned one instant to his friend and coun- 
 sellor, and, bowing his head, proceeded slowly to the 
 other side of the house, in which was situated the sick 
 man's chamber, the little girl leading him thither by 
 the hand.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FORGE. 
 
 " A burning cauldron stood in the midst, 
 The flame was fierce and high ; 
 And all the cave so wide and long, 
 Was plainly seen thereby." 
 
 Kirke White. 
 
 rPHE scene which the Forsters beheld on entering 
 the old forge was wild and singular ; the interior 
 was much larger than the external appearance of the 
 hut would have led any one to imagine ; the cliff at the 
 back, against which the roof rested, and to which the 
 side walls were made good, being excavated into a 
 sort of cave, in the sides of which the outcrop of the 
 coal measures was distinctly visible, the seams running 
 in broad, oblique bands across the excavation, portions 
 of which were concealed by suspicious-looking rush- 
 mats, hung by iron pins to the rough face of the rock. 
 These mats really covered private " workings " in the 
 face of the coal, used by the present occupier of the 
 forge for his own purposes ; he had thus a supply of 
 fuel close to hand at no cost beyond his own labour. 
 A portion of the hut was separated by partitions into
 
 THE FORGE. 55 
 
 sleeping and living rooms, the remainder being osten- 
 sibly the "forge " itself, in which the party was now 
 assembled. 
 
 In the centre of this apartment stood a low, wide 
 smith's hearth, on which a large fire of sulphurous coals, 
 such as are generally found at the outcrop of coal-fields, 
 was fiercely burning. This caused a suffocating vapour, 
 which seemed to prefer escape by the open door instead 
 of exit by the wide chimney- shaft provided for it. 
 The cause of its preference for the former was evidently 
 the fact that the chimney was at present blocked up by 
 a huge iron-covered vessel, suspended over the fire by 
 strong chains. In this vessel some fluid was in a 
 violent state of ebullition, judging from the gurgling 
 sounds and occasional jets of steam which were emitted. 
 From the lid of the cauldron there ran a wide funnel- 
 shaped iron pipe, leading away behind the hearth. 
 One side of the fireplace was protected by a small 
 brick wall, through which came the "tuyer," or blast- 
 pipe, of a large smith's bellows, the "rock-staff" of 
 which hung in front. To the iron pipe first mentioned, 
 at some distance from the hearth, was attached another 
 made of copper, smaller in diameter, but twisted into 
 numerous convolutions, and technically called " the 
 worm." It rested at this moment in a long wooden 
 trough half filled with water. Over this trough was 
 suspended a narrow wooden shoot, which entered the 
 forge from without through a hole in the wall, and 
 from which flowed a continuous stream of cold, clear 
 water on the twisted " worm " beneath. At the ex-
 
 56 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 treme end of the worm- pipe appeared a large earthen 
 jar, into which the hot fluid distilled drop by drop, and 
 from which issued the strong pungent odour of fresh 
 raw spirit. The peculiar smell, and the appearance of 
 the apparatus above described, which Mr. Forster took 
 in at a single glance, convinced him at once that the 
 place was being then used as an "illicit distillery " for 
 the manufacture of spirits — a kind of thing of which he 
 had heard, but never before witnessed. Close to the 
 hearth was a large, shallow, circular wooden vessel, 
 half full of a steaming liquid ; this was the boiling 
 " wort " from which the still over the fire was supplied. 
 
 A man who had been recently assisting in the opera- 
 tion in progress suddenly disappeared at a given signal, 
 and the crippled boatman alone stood, or, more properly 
 speaking, sat in his saddle close by the side of the large 
 vessel on the floor, waiting for the entrance of the sad 
 procession, bearing the apparently lifeless form of 
 Robert Forster. 
 
 As they entered his premises, the cripple slowly 
 raised his open right hand over his head, and pointing 
 with the other to the ground near his feet, said in a 
 firm voice, "Lay him down." 
 
 He was instantly obeyed by the astonished sup- 
 porters. He then continued in a solemn tone, looking 
 Mr. Forster in the face : "I've brought thee here to 
 save t' lad's loife, if it's in 'im. Swear to me, all of 
 ye, ower his body, thet ye wunna tell man or woman or 
 child what ye see here t'night." 
 
 Mr. Forster laid his hand on the youth's breast, and
 
 THE FORGE. 57 
 
 said, " I swear solemnly never to divulge what I see being 
 done in this place ." 
 
 He had taken in at a glance the nature of the work, 
 and the reason for the strange oath required of him ; 
 but his wife did not so readily comprehend the scene, 
 and evidently feared she was about to witness some 
 unholy rite, from which, as a good Christian woman, 
 she shrank with fear. 
 
 The strange girl understood her hesitation at once, 
 and placed Mrs. Forster's hand on the cold forehead of 
 the boy : " Swear as he wishes," she said hurriedly, 
 in a hoarse whisper, " swear t'ould man, if you wish to 
 save the lad's life." 
 
 The poor frightened woman, thus urged, murmured 
 in a hesitating voice, " I swear ! " and looked appeal - 
 ingly to the impassive cripple, who waited for the 
 words ere he began the work of restoration. 
 
 He glanced at James Forster next, who said hastily, 
 " I swear as father did." 
 
 And then the strange man rolled his blackened 
 shirt-sleeves up to the shoulders, and thrust one arm 
 into the hot liquor in the large vessel beside him. The 
 temperature seemed higher than he expected, as he 
 immediately withdrew his bare arm with a wince, and 
 signified in a strange language to his daughter to do 
 something or other in the direction of the still- worm 
 behind them. In an instant the girl shifted the end of 
 the wooden spout over the large vessel on the floor, 
 round which they all stood, and a stream of clear cold 
 water flowed into the hot liquid. The cripple waited
 
 58 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 a little while, and then tested the temperature again in 
 the same manner once or twice with his large right 
 hand, until it seemed to suit his purpose. He then 
 directed them to raise the body, and immerse it, half- 
 dressed as it was, in the vessel ; the feet hanging over 
 one side, and the head resting on the other. He now 
 proceeded to move the boy's stiff arms rapidly up and 
 down, occasionally plunging them in the liquid, and 
 shaking the passive form of the youth from side to side 
 as he did so ; but for a time no beneficial effect was 
 apparent — Robert Forster's light frame still lay list- 
 less and helpless in the man's strong arms. 
 
 The cripple now paused, and looked anxiously at the 
 boy's white face, and then drew the body up so as to 
 immerse the lower limbs also in the hot bath, and so 
 held it for a few moments in a sitting posture, aided by 
 Mr. Forster — all three being enveloped in steam from 
 the large vessel, and from the clothes of the youth, now 
 saturated with hot water. 
 
 Hitherto Robert Forster's eyes were closed, and the 
 lids sunken. The cripple suddenly pointed at them 
 through the steam, and Mr. Forster, on his knees 
 beside him, immediately looked up, and perceived the 
 boy's eyes had opened, and were staring fixedly in 
 front amidst the dense vapour around him. 
 
 The next instant the lad moved his head slowly 
 round, and looked in a dreamy way at his mother, who 
 was still holding the little girl in her arms, and 
 intently watching the proceedings, whilst her lips 
 moved in earnest prayer for the success of their efforts.
 
 THE FORGE. 59 
 
 A grim smile broke over the large, rough visage of 
 the cripple. He noticed the direction of Bobert 
 Forster's glance, and said kindly to the mother, " Put 
 the little 'un in wi' the lad, duds and a'/' — a request 
 which Mrs. Forster instantly complied with, as there 
 was ample space for both in the wide tub. 
 
 The girl now brought a tin vessel, with which 
 she baled the hot liquid over the shoulders and upper 
 part of the bodies of both patients. The effect of this 
 sudden additional warmth was soon apparent. At first 
 convulsive sobs burst from the youth, and he struggled 
 occasionally to rise, but was withheld by the strong 
 arms of the cripple, who retained him in the water by 
 force, but without much effort. The little girl com- 
 menced to moan and weep, and seemed in danger of 
 passing into convulsions. The cripple pointed to a 
 black bottle on a deal shelf, and his daughter poured 
 some of its contents into a cup, and held it to the 
 child's lips. She refused to drink the vile spirit, but 
 its strong, pungent odour revived and stimulated her. 
 She now held out her hands to her mother to be taken 
 from the steaming bath, from whence she was borne by 
 the two women into the poor bedroom beyond, to have 
 her wet clothes removed — a task of some difficulty ; 
 after which she reappeared at the fireside in her 
 mother's arms, wrapped in a small rough blanket from ' 
 the girl's bed, and fast asleep. 
 
 By this time, Robert Forster was also sufficiently 
 recovered to be safely transported by his father, accom- 
 panied by the strange cripple, to the same apartment,
 
 60 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 and there being stripped of his wet clothes, and having 
 his boots cut from his swollen feet, he was covered 
 with such bedclothes as these poor folks could muster, 
 — coarse and dirty-looking enough, from which, at 
 another time, the half- conscious sufferer would have 
 shrunk in disgust. 
 
 The cripple still silently busied himself, with singu- 
 lar skill and activity, in measures for his patient's full 
 restoration. 
 
 He dug up with an iron bar some hot bricks from 
 the blazing hearth, and placed them near to the boy's 
 feet. He hung a blackened tin kettle full of water 
 over the fire, and with the heated contents soon manu- 
 factured a dose of hot punch in a tea-cup, which, when 
 swallowed unconsciously, sent the exhausted lad off at 
 once into a dreamy sleep. He then directed the younger 
 boy to undress and get into the rough bed beside his 
 brother, so as to add to the warmth of the latter, and 
 to prevent, by his accustomed presence, the sudden 
 paroxysms of terror which occasionally seized the half- 
 drowned boy, whose mind was still wandering and 
 excited by the danger he had escaped, and by the 
 strong spirit poured down his throat. 
 
 The cripple now engaged in earnest consultation 
 with his daughter as to the further disposition of the 
 party for the night. The latter approached Mrs. 
 Forster, and, dropping a curtsey, said, in the country 
 dialect, but in a distinct voice, "Feyther thinks thee 
 and th' little lass had better go wi' me to Miller 
 Grimshaw's, where happen' his missus 'ull try to gie
 
 THE TORGE. Gl 
 
 thee both a bed, and 'ull send a doctor to the lad i' 
 th' mornin'. I'm to tak the cobble down the mill-race 
 to the sluice, where the pool is open, and your good 
 man can draw the paddle whiles feyther tends the 
 lads." 
 
 This course seemed to be the best to adopt, as there 
 evidently was no means of sleeping for any other 
 member of the family in that rude habitation, and the 
 gipsy owner, whose features they now recognised as 
 decidedly Egyptian in character, seemed anxious they 
 should go to the place of refuge he had suggested 
 before the miller's house had closed for the night. 
 
 They therefore returned to the boat, leaving the 
 two boys with the crippled gipsy, who undertook to 
 take care of them until morning ; and before leaving 
 both parents invoked many blessings on his head, 
 besides offering him such substantial reward for his 
 timely service as the state of Mr. Forster's purse at 
 the moment enabled him to do. The strange man 
 would not accept more than a single piece of gold, upon 
 which he spat as it lay shining in the broad palm of 
 his hard hand ; but he said as they departed, " Gie t' 
 lass a wee bit siller for luck whin ye part. But for 
 Bessie th' young 'uns ud be 'mongst th' jacks and 
 eels, and, mawbee," he added with a grim smile, 
 " some day thee may do as good a turn for Tammy 
 Roffey." 
 
 He then pointed again to his distilling apparatus, 
 and laid one horny finger on his lips, in token of 
 secrecy, as the party left the threshold. As they de-
 
 62 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 parted, lie seized the handle of his huge bellows and 
 blew the fire, which had been sinking on the hearth, 
 into a vigorous blaze, and then he lifted from the 
 ground a large sheet of bright tin, bent in a curve, and 
 formed into a reflector, having an iron handle at the 
 back. This he fixed on the forge hearth, in a socket 
 prepared for it, so as to cast the strong light of the 
 flame through the doorway on the rough landing-place 
 outside, as the little party cautiously scrambled into 
 the boat ; and again a broad beam of light, such as they 
 had first seen, lit up the dismal pool as they pushed off 
 in the narrow open water close to the bank, guiding 
 them forth for a little space into the dark night. 
 
 There was evidently a strong current setting in the 
 direction of the dam, and the gipsy girl, who guided 
 the boat from the bow with her boat-hook, skilfully 
 availed herself of it. They soon approached the great 
 masonry wall or dam which crossed the narrow valley 
 above a mill, and confined the waters in the reservoir. 
 The girl now proceeded to unship the two short masts 
 before alluded to, and in a few minutes they glided 
 under a single plank forming a rude foot-bridge over a 
 gap in the dam about three yards wide, where the mill- 
 race ran out of the pool to the mill. 
 
 The girl called to them to stoop as they passed 
 beneath this obstruction, and they did so in safety. 
 There was now no necessity for Mr. Forster to use 
 the paddle, which he had plied vigorously up to the 
 present. The stream, confined in a narrow channel, 
 ran swiftly beneath them, and the boat glided rapidly
 
 THE FORGE. G3 
 
 onward with the current. The noise of the water 
 rushing through the open sluices, and striking the 
 floats of the water-wheel, grew louder as they neared 
 the mill, and soon the building itself loomed in sight, 
 magnified in dimensions by the gloom. 
 
 The moon had risen, but dense clouds drove across 
 the sky, and occasionally rendered it difficult for the 
 voyagers to distinguish objects on the adjacent bank. 
 In a little while the boat drifted into the dark shadow 
 of the mill, and was brought up with a shock against 
 the strong iron-barred grating in front of the great 
 water-wheel, whose loud plashing awoke the little 
 child, who commenced to cry. 
 
 The gipsy girl now sprang from the boat to the 
 bank, and proceeded to secure the clumsy craft with 
 a chain. She next assisted Mrs. Forster to land, still 
 clasping her terrified child to her breast, and then 
 rapidly preceded the parents up a steep zigzag foot- 
 path to the miller's house. They passed through an 
 open wicket in a hedge into a trim garden, and beheld, 
 directly in front of them, the unpretending mansion 
 which they sought. There were lights in some of 
 the windows, and the moon shone out for a moment 
 on a bright brass knocker of formidable dimensions 
 fixed on a very small green entrance door. To this 
 the girl applied herself, and the door was instantly 
 opened by a tall, handsome man with very dark eyes, 
 which shone by contrast with the whiteness of his face. 
 Hia hair and whiskers were slightly grey, but at this 
 moment were rendered more so by the addition of a
 
 64 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 quantity of the flour he manufactured. His dress also 
 bore witness to his trade, and was all of one light 
 colour. He had just returned from his mill, and had 
 an oil lamp in his hand, the dull light of which he cast 
 on the faces of the strangers outside his door. 
 
 " Muster Grimshaw," said the girl, " here's a little 
 child has fallen into th' pool, an's a'most froze. 
 Feyther has another at the forge, and happen' you kin 
 tak' this one in for the night ?" 
 
 " Bless me, Bessie," said the miller, " is't thee, lass ? 
 Come in, friends, come in." 
 
 He threw open the door as he spoke, and called to 
 his wife to come downstairs. Mrs. Grimshaw had just 
 ascended to her bedroom with the intention of retiring 
 for the night, but appeared immediately, candlestick in 
 hand, on the landing. 
 
 "Here, wife," said the miller, "is a little drown'd 
 child with Betsy Roffey." 
 
 Mrs. Grimshaw quickly descended the stairs, and 
 coming close to the poor mother, looked earnestly on 
 the white face of the little girl in her arms. She then 
 flung open a door in the passage leading into the 
 kitchen, where a bright fire was still burning. 
 
 Coals were evidently plentiful in the neighbourhood, 
 as a piece about a yard long, called a " raker," stood 
 on end in the grate. The miller struck it with the 
 poker, and a strong flame burst out and roared up 
 the chimney. Mrs. Grimshaw placed the timid woman 
 and her child in an old-fashioned easy-chair before the 
 fire, and proceeded rapidly to investigate their con-
 
 THE FORGE. 65 
 
 dition, whilst Mr. Forster described the accident to 
 her husband. The latter listened attentively, and 
 then turned to the gipsy girl, who was standing by 
 the doorway, "Bess," he said, " thee had best slip out 
 for Dr. Dixon." 
 
 Xow, the doctor lived but a little way off, in a cot- 
 tage which had once been occupied by the miller's 
 father, and the young girl went off in search of him 
 immediately. Meantime, Mrs. Grinishaw had got some 
 milk warming on the fire, and was affectionately busy 
 with the mother and child, both of whom were much in 
 need of assistance. 
 
 The little girl still cried bitterly, and clung hys- 
 terically to her mother, whose strength was nearly 
 exhausted. Mrs. Grimshaw broke two eggs into the 
 vessel in which the milk was boiling, and then added 
 some sugar, and whipped the whole into a light froth. 
 The little girl swallowed some of this pleasant mixture, 
 and then she ceased crying, and looked wonderingly at 
 the good woman who was so busy in efforts for her 
 recovery. Mrs. Grimshaw had a pleasant comely face, 
 and a happy expression. In a little while the child 
 allowed her to take her in her arms, although she 
 trembled all over with excitement and illness. 
 
 " Wife" said the miller, " put her into bed with our 
 Lizzie. It will do her more good than anything else." 
 
 Mrs. Grimshaw requested Mrs. Forster to follow her, 
 and proceeded upstairs to her own daughter's room. 
 There, in a pretty bed with snow-white curtains, sat 
 bolt upright, listening to the unusual sounds in the 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 house, a little girl with long dark hair hanging over 
 her white round shoulders. She had dark eyes like 
 her father below- stairs, but in other respects resembled 
 Mrs. Grimshaw. 
 
 " Here is a little sister for you to keep warm, Lizzie," 
 said her mother ; " keep her very close to you." 
 
 Then they placed the little stranger in the bed, and 
 the two children were soon locked in each other's arms. 
 The miller's little girl had no sister, and really believed 
 that this was one given to her, and therefore she 
 hugged her very close, and in her arms Jenny Forster 
 fell asleep. When the doctor arrived and saw the 
 children, he wisely left the case in the hands of the 
 good old Dame Nature until morning. " Let them be," 
 he said, " there's no medicine like sleep ; I shall see 
 her early to-morrow." 
 
 The hospitable miller and his wife provided all the 
 comforts in their power for the unfortunate travellers, 
 and were able to give them a good bed in the house, 
 whilst Bessie Roffey returned by land to her father's 
 cottage with some " siller" as her modest reward, happy 
 as a queen in contemplating the purchase of a new 
 bonnet.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MILLER. 
 
 " I see the wealthy miller yet, 
 
 His double chin, his portly size ; 
 And who that knew him could forget 
 The busy wrinkles round his eyes ? 
 The slow wise smile that round about 
 
 His dusty forehead, drily curl'd, 
 Seem'd half within and half without, 
 And full of dealings with the world ! " 
 
 Tennysox. 
 
 TACOB GRIMSHAW had been the Dale miller over 
 nineteen years. His father had been the miller 
 before him, and had erected the present flour- mill, 
 which was a good one of its kind. It was held on a 
 long lease from a nobleman who never visited the place, 
 but whose property in that quarter projected awkwardly 
 into the Dale Company's property, and on the extreme 
 end of the projection, where the Brightmoor valley 
 entered the valley of the Lauter, stood the mill — the 
 " Forge Pool " being the reservoir in which was stored 
 the water required for its use. 
 
 Above the mill, and overlooking it on the hillside, 
 stood the miller's cottage, a pleasant, unpretending
 
 68 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 little house, die square, with an even number of win- 
 dows at each side of the hall-door, which was half 
 hidden by a rustic porch, and was painted an emerald 
 green, and further decorated with a large antique brass 
 knocker, representing a lion's head, out of all propor- 
 tion to the size of the door it adorned, being in fact a 
 sort of heirloom in the miller's family. 
 
 There was another entrance at the opposite side of 
 the house, by which access was had to the public road 
 from the Dale to Brightmoor. 
 
 The cottage had been designed and erected by Jacob 
 Grimshaw the younger, when he married ; and he 
 took no small pride in its architectural excellence and 
 fitness. It was built of red bricks, and covered with 
 blue slates, and all the external woodwork was painted 
 in bright colours. There were Venetian blinds to the 
 windows, which were always kept in a state of brilliancy, 
 and, on the whole, the place was said to be like " a new 
 shilling," and was the standard of excellence in those 
 parts, so far as small houses went. 
 
 The miller had a flower-garden in front of his resi- 
 dence, with a white gravelled footpath in the centre, 
 leading from the hall- door to a wicket in the fence, 
 outside which the path descended to the mill by a series 
 of zigzags, down a steep slope, and was carried across 
 the watercourse in front of the mill-wheel by a light 
 wooden bridge, to which the sluices were attached, and 
 from which they were raised and lowered. 
 
 This garden was tastefully laid out, and stocked with 
 a great variety of rose trees, and there were curiously
 
 THE MILLER. 69 
 
 shaped flower-beds and other horticultural devices 
 therein. It was generally believed that its neatness 
 was due to the care bestowed on it by the miller's wife, 
 who was a woman held in much esteem, and deservedly 
 respected by the Dale people, and who had received an 
 education above that of persons in her walk in life. 
 
 The miller's garden was the envy and admiration of 
 such of the Dale workmen as were addicted to flori- 
 culture, and especially of the skilled modellers, many 
 of whom possessed considerable taste, and whose em- 
 ployment required some knowledge of the forms of 
 plants and foliage. 
 
 They would come and stare over the palings on 
 summer evenings and holidays by the hour, and take 
 counsel with one another as to the possibility of im- 
 porting novel ideas from this little " Eden " to their 
 own rough patches of cultivated ground. 
 
 The grounds round the Dale House were extensive 
 and tastefully laid out, but they were chiefly behind the 
 house, and not easily seen by outsiders. It was often 
 said amongst the men that the great landscape artist 
 from London who laid them out " would have had his 
 eye opened" had he previously looked in on Miller 
 Grimshaw and his earthly paradise. 
 
 The miller had made himself a " summer house " in 
 his garden, over which was trained a large-leafed 
 creeper, which he spoke of as "his vine and his fig- 
 tree," but which had hitherto produced nothing but 
 caterpillars, in every English species of which it was 
 prolific — green, brown, hairy, or otherwise.
 
 70 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 Mrs. Grimshaw had attempted "open-air teas" in 
 the summer time, under the shade of this pleasant 
 arbour, but the occasional admixture of the above- 
 mentioned insects in the # tea or the sugar, which 
 resulted, had compelled an abandonment of such al 
 fresco meals ; consequently the miller had it all to him- 
 self in the summer evenings, and smoked very strong 
 tobacco therein, more in the hope that it would dis- 
 agree with the caterpillars than from any pleasure it 
 gave him personally. 
 
 The miller had an only son named Thomas, who was 
 at this time about eighteen years old, and was sharp 
 and clever for his age ; but it was reported that he was 
 not as industrious or as good as he ought to have been, 
 considering the pains taken with him by his excellent 
 mother, and the strict rule of his father, both of whom 
 were nevertheless very proud of his abilities. This 
 youth had been articled to a solicitor in Wolverhamp- 
 ton, much against his mother's wish, and had evinced a 
 taste for the profession at a very early age. 
 
 There had also been born to the miller a daughter, 
 now about nine years of age, who had been christened 
 Elizabeth, and was as the " apple of his eye." 
 
 It was to the care of this little girl he had consigned 
 Jenny Forster on the night of the accident described 
 in the opening chapter of this story. 
 
 The miller's business was a steady, thriving one, and 
 he had made money, and saved it, which is often the more 
 difficult problem of the two. He held his land and his 
 mill at a low rent on a long lease, and with this
 
 THE MILLER. 71 
 
 advantage, added to his pretty cottage and garden, and 
 cows, and wife and children, the people in the Dale 
 expected him to be a happy, contented miller, if not 
 absolutely a "jolly one," like the celebrated individual 
 who lived upon the Dee ; but, unfortunately for him- 
 self and other people, he was not ; he was essentially 
 " a man with a grievance," and instead of sitting in 
 peace under "his vine and fig-tree," like the Israelites 
 of old when they had discomfited their Canaanitish 
 neighbours, he sat there alone "nursing his wrath to 
 keep it warm," and contemplating the cause of his 
 vexation in connection with the large water-wheel 
 which drove his mill. 
 
 The mill-wheel was generally at work from six 
 o'clock on Monday morning until twelve o'clock on 
 Saturday night, moving slowly round with a steady 
 sobbing noise, like a patient living thing, accustomed to 
 take its full load of cold water from the long conduit 
 which ran out of the "Forge Pool," and to deliver it 
 quietly beneath, into another conduit which discharged 
 itself into the " Dale Pool " below, this latter being 
 the principal reservoir from which the water-wheels 
 of the company's works were supplied. 
 
 Now, there had been a feud between the owners of 
 these water-wheels from time immemorial, as there 
 generally is wherever water-wheels exist close to one 
 another on the same stream, which are not the property 
 of the same individual. 
 
 With the exception of horses and wills, there is no 
 more prolific subject for litigation than water-power,
 
 72 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 and probably few millers exist who have not had the 
 unpleasant experience of a costly lawsuit in the course 
 of their lives. There are cases in which such suits 
 have been handed down from father to son, like hair 
 shirts to be worn by the unhappy possessors, for the 
 repose of the souls of those who in an evil moment 
 originally commenced them. Such was the inheritance 
 of Jacob Grimshaw. 
 
 His father before him had had a " difference " with 
 the owners of the Dale Works, which had caused him to 
 secede altogether from the Society of Friends, of which 
 he had previously been a member, and to wipe off the 
 very dust of his feet outside the doors of their " meet- 
 ing house," because a serious remonstrance had been 
 publicly addressed to him by one of the elders, therein 
 assembled to consider his very " un-Fri end-like " and 
 irregular conduct. 
 
 Whether the old miller considered that the " spirit " 
 which " moved " the elder on that occasion was a 
 " lying spirit " or was influenced by improper and 
 worldly considerations, I cannot say, but I regret 
 to be obliged to write, that he so far forgot his 
 previous strict training, and the silent usages of the 
 place, as to reply there and then in very strong 
 language, and consequently he was " read out of meet- 
 ing " with the usual formalities. 
 
 Shortly after, he commenced legal proceedings against 
 the Dale Company, " for loss and injury sustained in his 
 business as a miller, and hindrance in the free user 
 and enjoyment of his water-power, by reason of their
 
 THE MILLER. 73 
 
 improper acts and deeds, and those of evil-disposed 
 persons in their employ." 
 
 So ran the endorsement on the " summons and 
 plaint " served on the Brothers Field by a sharp 
 attorney, who despised the usual courtesy of writing 
 previously to the legal gentlemen engaged on the 
 other side, to know if service of the writ would be 
 otherwise accepted, and thus gave Jacob Grimshaw 
 the elder, now happily for every one deceased, the 
 pleasure of stating, as he did on all possible occasions 
 during the remainder of his troubled life, the fact 
 " that he had sarved both on em wi' a writ at their 
 own hall -door, and precious glum they looked, and a 
 pretty penny it ud cost 'em afore they'd see the last 
 on't, that it ud." 
 
 It was evident that Jacob Grimshaw, senior, was 
 pretty far gone in the " gall of bitterness and the bond 
 of iniquity," when he cast off the peaceable character 
 of a " Friend," and spake thus of respected members 
 of the society ; at the same time directing Lawyer 
 Quetchett of Wolverhampton to " lick law at 'em like 
 hailstones," a request which that worthy was not slow 
 to act on at any time, whenever he saw his way to 
 getting his costs either from plaintiff or defendant, or 
 from both if he could, and thus commenced the great 
 case of " Grimshaw against Joshua and Jediah Field," 
 damages being laid at five thousand pounds. 
 
 The brothers, thus attacked, would, if they could, 
 have adhered to the peaceable tenets of their per- 
 suasion, and turned the other cheek to the smiter,
 
 74 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 but that would by no means suit Mr. Quetchett's 
 book, and would not have been half enough of humilia- 
 tion to impose on them in the opinion of the elder 
 Grimshaw, who wished to see something for his money 
 besides " soft sawder," as he termed a pacific letter 
 addressed to him by Joshua Field at the commence- 
 ment of the litigation. Despite of Quaker principles 
 and practice, but with much mental anxiety and inward 
 throes of conscience, the Messieurs Field finding the 
 miller more obdurate than his own nether millstone, 
 and deaf to solemn adjurations intoned at him by 
 several broad-brimmed elders, in the sonorous and 
 quaint accent habitual to the " Friends," were driven 
 at length to appeal to the carnal weapon, and to 
 meet the "man of sin," in the person of Lawyer 
 Quetchett, by an injunction to restrain his further 
 proceedings, obtained on an ex-parte statement, duly 
 " affirmed " by them, and put in by their legal advisers, 
 Messrs. Johnson, Lawson, and Cobb, of Bedford Row, 
 London, who had a considerable practice amongst 
 " Friends " in defending actions and conveying pro- 
 perty, but as a rule nothing whatever to do for them 
 as plaintiffs. 
 
 When old Jacob Grimshaw heard that the case was 
 thrown into Chancery, and that he was thereby 
 deprived of his expected triumph in hailing the brothers 
 before judge and jury at Stafford Assizes, where the 
 record was laid, he shut down the sluices of his mill, 
 and paid off his men and betook himself to Wolver- 
 hampton for a series of consultations with his attorney,
 
 THE MILLER. 75 
 
 who laboured in vain to explain to him the difference 
 between proceedings in Chancery and those at common 
 law ; and ultimately carried off his obtuse and irate 
 client to London, where they obtained the assistance 
 of the London agents of Mr. Quetchett, Messrs. 
 Skinner and Clinch, of Lincoln's Inn, who immediately 
 retained the learned Mr. AYaterright, of the Chancery 
 Bar, a leading counsel in those days, known to be very 
 skilful in all matters connected with mills and disputed 
 water-power, before whom they proceeded to lay a case, 
 and on whose advice in due time certain affidavits 
 were sworn by Jacob Grimshaw, senior, and filed by 
 his solicitors. 
 
 The old miller felt happy in the idea that he 
 could now take any number of oaths, instead of 
 " affirming," as in days of yore, and as his opponents, 
 still under the yoke, were obliged to do. He was fully 
 convinced in his own mind that the weight and effect 
 of the documents put in by his lawyers would be thus 
 materially increased, and would preponderate over 
 those prepared by the other side in the milder form 
 adopted by "Friends." Those were the pleasant 
 days when a Chancery suit proceeded slowly, and was 
 fortunate if it reached a hearing once in two or three 
 years, when the documents entered by both sides had 
 accumulated beyond all reasonable limits, and required 
 cutting down by some new motion before the Chancellor. 
 At first old Grimshaw hung a good deal about the 
 courts, and tried in vain to comprehend the legal 
 jargon then profusely employed in matters of equity.
 
 76 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 At other times he drifted helplessly to and fro between 
 his lodgings in Hoiborn and the offices of Messrs. 
 Skinner and Clinch ; but after three or four months' 
 waiting, and an expenditure of about as many hundred 
 pounds, he began to sicken and get tired of it, and 
 waxed wroth and impatient ; and was consequently 
 advised to return home with the view to his cooling 
 down a little, and collecting facts for further affidavits 
 during the long vacation. 
 
 Mr. Quetchett had returned long since to his busi- 
 ness in Wolverhampton, but came up occasionally to 
 see how things were moving, or, as he termed it, " to 
 keep the pie hot." On such occasions, observing the 
 melancholy aspect of his unfortunate client, he en- 
 deavoured to revive his nagging spirits by taking 
 him to see the performances at Astley's, which was 
 then a favourite place of amusement with country- 
 folk visiting London. Old Jacob invariably sat like a 
 stone, gazing vacantly at the " mountebanks," as he 
 termed them, and yet seeing nothing ; being totally 
 absorbed in the suit he had set going, he took 
 no interest in any of the performers, of whom he said 
 mournfully, " Man delighted him not, nor woman 
 either." 
 
 At length, Mr. Quetchett, finding him bad company, 
 left him to his own devices, which were wretched 
 enough, and finally urged him, as Messrs. Skinner and 
 Co. had done before, to return to his native air, as 
 knotty points had developed themselves in the case 
 which it would require the assistance of scientific wit-
 
 THE MILLER. 
 
 / i 
 
 nesses to investigate, in order that Mr. AVaterright 
 might be able to move the court effectually after the 
 recess ; and thus old Jacob Grimshaw went back to 
 Lauterdale a sadder, if not a wiser, and certainly a 
 poorer man than when he set out.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GIPSY. 
 
 Loud sang the Spanish cavalier, 
 
 And thus his ditty ran : 
 ' God send the gipsy lassie here, 
 
 And not the gipsy man.' " 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 A S the case proceeded next term, and developed 
 "^ itself into larger proportions under the nursing 
 hands of Mr. Quetchett and his London agents, other 
 persons were dragged in, and made parties to the suit 
 despite of themselves. Messrs. Johnson, Lawson, and 
 Cobb were compelled, in the interest of their clients, 
 and with the view to bringing extraneous pressure to 
 bear on the enemy, to include in the proceedings the 
 nobleman from whom the mill was leased, who was 
 thus for the first time made personally aware of his 
 ownership in this property, and of the existence of his 
 litigious tenant, and who devoutly wished both at the 
 bottom of the Red Sea, in consequence of the trouble 
 thereby given to him and his solicitors, and also to the 
 solicitors of mortgagees and trustees connected with his 
 estates, all of whom were obliged to file affidavits, and
 
 THE GIPSY. 79 
 
 to appear by counsel. In retaliation, Mr. Quetchett 
 contrived to ferret out and attack an unfortunate 
 tenant of the Dale Company, who held a wretched 
 cottage under them at a nominal rent on the margin of 
 the Forge Pool, and who, being a nervous man, with a 
 wholesome dread of law, got so frightened in conse- 
 quence, that he packed up his few goods and chattels, 
 and fled away one dark night, leavmg the key in the 
 door, which he deemed to be a legal surrender of the 
 premises. 
 
 The cottage remained unoccupied for some time 
 after this, and fell into bad repute and worse repair, 
 until it was discovered to be occupied without permis- 
 sion by a strange-looking crippled gipsy, accompanied 
 by his dark-skinned wife, who looked like a witch, 
 and, it was said, told fortunes. The man himself ap- 
 peared harmless enough. Why he had totally abandoned 
 his wandering life and the society of his nomadic tribe 
 was never fully known ; but it was rumoured that he 
 had met with a dreadful accident at a railway crossing 
 whilst driving an obstinate donkey, and subsequently 
 had had both his legs amputated in the county hospital, 
 in order to save his life. 
 
 On being discharged from thence, and charitably 
 furnished by the surgeons with the leather-covered 
 basket in which the stumps of his lower limbs were 
 concealed, and in which he managed to shuffle about, 
 he had, slowly and painfully, dragged himself across 
 the country to Brightmoor, followed by his spouse, who 
 had been permitted to nurse him in the hospital, and,
 
 80 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 by some mysterious instinct, they ultimately sought 
 shelter in the deserted cottage, in which the gipsy had 
 dwelt ever since. 
 
 At first, the Brothers Field, on being informed of 
 the new occupants, were inclined to turn them out as 
 suspected tramps and vagabonds, and Josiah Morris 
 was deputed to visit the place, and give them formal 
 notice to quit, accompanied with wholesome counsel ; 
 but when once he had seen the poor maimed being 
 and his apparently affectionate helpmate, and reported 
 their wretched condition to his employers, the man's 
 title became as good as a lease for life. He not only 
 received permission to remain free of rent, but the 
 hovel was repaired, and furnished for his use. 
 
 On learning that he had worked as a blacksmith 
 amongst the people of his tribe, and could forge horse- 
 shoes and shoe horses, Mr. Joshua Field caused a 
 small forge to be erected for him in the kitchen of 
 the old cottage, and supplied him with the necessary 
 tools, and a stock of iron. He was also permitted to 
 excavate fuel free of charge from the outcrop of 
 the coal-field owned by the Company, a portion of 
 which actually formed the rear wall of his dwelling. 
 Sufficient employment was provided for him in re- 
 placing the shoes cast by the Company's horses as 
 they struggled slowly up the tramway at the opposite 
 side of the pool with the heavy corves of limestone 
 required for the smelting furnaces higher up the 
 valley, or returned from thence with loads of pig-iron 
 and coals for the works in the Dale below.
 
 THE GIPSY. 81 
 
 The gipsy blacksmith, to whom we have been already 
 introduced in the person of Tammy Roffey, proved 
 himself fertile of resources. The difficulty which 
 at first existed in the fact that he had to forge his 
 iron shoes at one side of the pool, and fix them on 
 the horses' feet when required at the other side, was 
 speedily got over by the construction of a rude boat 
 aud a wire ferry, both of which he made with his own 
 hands, and by this means he passed rapidly to and fro 
 from his workshop when summoned by the drivers of 
 the waggon trains, with whom he gossiped learnedly 
 about horses and dogs as he did his work. 
 
 The wire strained across the pond served as a sort of 
 telegraphic communication between him and the men 
 during the hours of darkness, as, by beating on the 
 upright post at their side of the pool, they could 
 readily summon " Gipsy Tarn," as he was called, from 
 his den over the water, whenever his services were 
 needed to repair the frequent pedal losses of the four- 
 footed beasts, which worked by day and night on the 
 tramway, or to supply lost linch-pins and links to the 
 waggons. 
 
 Occasionally some wicked youngsters, who had dis- 
 covered this system of communication, would bring 
 the poor cripple from his anvil, with his tools and a 
 stock of ready-made iron shoes in his boat, by rapping 
 on the post at night, when he could not see clearly 
 across the pond ; but, after a few disappointed trips at 
 the call of these mischievous urchins, Tammy was too 
 many for them, and invented a mode of discovering 
 
 vol. I. G
 
 82 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 whether the summons was a legitimate one or other- 
 wise. He constructed a powerful and simple reflector, 
 by bending a large sheet of bright tin on a light iron 
 frame, and by means of a handle at the back and his 
 forge fire, he could project a broad beam of light over 
 a wide arc through the open doorway of his hut, and 
 then, peering across the pool in its path, readily ascer- 
 tained whether the summons proceeded from friends or 
 enemies. 
 
 It was with this instrument he had so suddenly cast 
 a bright light on the dark water beneath the old 
 bridge on the night on which this story opened, in 
 answer to the loud cries of Mr. Forster ; and it was by 
 means of the wire ferry he had contrived that he 
 arrived so rapidly and opportunely on the scene of 
 disaster with the dark-eyed girl, who was at that time 
 the sole companion residing in his solitary dwelling- 
 place. 
 
 Shortly after the advent of the pair of gipsies at the 
 " Forge Pool," which was so called after the workshop 
 erected in the old cottage on its banks, there was born 
 unto them a son, who, as he grew up, gave evidence that 
 he possessed all the natural characteristics of the people 
 to whom his parents belonged, — un tameable and in- 
 capable of appreciating any effort made to civilise or 
 reclaim him. He was a clever urchin, devoted to his 
 gipsy mother, who invariably spoke to him in the 
 Kommany language, and instilled into him a love of 
 freedom and contempt for the " Giorgios," as she 
 termed the Christian people by whom they were sur-
 
 THE GIPSY. 83 
 
 rounded, and to whom at present they owed the means 
 of subsistence. 
 
 He was an adept at capturing fish in the deep pond 
 at the forge door, and in snaring the wild fowl that 
 occasionally came to feed therein, and it was suspected 
 also that he sometimes appropriated the miller's tame 
 ducks when they ventured within reach of his ingenious 
 engines, as unaccountable deficiencies in the stock were 
 experienced during his residence in the neighbourhood. 
 
 He readily learned from his mother to weave baskets 
 from the willows which grew near the reservoir, but he 
 stoutly resisted all teaching from a Dale schoolmaster, 
 to whose care he had been reluctantly entrusted for a 
 short period, at the earnest request of Miss Rebecca 
 Field, who in those days took much interest in the 
 gipsies. 
 
 During his short enforced attendance at the juvenile 
 seminary in question, he had set most of the other 
 children by the ears, and utterly depraved some of 
 them in their ideas of meiim and tuum before he had 
 spent a week in their society. It was therefore no 
 wonder that Tawno Roffey was speedily allowed to 
 return to the care of his gipsy mother, who was looked 
 on with much greater suspicion by the Dale people 
 than was accorded to her crippled and industrious 
 husband, for whom their sympathies were naturally 
 excited by his affliction, but of whom they really knew 
 very little, except what was related by the waggon- 
 drivers using the tramway, as he rarely ventured into 
 the Dale, and could not travel very far from his forge.
 
 84 LAETERDALE. 
 
 The gipsy woman sometimes disappeared with her 
 boy for a week or two whenever there were fairs or 
 merrymakings in the neighbourhood, and it was known 
 that she was thus absent on fortune-telling expeditions, 
 or other irregular methods of earning money in the 
 society of her people who attended such meetings. 
 
 It was also believed that she ultimately became dis- 
 contented with the settled manner of life enforced by 
 her husband's condition ; but, to the surprise of every 
 one who had taken the trouble to observe her move- 
 ments, she returned on one occasion from a longer 
 absence than usual with an infant female child, which 
 she invariably spoke of afterwards as her daughter, but 
 which it was suspected had been recently stolen by the 
 woman during her wanderings. 
 
 When this child was about five or six years old, 
 Mrs. Roffey started, with her precocious son, on one 
 of her periodic excursions, leaving the little girl 
 behind her with her husband, and she had not been 
 seen or heard of in the neighbourhood ever since. 
 
 Tammy Roffey never spoke of her or of the lad 
 again ; he thenceforth devoted all his attention to the 
 little girl, who was much more tractable than the boy 
 had been, and warmly reciprocated his rough affec- 
 tion. 
 
 The miller's good wife took much interest in the 
 little deserted creature, and provided her with clothes ; 
 she had also induced her assumed parent to allow the 
 child to attend the female infant school in the Dale, 
 and there she had acquired some slight education ; but
 
 THE Gir^Y. 85 
 
 the gipsy man soon became jealous of the long absences 
 thus occasioned, and had unfortunately withdrawn her 
 at an early age from the means of instruction afforded 
 her, in order that she might assist him in his work as 
 far as she could. It was to this girl that Jenny Forster 
 owed her life when she was rescued from drowning in 
 the pool. 
 
 Notwithstanding many rebuffs from the gipsy, Mrs. 
 Grimshaw, who was a warm-hearted, well-educated 
 woman, continued her exertions for the improvement 
 of the poor neglected girl, who, in return, conceived a 
 passionate regard for her and her little daughter. 
 
 She was always very thankful for the efforts made 
 to teach her, and punctual at her lessons in the miller's 
 house, when permitted to attend there by the gipsy, 
 who, like all solitary beings, was often uncertain and 
 suspicious in his moods, and feared the child would be 
 weaned from her attachment to him. However, by 
 patience and judicious management on the part of 
 Mrs. Grimshaw, the girl was taught to read and write 
 with tolerable facility, and also to mend her own and 
 her father's clothes — which latter accomplishment he 
 approved of much more than the former. 
 
 Mrs. Grimshaw laboured hard to instil some religious 
 teaching into the mind of her protegee, and frequently 
 read to her such portions of the Bible as were suited 
 to her comprehension. Sometimes the girl would ask 
 questions which showed that this teaching was sinking 
 deeply into her heart, but as yet Mrs. Grimshaw did 
 not deem it safe to propose that she should be baptised,
 
 86 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 as it was not known whether the gipsy would permit 
 the rite to be celebrated or not, as he himself resisted 
 all efforts to interest him in the truths of Christianity, 
 and was reputed an utter heathen by the God-fearing 
 people of the Dale, some of whom had in vain attempted 
 his conversion. 
 
 Some years after the departure of his wife and son, 
 the gipsy added to his business as a blacksmith a more 
 lucrative and dangerous employment in the illicit manu- 
 facture of spirits. 
 
 He was tempted to this at first by some of the waggon- 
 drivers, who occasionally took refuge in his forge from 
 the inclemency of the weather. The life led by these 
 men was hard in the extreme. They were exposed to 
 all the severity of wind and rain, by day and night, as 
 they journeyed between the limestone quarries in the 
 hills beyond the river and the furnaces above Bright- 
 moor, often sinking over the ankles in the mud of the 
 tramway ; consequently the possession of stimulants 
 became a much-coveted thing, perhaps all the more so 
 because of the difficulties in the way of obtaining them. 
 
 At first the gipsy's hut was made a depository for 
 liquor obtained from a distance, and retailed by Tammy 
 at a small profit ; but ultimately, being an ingenious 
 man, accustomed to working in solder and tin, he 
 ventured on the construction of the apparatus which 
 was seen at work when Mr. Forster visited his forge. 
 
 The gipsy had seen the pattern of the still and the 
 process of manufacture during his wanderings in early 
 life, and had somewhat improved on the original. The
 
 THE GIPSY. bi 
 
 solitary position of his forge, and the difficulty of access 
 thereto, except by means of his boat and ferry, together 
 with an abundant supply of fuel and water close at 
 hand, favoured the success of his operations, which he 
 contrived to conceal by various cunning devices, such 
 as setting up a vigorous hammering on his anvil when- 
 ever his quick ear detected the approach of strangers by 
 night, at which time only could the manufacture be 
 carried on with safety. 
 
 He had set up this loud hammering on hearing Mr. 
 Forster's voice and footsteps, and had cast the strong 
 light across the water from his reflector to discover 
 who were the strangers approaching, and so precipitated 
 the accident he subsequently did his best to repair. 
 
 Returning to the history of Jacob Grimshaw the 
 elder and his great lawsuit. Time would fail to tell how 
 it dragged on for several weary years, and what thorns in 
 the sides of the Dale Company Job Quetchett and his 
 colleagues proved themselves to be, despite the stout 
 resistance of Messrs. Lawson and Cobb, aided by the 
 leading lights of the equity bar, whom they employed 
 to oppose Mr. AVaterright. Is it not all written some- 
 where in the records of the Court of Chancery ; and 
 engraven also on the fleshy tables of the heart of Jacob 
 Grrimshaw the younger, the present miller, who in- 
 herited the suit from his unfortunate parent, after the 
 latter had broken his heart at it, and died a victim to 
 the fierce contest he had promoted, bequeathing to his 
 son, with his last words, his undying hatred of the 
 peaceful Quakers whom he had driven to oppose him ?
 
 88 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 The young man might otherwise have grown up a 
 happy miller and ended his days in peace, but his 
 mind was warped and embittered at an early period 
 by an intimate acquaintance with the proceedings, and 
 thereby imbued with the wish to revenge his father's 
 failure ; for, after all, the old vindictive miller failed 
 to gain his ends, and had at length been obliged to 
 abandon the cause from sheer exhaustion, when Mr. 
 Quetchett had drained him of every shilling he could 
 raise without availing himself of the means of his son, 
 who had fortunately taken to the mill at an early 
 period in the suit, as will be related hereafter, and 
 whose resources were wisely placed by his father-in- 
 law beyond the old man's control. 
 
 Jacob Grimshaw the elder died as hundreds of men 
 die who embark in the quicksands of litigation — a 
 broken, miserable, disappointed man, full of " envy, 
 hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness ;" and on his 
 death-bed he charged his son, sooner or later, to 
 endeavour, by reviving the suit, to obtain the justice 
 which he fully believed he was entitled to. 
 
 It was fortunate for the younger Grimshaw that up 
 to the present he had been compelled by circumstances 
 to leave the matter in abeyance, but it was well known 
 that he had recently fulfilled a part of his father's last 
 injunction by devoting his own son to the pursuit of 
 the profession from which all the old man's trouble and 
 misfortunes had arisen. 
 
 " Hist, Jacob," said the old dying miller, raising his 
 grey head from the pillow for the last time, as he
 
 THE GIPSY. 89 
 
 struggled for breath. " Bring the boy up to be a 
 lawyer, and let him tackle 'em again — darn 'em," and 
 with that he shook his clenched fist in the air, in the 
 direction of the Dale House, and fell back dead with a 
 curse on his white lips. 
 
 It was in fulfilment of this last request that young 
 Tom Grimshaw was articled so early in life to lawyer 
 Quetchett, a hook-nosed, thin, shrivelled man, in con- 
 siderable practice at Wolverhampton, where he had 
 scraped together a large fortune from the wrecks which 
 strewed his path. 
 
 He had recently taken his eldest son into partner- 
 ship, but still looked closely after the business, which 
 had much increased since the period of the Chancery 
 suit about the Dale Mills ; and when he received a letter 
 from his former client's son, inquiring " his terms for 
 apprenticing his boy Thomas to the law" — the modern 
 verb " to article " had not been invented at that period 
 — the old man's eyes twinkled with a merry light, and 
 his hooked beak bent into a sharper curve, and gave to 
 his parchment visage the aspect of a vulture. 
 
 " Let him come by all means," he said, and wrote 
 immediately in reply, stating his fee, and expressing 
 much satisfaction at the trust about to be reposed in 
 him ; and then he looked long and lovingly through 
 his horn spectacles at a large japanned tin box on a shelf 
 over his head, lettered " Grimshaw v. Joshua and 
 Jediah Field," and took snuff copiously, which his 
 clerks said he always did " when he scented the prey 
 afar off."
 
 90 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 When old Grimshaw died, young Jacob had then 
 been three years married, and had worked the mill on 
 his own account during that period, paying his father 
 a rental more than sufficient for his personal wants. 
 How Jacob the younger came to stand in his father's 
 shoes, and how he won his good wife, whose acquaintance 
 we have just made, must be told in the chapters follow- 
 ing, although in so doing it is needful to go back more 
 than twenty years in order that the reader may become 
 acquainted with the people of Lauterdale, amongst 
 whom the Forsters came to live.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE METHODYS. 
 
 " Sects in religion ? — Yes, of every race, 
 We nurse some portion in our favour' d place ; 
 Not one warm preacher of each growing sect 
 Can say our borough treats him with neglect." 
 
 Crabbb. 
 
 TXTHEN old Jacob Grimshaw shut down his mill 
 sluices, and set out on his war-path to Wolver- 
 hampton to entrust himself to the evil guidance of 
 Mr. Quetchett, young Jacob was for a time cast adrift 
 and without occupation. 
 
 He tried fishing for "jack" in the Forge Pool, until 
 he lost all his best tackle in the jaws of the ancient 
 monsters who inhabited its depths. 
 
 He then wandered down the Dale to the Severn, in 
 pursuit of eels, but soon wearied of the capture of those 
 unwholesome slippery things, whose tenacity of life 
 disgusted him ; and finally he found some amusement 
 in inspecting the operations of some workmen then 
 engaged in the construction of an iron bridge across 
 the Severn, which was to supersede the old horse-ferry 
 and wire rope, still to be seen in operation lower down 
 the river.
 
 92 LATTTERDALE. 
 
 This did very well for weekdays ; but his Sundays 
 were dreadfully dull ; and as his father had joined no 
 religious denomination since his secession from the 
 Quakers, young Jacob had never been inside any other 
 place of worship than the " Friends' Meeting House " 
 in his life, and to enter there would be unpleasant under 
 present circumstances. 
 
 He had neither mother, sister, or brother alive, and 
 he moped alone, in the old house at home, all the 
 morning until his melancholy drove him forth again 
 amongst his kind ; who, so far as the company's work- 
 men were concerned, bore him no goodwill, and sided 
 to a man with their employers, whom they believed to 
 have been unjustifiably attacked by his litigious parent. 
 
 Mooning along through the Dale one Sunday even- 
 ing during his father's absence in London, he stopped 
 outside one of the large Dissenting chapels recently 
 erected by the Wesley an Methodists, to listen to the 
 peculiar singing of the congregation, whose quaint and 
 impressive tunes are still preserved in the Black 
 Country chapels without change, and who are generally 
 spoken of there as "The Methodys." Jacob felt a 
 longing to go in, but was shy and irresolute ; and so 
 kept about the principal door, which was in the end of 
 the building directly facing the pulpit, in which one 
 of the ministers, with a large hymn-book in his hand, 
 was alternately singing with the congregation, and 
 sonorously giving out two lines of each verse at a time, 
 swaying his body to and fro as he read and sang. 
 
 The sudden alternations from loud soul- stirring
 
 THE METHOD YS. 93 
 
 strains to still silence whilst the "preacher" read his 
 two lines with fervent emphasis, struck Jacob as worth 
 attention, compared with the stiff and monotonous 
 worship to which he had been hitherto accustomed ; as 
 on many occasions the " Friends " met, and sat in 
 silence through the appointed time at their place of 
 worship, and separated without the "moving of the 
 spirit," for which the elders waited before they spoke. 
 
 Jacob crept cautiously within the rude brick porch, 
 and then up to the inner door itself, which was 
 open, a red cloth curtain being suspended across it. 
 There he remained peeping in round the sides of 
 the drapery, at the body of earnest worshippers within. 
 His motions were not long unobserved by the good 
 shepherd in the pulpit, ever on the watch for stray 
 sheep behind that curtain. 
 
 He indicated with a thumb and forefinger, held in a 
 manner well understood by a watchful sentinel beneath, 
 that a brand was to be snatched from the burning. The 
 devoted servant so telegraphed to proceeded cautiously, 
 and with the advantage of previous experience, to put his 
 pastor's behests into execution. Slipping quietly out 
 by a side door, he crept up carefully behind Jacob, 
 with whose personal appearance and name he was well 
 acquainted, and suddenly taking him in the rear, 
 placed a hand gently on his shoulder, and said in a low 
 voice, " Friend Jacob, come in and worship with us." 
 Thus accosted, Jacob had no time to think of excuse or 
 retreat, and ere he was well aware, found himself being 
 led by the arm up the central passage, and located
 
 94 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 between his captor and a young girl who immediately 
 placed at his service the half of the little thick hymn- 
 book from which she was reading. 
 
 Jacob glanced timidly upward, with the intention of 
 mildly looking his thanks, and encountered a pair of 
 dove-like eyes, which sent a thrill through him such 
 as he had never before experienced. He recognised at 
 a glance that the young girl beside him, whose fingers 
 were close to his on the cover of that little fat red book, 
 the lines of which swam vaguely before his eyes, had 
 the prettiest face he had ever looked on, and when her 
 lips opened immediately afterwards to continue the 
 hymn which his abrupt entrance had momentarily 
 suspended, his ears told him that her voice was the 
 sweetest to which they had ever listened. Jacob did 
 his best to attend to the long fervent extempore prayer 
 which succeeded the hymn, filled as it was with 
 strong imagery, of which the more zealous members 
 of the congregation signified their approval by loud 
 responsive ejaculations accompanied with severe bodily 
 contortions, which occasionally startled him by their 
 violence. He also tried to grasp the thread of the 
 very long sermon which followed, and in which he 
 thought the minister was intentionally " preaching at 
 him," when he spoke of " a lost sheep in the wilderness 
 whose parent was drinking of the waters of Marah in 
 all their bitterness afar off in the city of Babylon," — 
 evidently forgetting his Bible topography in regard to 
 the non-contiguity of the two places in his desire to 
 illustrate forcibly and indeed with some truth, his
 
 THE METHOD YS. 95 
 
 opinion of the actual state of Jacob's father, at that 
 period in London engaged in prosecuting his lawsuit. 
 
 Still in the present sweet company Jacob would have 
 willingly sat out ten sermons of the same length, and 
 endured besides the keen glances of the Methodists, 
 male and female, covertly shot at him from all sides, 
 to emphasize and give point to the broad hints of the 
 excited preacher over his head ; who, as he warmed 
 with his subject, smote the worn cloth cushion of the 
 pulpit with dangerous vehemence, scattering a cloud 
 of dust, and anon wiped the perspiration from his 
 heated brow with a large red cotton pocket-handker- 
 chief. Jacob consoled his chafing spirit by occasional 
 glances out of the corners of his eyes at the young 
 damsel beside him, whose attention was at present 
 totally absorbed in the homily poured forth, like water 
 on a dry and thirsty land, from the lips of the 
 Reverend Abel Slowman, " superintendent " of the 
 Dale Circuit; the word "superintendent" meaning 
 chiefly in his case that, as a married clergyman and a 
 middle-aged one, he had the supervision of a younger 
 and unmarried minister, who preached on alternate 
 .Sundays in the chapel. 
 
 When the sermon was ended — and it lasted a good 
 hour and a quarter, the quarter extra being given in 
 specially on Jacob's account — his attentive guardian, 
 who had captured him in the porch, did not lose sight 
 of him, but hospitably invited him to meet the preacher 
 and his colleague, and spend the remainder of the even- 
 ing with them at his cottage at the foot of the Dale.
 
 96 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 Jacob had been wondering in himself whether it 
 would be an improper thing to do, or likely to lead to 
 unpleasant consequences, if he were to venture to 
 follow the damsel afar off, even unto her entering in at 
 the gate of her house, in order that he might thence- 
 forth haunt the place until he should haply see her 
 issuing forth again. Now, here was a chance thrown 
 in his way, not to be refused even by so shy a young 
 fellow as Jacob was, although at present under a 
 cloud, and still suffering from the effects of the recent 
 exhortation ; and so he hastily stammered out his 
 thanks, and ere he had recovered his equanimity found 
 himself walking beside the daughter of the man 
 who had invited him, whom he recognised as John 
 Maltby, a thriving corn dealer and malster in the 
 Dale, having many barges of his own trading on the 
 river to and from Bristol. Mr. Maltby remained 
 behind to escort the minister, and entrusted Jacob to 
 his only daughter, Patty, then about seventeen years of 
 age, with whom he had recently shared the hymn- 
 book. 
 
 There had been money dealings for corn and freight 
 between Mr. Maltby and Jacob's father, of which the 
 latter had invariably spoken with satisfaction, and thus 
 the young man already knew something of his host. 
 
 After an interval of two or three minutes' silence, 
 in which Jacob and Patty Maltby had made some pro- 
 gress side by side from the chapel, the latter at 
 length cautiously broke the ice by an inquiry as to 
 Jacob's appreciation of the address they had both
 
 THE METHOD YS. 07 
 
 been so highly privileged in hearing from Mr. Slow- 
 man. 
 
 " I can't say," said Jacob, "that I listened with 
 much pleasure to the whole sermon ; for it appeared to 
 me that the man spake somewhat unkindly of one who 
 I -sent, though he named him not, and also that he 
 was over-excited about a matter of which he knows 
 little or nothing." 
 
 " Truly," said Patty, " it must have appeared so to 
 you, but I do not doubt he had your welfare at heart ; 
 he is a good man, and not intentionally unkind to 
 any one." 
 
 Here it niuSt be observed that Patty Maltby had 
 thought in her own mind that the exhortation was a 
 little too severe. Considering that the young man had 
 been invited into the chapel, it was rather hard for him 
 to hear his own father held up as an especially black 
 sheep to the congregation, and it had also occurred to 
 Patty that this was not exactly the best way to induce 
 him to come again. On this account she was more 
 friendly with Jacob than she might otherwise have been 
 on so short an acquaintance, in the hope of removing 
 from his mind his evident feeling of annoyance at the 
 very personal remarks of Mr. Slowman. 
 
 Jacob was pleased with her gentleness of manner 
 and the kind tone of her voice, and he wondered how 
 it was he had never before set eyes on this maiden in 
 Lauterdale — the fact being that she ,had been absent 
 for a considerable time at a favourite Wesley an school 
 in the north of England, where an education superior 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 to anything to be obtained at home bad been im- 
 parted to her, together with the careful religious 
 teaching for which these zealous people have been 
 justly celebrated. 
 
 " I liked the singing very much/' said Jacob, 
 desiring to change the subject ; " and," he continued, 
 plucking up courage at last to pay a compliment to 
 his companion, although he stammered and blushed to 
 the roots of his hair in doing so, " thy voice pleased 
 mine ear most of all." 
 
 " Our people praise God with a willing heart," said 
 Patty, dexterously avoiding the personal application of 
 the compliment. " We have a class for the practice of 
 sacred music once a week, conducted by our younger 
 minister, Mr. Clayton " — here a faint tinge of colour 
 suffused the full cheeks and clear skin of Patty ; as 
 she remembered that people joked about Mr. Clayton 
 as an admirer of hers, and she thought she had need- 
 lessly mentioned his name to a stranger. " Probably," 
 she added, " you may see him this evening at my 
 father's house ; he has a good voice and an ear for 
 harmony." 
 
 " Do you like music, Mr. Grimshaw?" she inquired, 
 peering up cautiously from under her straw bonnet at 
 the tall dark- eyed youth who strode beside her, and 
 inwardly drawing comparisons in her own mind 
 between him and the young minister alluded to, who 
 was small of stature, and otherwise a poor specimen of 
 physical development. 
 
 " I fear I have never heard anything worth listen-
 
 THE METHOD YS. 99 
 
 ing to until this evening," said Jacob, returning to 
 the complimentary tone, but not in so point-blank a 
 manner as before. 
 
 " You will probably hear more at my father's house 
 this evening," said Patty, "and you may join with us 
 in singing if you wish to do so ; our tunes are readily 
 caught by ear ; but if you wish to learn a little from 
 notes, I am sure Mr. Clayton would gladly admit you 
 to his classes. We meet on "Wednesday evening at 
 the chapel class-rooms, which are not far from your 
 father's house." 
 
 "I think it likely you have a good voice," she 
 added, venturing to repay Jacob's complimentary 
 speech in kind, but judging solely from what little 
 she had heard him speak, as he had not joined in the 
 singing at the chapel that evening. 
 
 "I have never sung a note," said Jacob. "The 
 Friends do not cultivate psalmody, and I have never 
 before entered any other place of worship than 
 theirs." 
 
 "But now I hope we shall see you often," said 
 Patty. " I have heard that your father has left the 
 Society of Friends. No doubt they worship Grod in 
 spirit and in truth ; but to me it has always ap- 
 peared a cold and chilling worship. Did it not 
 appear so to you ? " 
 
 Jacob paused for a while to think the question over, 
 and then said seriously, " I have not thought of the 
 subject sufficiently to answer thee just now, but I will 
 attend thy chapel for a season," — he wished to add,
 
 100 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 solely because his fair listener asked him to do so ; but 
 he feared the actual reason for his ready compliance 
 would not please her if stated openly, and he particu- 
 larly desired to please her if he could. 
 
 Patty looked up with a smile, which Jacob dreamt of 
 for the next week, and said quickly, as she placed her 
 hand on the latch of a neat little wicket leading into a 
 garden, "Kemember, I shall expect to see you next 
 Sabbath in our seat. This is my father's house, and 
 thou art welcome ;" she had involuntarily fallen into 
 the manner of speech of her companion, in her pleasure 
 at the idea of seeing the stray sheep regularly attending 
 chapel. 
 
 She tripped lightly np the footpath which wound in 
 and out amidst shrubs and rose-trees to the cottage door, 
 and opened it by simply raising a latch. There were 
 no burglars or thieves in the Dale in those days, and 
 people never dreamt of locking up their houses during 
 temporary absence on Sunday evenings. 
 
 The two servant-girls who lived in the house were 
 Wesleyans also, and regularly attended the chapel 
 morning and evening, with their master and his 
 family, and had followed closely on Patty's footsteps 
 homeward, and now both appeared at the garden-gate ; 
 These girls had enlivened the way home at first with 
 serious converse on the stirring sermon they had 
 heard from Mr. Slowman, and its special application 
 to Jacob's father, and wondered how young Miss Patty 
 would " take up " so suddenly with the son of such a 
 reprobate as they had heard spoken of as then on bad
 
 THE METHOD YS. 101 
 
 intents at Babylon, which was in their opinion, without 
 doubt, literally true, as they knew the place was 
 mentioned in the Old Testament, and must exist some- 
 where, for evil-disposed people like the old miller to 
 frequent. 
 
 As their distance increased from the chapel, the 
 effect of Mr. Slowman's exordium grew fainter, until 
 they finally fell on a discussion as to the ages and 
 heights of the young couple walking before them, 
 ending in an argument as to the relative personal 
 merits of Jacob and the Rev. Silas Clayton ; upon 
 which they ultimately found a verdict favourable to 
 Jacob, who was at least a head taller than the young 
 minister, not to speak of other advantages in good looks 
 and breadth of shoulders. The conversation then lapsed 
 into the worldly strain of Jacob's chance of inheriting 
 the mill, as the only son and heir of the man at 
 Babylon, and of young Miss Patty having " a pretty 
 penny" as the sole daughter of the well-to-do maltster ; 
 and finally the two girls concluded in their own 
 minds that no doubt it would shortly be a match, and 
 a very good one ; and even got so far as to calculate on 
 the number of months which would be requisite before 
 the correct " company keeping " would be over ; a 
 subject on which they differed in opinion, — the elder 
 girl, who had been already disappointed twice by fickle 
 swains, considering six weeks quite long enough "if 
 people only knew their own minds ; " the younger, 
 who had only recently got a sweetheart, pleading for 
 at least as many months. From this the discussion
 
 102 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 shifted to the theological difficulty of celebrating 
 marriage between a Quaker and a Wesleyan, involving 
 doubts as to the validity of Quakers' marriages in 
 general, and the hope that Miss Patty would bring him 
 over to the chapel altogether, in which her chances of 
 success as against the efforts of Mr. Slowman and his 
 colleague were " all to nothing," in their opinion. 
 
 The subject of the dresses they would wear at the 
 wedding was next exhaustively handled, and would no 
 doubt have given the girls full occupation for the next 
 hour, had not their walk and conversation come to an 
 end at the same moment at the garden- gate, where they 
 beheld the cause of all their castle-building standing, 
 six feet in his shoes, before them on the path, backed 
 by the pretty figure of their young mistress, who was 
 waiting discreetly for their advent before she entered 
 the cottage with a stranger.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PREACHER. 
 
 " See yonder preacher to his people pass ! 
 Borne up and swell' d by tabernacle gas ; 
 Much he discourses and of various points, 
 All unconnected — void of limbs and joints ; 
 He rails, persuades, explains, and moves the will 
 By fierce bold words, and strong mechanic skill." 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 TT is wonderful how the thoughts of young women, 
 coming from chapel on summer evenings, run upon 
 marrying and giving in marriage. 
 
 It may he that their hearts turn to all good things 
 as a matter of course, after the profitable exhortations 
 delivered to them by their spiritual pastors and mas- 
 ters. Marriages are said to be made in heaven, and 
 notwithstanding the ill success of some of the matri- 
 monial unions in this lower world, and the existence of 
 a Divorce Court in active operation, with a constant 
 arrear of business, it is to be hoped the exceptions only 
 prove the rule. 
 
 The two girls who worked out the great problem of 
 the lives of Jacob Grimshaw and Patty Maltby on that 
 summer Sunday evening's walk, were, after all, only
 
 104 LATJTEEDALE. 
 
 acting on conclusions derived from past experience, 
 stimulated by secret sympathy on their own parts, and 
 were but representatives of fifty other womenfolk, who 
 took in at a glance the beginning and end of the earnest 
 conversation between the two young people, who were 
 themselves utterly unconscious of the kindly interest 
 they excited in the bosoms of the female Methodists. 
 
 Truly the star of the Rev. Silas Clayton was not in 
 the ascendant that evening, and his tuning fork, with 
 which he carefully pitched his voice ere he led off his 
 favourite " six lines eights," ought to have been a 
 divining instrument, and warned him there was an 
 enemy in the camp. I fear the lively interest taken 
 by Patty Maltby in the salvation of this all but lost 
 sheep, left alone amongst ravenous wolves, whilst his 
 erring parent was absent in that dreadful Babylon, 
 and the extra number of inches in height which Pro- 
 vidence has bestowed upon Jacob, added to his dark 
 curling hair and brown eyes, as contrasted with the 
 straight yellow locks and grey cat-like orbs of the 
 youthful pastor, will prove too many for poor Silas, 
 who had hitherto made the most of his opportunities, 
 in season and out of season, especially at those Wed- 
 nesday evening music lessons, whereat, under his 
 tuition, Patty played the new harmonium which had 
 ■ been covertly smuggled into the largest class-room of 
 the chapel, and which the zealous minister hoped some 
 day to introduce into the end gallery itself, with the 
 view to improving the singing of the congregation. 
 
 Unfortunately there were serious objections to the
 
 THE PREACHER. 105 
 
 instrument on the part of his superintendent Mr. 
 Slowman, who thought it a dangerous innovation, and 
 decided opposition from some of the "class leaders," 
 who announced their intention, on hearing the first 
 note from its keyboard, " there and then to lift their 
 cushions and quit." 
 
 As the two girls passed Patty standing by the door- 
 step, she quietly gave them some instructions as to the 
 evening meal, called a " good tea " amongst the Dale 
 folk, with which the souls and bodies of the ministers 
 and of her father and his guest were to be refreshed 
 immediately, and then she proceeded to show Jacob 
 the beauties of the garden. The front of the cottage 
 was covered with climbing roses, and there were many 
 beautiful standard specimens amongst the walks. 
 Jacob admired and praised everything, but saw only 
 the little graceful figure flitting to and fro amongst 
 the flowers, and heard only the sweet tones of her 
 voice. What she said he could not well remember, and 
 did not clearly understand ; but he felt like a man in 
 a pleasant dream, and answered mechanically. Patty 
 feared the sermon had been too much for him, and 
 attributed his absent manner to the emotion or anxiety 
 she thought it had naturally excited in him on his 
 father's account. 
 
 At this moment they heard the footsteps and voices 
 of the " preacher " and her father approaching the 
 house, and in the next instant they appeared at the 
 garden-gate, to which Patty ran to meet them. Mr. 
 Maltby playfully chucked his daughter under the chin,
 
 106 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 and made some pleasant allusion to the speed with 
 which she had carried off Jacob ; the minister took her 
 little white hand between his broad palms in an assumed 
 impressive manner, and said with mock solemnity, 
 " What have you done with the stray lamb, Patty? have 
 you prepared him for our supper with mint sauce ? " 
 
 Patty was used to the pleasantries of Mr. Slow- 
 man, who was never so cheerful as immediately after he 
 had preached his most melancholy warning sermons. 
 Jacob overheard the lively observations of the two 
 men, and the light manner of the minister, of whom 
 he was previously somewhat in awe, jarred on his 
 excited frame of mind, and impressed him unfavour- 
 ably. They caught sight of him as they came up the 
 winding footpath, and both approached and shook 
 hands in a friendly manner. Mr. Maltby bade him 
 heartily welcome to his cottage, the minister likewise 
 to his chapel, and hoped he should see him there often ; 
 whilst Patty ran into the house to get rid of her bonnet, 
 and to hasten the movements of her gossiping hand- 
 maidens within, leaving the young man to the care of 
 the two men outside. Jacob had an instinctive dread 
 of a renewal of the subject lately discoursed from the 
 chapel pulpit, but soon discovered that the Eev. Abel 
 Slowman, in the garden of his friend, was a very different 
 man from the excited preacher of half an hour since. 
 Now he beamed all over with smiles, and inquired 
 kindly after Jacob's father, whom he had a little 
 while ago represented as so black a sheep, condemned 
 to drink those unpleasant waters of Marah. He never
 
 THE PREACHER. 107 
 
 once alluded to the lawsuit, and was altogether so 
 pleasant that Jacob began to doubt his ears, and to 
 wonder whether he had not been in error in hastily 
 adopting a personal application of the strongest pas- 
 sages in that dreadful sermon. John Maltby knew 
 better, and expected fully that Mr. Slowman would 
 be in the other line of business again before they 
 separated, and that poor Jacob would hear more 
 of the delinquencies of his parent from the mild- 
 looking man now delicately regaling his nostrils with 
 a moss-rose. 
 
 In a little while Patty appeared again, divested of 
 her bonnet, and clad in a pretty white dress. She 
 tripped lightly up to her father, and bade them all 
 come in to tea. 
 
 Mr. Maltby asked if the junior minister had 
 arrived. 
 
 Silas Clayton was expected to join the party after 
 his ministrations at the other chapel higher up the 
 Dale, and Patty answered shyly that no doubt he 
 would be there directly, as it was later than usual. 
 
 John Maltby wound his strong arm round his 
 daughter's slender waist, and lifted her playfully over 
 the door-step, and then he turned to Jacob, and bade 
 him come in. 
 
 They entered the parlour of the cottage, which 
 looked out on the garden at the other side, and had 
 deep casement windows, which were open. Jacob 
 recognised at once an air of comfort and even luxury 
 in the apartment, in contrast with the bare walls and
 
 108 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 « 
 uncarpeted floors of his father's house. Not the 
 
 cottage subsequently built, and already described, but 
 
 an older residence a little nearer to the mill, in which 
 
 he resided in those days. On the walls were hung 
 
 several good engravings, one of which particularly 
 
 struck Jacob, being a plate representing the infant 
 
 John Wesley saved from the flames of a burning 
 
 house by a man on a ladder. 
 
 There were also represented striking events in the 
 lives of the earlier ministers, Charles Wesley, Whit- 
 field, and others, who, like Saint Paul, appeared to have 
 been " in perils oft ; " and there was a wonderful sheet 
 of portraits comprising all the eminent men of the sect, 
 from the time of their great founder down to a recent 
 period, arranged in radiating lines around the quaint 
 central bust of the pious little Oxford divine who first 
 unintentionally raised their banner of Dissent. Mr. 
 Slowman extended his index finger towards this 
 engraving, which was inscribed " Worthies of Wes- 
 ley anism," and turning to Jacob, said — 
 
 " Wonderful men, sir — the salt of the earth. When 
 shall we look upon their like again ? — not, forsooth, in 
 these degenerate days, when the rules and practice of 
 our society are being sadly relaxed, and our faith is 
 waxing cold. That was a great event, sir," he con- 
 tinued, pointing to the engraving depicting the rescue 
 of the infant Wesley ; " the prince of the power of the 
 air did his worst there, sir, but could not prevail. 
 Where would religion have been in this country, sir, 
 had it been otherwise ? "
 
 THE PREACHER. 109 
 
 Mr. Slowman was warming up to eloquence, but was 
 suddenly interrupted. 
 
 " Do you take sugar in your tea, Mr. Grrimshaw ? " 
 said Patty, now seated at the table, and anxious to 
 create a diversion, to protect Jacob from a second 
 sermon out of chapel. 
 
 Jacob was glad of her intervention, as it saved him 
 from the necessity of answering Mr. Slowman's queries, 
 which he imagined it was necessary to do, although 
 that eloquent man, once he got a fair start and a good 
 listener, would have run on in the interrogative form 
 for an hour without expecting a reply. 
 
 Now that the minister was suddenly pulled up by 
 Patty, he fell naturally into his lighter vein, and 
 seated himself by the young lady at the tea-table. 
 
 " I am sure Mr. Grrimshaw will not want anything 
 to sweeten his tea from your hands, Miss Patty,'/ he 
 said gaily. 
 
 Jacob answered for himself, on the contrary, that he 
 wished for " two lumps," and Patty handed him his tea 
 sweetened in accordance with his request, without 
 noticing Mr. Slowman's old-fashioned compliment. 
 She helped that worthy man next, and made no useless 
 inquiries as to his taste. She knew from long expe- 
 rience that he liked an abundance of sugar, and of all 
 other good things, whenever he could get them, which 
 was not very often. John Maltby added the quantity 
 he desired for himself, and looked across the table at 
 his friend in an expectant manner. The minister, who 
 had been so dexterously interrupted by Patty, im-
 
 110 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 mediately remembered lie had not said grace, and, 
 springing to his feet, poured forth a long benediction 
 orer the heads of the party, the length being specially 
 increased as an atonement for his previous forget- 
 fulness. 
 
 Patty was beginning to have fears for the vanishing 
 heat of the tea, and to repent of her manoeuvre, when 
 one of her maids appeared to the rescue with a covered 
 dish of beefsteaks in one hand, and of broiled ham and 
 poached eggs in the other. The girl stopped when 
 she entered the room, and remained reverently 
 listening. 
 
 Now, Mr. Slowman was not so absorbed in his devo- 
 tional exercises but that his eye could rest with affec- 
 tionate expectation on those two cover-dishes. He had 
 breakfasted early and scantily enough at home in the 
 morning, and had tasted but little since ; he had been 
 preaching and singing and praying for eight or ten 
 hours ; he was accustomed to take a good deal of 
 violent exercise in the pulpit, hitting out hard right 
 and left when denouncing the unhappy reprobates 
 whose turn it was to be so dealt with as a warning 
 to others ; occasionally soaring aloft on tiptoe with up- 
 raised hands, when leading his flock in the spirit to 
 their final resting place above, or hanging perilously 
 over the edge of the pulpit with his right hand pointing 
 downwards to the other place, which he so often 
 declared would be the eternal abode of such as repented 
 them not ; and on this afternoon, as we have seen, he 
 had exceeded a little on Jacob's account, and was more
 
 THE PREACHER. Ill 
 
 than usually exhausted — therefore he suddenly termi- 
 nated the grace, and turned with alacrity to the eatables, 
 to which he was assisted by Mr. Maltby. 
 
 Jacob Grimshaw addressed himself to the task of 
 helping Patty, who diligently kept up the supply of 
 tea, and then for twenty minutes the pleasant rattle of 
 knives and forks accompanied the genial conversation 
 led by the host and Mr. Slowman. 
 
 The latter was now in his happiest vein. He told 
 some amusing anecdotes of members of his flock, and 
 handled their peculiarities with broad humour ; he 
 joked with Patty about the extra liberty she enjoyed 
 during her mother's absence from home, and slyly 
 hoped she would make a good use of it ; and having 
 made considerable havoc amongst the beefsteaks, as 
 the more solid foundation of his meal, was inwardly 
 debating with himself the wisdom of entering on the 
 lighter subject of ham and eggs, when his quick ear 
 detected the footsteps of his colleague on the doorstep.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SILAS CLAYTON. 
 
 " Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power 
 By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ; 
 Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, 
 More hent to raise the wretched than to rise." 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 HPHE Rev. Silas Clayton, like one who was borne 
 dead on a bier and raised to life again in a city 
 called Nain over eighteen hundred years ago, "was 
 the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." 
 
 His father had died when he was very young, but 
 this loss had been compensated for by the unusual 
 devotion and care of his remaining parent, who, though 
 in narrow circumstances, had pinched and saved, and 
 watched and prayed, in order that he might be educated 
 and devoted to the Wesleyan ministry, of which per- 
 suasion she had been all her life a consistent member. 
 He had endeavoured to repay her care and self-denial 
 by striving earnestly to accomplish the end she had in 
 view, and after an inexpensive but sound English 
 education in a country town, had " taken his Divinity 
 lectures" under one of the leading lights of the denomi-
 
 SILAS CLAYTON. 113 
 
 nation, and then entered heart and soul upon the duties 
 of his calling. He was not gifted with great mental 
 abilities, and his physical appearance was somewhat 
 against him ; but in fervent zeal and earnest hard-work- 
 ing efforts for the spiritual good of those committed to his 
 charge, he had but few equals amongst the brethren. 
 
 The itinerant system adopted by the founders of 
 the Wesleyan Church, and still scrupulously adhered 
 to, is no doubt beneficial to the younger ministers, as 
 it gives them enlarged experiences of life, and brings 
 them into contact with fresh and varying influences 
 during successive changes from one circuit to another. 
 
 The nominal rule was, that the ministry should 
 change in each circuit annually, but in practice it is 
 extended to a three years' system. The additional 
 expense and the particular discomfort entailed on the 
 married ministers by constant changes of residence is 
 a serious evil, and one calling loudly for reform ; but of 
 all the forms of Dissent in existence, Wesley anism is 
 the most tenacious of its customs and practices. 
 
 The Lauterdale Circuit was a scattered one, and in- 
 volved considerable locomotion on the part of the 
 ministers. It was the first on which Silas Clayton had 
 been engaged, and he was much beloved by the local 
 Society ; he had now spent a year amongst them under 
 the charge of Mr. Slowman, and the leaders had duly 
 petitioned the Conference in order that both their 
 shepherds might remain for the second and third years. 
 
 They were provided with one indifferent horse to aid 
 them both in their journey ings, but the Rev. Abel 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 Slowman being addicted to reading in the saddle, had 
 let him down so often, that it was perilous any longer 
 to venture on his back ; consequently the younger 
 minister generally preferred to walk. There were 
 scoffers even in the Dale who stated that the brute had 
 acquired from his masters a constant habit of falling on 
 his knees to pray; and certainly the knees of the 
 animal and those of the trousers of his riders had a 
 common point of resemblance in a whitish colour there- 
 abouts, which was evidence of much contact with the 
 ground on the part of all three. 
 
 It was on account of this weakness of the Society's 
 steed that Mr. Clayton had to depend on his own legs 
 for his movements on the Sunday evening referred to 
 in the last chapter ; he had preached three sermons in 
 three different places, and as some of the faithful would 
 persist in following him about from one place of worship 
 to another, he was thereby prohibited from repeating 
 the same sermon twice over. He had also held several 
 " prayer meetings " and met several " classes" — a term 
 used when the members of the Society assemble together 
 to narrate their " experience," receiving little printed 
 tickets from the class leaders, testifying that they have 
 duly attended, and have paid a penny a week as " class 
 money," which, taken together, constitute the test of 
 " membership." On this Sunday all the outlying duty 
 had fallen to his share, and he had walked over a good 
 deal of ground on very slight sustentation. It was, 
 therefore, with a feeling of relief that he turned his face 
 in the direction of Mr. Maltby's cottage, at the close of
 
 SILAS CLAYTOX. 115 
 
 his labours, in pleasant anticipation of the substantial 
 'repast he knew to be invariably provided in that 
 hospitable abode, but in the still warmer hope of feast- 
 ing his eyes on the features of John Maltby's pretty 
 daughter. On this occasion his route lay over a steep 
 hill, at the foot of which some brick works were in 
 operation. The brickmakers engaged therein were a 
 reckless, ignorant lot of men and women, and were 
 looked upon as heathens or worse by the Dale people. 
 
 The young minister had gone amongst them and 
 tried to induce them to come to chapel, or at least to 
 listen to his exhortations at their homes. 
 
 In reply, they had asked him for " the price of a pot 
 of beer all round,' ' and finding him obdurate in re- 
 fusal, and indeed unable to comply, owing to the slender 
 state of his finances, even if he had been inclined to do 
 so, they had jeered at him and driven him forth from 
 their neighbourhood, threatening to send brickbats at 
 his head if he came again. 
 
 He had knelt down then and there on the hillside, 
 and prayed earnestly for them, " that this sin might 
 not be laid to their charge," and determined he would 
 visit them again when next in that part of the country, 
 hoping that in the meantime their hearts might be 
 changed ; and although on the present occasion he was 
 very hungry and tired, and feared he would be late for 
 the pleasant evening meal at Mr. Maltby's, he felt that 
 he could not now pass by without fulfilling his duty to 
 his Master. Therefore, he approached the camping 
 ground of the enemy once more, having some fear of
 
 116 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 the threatened brickbats before bis eyes, but prepared 
 to do bis best, and to face tbe worst. 
 
 As be drew near to tbe place, be observed a number 
 of boys, tbe sons of tbe workmen and workwomen, — wbo 
 were seldom or ever lawfully married, and were often 
 difficult to distinguish as to sex, by dress or appearance 
 or language, — engaged in their favourite pastime of 
 " chuck- far thing/ ' in which occupation they spent their 
 Sunday holiday, whenever the more interesting amuse- 
 ment of a " dog-fight' ' or a "main of cocks" was not on 
 hand. He thought these lads were specially separated 
 from their more hardened parents and placed in his 
 road in order that he might do them good, and calling 
 them around him, immediately pulled out his Testament 
 and read them a chapter, to which they appeared to 
 listen attentively, being astonished for the moment at 
 the novelty of the proceeding, and in the expectation 
 that some "conjuring" or possibly a distribution of 
 halfpence would result. 
 
 When this was ended, he sang a hymn, first pitching 
 his voice as usual with bis inseparable tuning fork, 
 which proceeding struck them as the beginning of the 
 " conjuring," and brought them all crowding round 
 about him. 
 
 This performance concluded, he told them he would 
 soon come again, and then prepared to go his way re- 
 joicing. One of the biggest and dirtiest of the lads 
 here stepped forward and rudely demanded " coppers," 
 but being made to understand with difficulty that Mr. 
 Clayton's gifts were spiritual and not carnal, inquired
 
 SILAS CLAYTOX. 117 
 
 of him with seeming earnestness whether he was bound 
 for the Dale or not ? On receiving an affirmative reply, 
 the lad turned round to his companions and made a 
 hideous grimace, to which they replied by closing an eye 
 apiece. He then undertook to show the wearied gentle- 
 man a short cut, which he stated " 'ud saave a good 
 two miles." Silas Clayton had always suspected there 
 must be some other better path than that steep rough 
 way over the hills which he had followed heretofore, and 
 he readily accepted the proffered guidance of the boy 
 with gratitude, as undoubted evidence of his having made 
 some impression on these rough lads in his first effort. 
 The urchin made strange motions behind his back with 
 his thumbs, which were quickly understood by the dirty 
 imps behind him, who allowed the young minister and 
 his guide to proceed alone by the newly-discovered 
 footpath which apparently led round the base of the 
 hill. When they had travelled some distance, the boy 
 intimated that if the gentleman continued right on in 
 the track before him, he would soon come out close to 
 his destination, and was rewarded for his assistance 
 and advice with a penny and some good words ; after 
 which he flew back like the wind to his companions, 
 and resumed with them the pastime in which they had 
 been interrupted. 
 
 Poor Silas toiled on for a full hour in the same 
 path, which was a muddy one, without any satisfac- 
 tory result, seeing no appearance of the Dale, or of 
 his expectant friend's cottage ; and yet there had 
 been no chance of error on his part — he had seen no
 
 118 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 other path leading out of this one since the boy 
 departed. At length he discovered by the position of 
 the sinking sun that his progress was away from his 
 destination instead of towards it, and in a few minutes 
 he came again upon the spot on which he had read 
 and sang to the young brickmakers, and beheld that 
 juvenile community still engaged in their speculative 
 operations, in which his penny had changed many 
 times from one dirty pair of hands to another. 
 
 They received him with a shout and a kind of war 
 dance, his quondam guide screaming above the others 
 his congratulations on his safe circuit of the hill, 
 the young vagabond having intentionally set him on a 
 wrong path, as an extra amusement for his fellows and 
 in revenge for supposed stinginess. 
 
 Silas perceived that he had been wilfully deceived, 
 and proceeded with a sad heart and weary limbs on his 
 original route, his faith in human nature, and especially 
 in the nature of brickmakers, considerably shaken. 
 
 It was thus, dejected and weary, travel- stained and 
 hungry, that he entered the cottage of Mr. Maltby, 
 just in time for the last of the beefsteaks and other 
 good things there provided, but with an overdue appetite, 
 and a sense of depression to which his pale countenance 
 bore evidence. 
 
 On the present occasion it has been noticed that Mrs. 
 Maltby was not present at the entertainment ; she had 
 recently gone to Oxford to administer motherly counsel 
 to her only son, Edward, who had creditably passed 
 from an excellent public school to a college in the great 
 centre of learning.
 
 SILAS CLAYTON. 119 
 
 She had reluctantly consented to this course at his 
 urgent request, with many misgivings and after much 
 earnest, anxious prayer for guidance, having ever before 
 her mind the picture of Oxford as it was in the days of 
 the great founder of the Society, whose teaching and 
 doctrines she loved, and who she believed had been 
 much persecuted by the unrighteous Oxonians. 
 
 John Maltby had made no opposition whatever ; on 
 the contrary, he rather favoured the proposal, and 
 readily supplied the requisite funds. The welfare of his 
 son and daughter was naturally very dear to him, and 
 the thing he had most at heart in this world next to his 
 love for his wife. 
 
 He had received but a limited education himself, and 
 felt the disadvantage all his life ; he therefore deter- 
 mined that his children should have all the advantages 
 in that line which money could give them, and he had 
 sufficient reliance on his son's character to trust him 
 with confidence even to a worse place than Oxford was 
 then reputed to be amongst Dissenters. 
 
 He also relied much on the advice of the learned man 
 in whose charge he had first placed the youth, who spoke 
 of him in terms of praise, and strongly urged that he 
 should be allowed to take his degree. 
 
 John Maltby was a consistent Wesleyan. He gave 
 cheerfully and liberally of his means to the cause, and 
 was none the poorer in consequence ; he was a regular 
 attendant at chapel and at class meeting, where his 
 happy, thankful spirit cheered many a desponding 
 brother; his house was always open to receive the
 
 120 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 ministers, and many good things found their way from 
 his well- stocked larder to the scantily supplied shelves 
 of Mrs. Slowman, up at Lawley ; but he was neither 
 narrow-minded nor bigoted, and was ready to admit that 
 good things could come out of Oxford as well as from 
 other places. Indeed, when in strange cities on his 
 business journeys, he generally went to the Established 
 Church, or sat humbly under the minister of any other 
 Protestant community of whom he heard a good report, 
 and enjoyed the services equally well whether they 
 were conducted by men in surplices and bands or by 
 individuals clad in plain black cloth. 
 
 His Bible was his rule of faith, and he knew it 
 almost by heart from cover to cover, but he never 
 travelled without a Prayer Book, and was willing to 
 admit all that could be demanded of him by the 
 stoutest Churchman regarding that wonderful com- 
 position, always excepting the Athanasian Creed, which 
 he invariably tore out. 
 
 With all this, he was spoken of in the Society as 
 " rather lax," and he had been taken to task by a 
 deputation from the leaders' meeting, and preached at 
 by his friend and guest, Mr. Slowman, as to that going 
 up to Oxford of his son. The preacher had taken for 
 his text on that occasion, "Come out from among them 
 and be ye separate," and had alluded strongly to touch- 
 ing pitch and other defilements, and also to the mis- 
 fortunes and death of Eli, at which Mrs. Maltby had 
 been much affected, and had sniffed and sobbed audibly 
 before the congregation. Nevertheless, Edward Maltby
 
 SILAS CLAYTON. 121 
 
 had gone to Magdalene College at his father's expense, 
 and with his consent and blessing. 
 
 Good accounts had come of the young man from the 
 dons and magnates of that venerable institution, and 
 especially from his tutor. He had taken a prize for an 
 essay, and passed his " little go" with credit, and when 
 he returned to the paternal abode in the vacation he 
 was cheerful and happy, although somewhat pale and 
 thin ; but it was noticed that he shrugged his shoulders 
 at one of Mr. Slowman's finest passages as he sat in the 
 family seat at chapel. It was also observed that he had 
 twice excused himself from attendance on some slight 
 plea, when that good man had specially prepared a 
 sermon intended for his warning and edification ; and, 
 alas ! he had been seen on the same Sunday entering 
 the ivy- covered porch of the church at Lawley by one 
 of Mr. Slowman's sharp-eyed daughters, left at home to 
 mind the baby. 
 
 On the whole, the Society at Lauterdale shook its 
 head about Edward Maltby's college education, and 
 said, " no good would come of it ;" but so long as his 
 father subscribed so largely to the chapel funds, and 
 was so liberal in gifts and hospitality to the ministers, 
 it was deemed best to shut the Society's eyes to the 
 evident " falling away." 
 
 Now, there was one man who would neither shut his 
 eyes nor hold his peace, but who had decided to lift up 
 his testimony against it, and that man was Silas Clayton. 
 He had gravely consulted his superintendent on the 
 subject, as a matter of duty, and had been affectionately
 
 122 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 counselled to stay his hand. Mr. Slowman did not and 
 could not approve of the matter, but he counselled 
 prayer and supplication alone on behalf of the young 
 man in danger. Silas wrestled much in prayer on his 
 account, but his heart was hot within him, and he could 
 not refrain any longer. 
 
 His very love for Patty added fuel to the fire that con- 
 sumed him ; he could not rest day or night whilst her 
 brother, whom he hoped one day would be his brother 
 also, remained unconverted and a " dweller in the city 
 of the plain •" that was to say, in Oxford, whose teach- 
 ing his soul abhorred, and thus he had at length run 
 into collision with Edward Maltby, and had come off 
 second-best in the encounter. 
 
 The young Oxford student could remain silent when 
 he pleased, and could keep his temper in controversy, 
 but Silas could do neither one nor the other. The 
 former had a cool head, and perhaps a somewhat 
 cold heart ; the latter was on flame both in head 
 and heart at once. Edward Maltby was already a 
 trained and skilful logician, cunning at fence and apt 
 at laying pitfalls for his adversary ; Silas Clayton 
 despised all reasoning in the face of revelation, and 
 did not know when his arguments were reduced to 
 absurdities. 
 
 The little polemical duel was fought out before the 
 other members of the family one Sunday evening after a 
 " good tea," of which the Oxford student, who was rather 
 ascetic in diet, scarcely partook at all. On that occa- 
 sion Mrs. Maltby was borne away by the fiery eloquence
 
 SILAS CLAYTON. 123 
 
 of the young minister, and his ready, fluent quotations 
 from the only book he believed in or cared for ; her 
 husband, on the other hand, took pride and pleasure 
 in the skill and casuistry of his son, even when he 
 could not conscientiously agree with him ; and as for 
 the son himself, he came to the hasty conclusion that 
 Silas Clayton was a hot-brained, shallow zealot, in 
 which he did the young man much injustice. Zealous 
 he was no doubt, but he was by no means shallow, and 
 had in him the rare stuff of which saints and martyrs 
 are made. 
 
 As for Patty, she loved them both pretty much in 
 the same way, and tried to bridge over the chasm with 
 the olive branches of peace ; but however well she suc- 
 ceeded with Mr. Clayton, who would have gone barefoot 
 to Jerusalem in her service, and could not bear malice 
 in the slightest degree, and who really had his opponent's 
 welfare at heart, she found her brother's opinion of 
 Silas grew worse instead of better, and therefore she 
 quietly dropped the subject. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby deeply reverenced, if she did not abso- 
 lutely worship, the young minister ; she believed that 
 all he had said of that dreadful Oxford was gospel, or 
 next to it, and that misfortune would come of the place 
 sooner or later. Her dearest wish was, that her 
 son should grow up such an one as Silas Clayton, and 
 become a bright and shining light in the ministry of 
 the Wesleyan Church, outside which she scarcely 
 believed any one could be saved. 
 
 Her son so far agreed with her as to decide on adopt-
 
 124 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 ing the profession of a clergyman, but privately deter- 
 mined that lie would fight under the banner of the 
 Establishment ; but for some time he wisely kept that 
 resolution to himself, on the principle that " sufficient 
 unto the day is the evil thereof." At length, however, 
 he wrote her a letter from Oxford announcing his 
 intention, which she secretly wept over, and then carried 
 into her closet, and spread out, like Hezekiah, before 
 the Lord. Afterwards, in silence, she had taken her 
 departure from Lauterdale to see the writer face to 
 face.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE PERKS FAMILY. 
 
 " This is the ancient stock by "Wesley led — 
 They the pure body, he the reverend head ; 
 All innovation they with dread decline ; 
 Their John the elder was the John divine : 
 Hence — still their moving prayer, the melting hymn, 
 The varied accent, and the active limb." 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 TT was on account of the absence of her mother at 
 Oxford that Patty Maltby presided at the tea-table, 
 and did the honours so gracefully on the occasion 
 referred to in the last chapter. The conversation had 
 been light and cheerful during the meal. Mr. Slow- 
 man was actually brilliant as he imbibed his fourth cup 
 of tea when his tired and dejected junior made his 
 appearance. Somehow, his advent acted as a damper 
 on the rising spirits of the party. He was unusually 
 silent and unusually late, and he looked very wearied 
 and unhappy. Hitherto Silas Clayton had generally 
 contrived on Sunday evenings to be the first to reach 
 Rose Cottage, which was the name of Mr. Maltby 's 
 pretty residence, and was rewarded for his extra 
 punctuality by a nice half hour with Patty alone in
 
 126 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 the garden, in which he had what our American 
 cousins call " a good time.'' 
 
 They discoursed on those occasions on the practica- 
 bility of improving the singing at the chapel, and 
 of the difficulty experienced with one Perks, who, 
 although a pious young man and devoted to the cause, 
 had a voice which much resembled the lowing of a 
 cow in distress ; also of the still greater difficulty 
 existing with Mrs. Perks, whom Perks had married 
 chiefly on account of his admiration for her musical 
 acquirements, and who had a habit of " scooping up " 
 at the end of verses, and invariably sang dreadfully out 
 of tune ; further of the utter hopelessness of reforming 
 Miss Perks, the unmarried sister of the aforesaid, aged 
 twenty-six and upwards, who used " grace notes and 
 twirls," and whose shrill pipe was always distinctly 
 heard throughout the chapel when every other voice 
 was taking "three bars rest;" or, as Patty very 
 correctly described it, " Miss Perks was unfortunately 
 addicted to skirling." Patty had been taught to play 
 the piano, and to sing from music, and she had a sweet 
 clear voice, and good taste in using it. Her father had 
 recently purchased for her a good instrument, at that 
 time an expensive luxury, and one rarely seen in the 
 houses of strict Wesleyans. 
 
 Silas Clayton was an enthusiast about sacred music. 
 Thus between the two young persons there was a com- 
 mon subject of interest; but Mr. Slowman had set his 
 face against all innovations in this line, and condemned 
 the harmonium presented to the chapel by Mr. Maltby
 
 THE PERKS EAMILY. 127 
 
 to remain in the chilling privacy of the large class- 
 room, where it was used in the " musical exercises " to 
 which Patty had invited Jacob Grimshaw. Now, in 
 order to subdue the exuberant melody of the Perks 
 family, and if possible to mitigate their peculiarities, 
 Patty had induced her mother to invite them, with 
 other neighbours who were members of the society, to 
 join the Sabbath evening reunions at Rose Cottage ; 
 and so when the wants of her guests had been satisfied 
 — an easy task that evening, so far as Silas Clayton was 
 concerned — Patty retired to the cheerful little drawing- 
 room, and the companionship of her piano, there to 
 await and receive her friends who had been invited to 
 close the evening with prayer and praise, in which 
 profitable occupation many of them had spent ever} r 
 hour of the day excepting the short intervals devoted 
 to meals — old Wesleyans as a rule being absolute 
 cormorants in the line of prayer meetings on Sunday, 
 and finding neither pleasure nor profit in any other 
 employment. 
 
 Job Perks was simply a foreman blacksmith, in the 
 employ of the Dale Company. He was a hardworking, 
 industrious, but rather stupid-looking young man, over 
 six feet in height, with a very rough bullet- shaped 
 head, large ears and mouth, and huge hands and feet, 
 which indicated a tendency to his further development 
 in size and strength as he advanced in years. 
 
 He worked in a separate forge at the foot of the Dale, 
 near the company's wharves, and his business was to 
 weld the scrap iron brought up, as a return freight, by
 
 128 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 the barges from Bristol, into " faggots and bars " for use 
 in the works. 
 
 For this purpose he had in the building in which he 
 laboured a huge old-fashioned tilt-hammer, the helve 
 of which, weighing about a ton, was attached to a large 
 wooden spring beam raised by water-power. He was 
 paid by contract for his work, and made a good thing 
 of it ; but there were few of the Dale workmen who 
 cared for the situation, even with all its emoluments — 
 firstly, because the forge was isolated from the works ; 
 and secondly, because those who worked constantly at 
 the " tilt/' and heard its dull heavy thuds on the 
 anvil block all day long, invariably became deaf. Job 
 Perks was not very deaf as yet, but was said to be 
 " rather hard of hearing," and perhaps that fact would 
 account for his exceptional liking for the high " skirl- 
 ing " of his wife and sister, whose voices he could not 
 otherwise have heard so well. Perks was a steady- 
 going member of the Society, regular in his attendance, 
 "earnest in the cause," jealous of innovations, willing 
 to subscribe liberally of his means to the support of the 
 ministry, according as the Giver of all good had blessed 
 him, and determined to have his money's worth out of 
 the ministers on all occasions. He could read very 
 little himself, but he delighted in listening to the 
 shrill voice of his sister, after working hours, in the 
 evening in his cottage, when she screamed into his ear 
 passages from such books as " Bunyan's Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress," " Law's Serious Call," or the sermons of Mr. 
 Wesley, which, with the "Missionary Notices" in many
 
 THE PEEKS FAMILY. 120 
 
 volumes, constituted his library. It was, perhaps, on 
 this account that Miss Perks had remained a fixture in 
 the family, and thus she repaid the food and raiment sup- 
 plied to her by her brother. She was an angular-looking 
 woman, with a painfully pious and rather melancholy 
 aspect, always clad in seedy black, and having a weedy 
 washed-out appearance. The chief delight of her life 
 was to invent puzzling theological problems for the 
 ministers ; such as inquiries into the ultimate fate of 
 the particular pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was 
 converted, or as to the feelings of the unfortunate 
 whale upon whom Jonah was quartered for three days 
 and nights, without fire or food or candlelight ; and 
 with these weighty matters on her mind she would make 
 journeys on foot up to Lawley, and seek private inter- 
 views with Mr. Slowman, whom failing, she would 
 apply to Silas Clayton as second-best opinion on the 
 momentous questions at issue. If Silas could bring 
 himself to hating any one, it certainly would have been 
 Miss Perks ; and on this Sunday evening, when he had 
 been misled by that young vagabond brickmaker, and 
 had lost his appetite and his dinner and tea together, 
 his Christian temper was destined to further trials at 
 her hands in the drawing-room of Rose Cottage, where 
 the Perks family, clad in their " go-to-meeting best 
 clothes," were now assembled, with several worthy 
 members of the society, to hear some "further spiritual 
 counsel" from Mr. Slowman and his colleague ere 
 they retired to rest. 
 
 On this occasion the gentlemen did not join the 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 LAITTEKDALE. 
 
 ladies in the drawing-room as punctually as usual. 
 Patty endeavoured to amuse the meeting in the mean- 
 time by playing over a piece of sacred music, painfully 
 acquired by many hours' practice at school ; but thereby 
 she incurred the special displeasure of the Perks 
 family, who had come to an unanimous vote in their 
 own abode, ere they set out from thence, that on this even- 
 ing they would make a decided stand, and rebel against 
 the new tunes and the musical teaching of Mr. Clay- 
 ton, and would sing the hymns according to the ancient 
 manner and custom as understood by them and others 
 who had been in the Dale before Mr. Clayton or Miss 
 Maltby were born, and hoped to be there after them. 
 
 Meanwhile a slight discussion on the same subject 
 was being carried on in the parlour between Mr. 
 Slowman and his colleague. Rumours of the dis- 
 pleasure of the leaders and older members had been 
 borne to the ears of the superintendent, and on one 
 occasion in the very chapel itself the old hands and the 
 new pupils had an unseemly struggle for the mastery 
 in " raising the hymn," — one party, led by the Perks 
 faction, starting with " a lively measure," the other 
 with a solemn slow tune recently introduced. The 
 " lively measure " being something like the Canadian 
 Boat Song at the double, was easily joined in by the 
 majority, and of course soon extinguished the rival 
 melody, but not without a struggle, and the discord 
 thus produced had alarmed Mr. Slowman, who was now 
 speaking like a father to Silas on the subject. At 
 another time the young minister would have bowed his
 
 THE PERKS FAMILY. 131 
 
 head in gentle submission ; but on the present occasion 
 his wounded spirit chafed against the seeming interdict 
 of the superintendent, and there was evidence of a 
 slight conflict of opinion in the drawn rigid muscles of 
 his face, and the light in his eyes, when he entered the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Silas Clayton had lean jaws and a rather large 
 mouth, with very prominent teeth. When his spirit 
 was excited or vexed, he had a habit of drawing back 
 his thin lips, and exposing his large white teeth in two 
 formidable rows. Before he commenced his most 
 powerful and thrilling sermons — and occasionally he 
 preached like one inspired — he had a trick of throwing 
 back his head and turning it slowly from side to side, 
 so as to note the particular souls who sat under him, 
 with especial reference to their individual comfort or 
 warning in his address. 
 
 His face wore an affectionate smile as his eyes swept 
 slowly through the chapel. Cynical people said they 
 rested last and most lovingly on John Maltby's pew ; 
 but be that as it may, on such occasions he was at his 
 best, and the congregation knew and felt it. On this 
 evening his teeth were out, and his head thrown back, 
 as he strode into the room, but the smile was wanting. 
 Mr. Slowman followed with the troubled aspect of one 
 who feels thunder in the air. Mr. Maltby detained 
 Jacob in the parlour for a few minutes on private affairs. 
 
 Mr. Maltby was in the position of the Scotch cattle 
 dealer who abhorred Suuday trading, but was tempted 
 occasionally to open a bargain with a neighbour
 
 132 LAI7TERDALE. 
 
 returning from the kirk with the phrase, " supposing 
 it was Monday." He never did business of any kind 
 on Sunday, but on the present occasion he wanted to 
 speak to Jacob on a matter of importance, and also to 
 inquire into the young man's present occupation with 
 a view to his benefit, on the principle that a certain 
 nameless personage would look after him and his idle 
 hands if not forestalled ; and with the latter motive 
 uppermost, yet with some compunctions, he opened 
 the conversation thus : — 
 
 " Jacob, my young friend, what are you about these 
 days — work or play, lad, eh ? " 
 
 " Thou art aware, no doubt, that the mill is stopped 
 in consequence of my father's lawsuit with the Dale 
 Company," replied Jacob. " In his absence I can find 
 no work to do ; our books are all made up, and the 
 mill is empty, and idle like myself." 
 
 "A bad business, lad," said Mr. Maltby ; " how long 
 does your father mean to keep down the sluices ? " 
 
 "Until he has obtained justice from the Court," 
 replied Jacob in a decided tone. 
 
 " That I fear will be neither before nor after Christ- 
 mas, my friend," said Mr. Maltby, with a little severity. 
 "Your father did a bad day's work when he took 
 counsel of that man Quetchett, and I fear the case will 
 not come out of Chancery until your head and mine 
 are grey, lad, if we live to see it. Is there any use in 
 speaking to him as a friend ? " he inquired ; " and 
 when is he likely to return home again ? " 
 
 "Truly I know not," said Jacob, sadly; "he is in
 
 THE PERKS FAMILY. 133 
 
 London, and writes but seldom, but be says be will not 
 start tbe mill again until be bas obtained a decree. I 
 wish tbat be bad not so bastily decided as to tbe mill ; 
 for, as tbou say est, a decision may be far off, and justice 
 is slow at best, and fatber is a man wbo cbangetb not. It 
 bas caused me mucb perplexity, and I would I bad some 
 useful employment if it were but to occupy my mind." 
 
 Jobn Maltby bad now obtained all tbe information be 
 required. First, as to tbe mill, so long as it remained 
 idle, flour would be scarce in tbe Dale, and would be an 
 article be migbt profitably invest in ; tberefore be made 
 a mental note, witb a sligbt twinge of conscience, tbat, 
 "supposing it was Monday," be would order a fresb supply 
 from Bristol — a resolution be carried out before eigbt 
 o'clock next morning, wben tbree of bis largest barges 
 were ordered to drop down tbe river for special cargoes. 
 
 Before be closed tbe conference be turned bis good- 
 natured tbougbts to tbe perplexed young man before 
 bim, and tbe necessity of intercepting tbe active enemy 
 of souls in bis case, and said kindly, " Give me a call 
 early to-morrow morning, Jacob; we must find tbee 
 sometbing to do, lad." He tben laid his band on tbe 
 young man's shoulder and gently pushed him towards 
 the drawing-room, from whence the first lines of the open- 
 ing hymn were issuing, and to John Maltby's practised 
 ear they sounded as if there was something wrong. 
 
 On entering the room, which was well lit, Jacob 
 perceived a number of strangers assembled, each one 
 holding a thick red hymn-book. 
 
 Patty was seated at the piano, and had her back to
 
 134 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 him. Silas Clayton stood heside her ready to turn 
 over the leaves of the music, and rather ignoring the 
 malcontents seated stiffly round the walls. The first 
 start had been a failure ; the Perks family had hung 
 back, and then commenced together in a different key 
 when the rest were well away. Confusion first and 
 silence afterwards were the results. At this moment 
 John Maltby and his young friend entered, and the 
 latter took a seat near the door, somewhat dazzled by 
 the lights, after the darkness of the room they had left, 
 and feeling a little out of place and embarrassed. Mr. 
 Slowman rejoiced at the appearance of the host, whose 
 strong mellow voice and cheerful manner would, he 
 hoped, lead the assembly into good temper. He there- 
 fore read the first verse again, and Mr. Maltby sang it 
 with a will, standing in the centre of the room, and 
 beating time with his right hand. The Perks party 
 were for the moment overawed and silent ; to beard the 
 master of the house on his own drawing-room carpet 
 was more than they dared so early in the evening, and 
 thus the first hymn was got through successfully. 
 After this came a chapter in the Bible, read by 
 Silas, who unfortunately chose the fourth of the Epistle 
 of Saint James to the Twelve Tribes scattered abroad, 
 commencing, " From whence come wars and fightings 
 among you ? " The face of Perks, who had looked out 
 the place in his own pocket Bible, wore an ominous 
 frown ; Miss Perks nudged her sister-in-law violently 
 in the side, to call her attention to the special chapter 
 selected. Mr. Slowman speedily interposed with
 
 THE PERKS FAMILY. 135 
 
 prayer, and diverted the thoughts of his hearers once 
 more by allusions to "the lost sheep ; " but when they 
 looked up to see the effect of the exordium on the animal 
 in question, it was perceived he had taken advantage 
 of his position near the door to slip quietly away — a 
 step which led to an immediate reference to "deaf 
 adders," after which they were all evidently thrown 
 back on the original difficulty as to the singing. 
 
 It was now Mr. Clayton 'stum to select the hymn. 
 He gave out, "0 for a thousand tongues to sing," 
 and pronounced in a firm decided voice the word 
 " French," as the key to the measure, of which Patty 
 struck the first few chords. Miss Perks audibly 
 uttered " Martyrs," and both sides set off on their own 
 hooks, with opposition tunes. There are no two 
 Methodist airs which differ more essentially in style 
 than those quoted above ; violent discord was the result. 
 Patty ceased to play ; John Maltby flushed up to the 
 eyes, and frowned at Miss Perks as the open leader of 
 the opposition. Silas Clayton's teeth were dangerously 
 prominent. Mr. Slowman crossed the room to say a 
 word of remonstrance in the ear of Perks, who imme- 
 diately became altogether deaf. The superintendent then 
 looked appealingly to Silas, and said aloud, " Let it be 
 ' Martyrs.' " Patty played the new tune, and the Perks 
 faction sang, but this time Miss Maltby and Silas re- 
 mained silent; her father occasionally joined in the sing- 
 ing, but with a bewildered, puzzled air, and it gradually 
 died out a lingering death. An exhortation followed in 
 due order from Mr. Maltby as a class leader ; it was pithy
 
 136 LAUTEBDALE. 
 
 and short, but contained no allusion to the present dis- 
 cord. Brother Perks was now called on to pray ; in this 
 way Mr. Slowman endeavoured to throw a sop to 
 Cerberus. Perks prayed loudly " that the flock might 
 not be led astray by their shepherds, but might be able 
 to cling even to the horns of the altar." His language 
 was wild and excited, and was evidently meant for Silas 
 Clayton's special benefit. 
 
 A brother, named Beardmore, who was also a class 
 leader, followed in a milder tone, in the hope of throw- 
 ing oil on the troubled waters, but still he spoke in the 
 language of protest against innovations. 
 
 The last hymn was now given out with fear and 
 trembling by Mr. Slowman. The tune was "Devizes," 
 in which the female voices have four bars all to them- 
 selves. Now was the time for Mrs. and Miss Perks ; 
 their grace notes and twirls were superabundant. They 
 repeated the last lines of each verse twice over with 
 exuberant delight and wonderful variations. Patty 
 closed the piano in despair ; the click of the lock 
 sounded loudly in the room. The voices of the Perks 
 females rose high in a triumphant final "skirl," and 
 Silas Clayton thrust his fingers into his ears. 
 
 When there was no longer any possibility of pro- 
 longing the manifold repetitions of the last verse, Job 
 Perks withdrew his hat from beneath his chair and 
 turned him to the door, followed by his women-kind, 
 who forgot, in their haste and triumph, to wait for the 
 final benediction of the elder minister. 
 
 They journeyed home in silence.
 
 THE PERKS FAMILY. 137 
 
 Unhappy Perks, when out in the cool air of the Dale, 
 was not altogether easy in mind as to the part he had 
 taken, and his wife was already repenting of her share 
 in the performance ; but Miss Perks was in a highly 
 combative condition ; she had subdued and conquered 
 the enemy, and would henceforth " skirl " as loudly as 
 she pleased in chapel or elsewhere. 
 
 When they entered their family kitchen, where, 
 although it was the middle of summer, a huge coal fire 
 was burning brightly in the grate — a thing deemed 
 essential to comfort by the Dale salamanders — Mrs. 
 Perks was already shedding the tears of repentance, 
 but received no sort of sympathy from her defiant sister- 
 in-law. The evening's worship, such as it was, had 
 been a failure, and the Maltbys had been insulted in 
 their own house. Mrs. Perks sobbingly announced her 
 intention of calling on Miss Patty next morning, 
 and humbly apologising for the unseemly contest ; but 
 Miss Perks snapped her fingers viciously as she took her 
 bedroom candle and ascended the narrow staircase to her 
 virtuous couch, audibly announcing as a parting shot her 
 private opinion that Miss Patty was "a conceited minx." 
 The Perks family and those who aided and abetted 
 them that evening were invited no more to the Sunday 
 evening " reunions " at the cottage, at which Mrs. Maltby, 
 having the wear and tear of her best carpet before her 
 eyes, rejoiced secretly when she heard it by letter at 
 Oxford. Silas Clayton ceased his efforts to reform the 
 singing at the Dale chapel, which thenceforth resumed 
 its original character, "and so remaineth to this day."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 "Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, 
 Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field ; 
 ****** 
 
 And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, 
 Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 TT will be gathered from the last chapter but one that 
 there was a slight domestic trouble in the small 
 house at the foot of the Dale as to the " falling away " 
 of the eldest hope of the little family, in consequence of 
 the decision of Edward Maltby at Oxford to enter the 
 Church. It is singular that about the same time there 
 was a more serious trouble in the large house at the head 
 of the Dale of a somewhat similar character ; and in 
 both cases a matter which in itself was harmless, if not 
 absolutely praiseworthy, was aggravated by prejudice 
 or pride into serious dimensions. 
 
 Joshua Field had one only son, named Robert after 
 his wife's father. There had been other sons born to 
 him, but they had died in childhood or infancy. This 
 seemed to be invariably the lot of the family ; they left
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 139 
 
 but few heirs to inherit their great wealth. The chil- 
 dren were always weak and feeble, but those who 
 survived the maladies and medicines of childhood 
 generally grew up to be robust, active men and women, 
 and lived to a good old age. 
 
 Robert Field was a weak, sickly infant, watched over 
 with intense solicitude, guarded carefully from the 
 winds of heaven, duly saturated with calomel and 
 other noxious drugs by the local Galen, as the custom 
 then was, on the appearance of the slightest symptom 
 of infantile illness. Fenced round from all dangerous 
 association with other children as he grew into boy- 
 hood, and taught in the wisdom of the Friends as 
 he advanced into youth, all under his father's strict 
 supervision, aided by occasional lessons from his Uncle 
 Jediah, who really loved the boy as his own son ; — 
 nevertheless, when he reached the period of manhood, 
 he was discovered to be the reverse of all that might 
 be expected of him from such careful training ; 
 vigorous in constitution, despite of the apothecary ; 
 social and lively in temperament, despite the chilling 
 cordon drawn round him as a child ; and broad in 
 his religious opinions, despite the narrow teaching of 
 his uncle and the Friends. 
 
 How had all this come to pass ? Was the youth a 
 changeling ; or had the Fields arrived at the summit of 
 perfection in the previous generation, and was this the 
 first symptom of moral perversity and decay ? The 
 elders of the sect in Lauterdale took it seriously to 
 heart, and turned it over in their minds day and night,
 
 140 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 and finally decided " it was all due to his mother ;" 
 and perhaps the elders were right. 
 
 Mrs. Field never was and never could be a strict 
 Friend ; she was far too good herself and of too fine 
 clay for such every- day vessels as were in use in the 
 Society's service. She loved " the good, the beautiful, 
 and true" wherever they were to be found, whether 
 under the drab coat of Elder Nathan, or the black one 
 of the earnest Vicar of Lawley ; she was a woman 
 much in advance of her sex amongst Friends, and still 
 more in advance of her husband, and consequently was 
 not appreciated in her lifetime as she should have 
 been ; but she rejoiced greatly to think that the witness 
 to her life and teaching and character, so misunder- 
 stood by those around her, would be the son who would 
 one day reign in Lauterdale as head of the great house, 
 free from the prejudices of his forefathers, endowed 
 with their wealth, and with the knowledge and inclina- 
 tion necessary to make good use of it ; gentle as a 
 woman in disposition, and loving peace as much as the 
 owner of the broadest beaver in the sect, yet brave as 
 a Paladin, and willing to do battle for the right as 
 readily as any warrior who ever wore steel helmet. 
 
 Tutors had been provided for him in every branch 
 of useful learning, but he had never undergone the 
 strict discipline which a public school alone can impart. 
 He was therefore apt to be absorbed by the parti- 
 cular study of the hour, at the expense of his general 
 progress. He was also liable to be run away with 
 by hobbies of all kinds ; at one time ardent in the
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 141 
 
 pursuit of astronomy with Josiah Morris ; at another, 
 delighting the heart of Uncle Jediah by his diligent 
 researches into the favourite studies of that astute 
 critic, for which he exhibited remarkable proclivities 
 at an early age, having a ready faculty in acquiring 
 languages, which was said to have been evinced by 
 members of the family in former times. 
 
 In one thing he differed essentially from all his 
 predecessors, and especially from his father and his 
 uncle ; he exhibited no taste whatever for business, and 
 openly expressed a dislike for the pursuit of a manu- 
 facturing business such as theirs. 
 
 This was a matter of grave moment, considering the 
 fact that upon his shoulders must ultimately devolve 
 the weight of the whole concern, if a member of the 
 family were to remain at the head of affairs, as had 
 hitherto been the case during many generations. It 
 was this decided aversion to trade which caused alarm 
 amongst the elders, and was an especial source of grief 
 and anxiety to his father and uncle. 
 
 At this crisis he unfortunately lost the stay and guide 
 of his youth by the death of his mother. Mrs. Field 
 caught a severe inflammatory cold in performing one 
 of the many acts of mercy which formed a part of her 
 daily life amongst the families of the workmen, and 
 was suddenly removed hence ere her husband was fully 
 aware that she was in danger. He mourned over his 
 great loss in the undemonstrative manner of the Friends, 
 and her place and memory remained sacred with him 
 for the rest of his days. Joshua Field never fully
 
 142 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 understood the beauty of his wife's character, but he 
 had the good sense to recognise the fact that it was 
 something above and beyond his comprehension, and so 
 to venerate it as a thing sacred. 
 
 The blow to his son Robert, then about twenty-three 
 years of age, was severe indeed ; it seemed at first as if 
 part of his own soul were removed. His mother alone 
 understood him, and was the only person with whom 
 he took counsel in his many perplexities of mind. 
 Between her clear understanding and his searching, 
 active intellect there had been always the most perfect 
 sympathy, and in heart and soul they were in the 
 fullest accord. Her last words and sudden death made 
 a deep impression on his mind, and for many weeks he 
 remained alone in his room in silent meditation, com- 
 muning with his own heart after the manner of his 
 people. 
 
 In those bitter days of repressed grief his plastic 
 character was somewhat consolidated, and its erratic 
 elements reduced to better harmony and order. Hitherto 
 he had been a dreamer and an enthusiast. Now he was 
 determined there should be a purpose in his life, an 
 object ever before him worthy of his highest efforts, and 
 that object was to be universal philanthropy. 
 
 Those were days in which the deeds and writings of 
 such men as Howard, Buxton, and Wilberforce had at 
 length found an echo in many hearts ; the reform of 
 prisons, the emancipation of slaves, the erection of 
 hospitals, the promotion of temperance, the cause 
 of education, freedom of religion, universal peace on
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 143 
 
 earth and goodwill toward men. Such subjects as 
 these were occupying the minds of good men every- 
 where in England. 
 
 Robert Field woke up from his long reverie, eager 
 to put on his armour and go forth to wage battle in 
 one and all of the great questions of the day ; but to 
 his father and his uncle his views and intentions were 
 those of a vain dreamer. They were ready and willing 
 to subscribe liberally of their wealth to any of the 
 objects he had at heart, and, indeed, had always done 
 so ; but to send forth as an apostle the sole remaining 
 representative of their great house, whose hand should 
 grasp the helm and steer the good old ship when they 
 could no longer command, was a course which they 
 would not and could not bring themselves to entertain 
 or countenance. The young man, in his excited state 
 of mind, chafed restlessly against their opposition, and 
 in the first fervour of his zeal he resented the inter- 
 ference of elders of the sect injudiciously brought to 
 bear on him by his relatives. He determined to go • 
 forth to hear in some other church the truths which 
 he believed were warped and twisted by the narrow 
 teaching of the Friends. 
 
 Joshua Field was by no means wanting in sagacity. 
 He knew that in a case like his son's, opposition 
 would add fuel to the fire, and therefore he planned 
 for him a course of travel. Hitherto the young man had 
 seen nothing of the world which he was so anxious to 
 reform. The male Fields had been always brought up 
 at home, and placed in the counting-house early in
 
 144 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 life, in order that they might be imbued with a grave 
 sense of responsibility. This course had hitherto suc- 
 ceeded perfectly. The brothers themselves had thus 
 been bound to the desk, and advanced by regular 
 steps to their proper places in the executive, and ulti- 
 mately to the management of the business. But this 
 youth abhorred the polished mahogany, and would have 
 none of it. He despised profit and loss, and money- 
 getting in any way, and believed the time had come 
 to render an account of the great wealth with which 
 Providence had endowed them, and that his special 
 vocation would be to disseminate it for the benefit of 
 mankind. 
 
 Of one thing he unfortunately took no account — that 
 there were duties as imperative nearer home : a large 
 army of workmen to be wisely controlled for their own 
 good ; a great business to be maintained, if not for the 
 sake of wealth alone, for the sake of the people depen- 
 dent upon it for bread. He might have been as much of 
 a philanthropist as he pleased, and still have had a vast 
 field for his labours at Lauterdale within the limits of 
 the Company's property. But unfortunately this field 
 appeared to him to be too small, and too much 
 associated with money-getting for his exalted views ; 
 and so he determined he would go forth as a knight- 
 errant of benevolence to grapple with some great evil 
 in the outer world, and to overcome it — to spend and 
 be spent in some great work. 
 
 There were evils enough in existence amongst the 
 people not far from his own door, and still more in the
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 145 
 
 neighbouring " Black Country." The majority of the 
 colliers were ignorant and brutal, the workpeople of 
 both sexes, in the potteries and brickyards, were almost 
 degraded to the level of beasts, and their children were 
 worse savages than those of the Sandwich Islands. 
 But hitherto his acquaintance with the labouring popu- 
 lation had lain chiefly amongst the skilled workmen 
 engaged in the Dale Works, who were a superior class, 
 and as a rule were members of some Dissenting body, 
 whose ministers looked pretty well after them. 
 
 The close seclusion in which he had been brought up 
 in the Dale House prevented him from acquiring any 
 accurate knowledge of the condition of the great popu- 
 lation of the mineral districts within a radius of fifty 
 miles of his own house, whilst his reading of the pam- 
 phlets then teeming from the press, supported by the 
 Friends in England, brought close home to him the 
 knowledge of suffering amidst the sugar-canes of 
 Jamaica, of cruelties practised on the Gold Coast of 
 Africa, of suffocating tortured slaves on board ships 
 fitted out by Christians for the accursed traffic in the 
 colonies, and of the horrors of convict life in Norfolk 
 Island. He saw all these great distant wrongs, mag- 
 nified by the distance itself, and burned to set out on 
 the path to combat and redress them. In fact, he 
 desired to be a philanthropist of the largest type, such 
 as the men who were then rousing the nation to good 
 works, and devoting their means and lives to the cause 
 they advocated. 
 
 There was one man who understood him, and sought 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 to turn his wide sympathies into channels of immediate 
 usefulness at home, and so to prevent the utter sepa- 
 ration from his father's concerns and the personal con- 
 flict of opinion with his uncle which was likely to 
 ensue from his present course. Chance had Drought 
 Robert Field into contact with one of the best men 
 who has ever adorned the ministry of the English 
 Church. 
 
 John Fletcher, Vicar of Lawley, was a scholar and a 
 gentleman, at the same time a devoted Christian and a 
 zealous clergyman — a man of refined tastes, possessed 
 of a large heart and a guileless spirit. 
 
 Amongst the rich and the poor he laboured earnestly 
 with the same object in view, and his labour was an 
 acknowledged success. Men who were proof against 
 the solemn warnings of Mr. Slowman or the fiery elo- 
 quence of Silas Clayton — and there were many such in 
 Lawley — had been reached by the living sermon 
 preached by the life and conversation of the good 
 Vicar. 
 
 Rough colliers and still rougher forgemen and pud- 
 dlers raised their hats reverently and ceased from 
 labour as he passed amongst them, and their wives 
 and children at home felt happier the day his shadow 
 fell upon their threshold. 
 
 " At his approach complaint grew mild ; 
 
 And when his hand unbarr'd the shutter, 
 The clammy lips of fever smiled 
 The welcome which they could not utter." 
 
 The Friends in Lauterdale, as a body, were some-
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 147 
 
 what antagonistic to the Established Church and its 
 servants. In those days there was a silly sectarian 
 controversy raging between two journals, which pro- 
 fessed to be the organs of the parties at issue. But 
 the elders, with one exception, honestly respected the 
 Yicar of Lawley as a man above reproach ; and, unfor- 
 tunately, the exception was Jediah Field. 
 
 The Yicar wrote a little occasionally for the Church 
 Controversialist, as a relaxation from his labours, and 
 also to keep up his scholastic habits. 
 
 Like Jediah Field, he was a keen critic in Biblical 
 literature, and he had felt it his duty to demolish a 
 pet theory advanced by the learned ironmaster, and to 
 refute one of his favourite crotchets in print. 
 
 A weak place had escaped the Quaker scholar in an 
 elaborate article he had written and published, and the 
 Vicar had sent a shaft through the joints of his har- 
 ness. 
 
 Jediah Field looked on Mr. Fletcher's masterly 
 refutation of his thesis as a personal injury, more espe- 
 cially as his nephew and pupil sided with the Yicar, 
 and even went so far as to abandon the meeting of 
 the Friends, and regularly attend the Church ser- 
 vices at Lawley — to which place, about four miles 
 up the valley, he publicly walked twice every Sunday, 
 and thus unwittingly brought upon himself the silent 
 displeasure of his reserved father, in addition to the 
 more outspoken anger of his uncle. 
 
 Despite of this, he held his own course, and pursued 
 his usual Sunday walk, and in so doing became ac-
 
 148 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 quainted with a fellow-pedestrian, bound on the same 
 errand, in the person of Edward Maltby, for whom he 
 ultimately* conceived an ardent friendship and esteem, 
 and whose advanced opinions strengthened and con- 
 tinued his own.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE VICAR. 
 
 " At church with meek and unaffected grace, 
 His looks adorned the venerable place ; 
 Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
 And fools who came to scoff remained to pray." 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 rilHE appearance of the two young men in the church 
 at Lawley soon attracted the attention of the 
 Vicar, and although neither of them resided within 
 the strict boundary of his parish, he was not long in 
 cultivating their acquaintance. 
 
 The vicarage was close to the old church, and was a 
 pretty residence, overlooking the little River Lauter, 
 which was clear and bright in this part of the valley, 
 and tumbled over curiously-worn Kmestone rocks into 
 deep pools and tiny fretted caves. 
 
 A pleasant footpath, bordered with shady trees, led 
 from the Dale Works by the side of the stream up to 
 Lawley, and passed through a portion of the vicarage 
 grounds. By this longer but prettier route the two 
 friends frequently returned home together, and on this 
 path one summer Sunday evening, when lingering a
 
 150 LAUTERDALE, 
 
 little, they were purposely waylaid by Mr. Fletcher, 
 who hospitably invited them into his house, and there 
 introduced them to his daughters, Martha and Rachel, 
 both of whom were under twenty years of age, and 
 formed his whole family then resident at home. 
 
 The Vicar's only son was in the Church, and had 
 recently gone out as a missionary to India. His 
 beloved wife was dead, and buried in the little church- 
 yard, within the shadow of the old spire, and he passed 
 daily by her resting-place, with bowed, uncovered 
 head, as he proceeded to his labour of love amongst 
 his people. His daughters were the comfort and glory 
 of his life, and were active partakers in his work. 
 They were both beautiful girls, with the special beauty 
 of breeding, and the fine chiselled features which tell of 
 a long line of intellectual and well-bred ancestry. The 
 Fletchers were ever a race of scholars, whose names 
 had filled many a line in the records of literature, 
 and with whom learning and piety in the men, and 
 beauty and goodness in the women, were almost an 
 inheritance. 
 
 To a man of the temperament, age, and acquire- 
 ments of Robert Field, such novel companionship as 
 that of the Yicar and his daughters was absolutely 
 delightful, more especially in contrast with the dull 
 monotony of his life in the Dale House since his 
 mother's death. The fact that Mr. Fletcher had 
 cheerfully given his only son as a servant of the Cross 
 in foreign lands, raised the old man at once to a high 
 place in his estimation; whilst the graceful manners
 
 THE VICAR. 151 
 
 and pleasant conversation of the Vicar's daughters, 
 and their warm sympathy with the great objects in 
 which he was then so deeply interested, shone by com- 
 parison with the severe formality and limited ideas of 
 the female " Friends" of his acquaintance. 
 
 In truth, he could scarcely have fallen on a pleasanter 
 place, or on safer ground, than in Mr. Fletcher's home, 
 wherein he shortly became a constant visitor, in spite of 
 the sour looks of his uncle, who seemed to keep strict 
 watch over his nephew's movements. 
 
 Edward Maltby was equally pleased with the family, 
 and during the vacation holidays he frequently accom- 
 panied Robert Field in his visits to the vicarage, and 
 called once or twice with his sister, whom the young 
 ladies at Lawley desired to see oftener, and would have 
 made much of, had it not been that Mrs. Maltby became 
 alarmed. Fearing the withdrawal of her ewe lamb from 
 the \Vesleyan fold, she contrived to limit the acquaint- 
 ance to mere formal greetings whenever the young 
 girls met ; much to the vexation of Patty and the 
 chagrin of her son, who hoped, by means of the Vicar's 
 influence and that of his daughters, to weaken his 
 sister's regard for the Methodists, and so lessen Silas 
 Clayton's chances. 
 
 Patty discovered very soon, with the quick instinct 
 of her sex, that her brother secretly admired Miss 
 Fletcher, perhaps before he was fully aware of the fact 
 himself ; and as he evidently had a strong leaning to 
 the Church of England, she was not sorry to think 
 that if he went over at all he would go over to such
 
 152 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 good company ; for all men and women in Lauter- 
 dale, whether Dissenters or Friends, spoke well of the 
 young ladies at the Grange. For the present she 
 wisely kept her shrewd little suspicion to herself, which 
 was a course eminently calculated to save her mother 
 from what was called in the household " a comfortable 
 trouble," Mrs. Maltby being a woman who never got 
 on well without a small stock of domestic grievances 
 on hand. 
 
 It never occurred to any one in Lauterdale that Mr. 
 Robert Field, the heir to the Dale property, and 
 probable inheritor of the accumulated wealth of the 
 family, was at all likely to fall in love with, and marry, 
 a poor clergyman's daughter. Indeed it would have 
 created a sensation equal to a social earthquake had 
 such a thing been barely hinted at ; and although he 
 was known to be a young man very likely to please 
 himself and to rebel against conventional precedent, 
 no one dreamt it meant anything when he was seen 
 so often by the side of Rachel Fletcher on the shady 
 footpath by the river at Lawley. Of all men, the good 
 Yicar was the last to see anything serious in the con- 
 stant attentions of Mr. Field to his youngest daughter. 
 He was pleased with the young man's enthusiastic 
 character and goodness of heart, and endeavoured to 
 tone down and direct his energies into objects of home 
 usefulness, such as came every day within the 
 sphere of his own observation. He knew that in birth 
 and education he himself was equal, if not superior, to 
 any of the men of the great firm, past and present ;
 
 THE VICAR. 153 
 
 but the Fields had ruled so long at Lauterdale, they 
 were so rich and powerful, and so fenced round by the 
 accessories of wealth, besides being members of an 
 exclusive sect, that they had come to be regarded as a 
 family with whom no one in the neighbourhood would 
 presume to think of an alliance. 
 
 The idea that the gentle blue-eyed girl, just barely 
 turned seventeen, whom he had not yet ceased to 
 think of as a mere child, the youngest and fairest of 
 his little flock, who, although he had taught her Greek 
 and Latin, and many other things seldom learnt by 
 girls in those days, was still esteemed by him as a mere 
 plaything, whose merry winning ways he hoped were 
 to be the solace of his evenings for many years to 
 come, — that she should one day become " Queen of the 
 Dale," as the brides of the eldest sons of the family 
 were always called in the district, and so rule in the 
 great house, was a dream which never entered his wise 
 old head, and would have startled him had it been 
 hinted at. But one morning, when Robert Field had 
 known the family about four months, the Vicar was 
 destined to receive a shock from the unexpected 
 presence of that impetuous youth in his study, who 
 endeavoured with some difficulty to make the good 
 man understand that he came as a humble suitor to 
 crave the hand of his youngest daughter. 
 
 The announcement caused Mr. Fletcher much grave 
 anxiety. To him it seemed at first to be some sudden 
 fancy, which would vanish as rapidly as it had formed. 
 He therefore hesitated for a few days to give any
 
 154 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 answer at all, leaving Robert Field in a state of 
 extreme perturbation, during which he begged re- 
 peatedly for a favourable response. Mr. Fletcher 
 at length deemed it right to lay the proposal before 
 the young man's father, and betook himself to the 
 Dale House on that errand, having previously written 
 a graceful little note to solicit an interview ; to which 
 had come a formal reply in three lines, intimating that 
 Joshua Field would await him on the day and hour 
 named. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher was received coldly, but with civility, 
 by the heads of the family, consisting of the two 
 brothers and their sister Rebecca, assembled in grim 
 silent conclave in the library to hear his communica- 
 tion. 
 
 The young suitor had already broken the matter to 
 his father by letter, and had then gone away in much 
 excitement for a short excursion amongst the Welsh 
 hills, leaving an address to which the reply was to be 
 sent. 
 
 " I have ventured to call," said the Vicar, speaking 
 very carefully, and addressing himself to Joshua Field, 
 " with reference to a matter which I am sure affects all 
 of us very nearly, which has come very suddenly on 
 me, and caused me much perplexity. I have no doubt 
 your esteemed son has himself made some commu- 
 nication to you on the subject, and therefore you will 
 comprehend the position in which I am placed, and 
 why I have sought this interview." 
 
 Joshua Field gravely bowed his head. His brother
 
 THE VICAR. 155 
 
 and sister remained stiff and silent. The lady appeared 
 to be intently contemplating something in the pattern 
 of the carpet. The keen restless eyes of Jediah Field 
 scanned the clergyman from head to foot as if studying 
 the bodily presence of the man who had penned 
 the famous " Refutation, " and laid open the weak 
 places in his pungent attack on the English Church, in 
 which he had sought to demolish the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, and to prove the Prayer Book to be a tissue of 
 traditions tainted with Popery. 
 
 The Yicar paused for some reply at the end of his 
 little speech, but finding that he was expected to con- 
 tinue, and would receive no assistance from these silent 
 people, he renewed the theme with an earnest expres- 
 sion of truthfulness in his voice. 
 
 " I have been favoured," he said, still addressing the 
 elder brother, "by a proposal for the hand of my 
 youngest daughter Rachel, recently made to me by 
 your son. I need scarcely say that it came to me alto- 
 gether as a surprise." 
 
 Jediah Field here smiled sarcastically, and looked 
 askance at the speaker, who instantly detected the 
 doubt expressed by the facial muscles of the younger 
 brother. 
 
 The Vicar's voice instantly assumed a more decided 
 tone. " I have lost no time," he continued, " in seeking 
 an interview with the young man's family, to learn 
 their feeling on so important a proposal, and to explain 
 that in the event of such an alliance being dis- 
 approved by them, they will have such assistance as it
 
 156 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 may be right and proper in me to give in discounte- 
 nancing it. But should it be otherwise, it will give me 
 great pleasure indeed to accept as a son-in-law one for 
 whom I entertain feelings of deep regard. At the same 
 time, my daughter is very young, and Mr. Field is 
 somewhat unsettled ; so that, under any circumstances, 
 I must stipulate for some considerable interval before 
 I can consent to part with her — indeed, I may say 
 with truth that it would have pleased me better had 
 this proposal been delayed for several years to come." 
 
 The Vicar had now said his say, and was determined 
 to wait for some reply from the silent triumvirate before 
 he would speak another word ; but as he was not accus- 
 tomed to the ways of the Friends, when assembled in 
 family council, he felt hurt and somewhat puzzled at the 
 "awful pause" of three or four minutes which ensued. 
 
 The " spirit moved " the lady first. She commenced 
 suddenly in a feeble voice, trembling in its quaint 
 cadences, as if with some great fear, although it was 
 merely the ordinary manner of speech adopted by 
 elderly Friends on such occasions. 
 
 " I would know something," she said, " of the re- 
 ligious opinions of thy daughter, and whether she is 
 willing to join the Society of Friends, to which our 
 family belongs. Although of late Robert Field has 
 not been much with us, and we believe has wandered 
 out to thy church — no doubt influenced by the beauty 
 of the maiden — it is not the custom of our young men 
 to marry out of the ' Society/ but there have been cases 
 in which a chosen stranger has consented to attend our
 
 THE VICAR. 157 
 
 meetings and become one of us. Can this be expected 
 of thy daughter ? " 
 
 " I cannot hold out any such expectation," said the 
 Yicar quickly. " My daughter has been brought up in 
 strict accordance with the principles of the Church of 
 which I am a humble minister, and I have reason to 
 know that Mr. Robert Field intends to conform to its 
 teaching and communion, although I have in no way 
 attempted to influence him, and believe he had formed 
 the resolution before I had the pleasure of knowing 
 him. I have come here," he said, slightly raising his 
 voice, and turning from the lady to Joshua Field, " to 
 learn whether the young man's father approves of this 
 suit or not, and on his answer its future progress or 
 present cessation must depend." 
 
 Joshua Field, thus addressed, was about to reply, 
 although evidently in a difficulty, and not very clear as 
 to the answer he should give on such short notice. Un- 
 fortunately, his brother conceived that it was fitting at 
 this moment that he should take up the conversation, 
 and now struck in with his sharp incisive voice. 
 
 " No doubt," he said, addressing Mr. Fletcher with 
 great bitterness of tone, "thou art aware this youth is 
 of age, and has already cast aside the authority of his 
 father, and despised the advice of relatives and friends 
 in this matter ; therefore, it seems to me a mockery 
 to appear to seek our consent to an alliance with a 
 stranger differing essentially from us in religious views, 
 whose friends must have readily foreseen that it could 
 in no way be desirable."
 
 158 LATTTEBDALE. 
 
 It had been previously decided in the family council 
 to give some such answer as this to the Vicar on his 
 arrival, and to intimate to him that the proposal could 
 not be received favourably, thereby throwing the onus 
 of its being further entertained by the young lady 
 altogether on her father. But the manly, straight- 
 forward address of the Yicar had already disarmed the 
 elder brother, and the sharp speech of Jediah now 
 struck him as much too severe, and not altogether in 
 accordance with the facts. 
 
 Jediah had observed the effect of the Vicar's manner 
 and address on his milder-tempered brother, and 
 therefore he had suddenly interposed with the view to 
 prevent all temporising with the question. 
 
 Joshua cast a deprecating glance at the splenetic 
 little man beside him, and essayed to speak with the 
 view to modifying the caustic language used by the 
 latter ; but ere he could do so, the Vicar had risen to his 
 feet. He was a tall, stately-looking man, and he glanced 
 down on Jediah with an evident feeling of intellectual 
 and physical superiority, but there was no outward sign 
 either of anger or emotion save in his dilated nostril. 
 
 " Sir," he said, in his slowest and most measured 
 manner, speaking with silvery clearness of voice, " I 
 addressed myself to the young man's father and his 
 natural guardian, whether he is over or under age, 
 and especially as one who has a right to be consulted 
 and deferred to in so grave a matter. I have said that 
 I meant to abide by his decision, therefore there can be 
 no mockery on my part. For the rest, I have but
 
 THE VICAE. 159 
 
 learned within the last few days the honour proposed 
 to be done my family ; had I suspected it before, per- 
 haps no such proposal would have been made. But I 
 did not apply to the young man's uncle to inform me 
 whether it was desirable or otherwise." Then turning 
 his back on Jediah, he said, "Mr. Field, I await your 
 answer to my question." 
 
 Joshua Field was now compelled to speak. His 
 voice trembled as he did so, somewhat after the manner 
 of his sister Rebecca, as if he had recently caught the 
 " quaking " inflection from her. 
 
 " I confess," he said, " the idea has not been pleasing 
 to me. I had other views for my son amongst our own 
 people, and I cannot hastily abandon them ; but before 
 I can decide anything, I would speak with him, aud 
 shall then communicate with thee. I believe, also," he 
 continued after a pause, " thou art utterly blameless in 
 this matter." 
 
 Perhaps it would have been better had Mr. Field 
 omitted this last observation. It did not add to the 
 poor Vicar's comfort to be absolved from unjust impu- 
 tations, so long as blame was still attributed to any 
 one else concerned, and the idea that either of his dear 
 girls at home should be involved by inference was very 
 galling to him ; therefore, there was a slight flush 
 on his cheek, as he replied, still addressing Joshua 
 Field : 
 
 "It is quite proper that you should have full time 
 and opportunity to consider this question, but you 
 must excuse me for saying that I decline to admit that
 
 160 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 there is blame to be attributed to any one ; there may 
 be some suffering to be endured by one deeply con- 
 cerned, and in no way in fault, should your decision be 
 .adverse to this suit of your son's. It is the common lot 
 to suffer — but no one connected with me shall be heard 
 to complain, neither shall I notice further the unfair 
 insinuations I have been compelled to listen to." 
 
 The Vicar's eye rested sternly on Jediah as he con- 
 cluded, and then he bowed stiffly to the hard men 
 and perhaps harder woman before him, and took his 
 departure, carrying his head proudly until beyond the 
 gates, and on the pathway by the stream ; then his 
 pace slackened, and there came a few tears in his eyes 
 as he paused to think it all over, and to consider the 
 answer to be given by-and-by to the sweet girl who had 
 looked so wistfully in his face and smoothed his white 
 hairs as he set out that summer morning from his 
 peaceful home at Lawley. Truly, it had been better if 
 that pestilent Jediah had a millstone or some other en- 
 cumbrance about his stiff neck, if only to detain him 
 from that stern family council, ere he had caused one 
 of his little ones to suffer ; and then the Vicar brushed 
 away his tears, and sadly remembered his own saying 
 in the great house, "It is the common lot to suffer." He 
 decided that Robert Field should see his daughter no 
 more at present, unless with the approval of his father.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 RACHEL FLETCHER. 
 
 " Maiden with the meek blue eyes, 
 In whose orb a shadow lies, 
 Like the dusk in evening skies ! 
 ***** 
 
 Standing with reluctant feet 
 Where the brook and river meet, 
 Womanhood and childhood fleet ! " 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 TT^HILST the poor Yicar trudged homewards by the 
 
 Lauter, like Goldsmith's traveller by another 
 
 stream, 
 
 "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," 
 
 there lay on the bank of a little Welsh river, not a 
 hundred miles away, a young man who had gone out 
 that morning from the small inn to which he had 
 betaken himself, ostensibly to fish, furnished by the 
 stout innkeeper with all needful appliances for the sport, 
 but whose neglected rod was suspended idly over the 
 water, as he lay rapt in a brown study. 
 
 " His eyes were with his heart, and that was far away," 
 
 dreaming of a fair face, and hearing in the soft ripple 
 of the stream the low, sweet accents of a voice whose 
 vol. I. M
 
 162 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 melody was dearer than aught else to the listener. 
 To-morrow, perhaps to-day, he hoped to receive a 
 favourable answer to the hastily-worded letter he had 
 left on his father's desk some days since, begging for 
 some favouring countenance to that suit of his at 
 Lawley, or, if otherwise, intimating his fixed intention 
 to gird up his loins and go forth from his father's house 
 to win for himself a name and enough of this world's 
 goods to warrant his claiming his bride from her fond 
 father, whether his own parent approved or not. 
 
 It would have been better for every one had his 
 letter stopped at the appeal, and omitted the threat 
 and the resolution ; or, if he had been wise enough 
 to take the old ironmaster with him some fine even- 
 ing up to Lawley, and leave the young lady's blue 
 eyes and soft voice and beauty to do all the rest. But 
 this was, unfortunately, not the course he adopted, or 
 else this story might never have been written as it 
 must be written now. 
 
 There came no answer on that day or the next, and 
 Robert Field chafed impatiently at the delay; he 
 had caught nothing in the way of fish, and, indeed, had 
 not toiled very much to do so. On the third day the 
 landlord did not even go through the pretence of pro- 
 viding his restless guest with rod and line, and the 
 red-armed, barefooted handmaid who waited on him 
 had reported that the strange young man had left his 
 breakfast untasted. It had been noticed by the land- 
 lord that he had scarcely eaten anything the day 
 before ; but now that good food was absolutely brought
 
 RACHEL FLETCHER. 163 
 
 out of the little stuffy parlour untouched, Mrs. Lewis- 
 ap-Williams, who could speak English enough to 
 make herself understood on ordinary matters concerning 
 eating and drinking, and the price thereof, announced 
 her determination to "speer" after the youth, and 
 discover what was on his mind. 
 
 Her husband, with the natural bent of a Welshman, 
 had suggested that he must have been making free 
 with the till in his master's counting-house, and was 
 anxiously dreading arrest ; but such a vile suspicion 
 was scouted by his more sagacious better half, who, 
 having closely catechised the untidy waitress in her 
 unmusical native language — for the girl spoke no word 
 of any other — had ascertained that the gentleman, upon 
 whose movements she had kept watch in secret, had 
 once or twice taken a little tress of golden hair from his 
 pocket-book, and had spent a good half-hour looking 
 at it, when he should have been occupied with the 
 Welsh mutton and trout provided for him, and had 
 scarcely tasted the special luxury of tea, purchased in a 
 grocer's shop sixty miles away, hard by Shrewsbury 
 clock, and brought by Mr. Ap- Williams himself from 
 thence in untanned leather saddle-bags on the back of 
 his stout Welsh pony, carrying Mrs. Ap- Williams in 
 addition on the pillion behind him, and, so laden, 
 making the journey each way in two days, which 
 pilgrimage they were accustomed to perform once a 
 year. 
 
 On these occasions Mr. Williams always had his hair 
 cut, and received a clean shave — an extravagance he
 
 164 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 never repeated until his next visit ; consequently he 
 looked like a very ancient Briton indeed during at 
 least nine months of the year. Mrs. Ap- Williams 
 was also furnished with a considerable amount of hair 
 on her sharp chin, in general dyed a ruddy brown, 
 from over-indulgence in snuff. 
 
 The landlady found it impossible to make her unhappy 
 young lodger understand her kind interest in his mental 
 condition. She placed her yellow shrivelled claw on her 
 own skinny bosom, and made hideous grimaces and 
 contortions of body, intending thereby to indicate 
 her sympathy with the internal organ supposed by her 
 to be the seat of his present malady ; she then named 
 the various edibles he had sent out untasted, which 
 was about all her stock of English enabled her to do, 
 and pointed frequently down the square orifice in her 
 face, into which she was accustomed to dispatch her 
 own victuals, strongly odoriferous of the leek. Of the 
 meaning of this latter pantomime he had a faint 
 glimmering, assuming it to be a remonstrance against 
 his abstinence ; but when she proceeded to poke 
 him in the ribs with her long bony finger, winking 
 and clucking all the time like an old hen, Robert 
 Field concluded she was mad, and fled out of the 
 house. As he did so he ran against the one-eyed 
 village postman, who was also lame and bestrode a 
 miserable donkey, upon whose back he went his daily 
 rounds. 
 
 The man handed him a letter, which he recognised 
 as addressed in his father's handwriting, and which
 
 RACHEL FLETCHER. 165 
 
 had been already two days in the possession of this 
 mounted official. Robert Field tore it open in haste, ex- 
 pecting much sage counsel and argument covering many 
 pages, such as he would have written himself on the 
 subject so dear to him, concluding, he fondly hoped, 
 either with a reluctant consent, or, at the worst; some 
 plea for delay on account of his youth ; but instead, 
 there ran in his father's bold handwriting the few 
 words, "Robert Field is desired to return home at 
 once." 
 
 Thus adjured, he immediately dashed the letter on 
 the ground, but was roused to a sense of propriety by 
 a demand for one-and- elevenpence postage, which was 
 the rate in this remote part of the Principality in those 
 days. 
 
 Flinging the man a half-crown, he picked up the 
 letter and rushed back to the house to pack up his knap- 
 sack and pay his moderate bill, and in less than an 
 hour he was on his way back to the Dale without 
 any very clear idea of what he intended to do, except 
 that he would first see the Vicar, and learn from him 
 the result of the interview with his father. On the 
 manner in which it had gone his future course would 
 depend. 
 
 He made his way as rapidly as he could back to 
 Lawley, partly by coach and partly on foot across the 
 hills, and about a week after the meeting between the 
 family and the Yicar he presented himself before the 
 latter to learn his fate. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher had made the best of it to his daughters,
 
 166 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 only they were given to understand that for a time 
 the visits of the young suitor must be discontinued. 
 Eachel had turned very white at this announcement, 
 although made as gently as her father knew how to 
 make it, and had stolen away quietly to her own room 
 soon after, where she was joined in a little time by her 
 elder sister, to whom the Yicar, in the absence of his 
 younger daughter, had related the details of his inter- 
 view with the Fields. 
 
 Martha Fletcher took some comfort from the con- 
 cluding words of Mr. Joshua Field, and did not doubt 
 but that it would all come right in the end ; and so 
 she administered all the consolation in her power to 
 the trembling, sobbing sister who nestled in her 
 bosom. The resolution of her father, that her lover's 
 visits should be discontinued altogether for the present, 
 seemed to Eachel a very hard thing to bear, and raised 
 a suspicion in her mind that something very serious 
 had occurred between the parents. She had watched 
 for her father's return on the day of his visit to the 
 Dale, and knew by his very gait and drooping head, 
 the instant he came in sight on the river bank, that all 
 had not gone well between him and the proud family 
 into whose midst Eobert Field proposed to bring her 
 as his bride. 
 
 Eachel Fletcher, like all maidens who love only 
 once and for ever, had no fear as to the constancy of 
 her lover; but, like her father, her spirit rebelled 
 asrainst the idea that she should be received either with 
 
 o 
 
 coldness or reserve by the wealthy family of the Dale,
 
 RACHEL FLETCHER. 167 
 
 whose position had hitherto appeared to her so much 
 above her own. She also feared much that in case 
 Mr. Field did not approve of his son's proposal, an 
 insuperable obstacle to their happiness would exist. 
 But this was a view of the matter in which her elder 
 sister did not concur. Had it been her own case, it is 
 probable Miss Fletcher might have held the same 
 opinion ; but she deemed her sister Rachel as one " far 
 above rubies," and fit to be the wife of any man, no 
 matter whom, who would be fortunate enough to win 
 her heart. Therefore she decided she would speak with 
 Robert Field before he was utterly banished from the 
 house ; and it so happened that when the young man 
 arrived on foot in the afternoon, she was the first to see 
 him, the Vicar being then from home, engaged in his 
 parish work. 
 
 Robert Field was travel- stained and tired ; but, with 
 his knapsack braced on his shoulders, and his erect 
 carriage and handsome countenance, somewhat bronzed 
 by his recent exposure to the keen air and hot sun 
 on the Welsh hills, Martha thought he looked more 
 of the man to whom her sister might be trusted than 
 he had ever looked before. She hastened to meet 
 him before any communication could pass between 
 him and her father, who was expected home in a short 
 time. 
 
 " Mr. Field," she said, "lam sorry I have not good 
 news for you ; but you must not despair. Be patient 
 and wait, for her sake." 
 
 " Tell me what has occurred," said Robert Field,
 
 168 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 seating himself in a little summer-house to which she 
 had led him. 
 
 She told him, as closely as she could recollect, the 
 substance of the interview between his relatives and 
 the Vicar. 
 
 "And, now," she said, laying her hand kindly on 
 his arm, "you must be gentle with your father. 
 Remember who and what he is, and how very wise 
 and good, and make allowances for the prejudices of 
 your uncle' and aunt. No doubt they all have your 
 welfare at heart, and are acting for the best ; but if 
 the good Lord thinks it is right, it will all come to 
 pass as you wish ; only do not be hasty. You know 
 that Rachel loves you, but she will obey her father in 
 all things, and he deems it best, under present circum- 
 stances, that you should not see her for a short time, 
 until your father has more fully considered the matter.' ' 
 
 " Not see her ! " said Robert Field, starting to his 
 feet. "Martha, am I a boy to be driven about in 
 leading strings ? This must not, cannot be. I cannot 
 exist if I am forbidden to see her. Surely you will 
 not lend yourself to so cruel a proceeding." Martha 
 heard her father's footstep on the gravel path outside, 
 and rose to meet him. The Yicar immediately took up 
 the conversation where it was, having overheard the 
 last words as he approached. 
 
 " It is best for the present," he said, kindly ; 
 " indeed it is best, and will lead to a better under- 
 standing with your father, and I am sure you will 
 come to think so later on. You must obey him in
 
 RACHEL FLETCHER. 169 
 
 this matter for a time, even though you are yourself 
 come to man's estate ; and remember also that Rachel 
 is still very young. For a while this suit must rest ; 
 but I do not say for ever ; nor do I believe it will be 
 for long if you are wise and patient. Meantime you 
 may be happily employed in completing your educa- 
 tion, by following out your father's idea of travelling 
 abroad." 
 
 The young man remained silent, but his brow was 
 contracted sternly as if with pain. 
 
 "It is Uncle Jediah's doing," he said; "he cannot 
 forgive the ' Refutation.' But my father must hear me 
 alone when I see him, and I hope to alter his decision 
 if it be, as you think, adverse to my hopes. Of one 
 thing rest assured, Mr. Fletcher ; I shall never cease to 
 love your daughter, or to strive to win her despite of 
 every obstacle, and I hope you will not adhere to your 
 resolution that I shall not see her — at least not for 
 long. It would be cruel to us both. May I not see 
 her," he pleaded, " once more before I go to the 
 Dale?" 
 
 Mr. Fletcher shook his head, and did not invite the 
 young man into the house, but some refreshment was 
 sent out to him where they were, of which he scarcely 
 partook. 
 
 He was not permitted to speak to Rachel ere he 
 departed ; but as he passed out, and glanced up at a 
 well-known window, a small white hand drew aside 
 the curtain for a little bit, and was kissed to him by 
 the timid girl hiding within, fearful that she was dis-
 
 170 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 obeying her father in so doing, but anxious to convey 
 some little hope to her dejected lover. 
 
 When Robert Field reached the Dale House later 
 in the day, he was informed that his father was abroad 
 as usual at his business, but that his Aunt Rebecca 
 desired to see him. That worthy woman treated him 
 to a homily of great length, to which he was compelled 
 to listen in silence, as any argument with the venerable 
 lady, who believed she spoke from inspiration on such 
 occasions, was out of the question. He then retired 
 to change his dress. At the usual hour his father 
 returned home, but did not take any special notice of 
 him on their meeting at the dinner- table. The meal 
 was eaten in silence and in solemn state, as usual, a 
 number of serving men in sober drab being in attend- 
 ance, with very little to do. The upper female servants 
 dined at the same table, but with a wide interval 
 between them and the family. The men servants had 
 all dined previously, and now waited on the rest. At 
 most times it was a cheerless meal, only relieved occa- 
 sionally by a little discussion between the young man 
 and his uncle, to which the head of the family would 
 listen with pleasure, although he seldom joined in the 
 conversation. Fortunately for every one, " the spirit" 
 never moved Aunt Rebecca at meal-times, and there- 
 fore she invariably remained silent throughout, eating 
 very little, but carefully noting that every one was 
 attended to, and that the dishes were properly prepared ; 
 if not, the cook had an exhortation later on. 
 
 On this day there was evidently a weight on the
 
 RACHEL FLETCHEE. 171 
 
 spirits of every one, which deeply irritated the young 
 man, who felt that he was the unoffending cause of all 
 this gloom, and wished himself elsewhere. 
 
 He could not but contrast this melancholy feast 
 with the cheerful meals at Lawley, where the Vicar's 
 shrewd remarks, and his daughters' wit, were mingled 
 with pleasant laughter, as the richest sauce to the 
 viands on the table. 
 
 The servants who waited at Lawley were two pretty 
 young women, sisters, who had been brought up in the 
 vicarage, and were accustomed to glide noiselessly 
 behind the chairs, and found time to listen now and 
 then, with evident delight, to the lively sallies of the 
 young ladies. 
 
 To unlucky guests who were not " Friends," a 
 dinner at the great house was sure to be followed by 
 an attack of indigestion, and was seldom indulged in 
 twice if it could be avoided. When the lengthy con- 
 cluding " meditation " was over, Robert Field fled 
 to his own room, and occupied himself in packing 
 trunks with his books and clothes. 
 
 He had been somewhat undecided as to his future 
 course when he sat down to dinner, but the dreary 
 ceremony of feeding like a machine, at which he had 
 assisted, was too much for him, and he felt a suffocating 
 sense of utter misery under his father's roof, and a 
 desire to be gone before another day dawned on him — 
 he knew not and cared not whither, so that it was to 
 some place which as yet had not been blessed with the 
 presence of any members of the society to which his
 
 172 LATTTERDALE. 
 
 family belonged. My readers must remember I am 
 writing of a bygone generation, and perhaps of extreme 
 examples of a sect whose manners and customs have 
 altered very much for the better. 
 
 Whilst the young man was busily engaged in his 
 own room, there came a light tap at his door, and on 
 opening it he beheld the tall spare form of Josiah 
 Morris, whom he had left in the dining-hall. Robert 
 Field was at all times glad to see Josiah. They had 
 spent many pleasant hours together, and much of what 
 he knew of certain subjects was due to the teaching of 
 the respected cashier. 
 
 " Robert/' said the latter gravely, " I wish to speak 
 to thee ; may I come in ? " 
 
 "Of course/' answered his young friend; "I am 
 glad to see thee always." 
 
 Robert Field still used the form of speech of the 
 Friends at home, although much converse with the 
 Fletchers had somewhat broken him of the habit with 
 strangers. 
 
 " I am pained to see this," said Josiah, pointing to 
 the signs of preparation for departure on the floor. 
 " Hast thou thought well of thy duty to thy father, 
 and of his wishes ? This step will grieve him much, and 
 will not lead to happiness for thyself. Truly, I speak 
 from some sad experience. I once disobeyed my 
 parents in a matter like thine, and had much reason 
 to repent of it." 
 
 He then gently told the young man something of 
 the private history of his own life ; how when a very
 
 RACHEL FLETCHER. 173 
 
 young man he had travelled as agent for his father, 
 who was a manufacturer in the Midland Counties, and 
 had met at the house of one of their customers a young 
 orphan lady, who was governess in the family, but not 
 a member of the Friends' Society, who, he said, " had 
 bewitched him by her beauty and clever ways ;" and 
 although he had striven against the spell as against a 
 temptation of the Evil One, it had been too much for 
 him, and he had hastily married the young lady, who 
 was of a gay and lively disposition, and highly accom- 
 plished, — against the expressed wish and command of 
 his father. But remores and contrition had set in 
 soon afterwards, and he had been severe and harsh 
 with her in regard to some supposed levity of manner or 
 conduct, until one day she had fled away from his 
 house, and left him. Whether she was dead, or utterly 
 lost to him, he did not say ; but the telling of his story, 
 so far as he deemed fit to reveal it, evidently cost him 
 much pain, and was accompanied with visible emotion. 
 
 Robert Field understood now much that had 
 puzzled him previously in the manner and character 
 of the cashier, and his eyes filled with tears in sym- 
 pathy with his friend's evident suffering ; at the same 
 time, it appeared to him that there was no resemblance 
 between the sweet girl he admired at Lawley, and the 
 thoughtless young woman who had so hastily aban- 
 doned her husband. 
 
 The interview was brought to an abrupt close by a 
 message from Mr. Field, to the effect that he wished 
 to see his son immediately, and the young man hastily
 
 174 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 left the room, leaving his good counsellor behind, who 
 suddenly dropped off into a deep reverie, which was a 
 habit of his whenever the painful subject of his married 
 life was accidentally recalled. Perhaps on these 
 occasions his mind returned to the question of " what 
 might have been," had he not suddenly drawn the 
 rein so tight, and dealt so sternly with the young 
 creature whom he had promised to love and cherish, 
 whose sensitive spirit had been stung to sudden mad- 
 ness by the harsh and unjust language addressed to 
 her by one whom she had previously believed to be 
 all gentleness and mercy. 
 
 Robert Field bowed low and reverently as he 
 entered his father's room, but instantly raised his 
 head erect as he caught sight of his uncle, almost 
 buried in a deep arm-chair at his father's elbow. 
 
 It was unfortunate that the conference was to be 
 held before a witness, and that witness so prejudiced. 
 
 He had been prepared to make material concessions 
 when he left his own room, under the influence of the 
 advice he had just received ; but something in the 
 very presence of his sharp uncle, seated with one thin 
 leg dangling like a whip across the other, whilst his 
 restless grey eyes peered out under his wiry eyebrows, 
 disconcerted and irritated the young man at the outset. 
 
 " Robert," said his father, after some moments' 
 silence, " thy course of late is causing me much pain 
 and anxiety. For some inscrutable reason thou hast 
 constantly absented thyself from our Meeting, and 
 despised the faithful counsel of the elders. Thou hast
 
 RACHEL FLETCHER. 175 
 
 hastily sought an objectionable alliance with those who 
 are not of us, nor ever can be, and whose station in life, 
 although respectable, is not such as would render the 
 idea one which might be hopefully entertained in the 
 future. Thou art the first of this family to think of 
 marriage at so early a period of life, and also the first 
 to seek a wife from the stranger at our gates. Added 
 to this, the letter thou hast addressed to me conveys 
 vague threats which should not be addressed to one 
 who has been so over-indulgent a parent as thine. 
 Young man," he added with severity after a pause, 
 " I await thy explanation, and thine uncle will judge 
 between us this day." 
 
 The head and front of his offending was thus placed 
 before Robert Field. The indictment was clear and 
 intelligible, and it behoved him to be wary in his 
 defence under the eye of the keen judge to whom his 
 father had appealed. He now felt how embarrassing 
 was the presence of a third person, especially in the 
 capacity of umpire, and he endeavoured to arrange his 
 thoughts in order to make one last effort to break down 
 the barrier slowly forming like ice between him and his 
 father. He thought also of the prize to be won and of 
 the cost of defeat, and slowly recalled, one by one, the 
 accusatory sentences enunciated so solemnly by his 
 father, who evidently had spoken by the card. 
 
 "Father," he said with grave emphasis, "I am 
 grieved to have caused thee pain or anxiety. I did not 
 knowingly or willingly do so. As to my absence from 
 the Meeting of late, I have seriously considered the
 
 176 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 matter, and I have carefully studied the tenets of our 
 sect, and have experience of their form of worship. I 
 was prejudiced as thou art, and as uncle Jediahis, in its 
 favour. I have learnt better things, and can no longer 
 conform to the teaching or customs of the Friends. In 
 this matter I can admit no blame, nor can I promise 
 any alteration. I intend to join the communion of the 
 English Church, and to worship in its Liturgy. I 
 believe I shall be a better and happier man by so doing. 
 I have not decided on this course hastily, but it is 
 adopted of my own free will, and from personal con- 
 viction. As to my hope and desire to marry Rachel 
 Fletcher, I cannot abandon my intention ; it may be 
 somewhat premature, as thou sayest. We are both very 
 young, but we can wait. I cannot and will not give 
 the maiden up if she will be mine, and she is worthy to 
 be the wife of a far better man than I am. I did not 
 know that I had threatened aught, but I am unhappy 
 in this house. I wish to be of some use in the world. 
 I can be of little service in the business, for which I 
 have no taste ; but whatever I may do, I hope will be 
 done with thy approval and assistance." 
 
 " That is, thou wilt go thy own way, Robert," said 
 Jediah, speaking harshly and suddenly, " and lean on 
 thy father's arm when it pleaseth thee. Truly, thou 
 hast profited by the teaching of thy new friends at 
 Lawley, and hast forgotten in their company every- 
 thing in which thou wast carefully instructed before. 
 If thou wert my son, thou shouldst go thy way and 
 partake to thy fill of the husks which'] he swine do eat,
 
 RACHEL FLETCHER. 177 
 
 until thou didst return like the prodigal ; but of approval 
 and assistance in thy disobedient froward course, I shall 
 advise thy father to give thee none." 
 
 Here Jediah sprang out of his comfortable seat and 
 confronted his nephew, whose heightened colour bore 
 witness to the keenness of the rebuff he had received. 
 
 " I trust, Uncle Jediah," he said sternly, "my father 
 will do what he deems right, no matter what thy opinion 
 or advice may be. But neither for thee nor for him 
 can I change the views I have expressed, and indeed I 
 should despise myself were I to do so." 
 
 Joshua Field's eyes flashed as this last sentence fell 
 on his ear, and then he rose also and stood beside his 
 brother, whose influence over him in those days was 
 unfortunately very great. 
 
 " Young man," he said, "thou mayest go thy way ; 
 henceforth I shall not look on thee as my son. I 
 cannot approve of thy course or conduct, least of all in 
 this imprudent marriage ; but thou hast come to man's 
 estate, and art thine own master. I shall not leave thee 
 without means until, as thou sayest, thou canst earn 
 thine own bread ; but unless I send for thee, see me no 
 more." 
 
 He waved his hand to the door, and his son bowed 
 low and left the room in silence and in anger. When 
 he reached his own chamber he found his friend Josiah 
 still waiting for him. 
 
 A glance at the young man's face told the cashier 
 what had been the result of the interview, which was 
 no more than he had anticipated. He sighed heavily as 
 
 VOL. i. n
 
 178 LATTTERDALE. 
 
 lie turned to assist the youth, in packing away his 
 wardrobe and books, and then went away to his own 
 room. 
 
 He returned shortly after with a purse of gold and a 
 cheque-book signed on every page ; these he pressed on 
 Robert Field, saying, "Thou knowest I am rich and have 
 little need of money, and thou must take all thou re- 
 quirest from me at present." 
 
 The young man reluctantly accepted the proffered 
 kindness; indeed he could not do otherwise, having 
 but little money in his possession ; then he laid him 
 down to sleep for the last time in his father's house. 
 His faithful friend kept watch beside his bed, hoping 
 against hope that something would occur ere morning 
 to soften the father's heart, and prevent this " the first 
 break in the family," as to the result of which he was 
 filled with dismal forebodings.
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 THE STUDENT. 
 
 " But as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment 
 Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier manhood : 
 So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying. 
 Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever ; 
 ****** 
 
 Motionless, senseless, dying he lay, and his spirit exhausted 
 Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the darkness." 
 
 LOXGFELLOW. 
 
 "1 |"RS. MALTBY was not altogether a woman of one 
 idea ; but to the particular idea which was upper- 
 most in her mind at any time she adhered persistently 
 as long as there was any chance of carrying her point. 
 The purpose with which she had set out on her 
 journey to Oxford was to rescue her son from the 
 meshes of the Established Church, and to turn him 
 back, if possible, like a stray sheep, into the safe fold of 
 the Wesleyan ministry. She knew enough of the 
 character of the young man whom she had brought 
 into the world and reared to manhood to understand 
 that any sudden attempt to turn him out of one path 
 might have the effect of driving him down another 
 equally dangerous. Like a prudent general, she,
 
 180 LAIJTERDALE. 
 
 therefore, determined to lay siege to the youth by cau- 
 tious approaches, mindful of the precept of Solomon, 
 that " surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of 
 any bird." Accordingly, when she alighted from the 
 " Flying Wonder/' as the fast coach of those days was 
 called, before Mr. Brunei had driven it ignominiously 
 off the road by the extension of the Great Western 
 Hallway to the north, she betook herself to a decent 
 lodging in the neighbourhood of Magdalene College, 
 recommended by Mr. Slowman, who stated that " the 
 landlady was a devout woman, who, like the poor 
 Shunamite of old, always reserved a little chamber for 
 such of the Wesleyan ministers as were in want of rest 
 on their joumeyings." 
 
 Between these two good women there was a common 
 bond of union. They were both well instructed in all 
 knowledge and all mysteries of their sect — full of 
 Christian experience, deep in the subtleties of free 
 grace, justification, and perfection, as taught by Mr. 
 Wesley, whose writings they looked upon as second 
 only to those of St. Paul. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby had rejoiced at the prospect of spiritual 
 communion with such a woman, but she was not pre- 
 pared for the pleasant surprise which awaited her when 
 she discovered that her landlady was the mother of 
 Silas Clayton — a fact which that sly Mr. Slowman had 
 studiously concealed, knowing what a joy the discovery 
 would be on her arrival in the City of the Plain. 
 Indeed, it did much to raise her spirits and redeem 
 the character of the place at the outset. Surely, she
 
 THE STTDEXT. 181 
 
 thought, Oxford might not be so very bad, if such a 
 saint as Dora Clayton bad lived there so long unharmed ; 
 but then she remembered, with a sigh, that there had 
 been found a few righteous persons in that other city 
 for which the father of the faithful had pleaded long 
 ago. Peradventure, if the fervent prayer of a righteous 
 man availed so much, the earnest prayers of two 
 righteous women would effect something towards turn- 
 ing back that wandering sheep into the fold ; although 
 it never occurred to either of them that the particular 
 enclosure in question might not be exactly that in 
 which Providence intended he should find rest unto his 
 soul, because rest in any other was equivalent in their 
 minds to the loss of the sheep altogether. 
 
 Mrs. Clayton was already intimately acquainted with 
 the object of her friend's journey. Silas wrote once or 
 twice a week to his mother at great length, and it may be 
 inferred that everything concerning the Maltby family 
 had a large place in the correspondence. Besides this, 
 as an old inhabitant of the learned city, she was au fait 
 with everything of interest in the colleges near her, and 
 had a little gossiping acquaintance with some of the head 
 porters. Thus she knew by repute who were the " read- 
 ing men," or the men who took to boating or hunting — 
 who were likely to be " plucked " or to " come out well 
 in honours ;" and amongst these last she had heard 
 favourably mentioned the name of Edward Maltby. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby felt no small pride when this was told 
 her by her landlady, although she did not understand 
 very clearly the precise meaning of the phrases used ;
 
 182 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 and when she paid a visit next morning, under her 
 friend's guidance, to the venerable pile of buildings 
 in which her son resided as a graduate, she expected 
 that she would find the young man clad in full 
 academic costume, seated at the feet of some learned 
 Gamaliel, in a lofty chamber walled in with books. 
 Judge, then, of the astonishment of the good lady, 
 when they had passed the rigid scrutiny of the lodge- 
 keeper, and had taken a preliminary canter round the 
 great quadrangle, in which Mrs. Clayton pointed out 
 the grotesque masks and gargoyles which are its special 
 adornment, but whose painful appearance rather horrified 
 her simple friend, they came at length to a low door- 
 way and mounted several flights of a well-worn stair- 
 case to the rooms of Mr. Maltby, who on the present 
 occasion had " sported his oak." 
 
 Fortunately, a student, who discovered the two ladies 
 nonplussed in front of the stout door, which had no 
 visible means of communication with the inner inha- 
 bitant, took pity on them, and contrived, by blowing 
 a peculiarly shrill whistle in the keyhole, to rouse 
 the studious tenant to the knowledge of the fact that 
 some special circumstance required his personal appear- 
 ance. A shooting back of bolts and creaking of iron 
 hinges ensued, and Mrs. Maltby and her son stood, as 
 she had determined at Lauterdale they should stand, 
 " face to face," supported in the background by the 
 bodily presence of the mother of the man for whom he 
 entertained a particular aversion. 
 
 The student's personal appearance was not at this
 
 THE STUDENT. 183 
 
 moment exactly what it should have been for presenta- 
 tion in female society. He was reading hard for his next 
 examination, and had burned the midnight oil in close 
 study during many nights previous. His head was 
 enveloped in a turban of wet towels ; his shirt collar 
 was open and crumpled ; his person clad in an old 
 dressing gown, which his mother knew at sight had 
 never come out of his original wardrobe at Lauterdale ; 
 and his feet reposed in loose Turkish slippers, which 
 were things Mrs. Maltby especially disliked, as savour- 
 ing of idleness and effeminacy. 
 
 "Mother!" he exclaimed, "what in the name of 
 wonder brings you here? Has anything occurred at 
 home?" 
 
 " I have been anxious to see you, Edward," she 
 replied nervously, " ever since I received your letter. 
 This is Mrs. Clayton, at whose house I am lodging at 
 present ; may we come in ? " 
 
 Edward Maltby winced visibly at the announcement 
 and request ; but there was no help for it, and therefore 
 he admitted them to his sanctum — retiring at once 
 himself to an inner den, which was his bedroom, there 
 to assume a more presentable costume. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Maltby curiously scanned the apart- 
 ment; her magnificent visions of student luxury and 
 refinement were dissolved in an instant. The room 
 was bare and comfortless in her eyes, possessing as 
 furniture only a rickety little table and three hard 
 Windsor chairs, a few shelves heavily laden with books, 
 and a cupboard. She wondered what the young man
 
 184 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 could find in the place to entice him away from his 
 cheerful home in the Dale, and she longed with all her 
 maternal instincts to follow him into that inner apart- 
 ment, to discover what kind of bed he slept in ; for 
 truly she thought, with pain, if it were as hard as the 
 chair upon which she sat, his lot was to be pitied. By 
 the time she had taken in every feature of the room, 
 even to the pattern of the faded paper on the walls, and 
 of the still more faded carpet on the floor, frayed into 
 holes beneath the table by her son's restless feet, he 
 had completed his hasty toilet, and now suddenly ap- 
 peared, respectably clothed, and in his right mind. 
 
 " Now, mother, what is it ? " he exclaimed as he re- 
 entered the room. He did not notice Mrs. Clayton at 
 all, and that worthy woman took to staring out of the 
 window into the quadrangle. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby endeavoured to explain to her son that 
 the subject of his letter, announcing his intention to 
 enter the ministry of the English Church, was of such 
 serious moment that she could rest neither day or night 
 with it on her mind, and therefore had set out to see 
 him. He now regretted very much that he had felt it 
 his duty to inform her of his intentions at so early a 
 period, the fact being that he had actually done so 
 under the advice of the Vicar of Lawley, who conceived 
 that the less concealment there was in such matters, the 
 better in the end for all parties. However, as she had 
 come, he decided to make the best of it, and then he 
 skilfully evaded all discussion by proposing that he 
 should show them over the college and the city.
 
 THE STUDENT. 185 
 
 His mother did not care to see either one or the other, 
 but she thought that the fresh air and temporary re- 
 laxation from study would do him good. She had 
 observed those wet towels round his head when first he 
 appeared in the doorway, and immediately suspected 
 headache, and noted also that his hands felt dry and 
 hot ; therefore she readily assented to his proposal, post- 
 poning for the present her private determination to see 
 the inside of that other room, with especial reference to 
 the thickness of the blankets on the bed whereon her 
 misguided son reposed ; " that is," she said to herself, 
 " if he ever takes any sleep at all," which she greatly 
 doubted as she looked anxiously on his pale face and 
 sunken eyes. In a few minutes he was escorting the 
 two simple women over the college, and explaining its 
 many architectural beauties. To them it appeared that 
 great waste of money and very little real usefulness 
 had been the result of the labour and outlay, and the 
 fact that the place had once been the residence of 
 monks, who had designed and executed the grotesque 
 stone carving, in no way increased their aesthetic appre- 
 ciation of the work. Mrs. Maltby was far better pleased 
 when her son, finding the college uninteresting, carried 
 her off on his arm to see the shops in the High Street, 
 leaving Mrs. Clayton to return to the care of her own 
 domicile. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby enjoyed her little trot in the old city 
 very much indeed, hanging on her tall son's arm, 
 especially as he allowed her to look in at the drapers' 
 windows as long as she pleased. He also brought her
 
 186 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 down to the meadows of Christ Church, where she 
 admired the light boats on the river, only objecting a 
 little to the airiness of the costume worn by the crews, 
 and the danger they ran of being capsized in such 
 " cockleshells/ ' 
 
 They dined together at the George, and she enjoyed 
 the dinner vastly, and insisted on paying for it, and also 
 on ordering a bottle of good port to put some colour 
 in his white cheeks, and then she told him all the 
 gossip of the Dale — about the great lawsuit between the 
 company and Jacob Grimshaw, the old miller ; and how 
 young Mr. Field went every Sunday, wet or dry, up to 
 Lawley to hear Parson Fletcher, and often dined at 
 the vicarage afterwards ; how edifying was the sermon 
 preached last Sunday by Mr. Slowman in the Dale 
 chapel, and how Silas Clayton was trying to improve 
 the singing. But at this her son changed the subject, 
 and inquired first after his father's health and business, 
 and then about his sister Patty and her pursuits. 
 
 " Mother," he said, " I'm afraid Patty will be very 
 dull during your absence ; she really has no suitable 
 companions of her own age, and I wish you would 
 allow her to go now and then to Lawley." 
 
 " It's a very long way," said Mrs. Maltby, " and the 
 days are so very hot for walking, and your father wants 
 the gig so often ; I am sure I don't see how it can be 
 managed." 
 
 Edward Maltby knew very well the gig could be had 
 readily enough when the occasion was to visit Mrs. 
 Slowman, and that Patty would be allowed to walk the
 
 THE STUDENT. 187 
 
 distance as often as she pleased, provided she avoided 
 the vicarage. He returned to the charge, nevertheless. 
 
 " But, mother/' he said, " Patty should know more of 
 the people in the neighbourhood than she does, espe- 
 cially nice well-bred people like the Chestertons, who 
 have frequently asked her to visit them." 
 
 Now, the Chestertons lived very close to the Fletchers, 
 and the girls of the family were intimate with those of 
 the vicarage, and had a pew in the church, in which 
 room had always been made for Edward Maltby when- 
 ever he came to Lawley on Sundays. They also occa- 
 sionally attended the services at the chapel. Mrs. 
 Chesterton having come of a Wesleyan stock, had 
 occasional predilections for what she termed "a good 
 rousing" under Mr. Slowman, on " Special Collection 
 Sundays," when he was most eloquent. 
 
 " I don't know much about the Chestertons," said 
 Mrs. Maltby dubiously, " I like people to be either one 
 thing or the other. Patty has a good deal to do in the 
 house, and your father requires her attention in my 
 absence. Besides, she is improving in her music very 
 much, and Mr. Clayton says ' she should practice 
 regularly for two or three hours a day.' " 
 
 " I don't know what Mr. Clayton has to do with it," 
 said Edward Maltby, with a dark look on his brow, 
 which the poor woman understood well enough. " I 
 wish Patty would keep him at a greater distance," he 
 added with some heat. " I hope you don't want her to 
 marry a Methodist missionary, and live like a wander- 
 ing Arab, or be eaten by savages. How did you come to
 
 188 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 fall in with his mother ? " he inquired in a severe tone ; 
 " I wish you had written to me to find you lodgings. 
 And, by the way, mother, what is it has brought you 
 here ? Surely my letter was clear enough." 
 
 " Indeed it was," said Mrs. Maltby hurriedly, pro- 
 ducing her pocket-handkerchief, and sobbing audibly. 
 " Your letter has torn my heart, Edward. Is it for 
 this that I unfortunately consented to your coming to 
 this evil place ? that you should be a castaway. I have 
 prayed night and day," she continued, " that I might 
 be spared this cross ; but now I shall lift up my head 
 no longer in the congregation. Oh ! if you had only 
 listened to Mr. Slowman, or been guided by Silas 
 Clayton, Edward." Here her sobs and tears compelled 
 the poor lady to cease speaking. 
 
 " Mother," he said kindly, " this is really all pre- 
 judice and nonsense. If Mr. Wesley lived in these 
 days, he would never have left the Church, and it is 
 time some of us should set a good example, and return. 
 I hope you will one day rejoice 'with me in my chosen 
 life, and learn to call nothing that is good by hard 
 names." Then he tenderly assisted her, — still sobbing 
 spasmodically, — to put on her shawl and bonnet, and led 
 her slowly back to her lodgings ; but this time she did 
 not want to see any shops, and ' he knew that she was 
 silently weeping. 
 
 Before they reached the cottage of Mrs. Clayton it 
 began to rain. Mrs. Maltby pressed her son urgently 
 to come in and have some tea, and no doubt, if she had
 
 THE STUDENT. 189 
 
 been residing under any other roof, he would have 
 gladly done so ; but his aversion to the Claytons stood 
 in the way, and therefore he pleaded the necessity of 
 returning to his studies as a reason for declining, but 
 promised to call at an early hour on the morrow. He 
 then set out alone, in the rain, for the college. He was 
 thinly clad, having hastily arrayed himself in a light 
 walking coat to accompany his mother, and ere he 
 reached the gate he was wet through. He had been 
 chafing inwardly during the last hour at what he 
 deemed his mother's foolishness in visiting Oxford, 
 which he attributed in some degree to Silas Clayton. 
 He had been much annoyed at any allusion to the 
 latter in connection with his sister's name, and still 
 more vexed at finding his mother residing under the 
 roof of Mrs. Clayton. Added to all this, there was 
 the fear of serious interference with his studies by 
 reason of her presence. 
 
 He was reading hard for his examination, which 
 was close at hand ; he hoped to take high honours, and 
 wished to have the next few days altogether to himself 
 before he went up. Thus, by the time he reached his 
 rooms in the college, he had worked himself into a 
 perfect fever of vexation. 
 
 Flinging himself, wet as he was, into a chair, he 
 plunged at once into his studies at the point where he 
 had been interrupted in the morning, determined to 
 make up as well as he could for lost time, and anxious 
 to change his unpleasant course of thought.
 
 190 LAUTEBDALE. 
 
 In a short time, such was his mental training and 
 power over his own will, he became absorbed in the 
 books and papers around him, pursuing some abstruse 
 problem for hours until he had mastered it. He 
 started from his seat after midnight to find the fire 
 had gone out, and that his limbs were cramped with 
 cold, whilst his temples throbbed with heat and pain. 
 He now remembered having sat down in his wet 
 clothes, and hurried in some alarm to his bed, but the 
 mischief was done beyond recall. He lay tossing all 
 night in fever — now burning with heat and thirst, the 
 next instant shivering with cold. He longed for the 
 dawn, that he might obtain some medical assistance ; he 
 swallowed all the water he could find in the apartment, 
 and yet his throat felt like a furnace. 
 
 Later on, he could no longer rise from his hard couch : 
 the pillow seemed to heave beneath his head, the room 
 appeared to be dancing round him, strange forms and 
 faces came and went amid the darkness — now grotesquely 
 like Mr. Slowman, now like Silas Clayton, again like 
 his mother and her friend. He flung his arms wildly 
 up at them, and called them by name. He covered 
 his head with the bedclothes, but they peeped in at 
 the corners, and laughed and gibbered at him until he 
 could endure it no longer, and tossed the covering 
 away from him. Then they all appeared to come and 
 sit on the bed until there was no more room, but still 
 they changed and changed, and came nearer and 
 nearer. How he longed for daylight to scare them
 
 THE STUDENT. 191 
 
 away ! But when the first rays of the morning sun 
 penetrated that lonely chamber, they fell on a man 
 raving in the paroxysms of brain fever, alone, untended, 
 and likely to do himself some deadly injury if not 
 speedily restrained by force.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FKIENDS IN NEED. 
 
 " He prayeth best, who loveth best 
 All things both great and small ; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all." 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 A BOUT seven o'clock came the old female attendant, 
 or " bedmaker," who waited on Edward Maltby 
 in the college. She heard his hoarse cries in the 
 bedroom, and peered cautiously in round the door. 
 The sight was a painful one indeed — the veins in his 
 neck and forehead seemed like knotted cords, and he 
 was plunging wildly from side to side, now dashing 
 his head against the wall, now hanging out of bed as if 
 about to fall on the floor. She knew to her loss his 
 abstemious habits, and therefore no suspicion that this 
 was the effect of drink crossed the old woman's mind. 
 She had seen cases of that class amongst the students 
 before now, and also other cases where the over- 
 wrought brain had revolted and turned fiercely on 
 itself in revenge, and she strongly suspected that this 
 was one of the latter kind. With siogular prudence
 
 FRIENDS IX NEED. 103 
 
 she stole on tiptoe into the chamber, and crept to the 
 dressing-table, from the drawer of which she cautiously 
 removed his razors ; but in retreating from the room 
 his eye caught sight of her, and in an instant he was 
 out of bed, with the apparent intention of seizing them. 
 The old servant sprang in terror through the open door, 
 and closed and locked it after her. In endeavouring 
 to reach it he fell heavily on the floor, his head striking 
 the corner of an iron-bound trunk, and there he lay, 
 stunned and bleeding. Meanwhile the old bedmaker 
 fled as fast as her limbs could carry her to the porter's 
 lodge, and reported that " Mr. Maltby was either pos- 
 sessed by the Evil One or in a mad fever," such being 
 the two alternatives which suggested themselves to her 
 mind. 
 
 The burly porter referred to his books, and slowly 
 ascertained that the gentleman had returned at an 
 early hour on the previous evening, and then he 
 carried off the excited female, bearing the razors with 
 her as trophies and evidence of the risk she had run, to 
 report the case to the Master. 
 
 The Master of [Magdalene had not yet risen, but on 
 being informed of the sudden illness of the graduate 
 he dispatched a messenger at once for one of the 
 medical attendants of the college, and then hurriedly 
 dressed, and formally proceeded to take down the 
 evidence of the bedmaker with great minuteness. 
 
 How long the unfortunate young man would have 
 lain on the floor without assistance it is impossible 
 to say, as the messenger sent out by the Master found 
 
 vol. i. o
 
 194 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 the medical gentleman absent from his house, and sat 
 down to wait his return. Fortunately, Providence sent 
 a good Samaritan to the aid of the sufferer, or probably- 
 one of the personages in this story would have been 
 missing. 
 
 The " Flying Wonder," which had safely delivered 
 Mrs. Maltby in Oxford, bore another traveller that 
 morning from the borders of the Black Country to the 
 learned city, on his way to London, in the person of 
 Robert Field, flying from his home in Lauterdale, and 
 uncertain as to his future course, but gravitating south- 
 wards, like all restless spirits, to the great city on the 
 Thames. As the coach rolled slowly over the bridge, near 
 Magdalene College, the coachman, by whose side sat 
 Robert Field on the box seat, pointed with pride to the 
 old pile of buildings, and named the college — 
 
 " Maudlin, sir," he said ; " that be Maudlin, wan o' 
 the oldest on 'em, and wan o' the best." 
 
 His hearer remembered at once that this was the 
 college of his friend Edward Maltby, and finding on 
 inquiry that the coach would remain for an hour at the 
 "George" to allow the passengers to breakfast, he was 
 dropped by his own request at the gateway. He learned 
 the position of his friend's quarters from the assistant- 
 porter, on duty in the absence of his senior, then in 
 attendance on the Master, who was still engaged in 
 taking down his statement and that of the garrulous 
 old bedmaker, whilst the life of the subject interested 
 was ebbing away at the other side of the quadrangle. 
 
 On ascending the staircase, and entering the outer
 
 FKIENDS IX NEED. 195 
 
 room by the door which the old woman had left open, 
 Robert Field was surprised to find no one visible. 
 There was evidence of a late vigil on the part of his 
 friend, in the candles burnt to their sockets, and the 
 open books and papers covered with algebraic symbols 
 on the table. He approached the bedroom door and 
 knocked softly, presuming the student was still asleep, 
 but there was no response. He was about to turn 
 away, but, accidentally looking downward, saw a small 
 thin stream of blood oozing beneath the door, to which 
 the carpet did not reach. Alarmed at this, he turned 
 the key in the lock and entered. As he did so he 
 beheld the upturned white face of his friend, who lay 
 still as if in death, whilst the blood welled slowly from 
 a wound in the temple, and trickled over the floor to 
 his feet. The eyes were open and staring, the hands 
 clenched, and the feet drawn up to the body. The 
 first suspicion of the horrified visitor was that there 
 had been foul play ; the tumbled condition of the bed- 
 clothes, the open drawer in the dressing-table, the door 
 locked on the outside, the position of the body on the 
 floor, and that ugly cut on the young student's fore- 
 head, appeared to warrant this conclusion. 
 
 Robert Field hastily raised his unfortunate friend in 
 his arms, and replaced him on the hard couch. As he 
 did so a groan escaped from the wounded man, and his 
 eyelids closed ; there was some hope in this, and on feel- 
 ing over his heart there was further evidence of life in 
 its irregular but rapid pulsation. Mr. Field bound his 
 handkerchief round his friend's forehead to staunch the
 
 196 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 bleeding, and having disposed him as comfortably as 
 he could on his pillow, he sought for water in the 
 apartments to bathe his face. Finding none, he rushed 
 out of the room for assistance, and thundered at an 
 adjacent door on the staircase, thereby arousing the 
 occupant within, who immediately appeared, and 
 angrily demanded the cause of the assault and battery ; 
 but on learning the state of the case, hastened with his 
 water-jug and some brandy to the rescue. They bathed 
 the wounded man's head and face with water, and 
 attempted to pour some of the spirit down his throat, 
 but this he stoutly resisted, clenching his teeth and 
 hoarsely murmuring " water." 
 
 They placed some to his parched lips, and he raised 
 his head from the pillow and drank eagerly, until he 
 had swallowed all that remained in the large jug ; then 
 he lay back wearily, and murmured, " Mother ! — send 
 for mother ! " 
 
 His fellow- student was the youth who had succeeded 
 in obtaining an audience for the two ladies the day 
 before, and he now explained to Robert Field that Mrs. 
 Maltby was in Oxford, and volunteered to go to the 
 gate to obtain assistance. 
 
 During his absence Mr. Field made some further 
 investigation into his friend's condition, and came to 
 the conclusion that it was a case of severe illness and 
 accidental injury. 
 
 The wound on the young man's forehead was not 
 serious, and the bleeding had been of immediate service 
 in relieving the surcharged vessels of the brain ; but the
 
 FEIEXDS IN NEED. 197 
 
 fever was evidently increasing ; and, as the patient 
 began to rave incoherently, and to roll his head from 
 side to side, Robert Field sat on the bedside and did 
 all in his power to assuage his friend's suffering. It 
 seemed an age before the young student returned. 
 When he did so he was accompanied by the Master of 
 the college, who had finished taking down the statement 
 of the bedmaker, which had been duly attested by the 
 head porter, who now appeared in the background, and 
 was shortly followed by the medical man, who fortu- 
 nately just then entered the college on his usual round. 
 He was a tall thin man, with a stoop acquired from a 
 habit of peering steadfastly into the faces of his nume- 
 rous patients, and was also a man of very few words, but 
 prompt in action. 
 
 He removed the bandage and allowed the light to 
 fall on the wound, then pressed it all round with a 
 bony finger, and smiled a grim smile, which wrinkled 
 his lean jaws into innumerable creases. He next ex- 
 amined the iron-bound corner of the trunk, and looked 
 carefully at the blood on the floor, opening the door 
 to form an estimate of the quantity outside, and then 
 he betook himself, watch in hand, to a calculation of 
 the patient's pulse ; made a note of it, and raised one 
 of the sufferer's eyelids with his thumb, uttered a short 
 preliminary "Ha ! " and said, 
 
 " He must be removed to the hospital at once." 
 Robert Field explained that the young man's mother 
 was believed to be in Oxford ; upon which the phy- 
 sician said, very tersely, " Send for her at once,"
 
 198 LATTTERDALE. 
 
 and proceeded to the outer room to speak to the 
 Master. 
 
 " This is a serious case," he said. " When was he 
 seen last by any one in the college ? " 
 
 The Master produced the manuscript deposition, and 
 read solemnly therefrom the hour at which the porter 
 stated he had entered Mr. Maltby's name on his return 
 to the college through the lodge on the previous 
 evening. 
 
 " Let me see him," said the doctor, cutting short 
 the reading of the document. 
 
 The porter was duly presented, being called in from 
 the landing, where he was engaged with the student 
 in hearing for the third time the narrative of the bed- 
 maker, which had now reached an appalling and sensa- 
 tional character. He was a very fat man, much troubled 
 with asthma, and the effort of ascending the steep 
 stairs, added to his previous excitement, had knocked 
 all the breath out of him. 
 
 " Jones, when did he come in last evening ?" said 
 the doctor. 
 
 " Ugh — ugh/' gasped Jones, "I — duly — entered the 
 hour — ugh — and — minute in — the gate-book, and — 
 ugh — it's just been took down by the Master." 
 
 Jones looked like a man who had done his duty, and 
 expected approval. 
 
 " Jones says at a quarter past eight," said the worthy 
 Master, referring again to his memoranda, and rubbing 
 his spectacles. "Do you think, doctor," he continued, 
 " that there has been violence ? If so, we must have a
 
 FRIENDS IN NEED. 199 
 
 formal inquiry on oath ; a solemn investigation on 
 oath." 
 
 Here he shook the deposition at the bedmaker and 
 the student, who had both incautiously ventured within 
 the door in the wake of the porter, and who imme- 
 diately retired, stumbling over one another, and on top 
 of some other inquisitive people on the staircase. 
 
 " Was he wet ? " said the doctor, again addressing 
 the porter, and ignoring the Master's question. 
 
 Jones placed his finger on his eyebrow, as if making 
 a sublime effort of memory, and extended his left hand 
 to enforce silence whilst the effort was being made. 
 
 " Yes/' he said, at length, " decidedly wet — ugh — 
 wet as a fowl — absolutely saturated, sir. I remember 
 his coat was shiny all down the back — ugh — and the 
 brim of his 'at like the eave of an 'ouse." 
 
 " A house ! Jones," said the Master, emphatically. 
 "A 'ouse, sir," said Jones, hastily correcting himself, 
 and believing he had made an error in the article. 
 
 " I said ' house,' not ' 'ouse,' Jones," said the Master, 
 in a voice of thunder ; whereat the bedmaker fled down- 
 stairs altogether, the student retreated into his room, 
 and Jones gasped in silence. 
 
 " Wet as a fowl," said the doctor to himself — " urn." 
 Then, looking at the candlesticks and papers on the 
 table, "reading hard — um ;" then at the fireplace, 
 " fire out, no doubt — wet clothes — overwork. Brain 
 fever," he said, summing up suddenly, aloud, at which 
 the Master, who was not sure but that it might be 
 infectious, began to move to the door, and pleaded the
 
 200 LATITEEDALE. 
 
 necessity of returning to his breakfast, hoping that the 
 doctor would come in and join him, when they could 
 discuss the poor fellow's case at leisure. 
 
 The doctor had breakfasted two hours before, and 
 politely declined. He inquired from the porter if he 
 knew the present residence of the young man's mother ; 
 and, after a second severe effort at recollection, that 
 fat functionary declared he thought he knew the abode 
 of one of the two ladies who had called on Mr. Maltby 
 yesterday, and would send round to inquire. 
 
 The doctor dispatched him, wheezing and puffing, to 
 his lodge on this errand, and also with a prescription 
 for the patient, to be obtained at the chemist's by the 
 messenger, and requested him to send the bedmaker 
 at once to the bedroom, which he re-entered. 
 
 Robert Field was supporting his friend's head on his 
 arm, as the latter appeared to be easier in that position 
 than when reclining on the low, hard pillow. Edward 
 Maltby seemed to recognise him, and slowly uttered his 
 name, then the names of Martha and Rachel Fletcher, 
 and very often that of his mother, coupled sometimes 
 with the name of Mrs. Clayton. 
 
 They surmised that he was endeavouring to indicate 
 Mrs. Maltby' s present address, but could not form the 
 sentence. The doctor laid his bony hand on the 
 patient's wrist, and slid his rigid fingers over his limbs. 
 The sufferer shrunk sensibly from the contact, and 
 groaned as if it hurt him. 
 
 " The bleeding has weakened him," said the doctor, 
 " but his pulse is very wild. I fear it will be a long
 
 FRIENDS IN NEED. 201 
 
 case and a severe one. Do you know him intimately?" 
 he inquired, after a pause. 
 
 "Only a little of late," replied Robert Field; "I 
 called here accidentally on my way past the college 
 this morning on the road to London." 
 
 Here he looked at his watch, and remembered that 
 the " Flying Wonder " must have departed ere this. 
 
 " I hope you can spare time to stay with him for 
 a while," said the doctor ; " he will want careful attend- 
 ance, and he seems to take kindly to you." 
 
 Robert Field felt the poor sufferer's hand clasping 
 his, and he decided he would begin his mission of 
 benevolence by attending this young man, to whose 
 bedside Providence seemed to have directed his footsteps 
 at the very outset of his journey. 
 
 " I will stay with him," he said quietly. 
 
 " Very good," said the doctor, and the grim smile 
 broke over his face like a wave once more, furrowing his 
 cheeks into curious lines, like ripples on a calm sea. 
 
 At this moment the old bedmaker returned, still 
 bearing the razors as evidence of her imaginary 
 encounter in the morning, having by this time cir- 
 culated a thrilling narrative amongst her sisterhood 
 assembled on a neighbouring staircase, who adjourned 
 collectively by-and-by to one of the kitchens, there to 
 discuss the subject thoroughly, with the assistance of a 
 little gin and water. » 
 
 The doctor looked severely at her, and wrote a few 
 words in pencil on a card. 
 
 " Take this to the buttery," he said, " and tell them
 
 202 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 it's for me, and come back with it at once. Mind, no 
 delay, I want this room put to rights at once. His 
 mother must not see that," he added turning to Robert 
 Field, and pointing to the blood on the floor. 
 
 The old woman hobbled off as fast as she could, 
 and soon returned with a large jug of warm drink, 
 specially concocted by the cook on the doctor's 
 order. 
 
 He dropped some laudanum into it from a pocket 
 phial, and then held it to his patient's lips, who drained 
 it to the last few drops. The doctor then covered him 
 up warmly, and ordered the window- shutters to be 
 closed. 
 
 " He may sleep a little now," he said, "and then we 
 shall try to move him ; but there will be a reaction 
 by-and-by. I wish his mother would come before I 
 leave." 
 
 The old attendant now obtained the assistance of one 
 of her cronies, and both were soon busy on the floor 
 removing all traces of the accident. The doctor retired 
 to the outer room and took up a book. Robert Field 
 remained by his friend's bedside listening to his low 
 moaning and incoherent rambling talk, from which he 
 guessed the secret of his attachment to Martha Fletcher, 
 whose name fell often from the sick man's lips. This 
 gave him a new interest in the sufferer. His thoughts 
 reverted to the quiet vicarage at Lawley, and the last 
 glimpse he had seen of Rachel, and he felt happy in the 
 idea that his present occupation was one which would 
 meet with her warm approval.
 
 FRIENDS IX NEED. 203 
 
 He was roused from his reverie by a hurried step 
 and eager female voice in the next room addressing the 
 good doctor, who was speaking hopefully in reply. 
 Mrs. Maltby had arrived to take charge with him of 
 the unfortunate student, who now lay there so helpless, 
 and whom she had left last evening so proud and 
 hopeful. 
 
 "Surely," she said, lifting up her hands, " who can 
 tell what a day may bring forth ? " 
 
 " These cases are invariably sudden, madam," said 
 the physician, " whether brought forth by day or 
 night. The sooner your son is removed, the better ; but 
 it is desirable that you should not see him just at 
 present. If you will give me your address, and return 
 home to make the necessary arrangements, I shall see 
 him safely removed within an hour." 
 
 " Oh ! may I not see him for an instant ? " said Mrs. 
 Maltby in an imploring tone. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. 
 
 " He is in good hands," said he; "your presence 
 might excite him. You shall see him by-and-by in 
 your own house." 
 
 " Sir," she said gently, "my home is at Lauterdale, 
 and I only arrived here yesterday ; but I reside with a 
 good woman named Clayton, not far off, who I am sure 
 will take him in." 
 
 "Dora Clayton ?" said he. "I know — very good 
 old lady — nice lodgings. We shall take him there at 
 once if you will be so good as to go on before and make 
 ready to receive him. Permit me, madam, to attend
 
 204 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 you to the porter's lodge. T shall bring your son im- 
 mediately in my own carriage. Mrs. Maltby had to 
 submit, as the doctor was inexorable ; indeed, his polite 
 escort was only meant to expedite her departure. He 
 then looked in on the Master, who was in the middle of 
 his breakfast, and readily gave permission for the 're- 
 moval of the patient. 
 
 " An excellent young man," he said warmly ; " one 
 of the most promising graduates in the college. But, 
 doctor, do you really feel certain that there has been 
 no violence, because if there is a shadow of doubt on 
 your mind I shall have a searching inquiry. Jones 
 says," he continued, again producing the deposition 
 and fixing his spectacles on his nose, " that at a quarter 
 to eight — no, a quarter past eight — Mr. Maltby re- 
 turned within the precincts, but did not speak to, or 
 salute, or otherwise notice the porters in the lodge, 
 which was unusual on his part, and that he, Jones, 
 particularly noticed " 
 
 Here the doctor cut in suddenly, " I know, I know 
 — very observant man, Jones ; but there has been no 
 violence, my dear sir, only a little accidental injury, 
 and too much work here," he said, touching his fore- 
 head. " Wet clothes, — neglect, — fever ; — better in his 
 mother's care at present ; — I shall report daily how he 
 gets on, but we must have him away at once." 
 
 "By all means, doctor — by all means," said the 
 Master, upon whose eloquence the word " fever " acted 
 like cold water ; and then he hastily beat a retreat into 
 his study, leaving his breakfast unfinished.
 
 FRIENDS IX XEED. 205 
 
 An hour after this interview the doctor's carriage 
 drew up at the little garden-wicket of Mrs. Clayton's 
 cottage. The blinds were down, but a young man 
 descended quickly from the vehicle and proceeded up 
 the footpath to the door, which was already opened by 
 Mrs. Maltby, trembling with nervous excitement, and 
 attended by her kind landlady, who had readily 
 placed the resources of her little dwelling at her dis- 
 posal. 
 
 " I am sorry, Mrs. Maltby," he began, " that I come 
 on so unpleasant an errand, but your son has borne the 
 journey very well. Into which room are we to bring 
 him ? " 
 
 " Bless me, it's young Mr. Field," said Mrs. Maltby. 
 " Oh ! sir, you are very good indeed." The poor mother's 
 heart was lifted up for an instant with a little pardon- 
 able nutter of pride at the idea that her son should be 
 so honoured as to have for his best friend the heir to 
 the Dale property. 
 
 " His bedroom is ready upstairs, sir," said Mrs. 
 Clayton, "if you will be so good as to bring him in." 
 
 Eobert Field begged that they would both retire 
 whilst this was being done, but as he returned from 
 the carriage, accompanied by the doctor and one of the 
 college attendants, bearing the sick man tenderly 
 between them, wrapped in blankets, he caught sight of 
 Mrs. Maltby* s pale troubled face at the parlour window, 
 and heard her sobs as they carried him upstairs to his 
 room. They laid him on the bed and removed the 
 stained bandage from his forehead, and when his
 
 206 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 wound had been dressed the ladies were summoned to 
 take charge of him, whilst the doctor retired to hold 
 counsel with Mr. Field in an adjoining room. 
 
 " This may be a serious case," said he ; " the young 
 man has lost a great deal of blood, and may yet lose 
 more. He will require some one with more strength 
 than these women as soon as the present effect of the 
 laudanum diminishes. Can you remain with him in 
 this house during his illness ? " 
 
 " 1 have nothing else to do at present," said Mr. 
 Field, " and as he has fallen in my way I shall stay 
 with him whilst I can be of use." 
 
 " Very good," said the doctor, and then he proceeded 
 to give plain directions for the treatment of the patient, 
 and took his leave. 
 
 On returning to the sick man's room, Robert Field 
 found the two women kneeling by the bedside. They 
 did not doubt the utility of earthly means, but from 
 strong faith and habit were seeking the aid of the 
 Great Physician on behalf of the sufferer, who was 
 still unconscious. They both remembered, more in 
 sorrow than with any other feeling, how disdainfully 
 he had carried himself away from* the door on the 
 previous evening, and now that he was brought low 
 they prayed that it might be for his soul's wel- 
 fare. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby was full of thankfulness that she had 
 been brought to Oxford at this crisis, forgetting, per- 
 haps, that if she had remained at home it might not 
 have arisen at all ; and as for Robert Field, he was glad
 
 FRIENDS IN NEED. 207 
 
 to find a little benevolent work cut out for him so soon. 
 During the night, as the doctor had foretold, he had 
 quite enough to do in restraining the delirious patient 
 whose care he had undertaken, as the fever assumed a 
 very violent type, indicating intense cerebral inflam- 
 mation. 
 
 It is not my purpose to weary the reader with further 
 details of this young man's illness. For many weeks 
 he appeared to be very near the end of his career. The 
 medical man looked grave, and came very often to the 
 cottage. Robert Field took a deeper interest in his 
 friend's case every day, and was of great use during the 
 severest period of the fever, when both strength and 
 nerve were required. He had a bedroom in the cottage, 
 as, fortunately, Mrs. Clayton's lodgings were then vacant ; 
 and if he sometimes felt amused by the quaint piety of 
 the two women, he was also convinced of its genuine 
 character, and obtained some useful experience in 
 witnessing their simple faith. The extreme danger of 
 his friend set him thinking seriously, and as the student 
 began slowly to rally, they held much converse together 
 on vital questions of deep interest to both, and so 
 became fast friends, with united sympathies. Edward 
 Maltby's pride and self-reliance had been shattered in 
 the dust. He remembered his refusal to enter the house 
 in which he now received so much kindness, and out of 
 this suffering there sprang up within his heart the 
 germs of a broader Christianity than any other teaching 
 could have imparted to him. His strong prejudices 
 against the Methodists disappeared before the daily
 
 208 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 evidence of Mrs. Clayton's real goodness and unselfish 
 kindness of heart. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby rejoiced greatly at this change, and was 
 full of gratitude to her landlady and Mr. Field for the 
 care bestowed on her son. She wrote hopefully home 
 as to his state of mind and body, and decided she 
 would not interfere any more in regard to his intention 
 to enter the ministry of the Church of England. Per- 
 haps she would not so readily have arrived at this 
 conclusion had not Robert Field, with all the impul- 
 siveness of his character, suddenly announced his 
 intention to follow his friend's example and to enter 
 his name on the books of the college. 
 
 His personal attachment to Edward Maltby had 
 become so great, that to be near him he was willing 
 to lay aside for a time the visionary schemes with 
 which he had set out from Lauterdale.
 
 CHAPTER XYIT. 
 
 THE MERCHANT. 
 
 " Quick in his bargains ; honest in commerce ; 
 Just in his dealings; heina: much averse 
 From quirks of law, still ready to refer 
 His cause t' an honest country arbiter." 
 
 Andrew Symson. 
 
 "II TY readers will, no doubt, remember the invitation 
 ^ TJ - given by Mr. Maltby to Jacob Grimshaw, 
 junior, at Lauterclale, to " give him a call " on the 
 Monday morning following the little social and re- 
 ligious meeting at the cottage. In accordance there- 
 with the young man was early afoot, and on his way 
 down the Dale to Mr. Maltby 's place of business by 
 the river- side. 
 
 To reach his destination by the shortest way, it was 
 not at all necessary that he should pass Mr. Maltby 's 
 residence, but somehow on the present occasion Jacob 
 found his feet on the longer road. It might, perhaps, have 
 been the fault of his boots, from previous habit, but in 
 consequence of his error he deemed it necessary to call 
 at the cottage, and inquire if Mr. Maltby had yet gone 
 to his office. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 It was not yet eight o'clock, but Jacob knew very- 
 well that his chance of finding so energetic a man as 
 Mr. Maltby at home at that hour was very slight. 
 In those days business people in the Dale rose at 
 five in summer, breakfasted before seven, and were 
 ready for dinner at noon ; or if they did not, they were 
 accounted as " Wastels " and " Ne'er-do-wells." As a 
 consequence of such early rising, the consumption of 
 candles was small indeed. Gas had not yet been intro- 
 duced. Even at this day gas is looked on as an extra- 
 vagance, although the modern Dale folk as a rule no 
 longer rise with the lark as their forefathers did, 
 excepting the operatives at the works, who are obliged 
 to do so. 
 
 It was a bright sunny morning ; and as he descended 
 the valley, Jacob thought he saw some one in white 
 flitting to and fro amongst the rose-trees in front of 
 the cottage. When he had summoned sufficient cou- 
 rage to open the wicket and ascend the little winding 
 footpath, he discovered, as he had hoped and ex- 
 pected, that the person in white was Patty Maltby. 
 Jacob inwardly rejoiced at the good fortune which 
 brought him again into her presence, and was pleased 
 at this evidence of her good habits in the matter of 
 early rising. She was clad in a light summer dress, 
 and had on her head one of those broad-leafed straw 
 hats which are only to be seen nowadays in pictures, 
 on old porcelain, or in representations of primitive shep- 
 herdesses on the stage. Patty was very busy about 
 a rose-bush, and although a very simple-mannered girl
 
 THE MERCHANT. 211 
 
 in general, I am afraid to say was guilty of a small 
 piece of coquetry in pretending not to see Jacob, whom 
 she had recognised very well, as he came with a swing- 
 ing stride down the hill ; and, moreover, she appeared 
 to be somewhat startled when he abruptly addressed her. 
 
 " Miss Maltby," he said, " is thy father at home? 
 He desired that I should call on him early this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Grimshaw, is that you ?" she replied ; 
 '•father is away at the wharf more than two hours 
 since. There was some special business to be done, 
 and he left an hour earlier than usual. No doubt 
 you will find him at the office. He will be here again 
 to dinner at noon. "What a lovely morning it is!" 
 she added, clipping vigorously at the rose-tree, and 
 seeing that Jacob was at a loss for a fresh subject of 
 conversation. 
 
 "Truly it is," he replied; "I am glad to see thee 
 occupied so early. Thy garden is well taken care of." 
 
 " Do you think so ?" said Patty ; " father is fond of 
 it, and works in it a good deal in the evening : it seems 
 to do him good after his day's work. Have you a 
 garden, Mr. Grrimshaw ? " 
 
 "Yes, we have a garden, but father has ceased to 
 care for it since the lawsuit commenced, and it is 
 somewhat neglected of late." 
 
 " Then you should look after it. I think one is always 
 happier in the summer-time, when the roses are out. 
 Will you take one ? " she said, snipping off a handsome 
 white rose as she spoke.
 
 212 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 " Thou art very kind/' lie answered ; and then Patty 
 proceeded to secure the flower with a pin in the button- 
 hole of his coat. 
 
 " Father takes a great many roses to the office," 
 she continued, " but he likes the red ones best." 
 
 Jacob could only see the top of her hat, as he looked 
 down on her during the fixture of the rose ; and his 
 thoughts were wandering into strange comparisons 
 between the article under observation and the dreadful 
 " coal-scuttles" which adorned and concealed the heads 
 of his female acquaintances amongst the " Friends." 
 
 "Now," said Patty, when the decoration was 
 completed, " father will know you have been here 
 when he sees that rose. There is not another bush of 
 the kind in the Dale, and he will tell you the name 
 of it." 
 
 " What is it called ?" he inquired. " Thou canst tell 
 me as well as Mr. Maltby." 
 
 " You must ask father," said Patty ; "he is very 
 learned in roses, and likes to talk about them. See, this 
 one I have given you has little red spots on the 
 leaves, like drops of blood." 
 
 Jacob registered a vow that the rose in question 
 should be a very sacred one in his eyes evermore. 
 
 "I am very thankful to thee," he said; "it is a 
 beautiful rose. And now perhaps I should proceed in 
 search of thy father ; he desired that I should see him 
 early." 
 
 " How was it you slipped away so suddenly last 
 night ? " inquired Patty. " I hope you were not 

 
 THE MERCHANT. 213 
 
 offended with the remarks of our ministers: they 
 are good men, and anxious to benefit all whom they 
 meet; but now and then," she added, with a smile, 
 "they are a little too personal. Unfortunately, we 
 had some very unpleasant people with us last even- 
 ing ; it will not be so when you come again. Now I 
 must go into the house, and wish you good morning." 
 Here she gave him her hand, which was very small, 
 and plump, and white, and about the appearance 
 of which she possessed a little pardonable vanity ; 
 and Jacob, although not much addicted to hand- 
 shaking, or formal greetings of any kind, managed 
 somehow to hold it an unusually long time in his, 
 ere he departed in search of her father. He re- 
 membered, as he closed the little wicket, that she 
 had spoken of his coming again, and a hope began 
 to dawn in his bosom of some day winning the 
 hand of this pretty maiden. Under the elation of 
 this feeling he drew himself up, and stepped out 
 briskly on his way; and as Patty glanced after him 
 from the doorstep, she thought how much more 
 erect and manly was his carriage than that of Silas 
 Clayton. 
 
 TVTien he reached the wharf by the river-side, he 
 found Mr. Maltby in the thick of some urgent 
 business with his hands full of papers, and sur- 
 rounded by bargemen and " river- side characters " 
 of all kinds. Three of his boats were being loaded 
 with the manufactures of the Dale Company, with 
 whom he had a contract for river carriage. The wharf
 
 214 LAUTEEDxVLE. 
 
 was crowded with hollow ironware, pots, pans, and 
 stoves of all kinds, for transmission to Bristol. It was 
 evident from the stir and bustle that some unusual 
 haste was necessary ; in fact, Mr. Maltby was already 
 acting on the information given him on the previous 
 evening by Jacob Grimshaw, and as the river was fall- 
 ing very fast in consequence of the unusually dry 
 summer, he was anxious not to lose an hour in dispatch- 
 ing his boats, in order that they might return with the 
 flour which the present and prospective stoppage of the 
 mill had induced him to speculate in. Jacob stood 
 apart, looking with interest at the busy scene on the 
 wharf; and Mr. Maltby was too much engrossed with 
 his work to notice him. 
 
 Presently one of the barge foremen came up and said 
 in a husky voice, " Muster Maltby, we be ready to 
 shove off." 
 
 " Very good, Kershaw," he replied ; "what does she 
 draw?" 
 
 The man looked at a piece of notched wood he held 
 in his horny fist, for, like most of his class on the river, 
 he could not read or write, but could keep voluminous 
 memoranda on these notched sticks with singular 
 accuracy for a length of time. 
 
 " Three- six forrid, four- two aft," he replied. 
 
 " Hum," said his employer ; " I'm told there's a 
 great deal of sand forming below Arley-ferry, Ker- 
 shaw. Put her on an even keel as you drop down, but 
 do not delay just now to shift the goods. Here's your 
 way-bill ; and mind, if you are all back alongside the
 
 THE MERCHANT. 215 
 
 wharf this day fortnight, you shall have a ten-pound 
 note amongst you over and above your wages for the 
 trip." 
 
 "All right, Muster Maltby," said Kershaw, as he 
 solemnly proceeded to make an entry of the bargain on 
 his timber journal by indenting sundry deep notches 
 thereon with a huge clasp knife ; then uttering a loud 
 " Gee-up ! " to the stout horses which were now standing 
 on the towing path, he stepped on board the barge, 
 and took the helm of the broad rudder required to keep 
 this unwieldy sort of craft in its course against the 
 pull of the towing-line. The driver cracked his whip, 
 and the horses dug their feet into the bank as they 
 bent their strong legs to the strain necessary to start 
 the heavy boat, which moved off slowly at first from 
 its moorings, and then more rapidly as it felt the force 
 of the current. 
 
 When the barge had got fairly under way, Mr. 
 Maltby turned, and saw young Grrimshaw. 
 
 "Ha! Jacob, lad," he said, "I'm glad to see thee. 
 "We are busy, you see, loading for Bristol. Come with 
 me into the office. " 
 
 Here his quick eye caught sight of the rose in Jacob's 
 button-hole, which he closely scanned for an instant. 
 
 " Been to the cottage ? " he said, inquiringly, with 
 a smile. 
 
 " Yes," said Jacob, turning very red ; " Miss Maltby 
 gave it to me." 
 
 "Thought so," said Mr. Maltby; "there's not 
 another like it to be had elsewhere in the Dale," and
 
 216 LAI7TERDALE. 
 
 his eyes twinkled merrily, as lie led the way to his 
 office. 
 
 He had noticed Jacob's changing colour as he spoke 
 about the rose, and thought none the worse of him for 
 it ; but Jacob felt somewhat guilty, and had not courage 
 to inquire the name of the particular specimen at 
 present. When they had entered the office, which was 
 situated at a corner so as to secure a good view of the 
 river and the landing-place, Mr. Maltby handed some 
 documents to one of his clerks, who immediately pro- 
 ceeded to take his master's place outside on the wharf. 
 
 " Jacob," said Mr. Maltby, when they were alone, 
 "I don't like this lawsuit, but I fear it is useless to 
 speak to your father until he has spent some of his 
 spare cash with Mr. Quetchett, and meanwhile you 
 will fall into idle ways, lad. What do you say to 
 trying a spell with me ? I'm about to send Mr. Evans 
 to take charge at Bristol, as my agent there is going 
 into business on his own account, and I think you 
 might take his place here. The Dale folk must have 
 bread, Jacob, and as your father won't grind the flour, 
 why, we must try to fetch them some until he changes 
 his mind." 
 
 " I shall be very glad to accept thy offer," said 
 Jacob, "if thou thinkest father will not object." 
 
 " I'll answer for that," said Mr. Maltby. " If he 
 does, why, you can leave at an hour's notice. I shall 
 write to him to-day, lad, and if you wish you can join 
 to-morrow — the sooner the better. Evans is paid a 
 hundred a year," he continued, " and is a steady fellow.
 
 THE MERCHANT. 217 
 
 He began at sixty pounds three years since. When you 
 can do his work you shall have the same salary as he 
 has now. At present, if you please, we shall say eighty 
 pounds to begin with." 
 
 " I fear I'm not worth it," said Jacob. 
 
 " Well, then, try to be so as soon as you can," said 
 Mr. Maltby ; " and now let's go back to the wharf." 
 
 When they arrived again at the river-side, the other 
 two barges were ready to start. Mr. Maltby repeated 
 his injunctions to the men in charge, and also the 
 promise of the extra ten pounds, and then the boats 
 were drawn off rapidly down the river in the same 
 manner as that steered by Kershaw. When they were 
 out of sight, Mr. Maltby took Jacob over his premises, 
 showed him the great malting-floors and kilns, the 
 cooperage, and the new brewery he had recently 
 erected, and explained the nature of his business, and 
 the uses of each department in his extensive concerns. 
 He also asked many questions about the flour trade — as 
 to the present supplies in the retail dealers' hands, and 
 the credit which it might be safe to give to each one. 
 Jacob readily answered all his queries, although he 
 clearly perceived their drift. But he had now entered 
 Mr. Maltby' s service, and had decided to serve him in 
 every way to the best of his ability. 
 
 Whether he would so readily have communicated the 
 secrets of his father's business to any other person than 
 Patty's father is an open question, which I leave to my 
 readers to answer for themselves. At this period Jacob 
 had formed the resolution to win the young girl's
 
 218 LAT7TERDALE. 
 
 favour by every fair means in his power, and one of 
 the necessary steps to that end was, in his opinion, 
 first to win the good opinion of her parent. Whether 
 Mr. Maltby was perfectly justified in obtaining infor- 
 mation in this way or not may be also doubted ; but it is 
 fair to say that he had fully decided to restore the 
 trading in flour and breadstuff's to the elder Grimshaw 
 whenever that irate miller got rid of the present " bee 
 in his bonnet/' and resumed his proper business, at 
 present in abeyance. He fully calculated, from his 
 personal knowledge of the old man, that a considerable 
 time would elapse ere that event could take place, and 
 meantime the Dale folk would run short of flour, and 
 some stranger with less scruples might step in and take 
 the custom, and perhaps retain it, and at all events 
 get the profit which Mr. Maltby hoped to make by 
 his present active speculation. Added to this argument, 
 which he had duly turned over in his mind that 
 morning in a little controversy with his conscience, 
 there was the evident advantage to young Grimshaw 
 of having remunerative and useful employment in his 
 office. It was this final and very plausible reason that 
 turned the scale, and decided Mr. Maltby to go into 
 the flour trade ; and " now that it was Monday," his 
 conscience no longer troubled him about extracting 
 information from Jacob, to whose father he wrote the 
 same day to say, that observing the lad was without 
 employment, and likely to get into mischief in conse- 
 quence, he had ventured to offer him a temporary en- 
 gagement in his office, at a small salary, until work was
 
 THE MERCHANT. 219 
 
 resumed at the mill. Mr. Maltby underlined the word 
 temporary, although it meant a considerable period in 
 his private opinion, and conceived it would be wiser not 
 to say anything about the particular trade in which he 
 proposed to employ the miller's son. It may be as 
 well to say here, that Mr. Grimshaw replied thanking his 
 friend for his thoughtful care of the youth, and sanc- 
 tioning the arrangement until such time as the lawsuit 
 was decided ; the remainder of his letter, which was a 
 long one, being full of bitter things against the Dale 
 Company in reference to his grievances, over which Mr. 
 Maltby ran his eye carelessly, until he came to a passage 
 at the end much underscored, to the effect that he, Jacob 
 Grimshaw the elder, would never raise the sluices of his 
 mill again until he had obtained the victory he fully 
 expected over " them darned old Quakers, the Fields." 
 Mr. Maltby smiled at this strongly- worded conclusion, 
 coming from a man who had once been a " Friend " 
 himself, professing to turn the other cheek to the smiter, 
 and to swear not at all, and then he sighed deeply at the 
 weakness of human nature, particularly the perverse 
 nature of millers when engaged in litigation. 
 
 This letter arrived when young Jacob had been a 
 week in his service, and had shown himself an active, 
 intelligent, and trustworthy clerk, painstaking and 
 diligent in all the details of the business, and yet 
 shrewd in his grasp of its leading principles. 
 
 During this period Jacob saw a good deal of Patty. 
 Mr. Maltby had kindly arranged that as his new clerk's 
 dwelling-place was so far from the office, and as he was
 
 220 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 so lonely, he should take his meals and spend his 
 evenings at the cottage during the first weeks of 
 his engagement, whilst Mrs. Maltby was absent at 
 Oxford. In this way Mr. Maltby contrived " to kill 
 two birds at the same time." He thereby increased 
 his stock of information regarding the flour trade, as 
 he found Jacob much more communicative on the 
 subject when they talked confidentially in the garden 
 amongst the roses in the evening, whilst Patty sat by 
 and listened very demurely, working diligently all the 
 while at some fancy trifle, in the progress of which 
 Jacob took an unusual interest. Mr. Maltby had also 
 the satisfaction of thinking that in this way the young 
 man's evenings would be rendered happier, and his 
 mind improved ; at all events, he would thus be still 
 further kept out of the chance of mischief during his 
 father's absence. 
 
 There was one subject tacitly avoided by both, and 
 that was the lawsuit, on which they were likely to 
 differ in opinion, inasmuch as Mr. Maltby privately 
 sided with the Dale Company, but did not exactly 
 know why, as the real merits of the case were known 
 to very few, and were complicated in their nature ; 
 whilst Jacob was fully convinced that his father was 
 right, and also perfectly understood the technicalities 
 of the dispute, having from boyhood been duly in- 
 structed therein by his litigious parent. 
 
 Jacob now went regularly to chapel twice on Sun- 
 days, and sat in Mr. Maltby 's pew, and was as attentive 
 as he possibly could be to the sermons. He rose rapidly
 
 THE MERCHANT. 2 '21 
 
 in Mr. Slowman's estimation in consequence, but it is 
 probable that Silas Clayton would have had a higher 
 opinion of him if he had occupied some other seat, at a 
 greater distance from "his friend Patty ; " and also he 
 particularly desired that the young man should come 
 provided with a hymn-book of his own. 
 
 V^~V'
 
 CHAPTEE XVIIL 
 
 RIVALS. 
 
 " He went like one that hath been stunned, 
 And is of sense forlorn : 
 A sadder and a wiser man 
 He rose the morrow mom." 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 TN those days the correspondence between Silas Clayton 
 ^ and his mother at Oxford increased considerably. 
 There were many interesting details to tell of Edward 
 Maltby's serious illness, conveyed with grave charges 
 that he should not alarm Miss Maltby or her father in 
 repeating them. 
 
 Silas considered it necessary to call very often at the 
 cottage with reference to these communications. It 
 was understood that Mrs. Maltby, who was a very bad 
 correspondent at the best of times, could not write very 
 often at present in consequence of her nursing duties. 
 Mrs. Clayton was therefore deputed to inform the 
 family of the invalid's progress by deputy at Lauter- 
 dale ; and the deputy certainly attended diligently to 
 the matter. Nothing was said openly between the 
 two "maternals" as to the advantages of this little
 
 RIVALS. 223 
 
 arrangement, but it was clearly understood, and they 
 both took much comfort in the thought that the young 
 people would thus be brought a good deal together, and 
 would have much to say to one another on so interesting 
 a subject as the health of the young lady's brother. There 
 is no doubt that this little piece of female diplomacy 
 would have answered admirably, and perhaps the hopes 
 of the two good women would have been realised but 
 for that other arrangement of Mr. Maltby's, as to young 
 Jacob Griinshaw's spending his evenings at the cottage, 
 where he made himself very useful. The early summer 
 evenings were dry and warm ; the garden was in full 
 bloom ; but the extra luxuriance of the climbing roses, 
 spreading over the porch and the south front of the 
 cottage, required training and pruning, and Jacob set 
 diligently to work on the top of a ladder to reduce the 
 chaos to order, and did it very well, under Patty's 
 supervision. There was also a good deal of watering to 
 be done amongst the rose-trees, and it was evidently an 
 occupation eminently adapted for a lady and gentleman, 
 the heavier part of the supply falling properly to Jacob's 
 share, and the proper distribution to Patty. It appeared 
 as if the clerk of the Weather Office was in league 
 with the little god during that month — it rained so 
 seldom, and consequently the garden required so much 
 water, and also in out-of-the-way corners, which, in 
 previous years, had done very well with the natural 
 supply from the clouds. Silas Clayton came to help 
 occasionally, and was generally sent " to man the 
 pump," which was in an enclosed yard behind the
 
 224 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 house, in which he had to work under the surveillance 
 of the two maids, who could see him from the kitchen 
 windows, where he was conscious that they were laugh- 
 ing at him all the time. Very flushed his pale face 
 became in consequence of this, and of his fierce efforts 
 to raise the necessary supply in the shortest possible 
 time, like a bucket bird. He generally managed to 
 spill the greater part over his shoes in hurriedly car- 
 rying it to the place required, and on such occasions 
 Patty very considerately urged him to go into the 
 house at once to dry his feet at the kitchen fire. This 
 he always did in the most obedient manner, but again, 
 unfortunately, under the inspection of those lively 
 handmaidens, who understood it all very well, and had 
 long since set him down as " nowhere " in the race 
 with Jacob for the hand of Miss Patty. They wondered 
 " he didn't see he was in the way," but he only saw 
 that the other gentleman was much more so. Poor 
 Silas was decidedly de trop amongst the roses, and 
 began at last to think of doing something desperate 
 ere it became too late. Unfortunately, he received 
 some encouragement from his mother to try his fate 
 about this time. The two ladies at Oxford became 
 more confidential as time went on and the patient 
 slowly recovered ; as Mrs. Maltby's anxiety decreased, 
 her gratitude to the good woman in whose house 
 he lay, and who had aided so materially in nursing 
 him, became very fervent. She could think of no 
 better way to repay the kindness shown to her son at 
 Oxford than by doing something for her friend's son
 
 RIVALS. 225 
 
 at Lauterdale, in the matter of that little love affair of 
 his, as yet unspoken of on his part, but known to both 
 women almost as well as he knew it in his own heart. 
 Mrs. Maltby had said to Mrs. Clayton, in strict con- 
 fidence of course, that she wished him every success, 
 and that she suspected her daughter was not altogether 
 indifferent ; and Mrs. Clayton had written the precise 
 words in still stricter confidence to Silas the same day. 
 
 Xow, although mothers may be certain in their diag- 
 nosis of any little heart affection in the case of male 
 offspring, let them beware how they venture on a 
 decided opinion where their daughters are concerned. 
 The very nature of the sex envelops the interesting 
 subject in doubt and mystery, and the symptoms of 
 the disease are never apparent on the surface. The 
 young man, as a rule, must tell some one of his case, 
 and is apt to make a confidante of his mother or of his 
 sister. But the young lady, if she has any sense or 
 character at all — and Patty had plenty of both — will, 
 in nine cases out of ten, keep her little secret to her- 
 self. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby had unfortunately set her heart a good 
 deal on having the young Wesleyan minister for a 
 son-in-law. She knew well enough that his salary 
 barely sufficed to keep him alive and decently clad, but 
 then her well-to-do husband was able and willing to 
 give Patty what was considered a very good fortune 
 amongst the Dale folk, and Mrs. Maltby thought the 
 sum would be ample for both ; and as she had met such 
 a disappointment as regards her own son, this little 
 
 vol. I. Q
 
 226 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 scheme of her's seemed to be the next best thing to look 
 forward to. 
 
 As regards Patty's own feeling on the subject, Mrs. 
 Maltby did not doubt that her hitherto obedient and 
 affectionate daughter would be influenced by her wishes ; 
 and, on the whole, she thought Patty rather liked Silas, 
 although she laughed at him occasionally. Then there 
 was the useful fact to be remembered that she believed 
 her daughter cared for no one else, and indeed knew 
 no one to care for. 
 
 From this it may be inferred that, although Patty 
 wrote very often and dutifully to her mother, she had 
 not thought it necessary to say anything as yet about 
 Jacob Grimshaw, or of that arrangement of Mr. 'Maltby 's 
 as to the young clerk's spending his evenings at the 
 cottage, and boarding with the family. 
 
 It was curious that the good lady left the considera- 
 tion of her husband's opinion or wishes out of the case 
 altogether. She was doubtful whether Silas Clayton's 
 proposal would be favourably received by him, and she 
 knew very well that her son would oppose it by every 
 means in his power, and would probably induce Mr. 
 Maltby to side with him ; but her husband was, as she 
 thought, so accustomed to defer to her better judgment 
 and experience in all domestic questions, that she anti- 
 cipated but little difficulty with him, provided Patty 
 consented. 
 
 Now, this was Mrs. Maltby's particular weakness. 
 She believed that her good husband acted always 
 and altogether on her advice and opinion, and there-
 
 RIVALS. 227 
 
 fore she gave him plenty of both on every possible 
 occasion. 
 
 John Maltby never openly differed from her ; indeed, 
 on the contrary, he always appeared to defer to the 
 wisdom for which she gave herself credit ; and yet it 
 is probable that no married man in England got more 
 of his own way, or did more what seemed good in his 
 own eyes, both as regards his children and his busi- 
 ness — only he never appeared to do so. In this lay his 
 great skill and tact ; and probably this apparent sub- 
 mission of his was the secret of the peculiar share of 
 domestic peace he was generally believed to enjoy. He 
 had managed somehow that his son should go to Oxford, 
 and yet no one ever imagined he was anything but 
 passive in the arrangement ; and it is also quite possible 
 he had made up his mind that his daughter should not 
 marry Silas Clayton, to live a nomadic life at a distance 
 from him evermore, although no one ever gave him 
 the smallest credit for an idea on the subject, and even 
 Patty, with all her natural shrewdness, scarcely deemed 
 it necessary to conceal the little serious flirtation which 
 went on every evening in the garden. 
 
 But as Mr. Maltby sat under the shadow of the 
 trellised porch, half smothered in roses, inhaling their 
 fragrance, and at the same time enjoying his long 
 Broseley pipe, in which he smoked the choicest tobacco 
 to be had for love or money (of the quality of which, 
 as of most articles of merchandise, he was an excellent 
 judge), there was a merry twinkle in his eye and a 
 slight curl about the corners of his mouth, which broke
 
 228 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 into an absolute smile as he heard Silas labouring at 
 the pump in the rear of the premises, whilst his merry 
 daughter and Jacob were " galavanting " under his 
 very nose. 
 
 Truly, if Silas could only have seen with the eyes of 
 the man whose son-in-law elect he almost considered 
 himself to be on that evening, he would never have 
 taken his mother's advice, nor gone down on the well- 
 worn knees of those black trousers of his for the first 
 and last time in his life for any other purpose than a 
 devotional one. But his mother's letter, and the con- 
 tinued attentions of that dark-eyed, stalwart young 
 miller, whose object was now evident enough to Silas, 
 were too much for him, and so he rushed blindly on his 
 fate, and came to know the worst, which, to a man of 
 his sensitive organization, was very bad for him to 
 know just then. 
 
 When the hour of " tea " approached, it was Patty's 
 custom to leave the two young men and her father in 
 the garden whilst she went indoors to get the evening 
 meal in readiness. Tea was a good substantial affair 
 in the Dale, with men who had dined at twelve o'clock 
 and worked hard ever since, and it always took some 
 little time in preparation, but was worth the trouble of 
 waiting for when Patty was housekeeper. This was 
 the only opportunity which Silas could obtain of seeing 
 her alone for live minutes. 
 
 Five minutes is generally time enough for a declara- 
 tion when a man has his mind made up and means to 
 do it, and as a safe rule it is not wise to try the lady's
 
 RIVALS. 229 
 
 patience with preliminaries for any greater length of 
 time. If she is in doubt as to the answer she means to 
 give, the less time she has to turn it over in her mind 
 the better ; and if she means to say yes, the sooner he 
 hears the little murmur, and finds himself absurdly 
 happy or strangely and unexpectedly dejected in con- 
 sequence, as the case may be, the better it is. "Barkis 
 is willin' " was probably the best form of proposal ever 
 made by any sane male biped, and was better understood 
 than if the individual had spoken like a book. 
 
 But there is always another element of success in 
 these cases besides time, and that is opportunity. Beware, 
 rash youth, how you try your chance at the wrong 
 time and place. Before breakfast is ridiculous ; no 
 right-minded young lady is to be seen at all on urgent 
 private affairs at such a time. The early part of the 
 day is unsafe in general, especially if the sun is hot, 
 as it tries the temper and the complexion, and there 
 may be a headache after last night's ball, when you 
 are said to have both behaved so very foolishly in public. 
 Tiffin time is decidedly dangerous ; there is always 
 some one near whom you wish a hundred miles away ; 
 and nowadays ladies make such capital luncheons that it 
 is utterly impossible to be sentimental afterwards. Of 
 course, no one but a lunatic would think of disturbing 
 a delicate young female's digestive organs by such a 
 momentous question after dinner, no matter how long it 
 may have been expected previously. On the whole, it is 
 safer to wait until the ordinary work of daily sustentation 
 is over. After a nice light supper is generally a capital
 
 230 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 opportunity, especially if the champagne is good, and 
 has been appreciated by both parties. Of course, I mean 
 only the slightest possible appreciation. If you can 
 manage a little effective moonlight, viewed from a 
 dimly lit conservatory, or, still better, " by the sad sea 
 waves," the chances are nine to one in your favour, 
 and it is to be hoped you won't live long enough to 
 repent the occasion. 
 
 Now, Silas Clayton ought to have known better than 
 to trouble Patty Maltby whilst she was preparing tea. 
 Fancy a young girl listening to a very excited clergy- 
 man on his knees whilst she holds a bright copper kettle 
 of boiling water suspended in air, ready to simmer over 
 on his nose under the slightest provocation. There was 
 no necessity for kneeling at all, only he thought it was 
 the correct thing to do. There was nothing of novelty 
 in the posture, so far as he was concerned. Any effect 
 to be given to the proposal by the position was quite 
 done away with by the fact that Patty had seen him 
 kneeling so often before, and naturally associated the 
 movement with long prayers. She knew the instant 
 he entered the parlour what he had come for, and she 
 would have dexterously evaded the scene if she could, 
 had he not gone down before her with a suddenness 
 acquired by long practice, which quite astounded her 
 for the moment. 
 
 The appeal made by the unhappy and excited young 
 man was, like some of his sermons, highflown, fluent, 
 and overwrought — moreover, very lengthy. I shall not 
 repeat any of it, because it was a bad example of its
 
 RIVALS. 231 
 
 kind, and it is not my wish to make him appear in the 
 least ridiculous. The maiden's answer was concise 
 enough, as she placed the kettle on its stand, and the 
 answer was made as soon as it was possible to interrupt 
 his address. 
 
 U Mr. Clayton," she said, " I am very sorry, but 
 it cannot be ; I can never be more to you than a 
 friend." 
 
 The clear decision of her tone went to his heart at 
 once, and seemed at the same time to lift a veil from 
 his eyes. He saw, with singularly rapid reaction of 
 mind, how foolish in every way was his proposal, and 
 how absurd was his manner of making it, and there- 
 fore he remained silent and distressed, still on his 
 knees, apparently studying the pattern of the carpet 
 with fixed eyes, like one stunned by a sudden blow. 
 
 "Mr. Clayton," said Patty, "please to rise; it is 
 not seemly." 
 
 Poor Silas at her bidding rose at once, and mechani- 
 cally dusted his knees with his pocket-handkerchief, as 
 he had been wont to do on other occasions. He was 
 very pale, his eyes seemed to have an unnatural light 
 in them, and his lips quivered, as he spoke slowly, with 
 deep emotion. 
 
 " I have been in a dream, Miss Maltby," he said, 
 "in a foolish dream, — but you will forgive me, and 
 forget what I have said. I am awaking to the truth," 
 he continued, "painfully awaking, and I shall be wiser 
 in future — yes, wiser. I shall go away for a little 
 while, and come again, perhaps, by-and-by."
 
 232 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 And then lie went quietly out to a little retired 
 corner of the garden, where none could see or hear 
 him, and there he wept bitterly. Let no one think the 
 worse of him for his tears. 
 
 He did not return to the cottage that evening, but 
 stole away unobserved when the others went in to tea. 
 When Mr. Maltby inquired of Patty as to the cause 
 of his absence, he received no answer, but he saw that 
 something unusual had happened, as her eyes were 
 filled with tears. Shortly afterwards she pleaded a 
 headache, and retired to her own room, there to take 
 herself seriously to task as to the pain she had been 
 compelled to inflict on the young minister. She had 
 always thought of him with grave respect and kindness, 
 but nothing more ; now she called to mind every care- 
 less word or act of hers which might have been construed 
 by him into a warmer sentiment, and repented very 
 much of what appeared to her to be blamable levity 
 of manner. She feared that others would blame her 
 also, especially her mother; and finally she worked 
 her little brain into a state of real headache, and made 
 her blue eyes very red with weeping. 
 
 When this was over she felt relieved, and by-and- 
 by she began to think of the matter more calmly, and 
 to wonder why Mr. Clayton had made such a very 
 sudden declaration at all, and especially why he should 
 have thought it necessary to do so on his knees. At 
 length it occurred to her that in some way it must 
 have had to do with the presence of young Jacob, and 
 then Patty felt herself blushing very red, although
 
 RIVALS. 233 
 
 there was no one by to see it, and fell to thinking about 
 the latter and his devoted attention until she found 
 herself pondering ere long whether he, too, would 
 some day come to her with the same story as Silas 
 Clayton, and, if so, would she give him the same 
 answer ? 
 
 About this question she was as yet uncertain ; but of 
 one thing she felt sure, that if he ever did, he certainly 
 would not go down on his knees or look ridiculous. 
 
 <^G^tefe^>
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ON THE RIVER. 
 
 " Yet why ? — a silvery current flows 
 With uncontrolled meanderings ; 
 Nor have these eyes by greener hills 
 Been soothed in all my wanderings." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 fPHE promise made to Kershaw, the bargeman, on 
 the wharf by Mr. Maltby, as to a certain ten-pound 
 note to be distributed amongst the crews of the three 
 boats in the event of their safe return within a fort- 
 night, was an unfortunate promise. Mr. Maltby knew 
 very well when he made it that the money would be 
 expended in drink as soon as it could be exchanged for 
 that commodity at the " Jolly Bargeman/' a low public- 
 house by the river-side, beyond the stringent jurisdic- 
 tion of the Dale Company. His men, as a rule, were 
 sober men, and could be trusted with his property to 
 great distances, but it was a point of honour with the 
 river- side fraternity to expend all windfalls, such as 
 Mr. Maltby had promised them, in a general carouse, 
 which lasted as long as any of the money remained, and 
 usually terminated in a free fight.
 
 ON THE RIVER. 235 
 
 Mr. Maltby had some misgivings about the wisdom 
 of the offer he had made, and felt that he was in some 
 way an accessory before the fact to the debauch in 
 which his money would be spent, if the men should 
 succeed in earning it. He also began to think that he 
 had entered on this new trade in flour somewhat under 
 a spiritual cloud. He was a man of sensitive con- 
 science, and of scrupulous honour in all his dealings, but 
 he had gone into this speculation hastily, and had been 
 carried away by the energy of his character. In self- 
 examination, he feared that he had been somewhat lax 
 in the righteous discharge of his duty to his neighbour, 
 or at all events had fallen into an error of judgment, 
 which now pressed on his mind until it assumed con- 
 siderable magnitude, and caused him much uneasiness. 
 
 He blamed himself severely for having first thought 
 of this venture on a Sunday evening. He was a 
 strict observer of the Sabbath, and his bargemen had 
 positive orders to remain at anchor, wherever they 
 were, from six o'clock on Saturday evening until six 
 o'clock on Monday morning, but he feared they would 
 disregard this order on the present trip, on account of 
 the promised reward. 
 
 Other barge - owners laughed at Mr. Maltby's 
 scruples, and their men jeered at and derided his 
 servants as they passed them on the river on Sundays, 
 moored to the bank whilst the horses grazed idly along 
 the towing-path. Still, it was generally admitted that 
 Mr. Maltby's boats met with fewer accidents than any 
 others, and, on the whole, he had thriven better than
 
 236 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 any other trader or carrier between Lauterdale and 
 Bristol. 
 
 On the second Sunday after the inharmonious 
 meeting at the cottage, Mr. Maltby felt instinctively 
 that Kershaw and his companions were breaking the 
 fourth commandment. This feeling grew stronger as 
 he sat under Mr. Slowman in chapel, until it amounted 
 to an absolute conviction in his mind ; and, singularly 
 enough, the conviction was correct. 
 
 Kershaw and his fellow- bargemen had been cracking 
 on full speed all the morning in their course up the 
 river ; and about mid-day, just when Mr. Maltby felt 
 his keenest twinge of conscience, the leading barge, 
 steered by Kershaw himself, ran aground on the 
 Knowle Sands, and there the boat stuck hard and fast. 
 Being closely followed by the second boat, also towed 
 at speed, she was struck heavily on the quarter, and 
 began to leak. 
 
 Mr. Maltby said afterwards that "he had felt the 
 shock in all his bones," as he walked pensively home 
 after the service, whilst Patty and Jacob went on in 
 front with hearts as light as gossamer. 
 
 He always attributed this accident to the offer of the 
 unlucky ten pounds already alluded to. It also ap- 
 peared to him that there was an appearance of sharp 
 practice in making use of the miller's son to get hold 
 of the miller's trade and customers. 
 
 Now, in Mr. Maltby's cottage there was a closet 
 always set apart for one purpose, then a recognised 
 institution amongst Wesleyans, in literal accordance 

 
 ON THE EIVER. A 6 i 
 
 with the Scripture injunction. Into this room his wife 
 had formerly taken her son's letter, and into it he now 
 took this matter that weighed on his conscience. 
 
 John Maltby had carried many troubles in his life 
 into that little chamber and laid them down there ; 
 but he required no priest to hear his self-accusing Ilea 
 culpa, or to stand between him and the God whom he 
 served. None may witness the wrestling of that 
 humble-minded Christian with his Maker ; but those 
 who saw him issue forth with the light of faith upon 
 his face, knew that he had triumphed, and that his 
 way was made plain to him. 
 
 When he came out, his resolution was taken, and his 
 mind was at rest. It was a simple, straightforward 
 resolve, characteristic of the man and of his life. If 
 the trip resulted in loss, he would accept it cheerfully, as 
 evidence that he had been led astray from the narrow 
 path by the arch enemy, and with thankfulness for being 
 permitted to see his error so soon. If there should arise 
 any profit out of this venture, one-third should be paid 
 to Jacob, one-third to aid the " Cause " — as the sup- 
 port of the Wesleyan ministry was always called — and 
 one-third he would retain as his own share. 
 
 Mr. Maltby rejoined his daughter and Jacob with a 
 light heart. The matter in hand was settled, and the 
 remainder of the day was spent, as usual, with cheerful- 
 ness ; for Mr. Maltby' s religion was not a gloomy 
 religion, and he was naturally a happy man, with the 
 knack of infusing his cheerfulness into those around him. 
 
 Mr. Slowman came to supper on that Sunday evening,
 
 238 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 but Silas Clayton was absent. No one noticed bis 
 absence during tbe meal ; but wben tbe young people 
 bad retired to tbe drawing-room, wbere Patty's musical 
 arrangements were no longer in danger of being over- 
 turned by tbe Perks family, Mr. Slowman laid bis 
 broad palm on Mr. Maltby's knee, and said witb 
 seriousness, " Our friend Silas bas bad a great blow, 
 Mr. Maltby. He is bit very bard bere," be added, 
 laying tbe otber band on bis wide sbirt-front, wbich 
 was generally deficient in buttons. Tben, after a 
 pause, in wbicb be scrutinised Mr. Maltby's face in 
 vain, be continued : " But no doubt it is for tbe 
 best — be is young, and will get over it, and it may 
 be a buffeting to direct bim into tbe patb prepared 
 for bim. I believe be bas decided to go out witb 
 tbe mission to New Zealand ; he feels a call to tbat 
 benigbted land. Poor lad," be said witb a deep sigh, 
 " be had set his heart on Patty ; but I do not think she 
 is to blame." 
 
 " I'm sure she's not," said Mr. Maltby rising imme- 
 diately to proceed to the drawing-room, and evidently 
 anxious to change the subject. As he walked out, he 
 added with a little severity, " I have other views for 
 my daughter, Mr. Slowman." 
 
 Mr. Slowman started in surprise at this unusual 
 manner of speech from his host, from whom he had 
 hitherto never heard a word on family affairs, and then 
 he pondered on the circumstance for a little. It was 
 observed that during the rest of the evening he looked 
 with considerable interest at the "lost sheep," now
 
 OX THE RIVER. 239 
 
 evidently inclined to come into the fold quietly 
 enough by the side of Patty ; and it is also probable 
 he formed a pretty correct opinion as to the quarter to 
 which Mr. Maltby's " other views" were directed. 
 
 When Jacob arrived at the office by the river- side 
 next morning, which he always did punctually at seven 
 o'clock, notwithstanding that he still took the road by 
 the cottage, he observed some unusual excitement 
 amongst the men on the wharf, some of whom were 
 assembled round one of the drivers who stood by a 
 jaded horse, and was energetically describing some 
 occurrence on the river. 
 
 Jacob approached, and recognised the man as the 
 individual who had driven the horses which had towed 
 the barge steered by Kershaw. " What's the matter, 
 men ? " he said. 
 
 "Why, sir," said an old hand, who was generally 
 spokesman amongst the bargemen, " two of the boats 
 is aground below Arley, and this 'ere lad's ridden all 
 night t' let Muster Maltby know as how Jem Kershaw 
 wants help t' save the flour in's boat, as is stove, and 
 under water." 
 
 The messenger now took up the narrative, and de- 
 scribed the actual situation of the boats, and the state 
 of the cargo in the first barge, a considerable portion 
 of which he feared would be lost unless Kershaw 
 received speedy assistance. 
 
 Jacob turned immediately and retraced his steps to 
 the cottage, as Mr. Maltby had not yet arrived at his 
 office. He was sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but
 
 240 LATJTEKDALE. 
 
 he knew that time was of much consequence in this 
 matter. He found his employer out in the garden 
 with Patty, amongst the rose-trees, where he often 
 lingered in the morning ere he proceeded to his busi- 
 ness, snipping oh a specimen here and there for his 
 office bouquet, which Patty tied up and arranged for him. 
 
 As Mr. Maltby saw Jacob approaching, he instinc- 
 tively knew something was wrong, and hastened to 
 meet him at the wicket. 
 
 " Well, Jacob," he said anxiously, " what is it ? " 
 
 "Two of thy boats are aground down the river," 
 said Jacob. " One of them is leaking, and in need of 
 immediate assistance lest the cargo be lost." 
 
 " Ha !" said Mr. Maltby, turning away silently for 
 a few moments, during which he revolved the whole 
 subject in his mind. " Jacob," he said seriously at 
 length, "never think of business on Sunday, lad; it's 
 sure to come to loss in the end." 
 
 " I hope the barges can be got off before the river 
 falls much lower," said Jacob ; "and as to the flour, it 
 can be dried and re- dressed if father will allow me to 
 use the mill. It will sell at a reduced price of course, 
 but the sooner it's recovered the better." 
 
 "How many empty boats are at the wharf ?" said 
 Mr. Maltby, brightening up at once with his usual 
 energy. 
 
 " Two, and a third partly loaded," was the reply. 
 
 " Have her cleared out at once, Jacob, and order 
 them all to be ready to start in less than an hour. I 
 shall go down myself, and if you like you may come."
 
 OX THE RIVER. 241 
 
 " I shall be very glad," said Jacob. 
 
 Then followed minute instructions as to the men 
 and appliances to be taken on board the boats to the 
 rescue of Kershaw. To carry these out Jacob returned 
 to the wharf, whilst Mr. Maltby remained behind to 
 get some travelling equipment ready, and also to ar- 
 range the commissariat department with Patty, who 
 set to work diligently in packing a small basket of pro- 
 visions. Whilst this was going on, it occurred to Mr. 
 Maltby that his daughter had never been down the river, 
 and also that she would be alone during his absence. 
 
 " Patty," he said smiling, " would you like to come 
 with us ? Jacob's going down, and we shall want some 
 one to see to our provender." 
 
 " Yes, father," she replied, blushing, " I should like 
 it very much if I should not be in the way." 
 
 " Then get ready at once, lass, and drive down with 
 the basket to the wharf within an hour. If you delay 
 longer, we shall all be gone." 
 
 TTith this he kissed her on both cheeks, and strode 
 away rapidly to the river-side. 
 
 There he gave directions to the men to rig an old 
 sail on a spar as a sort of awning on the deck of one of 
 his boats, and ordered a strong tackle and crab winch 
 with several spars to be placed in another boat, 
 which immediately preceded him down the river. 
 The third boat, which was altogether empty, was to 
 be towed astern of the second barge, on which the 
 awning had been rigged, and which now only awaited 
 the arrival of Miss Maltby. 
 
 VOL. 1. R
 
 242 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 Patty had done her best to be punctual, but an hour 
 is a short time for a young lady to pack up her modest 
 requirements for a journey, and to get her bonnet on, 
 besides driving over half a mile to the river ; and con- 
 sequently an extra half-hour had elapsed before she 
 arrived on the wharf. She sprang lightly on the deck 
 of the barge, where her father and Jacob awaited her. 
 
 Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright 
 with the excitement caused by haste and the joyful anti- 
 cipation of a pleasant trip ; and as Jacob arranged a seat 
 for her on a coil of rope under the awning, he thought 
 her prettier than she had ever looked before. In a few 
 minutes the two barges were unmoored from the wharf, 
 and were gliding swiftly down stream past the ruins of 
 the old iron furnaces on the river bank, which looked 
 like huge forts erected to bar the passage. After a 
 rapid run of about four miles, they approached a small 
 hamlet celebrated for the manufacture of chains and 
 anchors. 
 
 As they neared the place, Mr. Maltby, who had been 
 silently planning the method he would adopt for raising 
 the sunken barge, directed the steersman to run close 
 in to an old timber jetty which projected into the river. 
 He immediately landed and proceeded to one of the 
 chain factories, with the owner of which he was 
 acquainted, and whom he found busy in proving a 
 strong chain on a draw-bench worked by levers. 
 
 The man, although a wealthy manufacturer, was 
 clad in a blacksmith's leather apron, and had a greasy 
 paper cap on his head. He held a slate and pencil in
 
 OX THE RIVER. 243 
 
 his hands, with which he recorded the strains applied 
 by his men to the stout chain under proof. Occasionally 
 he tapped the links with a hammer, marking such as 
 he deemed defective with chalk, in order that they 
 should be cut out and replaced. 
 
 The din of the blacksmiths' hammers and the roar 
 of their forge fires rendered it impossible for Mr. 
 Maltby to explain what he required in the workshop, 
 and therefore he intimated his desire for an interview 
 elsewhere. The swarthy old chainmaker threw his 
 apron over his shoulder, and followed Mr. Maltby 
 outside. 
 
 " Hazelton," said the latter, " I want a very strong 
 chain to haul one of my boats off the sands." 
 
 " I've got nothing as 'ull stan' twenty tons, 'cept 
 yonder cheen on the proof-bench," replied the grimy 
 chainmaker, in a slow deep voice. 
 
 " Let me have it, then, like a good fellow," said Mr. 
 Maltby. 
 
 " Xay, nay, Muster Maltby, you shanna buy a cheen 
 o' me that's not bin through the press and kin be 
 warranted. I dunna loike some leenks in yon cheen you 
 seen me pullin' of jest noo, and I mean to hev 'em oot. 
 It's meaant for Grov'ment sarvice, and Jock Hazelton 
 'ull not put his brand on a bad leenk for its weight in 
 goold." 
 
 " Lend it me, then, for a day," said Mr. Maltby. 
 " I'm in a fix, Hazelton, and shall return the chain 
 to-morrow evening." 
 
 The man removed his paper cap and scratched his
 
 244 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 shock head dubiously. He remembered that Mr. Maltby 
 was a good customer, and be feared to disoblige bim. 
 On tbe other hand, he never allowed an unproved chain 
 to leave his factory. 
 
 " It mun be at yer own risk, Muster Maltby," he 
 said at length, " and only as a paiteeckler feevor to a 
 customer." 
 
 " At my own risk, of course," said Mr. Maltby ; 
 " and many thanks, Hazelton. I shall send up for it 
 at once." 
 
 He then returned to the barge, and gave his men 
 orders to ship the chain. 
 
 At this place the river made a great bend, and after- 
 wards returned in the direction of its original course. 
 On the horseshoe-shaped piece of land thus formed was 
 situated a noble mansion, surrounded by a splendid deer 
 park, the country seat of a great ironmaster, who 
 derived a vast income from works and collieries in the 
 Black Country, about thirty miles off. We shall visit 
 the neighbourhood of these works by-and-by, and see 
 the kind of habitations in which the workmen and 
 colliers live, by way of contrast. We shall also see 
 the men at their work, the tangible result of which 
 was visible in this magnificent estate. 
 
 A footpath led across the property, by which pedes- 
 trians were enabled to save a considerable distance by 
 leaving the towing-path and rejoining it again at 
 another point in the curve. It occurred to Mr. Maltby, 
 who knew every foot of the ground intimately, that it 
 would be a pleasant diversion to go by the footpath
 
 ON THE RIVER. 245 
 
 with Jacob and his daughter whilst his men were 
 loading the heavy chain on board the barge. He 
 therefore proposed that they should take a small basket 
 with luncheon, and proceed across the neck of land on 
 foot to a point lower down the river, at which they 
 could meet the barges again. 
 
 The path led through beautiful woodlands, broken 
 here and there by great rocks of red sandstone, and in 
 a shady nook at the foot of one of these, near a streamlet 
 of clear water, they sat them down to a repast, deftly 
 arranged on the grass by Patty. Mr. Maltby had 
 almost forgotten the unpleasant accident which had 
 caused his journey, and was in his most genial humour. 
 He was in the prime of life, active, healthy, and intel- 
 ligent ; and the warm sun and beautiful scenery around 
 them seemed to bring out bright gems of thought and 
 experience from the treasure-house of his memory. 
 Long afterwards that pleasant hour was remembered by 
 his daughter as a green spot in her life, but it was the 
 last to be so enjoyed by him whose large heart and 
 cheerful mind gave a zest to the beauty of the scene 
 around them, and made them linger unconsciously over 
 the simple meal. 
 
 Mr. Maltby suddenly looked at his watch, and started 
 to his feet. 
 
 " We have forgotten the boats," he said. "They 
 must have rounded the point long since, and are waiting 
 for us." 
 
 Then the basket was rapidly repacked, and in a short 
 time they reached the river again and re- embarked.
 
 246 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 The scenery was now very fine on both banks. On 
 one side rose noble cliffs surmounted by fine timber, 
 whose foliage was already changing to varied hues ; on 
 the other lay a great sweep of rich meadow land, dotted 
 over with white-faced cattle ; whilst here and there 
 peeped out the red- tiled roof and brown walls of a snug 
 homestead. They had now passed beyond the area of 
 the coalfield, and the horizon was no longer tinged with 
 the smoke from the furnaces. The river ran clear over 
 a pebbly bed, and fish could be seen glancing in the 
 sunlight as they leaped round the bows of the boats. 
 The men who steered the barges shouted to one another, 
 and sprang rapidly from side to side with the long 
 tillers, as they followed the tortuous shallow channel. 
 
 Mr. Maltby looked anxiously at his watch and at 
 the rocks and shallows they passed, which indicated 
 that the water was unusually low for the time of year. 
 A month later the navigation was generally totally 
 suspended, but never in his memory had he seen the 
 stream so clear and shallow in July. 
 
 Presently, as they rounded a sharp bend, there rose 
 up before them a picturesque town, perched on the 
 summit of a great red sandstone rock. It had once 
 been a strongly fortified place, but Cromwell and 
 Ireton had pitched their camps round about it, and 
 battered its walls and bastions into ruins. Mr. Maltby 
 pointed out the earthworks of a battery, in shape like 
 a pudding pan inverted, which, it was said, had been 
 thrown up in one night by the Parliamentary forces. 
 
 Here they procured two extra horses, and now sped
 
 OX THE RIVER. 247 
 
 along at increased speed, so that by three o'clock they 
 reached the wire ferry at Arley, which was run out 
 from its posts and lowered into the river bed to let 
 them pass. There was a pretty village on the left 
 bank, dominated by a picturesque castle ; and whilst 
 Jacob was pointing out the place to Patty, Mr. Malt by, 
 who was standing in the bow of the barge, suddenly 
 exclaimed, " Here they are at last, high and dry." 
 
 They both looked forward immediately, and beheld 
 the long hulls of two of the barges apparently resting 
 on a sandbank partially covered with water, whilst two 
 other craft were afloat and moored to their anchors close 
 by. The nearest barge was inclined lengthwise to the 
 horizon, and her stern, being in deep water, had sunk 
 nearly level with the surface, whilst her bow was 
 altogether in the air. The second had a considerable 
 list athwart, but was not injured in any way. 
 
 The empty boats were speedily anchored in the deep 
 channel alongside the two which were aground, and 
 Kershaw came on board to explain to Mr. Maltby, with 
 much head scratching, how they had run on the sand- 
 bank. 
 
 " You see, Muster Maltby," he said, " when we went 
 down stream the channel was clear just where the barge 
 lies, and in cooming up it wur shifted in close to the 
 bank, and I sez to Ned, as we ran for the old coorse, 
 Ned, I sez " 
 
 " Never mind what you said now, Kershaw ; the boats 
 are aground, and we must get them off at once, if we 
 can. Get all the dry sacks into this barge, and the
 
 248 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 wet ones into the other ; there's no help for spilt 
 milk." 
 
 The men were now directed to unload the two barges 
 which were aground, and to shift the flour into the 
 empty boats which Mr. Maltby had brought down the 
 river, and in an hour all the flour which could be got 
 at over water had been transhipped, and one of the 
 stranded barges floated off the sandbank, but Kershaw's 
 boat still remained immovable and half full of water. 
 As the river was falling rapidly, it was evident that an 
 immediate effort should be made to get her off, or she 
 would soon be on dry land, and probably could not 
 then be moved until the river rose again in the winter 
 floods. Therefore Mr. Maltby directed all the barges 
 to drop astern and anchor in the stream behind the 
 sunken boat. The new chain which had been lent by 
 Hazelton was passed round the windlasses of three of 
 the barges anchored in line, and then secured to the 
 strong timber stanchions in the after-part of Kershaw's 
 unlucky craft. In this way a powerful strain could be 
 brought to bear on her, to draw her off the sandbank. 
 The crab winch was sent on shore and secured to a tree, 
 and a light chain carried from it to the stern of the 
 sunken barge, so as to direct her obliquely off the bank 
 into the channel ; and lastly, two strong spars were 
 secured as shear legs in an A- shape over the stern, to 
 which heavy pulley blocks were attached, by means of 
 which a lifting strain could be applied in addition to 
 the other pulling appliances above described. 
 
 Mr. Maltby and Jacob were very busy with these
 
 ON THE RIVER. 249 
 
 preparations, which occupied them over an hour, whilst 
 Patty sat on the bank intently watching the arrange- 
 ments. When all was ready, Mr. Maltby took his 
 place in the bow of the barge nearest to the sunken 
 one, and gave the signal to his men to " heave in " on 
 the windlasses, which they did with much stamping 
 and "Yo heave yo-ing." As the heavy chain was 
 hauled in, the barges began to strain gradually on the 
 anchors which held them fast, and in a little while 
 the great chain became taut throughout, but still the 
 stranded barge showed no sign of movement. Mr. Maltby 
 now signalled to his men to haul on the tackles attached 
 to the shear legs ; the stern then rose slowly from its 
 bed in the sand, at the same time the water rushed 
 forward and filled the sleeping cabin in the bows. It 
 was evident now that if the barge were hauled off into 
 deep water she might immediately fill and sink unless 
 the leak in the stern could be stopped. 
 
 Mr. Maltby now held a consultation with Kershaw, 
 the result of which was that an old sail was lowered 
 over the stern of the damaged boat, and gradually 
 drawn beneath ; the barge hanging from the two strong 
 spars all the time. By this means the injured planking 
 was covered, and the leak pretty well staunched. 
 
 Kershaw and Jacob now advised that she should be 
 pumped out, but as the day was waning, Mr. Maltby 
 unfortunately decided to make an effort to haul her off 
 first, lest they should be detained at the place all night. 
 The lifting tackle was therefore made fast, and the 
 whole force of bargemen set to work on the three wind-
 
 250 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 lasses, hauling down stream by means of the great chain, 
 which soon gave audible evidence of the severity of the 
 strain applied to it by emitting a sharp, jarring sound 
 as link after link passed over the large iron sheave in 
 the stern, from whence it ran to the windlass in the bow, 
 which had been turned down the river. The chain 
 was thus in a state of extreme tension from one end of 
 the boat to the other at a height of about a foot from 
 the deck, on which stood Mr. Maltby and Jacob Grim- 
 shaw. The latter touched Mr. Maltby on the shoulder 
 and said, " This is not a very safe place for thee if the 
 chain were to break." Mr. Maltby was looking 
 anxiously at the sunken barge in front of them, and 
 seemed not to hear. He had observed that the chain 
 from the crab winch on shore was being strained 
 severely, as the barge to which it was attached was 
 slowly drawn astern off the bank by the windlasses, 
 and it evidently required to be eased out. 
 
 " Jacob," he said, hurriedly, "go on shore and 
 slack that tackle ; it's pulling against us now as she is 
 coming off." 
 
 Jacob stepped over the side at once and dropped into 
 a little boat with which communication was maintained 
 with the adjacent bank. 
 
 Mr. Maltby approached to give him a parting direc- 
 tion as he pushed off. 
 
 " Tell Patty," he said, " not to sit still by the river, 
 as there is a damp mist rising." 
 
 Mr. Maltby could yet plainly see his daughter, 
 who was intently watching the operations, and in the
 
 ON THE RIVER. 251 
 
 midst of his work he considerately thought of her 
 health. 
 
 As Jacob glanced up at him and nodded in reply, his 
 quick ear detected an unusual grinding and snapping 
 sound from the chain, on which the men were still 
 prizing with all their might ; suddenly there was a 
 report like a cannon-shot, and something flashed in the 
 air behind Mr. Maltby, who was flung headlong into 
 the deep water as from a catapult. 
 
 The barges recoiled one from the other, and a great 
 foaming wave swept over the spot where he had sunk, 
 leaving the surface all white and seething in its track. 
 
 The unproved chain had snapped at one of the 
 dangerous links referred to by Hazelton, and one of 
 the free ends had struck Mr. Maltby a severe blow in 
 the back in its recoil, as he stood looking over the side 
 of the barge, and so hurled him into the water. 
 
 Jacob could not swim, but he could manage a boat 
 skilfully, and as he turned the head of the little craft 
 down stream with one powerful stroke, he heard a loud 
 scream from Patty on the river bank behind him. 
 
 The next moment he caught sight of Mr. Maltby's 
 upturned face floating past, as he lay on his back in 
 the current with outstretched arms. In another in- 
 stant Jacob had hold of him by the breast, but could 
 not lift him out of the water. 
 
 The little boat now drifted past the third barge, 
 and, on being perceived, three or four stout fellows 
 sprang over the side into the river, and rose around 
 their employer like so many water-dogs.
 
 252 IAUTEKDALE. 
 
 Their well-meant efforts were near resulting in the 
 upsetting of the small boat, as they all seized on the 
 gunwale next them, but at this crisis one of the men 
 on deck flung a coil of rope over Jacob, which he grasped 
 with one hand whilst he held Mr. Maltby with the 
 other, and so they were all drawn under the stern. 
 
 Here the men in the water found they could stand 
 on the bottom, and in a few moments they had lifted 
 Mr. Maltby into the small boat, which was then rapidly 
 pushed to the shore at a point where Patty was 
 anxiously awaiting them. 
 
 Mr. Maltby' s eyes were open, and he looked earnestly 
 at his daughter as they approached her, but his features 
 were contracted with pain, and he seemed to have great 
 difficulty in speaking. 
 
 The men lifted him gently out of the boat and laid 
 him on the bank, his head resting in his daughter's 
 lap. One of the men brought some brandy in a horn 
 cup, and he swallowed a little. He then spoke in a 
 feeble voice to his daughter, " God be thanked, Patty, 
 my life is spared, although I am severely hurt ; let us 
 go to Arley at once." Then he endeavoured to sit up, 
 but fell back again suddenly, and the men knew at 
 once he had been heavily struck on the spine by the 
 chain, and was very seriously injured. 
 
 They soon formed a rude litter, and bore him slowly 
 to the little village inn, Patty and Jacob walking sadly 
 at either side of him, holding his clammy hands. He 
 could not bear to be carried up the narrow stairs, and 
 therefore a bed was extemporised for him on the ground-
 
 OX THE RIVER. ZOO 
 
 floor, whilst Jacob scoured the country in search of a 
 surgeon, who was not particularly pleased at being dis- 
 turbed in the midst of a local dinner party. 
 
 However, he returned with the anxious young man to 
 the inn, and hastily examined the patient. " He will be 
 all right in a day or two," he said ; "I shall send him 
 something by-and-by ; " and then he returned to his 
 previous occupation. 
 
 Patty was delighted with the opinion which was so 
 glibly offered by the medical gentleman ; but Jacob was 
 by no means satisfied, and Mr. Maltby remained silent 
 for a long time. 
 
 TThen he spoke at length, it was with much effort, 
 in a feeble voice, and young Grimshaw bent down his 
 ear close to his employer's lips to learn his wishes. 
 
 " I shall never recover this, Jacob," he said ; " take 
 me home, and send for my wife." 
 
 Xext morning they bore him back to Lauterdale in 
 one of his own barges, lying on a mattress on the 
 deck, watched over by his daughter, who never left his 
 side, whilst Jacob travelled across the country with 
 speed to break the sad intelligence to Mrs. Maltby, at 
 Oxford, and to bring her home with him to Lauterdale.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 TWILIGHT. 
 
 "But yet, with fortitude resign'd, 
 
 I'll thank th' infiictor of the blow ; 
 * Forbid the sigh, compose my mind, 
 Nor let the gush of misery flow. 
 The gloomy mantle of the night, 
 
 Which on my sinking spirit steals, 
 Will vanish at the morning light, 
 
 Which God, my East, my Sun reveals." 
 
 Chatterton. 
 
 "jVTORE than a year had elapsed since the accident on 
 the river to Mr. Maltby, who lay on a little couch 
 in the porch of his cottage one fine evening, whilst the 
 sinking sun lit up for a moment the distant summits of the 
 Welsh hills, clearly visible from his doorway, kindling 
 their rugged outlines into flame, soon to change rapidly 
 to cold grey tints, and then to darkness. There was a 
 breath of the coming autumn in the air, and now and 
 then a rustling leaf whirled down the path to the 
 wicket on which his eyes were fixed, as if expecting 
 some one, whilst his lips repeated slowly the solemn 
 words of the 39th Psalm. He looked for a moment at 
 the falling shadows on the great hills, as he mur-
 
 TWILIGHT. 255 
 
 mured, " Lord, make me to know mine end, and the 
 measure of my days what it is. I am consumed by 
 the blow of thine hand ; O, spare me that I may re- 
 cover strength before I go hence and be no more.'' 
 
 John Maltby had received his death-blow on the 
 river from the unproved chain, although he still lin- 
 gered on a bed of languishing, and those around him 
 tried to speak cheerfully of his recovery, hoping 
 against hope. 
 
 The Arley doctor had talked glibly of his " being 
 all right in a few days," and Patty had blessed him 
 in her beating heart for the cheering promise ; but 
 Doctor Dixon, at the Dale, had held out no such ex- 
 pectation from the first, and looked gravely into the 
 eyes of his friend and patient, whose faint sad smile 
 told him the look was well understood. Mrs. Maltby 
 had immediately summoned the skilful man who had 
 successfully attended her son at Oxford, and until 
 he arrived, looked on the quiet local practitioner as a 
 prophet of evil. But alas ! out of the mouths of the two 
 men came the same sentence — " It was but a question 
 of time." There was complete paralysis of the lower 
 limbs and spine, and the skill of the physicians could 
 not avail to stay its stealthy progress upward. 
 
 Mr. Maltby knew this very well himself, before he 
 heard it from the doctors ; but to him death had no 
 terrors, and all he desired to learn from them was, 
 " How long it would be ere the end." " Perhaps 
 a year ; perhaps two years ; no one could posi- 
 tively say ; " and now he had entered on the second
 
 256 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 doubtful period of his probation, and lie felt that lie 
 would not live to see the roses bloom again in the 
 garden. 
 
 During the period of bis illness, many cbanges bad 
 happened in the circumstances of those with whom 
 we have already made acquaintance in the Dale. 
 Silas Clayton had knelt beside Mr. Maltby's couch, and 
 prayed with him for the last time ere he took his de- 
 parture for the mission station, whither he had volun- 
 teered to go immediately after his rejection by Patty. 
 He knew well he should see his friend's face no more 
 until they met " beyond the river ; " and departed 
 sorrowing, but " in sure and certain hope" of such a 
 meeting. 
 
 Edward Maltby had taken his degree, and entered 
 the Church, under the wing of the Yicar of Lawley, 
 in whose parish he was to assist until he received 
 a priest's ordination, and therefore he was often at 
 Lauterdale during his father's illness. 
 
 Eobert Field had entered as a student at Magdalene 
 College, following his friend's example, and was there 
 consolidating and refining the crude mass of infor- 
 mation he had previously acquired. 
 
 He was already looked on with much favour by the 
 dons, and encouraged by the approval of the good 
 Yicar and of his friend Josiah Morris, who still hoped to 
 bring about a reconciliation between father and son, 
 and contrived that everything concerning the latter 
 should be indirectly made known to Mr. Field, although 
 the proud reserved old ironmaster would not admit
 
 TWILIGHT.. 257 
 
 that the subject of his son's pursuits possessed any in- 
 terest for him, and had forbidden all mention of his 
 name. 
 
 Jacob Grirushaw had come out nobly, and was now 
 the active manager of Mr. Maltby' s business. It 
 continued to thrive notwithstanding the continued 
 absence of the principal. After the first few weeks of 
 his illness, however, and for a long time subsequently, 
 he was able to control his affairs with the assistance of 
 the young man, who was zealously devoted to his em- 
 ployer's interests. Gradually young Grimshaw and 
 Mrs. Maltby assumed the sole direction of the business, 
 and the sick man only inquired in a general way as to 
 the results. Worldly things were dropping away from 
 him, and his long habits of order and method left but 
 little to be arranged. 
 
 Mrs. Maltby had always taken a close interest in 
 her husband's affairs, and now her knowledge stood her 
 in good stead. At first she rather disliked and scarcely 
 trusted young Jacob, as the son of the quarrelsome old 
 miller, then in full swing with his great lawsuit, and 
 also as one of the unconverted, who made no open profes- 
 sion of religion, although he regularly attended chapel. 
 Added to this, there was a shrewd suspicion in the good 
 woman's mind, that but for Jacob's presence at the 
 cottage during her visit to Oxford, that suit of 
 Silas Clayton's would not have been rejected by her 
 daughter. 
 
 At length the persevering, steady attention of the 
 young man won upon her so much, that ultimately 
 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 LATTTERDALE. 
 
 she came to look on him with a sort of motherly 
 interest. 
 
 Now, all this time the mill was stopped, and old 
 Grimshaw came seldom to the Dale, and when he did 
 come was scarcely seen by any one outside his cottage 
 door, inside which a long-suffering old woman endured 
 his constant and wearisome grumblings, and prepared 
 the simple meals he consumed in his grim solitary 
 fashion. But one day came Patty, like little Red 
 Eidinghood, and knocked at the miller's door. Blush- 
 ing as she spoke nervously to the old man, who looked 
 like an ogre, all unshorn and untidy, she said that 
 her father particularly wished to see him, if he would 
 be so good as to come to the cottage at the foot of the 
 Dale that evening before sunset. To this he had 
 muttered something like an assent, shading the light 
 from his eyes with his hand, as he curiously looked 
 out of his den at the comely maiden in the doorway, 
 who tripped away as speedily as possible to resume her 
 unwearied attendance at her father's side. 
 
 It was for the advent of this ogre of a miller that 
 John Maltby looked so anxiously on the evening men- 
 tioned in the opening of this chapter. 
 
 The reader will wish to know how fared the fortunes 
 of the miller's son with Patty during this twelve months, 
 but there is little to relate. The sad disaster which had 
 befallen Mr. Maltby had driven all lighter thoughts 
 from the young girl's mind, and her assiduous attend- 
 ance on her father, who was always in a recumbent 
 posture, and often in much pain, precluded all love
 
 TWILIGHT. 259 
 
 passages between her and Jacob ; yet gradually it had 
 come to be understood between them that some day or 
 other they would be man and wife — if all went well ; 
 but as the day appeared to them to be necessarily very 
 distant, little was said on the subject beyond the un- 
 spoken language in Patty's eyes as she smiled a greeting 
 to the young clerk when he came to render an account 
 of his daily stewardship at the cottage in the evening. 
 At present Jacob desired no more. 
 
 He had entered on his service, as his namesake en- 
 tered into the service of Laban, in the hope of similar 
 reward ; and under present circumstances he was con- 
 tent to abide the progress of events, cheered by the daily 
 sight of his sweetheart at her post. At length it was 
 evident the close confinement was banishing the roses 
 from her cheeks, and then Mr. Maltby insisted that she 
 should take some walking exercise each evening, 
 attended by Jacob. Thus they were gradually re- 
 cognised by the Dale folk as an engaged couple, 
 though as yet no troth had been plighted between 
 them. Mrs. Maltby quietly acquiesced in the arrange- 
 ment, but all idea of his marriage with Patty was post- 
 poned, in her mind, whilst her husband lay there so 
 helpless. She had not yet brought herself to entertain 
 seriously the absolute conviction that the end was 
 drawing nigh, hoping always that the summer would 
 bring him round again. But now the summer was 
 ended, and as each week passed away, it was observed 
 that he moved with greater difficulty, and relinquished 
 one by one such light tasks as he had set himself. At
 
 260 
 
 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 first tie read a great deal, having been always a reading 
 man ; now he listened only to the low sweet voice of 
 Patty, and desired to hear her read one book alone, 
 each line and word of which he could repeat by heart, 
 although it still pleased him better to hear it read by 
 his daughter, whilst he joined now and then in repeat- 
 ing some favourite passage aloud. 
 
 The leaders of the chapel came often to see him, and 
 were courteously received ; but as time wore on he 
 seemed to shrink somewhat from strangers, and to 
 turn his thoughts with more concentrated affection to 
 those around him. On this account there was much 
 head-shaking amongst these worthies as to his doubtful 
 state of heart and sad spiritual condition. 
 
 One day, as Jacob left the room, having made his 
 usual short business report, Mr. Maltby had suddenly 
 taken his daughter's hand, and said — 
 
 " Patty, he is a great comfort and help, and a good 
 youth — what do you think of him ? " 
 
 Patty's pale cheek was suffused with red, and her 
 eye brightened a little, but she had no other answer to" 
 give. Mr. Maltby continued — 
 
 " I should like to see thee settled, darling, before I 
 die ; " and then she hid her face in her hands, and wept 
 bitterly. 
 
 A few days after, Mr. Maltby detained Jacob when 
 he came as usual to see him, and gently drew from him 
 the story of his love, and told him there would be no 
 obstacle on the score of ways and means, but that " he 
 wished to see them married before Christmas."
 
 TWILIGHT. 261 
 
 When Patty came in, Mr. Maltby placed her hand 
 in Jacob's, and blessed them both. For an instant she 
 thought of that other proposal which had been made to 
 her over twelve months since under such different cir- 
 cumstances, and then she allowed her soft little hand to 
 rest in her lover's broad palm, as a token of assent; 
 and after this her father had sent her on that errand to 
 the old miller. 
 
 Old Grimshaw, although he certainly could call no 
 man friend, was not so utterly destitute of acquaint- 
 ances but that he had been informed of his son's 
 probable marriage to the daughter of the well-to-do 
 maltster ; and had it not been for the total absorption 
 of his mind in his lawsuit, he would have taken some 
 natural interest in the affair. As it was, he felt merely 
 a momentary curiosity to see what sort of damsel his 
 son had chosen, and some slight pleasure in the fact 
 that she was pretty and winning ; but, on the whole, 
 he considered that Jacob was too young, and preferred 
 that the great dispute between himself and the Dale 
 Company shoidd be decided before any other mimdane 
 question was raised. 
 
 He had always respected and liked Mr. Maltby, and 
 therefore he set out as he had half promised, with many 
 grumblings and mutterings, through the Dale to the 
 cottage at its foot. 
 
 Little boys and girls, the sons and daughters of the 
 workmen, crept fearfully out of his path as he strode 
 on, and then thrust out their tongues and made faces 
 at his back. Once or twice he turned to look at the
 
 262 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 busy water-wheels owned by the Company, and reflected 
 with wrath on the stoppage of his own wheel, and 
 the vow which prevented him from raising the sluices 
 and setting it going again. But he comforted himself 
 as best he could with the thought that the loss thereby 
 occasioned was all going to accumulate the bill against 
 his opponents, although, occasionally, some doubts as 
 to the profitable result of Mr. Quetchett's proceedings 
 would intrude themselves uncomfortably, and make 
 him wish, at all events, that his vow had been unspoken, 
 or that some way of evading it without breach of the 
 strict letter would present itself to his mind. Suddenly 
 he stopped, and struck his forehead with his open hand, 
 as he remembered that he had sworn that " he would 
 never raise the mill sluices himself until the great law- 
 suit was decided." A loophole cunningly presented 
 itself — " They might be raised, and the mill put to 
 work again by some one else — for instance, by Jacob." 
 He sat down on a low stone wall by the roadside, 
 and munched his finger-nails in gloomy cogitation. 
 Money was getting very scarce with him, and was now 
 urgently required. Mr. Quetchett had been pressing 
 very much of late for fresh supplies, and he knew not 
 where to get them. His trade had vanished, and only 
 a few bad debts remained outstanding on his books. 
 After a long period of severe rumination, he struck 
 his hand on his leg, and laughed a wild low laugh, 
 and chucked his head cunningly sideways with a 
 wink as he prepared to resume his journey, having 
 discovered a way out of his difficulty, and a means of
 
 TWILIGHT. 263 
 
 outwitting himself in the matter of that oath about the 
 sluices. 
 
 He now observed by the shadows that the evening 
 was closing in, and examined a huge turnip-shaped 
 watch, with many silver cases, which he drew from the 
 depths of a fob pocket by a strong steel chain, and 
 finding he was late, he strode on hurriedly to the inter- 
 view with Mr. Maltby. The latter still lay waiting for 
 him in the porch, feeling rather chill and cold, and in 
 consequence was frequently urged by Patty to allow 
 himself to be moved indoors. 
 
 As the old miller raised the latch of the little wicket 
 and strode up the winding footpath, some feeling of awe 
 came over him in the recollection that he was about to 
 visit a man whose days were numbered. The probable 
 result of the accident was no secret in the Dale ; all 
 men knew that Mr. Maltby* s fate was sealed. Therefore 
 the miller took off his hat, and approached the reclining 
 figure on the couch with some reverence. 
 
 He started when he recognised the altered appearance 
 of the active man he had known in health and vigour, 
 and hurriedly sat him down by his side with his hat on 
 the ground, saying as he did so, " I'se sorry, Muster 
 Maltby, to see thee thus." 
 
 "Yes, Grimshaw," said the sufferer. " Sooner or 
 later it must come to all of us — in the Lord's good 
 time. I wished to see you about your son before I 
 grow worse." 
 
 The miller nodded as if he understood, and smiled a 
 grim wise smile.
 
 264 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 "No doubt you are aware that he is desirous to 
 marry my daughter ; and it appears to me that we 
 should both lay our heads together to help them. I 
 am sorry you are still engaged in that lawsuit, and 
 determined not to work the mill. Now, Mr. Grimshaw, 
 I wish you would take a dying man's advice, and give 
 it up/? 
 
 " The lawsuit mun go on," said the miller ; " but 
 Jacob may start the mill if he can do so." 
 
 " Then will you make it over to him at a moderate 
 rent p" said Mr. Maltby, raising himself a little on his 
 elbow, the old spirit for driving a close bargain coming 
 over him for an instant, despite his condition. 
 
 " I'll sell my interest in the lease," said the miller, 
 mindful of the necessity to obtain funds for the in- 
 satiable maw of Mr. Quetchett. 
 
 Mr. Maltby reflected a little. It occurred to him 
 that if any considerable sum of money were to be 
 placed in the miller's hands it would go into the 
 pockets of the lawyers, and then the old man would be 
 thrown back on the young couple for support. 
 
 "I suppose you really want money?" he said 
 suddenly. 
 
 The miller nodded assent, thrown for a moment off 
 his guard. 
 
 " How much ? " 
 
 The miller slowly rubbed his grizzled chin. 
 
 " I think," he said, " five 'undred pounds 'ud see us 
 through, and then Jacob shall have half the mill and 
 half the damages."
 
 TWILIGHT. 
 
 265 
 
 " Half the mill will be no use to Jacob without 
 capital, or whilst your friend Quetchett can lay hands 
 on the other half ; and I fear the damages will be all 
 your own," said Mr. Maltby. " Mr. Grimshaw," he 
 continued, " I will start your son with three thousand 
 pounds when he marries, if you will let him have the 
 mill at a moderate rent. Mind — the mill on his own 
 account altogether. Let us say that he shall pay you 
 one hundred a year during your lifetime, which will 
 enable you to live at ease in the cottage. We will 
 build a nest for the young people close by. But, 
 Grimshaw, my friend," he added impressively, "let me 
 beg of you once more to live in peace, and drop this 
 dreadful litigation. You will regret it some day when 
 you come to lie here." 
 
 There was a momentary flash in the old miller's eye 
 at the mention of the three thousand pounds, but it 
 faded out at the idea of surrendering the mill to his 
 son and becoming an annuitant. 
 
 " I canna stop the lawsuit, Muster Maltby," he said, 
 "and I wunt. But I'll think over the rest of your 
 offer." 
 
 Then he put on his hat and strode away. Mr. 
 Maltby lay back wearily on his couch as Patty and her 
 mother appeared, and carefully wheeled him into the 
 house. 
 
 Old Grimshaw consumed the very stumps of his 
 finger-nails as he sat thinking over the proposal all 
 night, crouched over the embers of a coal fire, which 
 went out altogether ere the dawn. He muttered and
 
 266 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 growled to himself in the cold, and now and again 
 extended his clenched hand in the darkness in the 
 direction of the dwelling of his opponents, who he 
 believed had driven him to this dire strait. With the 
 morning's post came a fresh urgent application for 
 money from Mr. Quetchett, who now saw his way, 
 for the twentieth time, to victory. Then the old 
 man went down and looked at the great water- 
 wheel, on which moss and slime had formed, and 
 afterwards he unbarred the door and went into the 
 mill itself. 
 
 There was a scurry of rats along the floors of the 
 building as he slowly entered, and heavy cobwebs full 
 of strange insects fell on his hands and face as he 
 ascended the worn stairs. There in the dim light he sat 
 him down with a groan on a millstone, in bitterness 
 of soul at sight of the desolation around him. He 
 remained many hours, thinking — thinking. The rats 
 soon assumed courage on seeing his inaction, and peered 
 out of their holes at him ; then one or two of the boldest 
 ventured abroad in the hope that he had brought some- 
 thing eatable into the premises, as by this time they 
 had consumed every particle of corn, and even devoured 
 the leather driving-bands of the machinery. 
 
 The results of his litigation were now palpably before 
 him, for the first time, in the ruin and desolation of the 
 premises ; yet his heart grew harder than the stone on 
 which he sat, and whenever he turned him to the 
 quarter of the compass where dwelt his supposed 
 enemies, his bloodshot eyes flashed out with evil
 
 TWILIGHT. 267 
 
 malignity. Could he but lay his hands at this moment 
 on the necks of those two men in the Dale House, he 
 would strangle them both in one grasp. Then he 
 struck his clenched fist on the millstone, and wounded 
 it severely, as he exclaimed, " Darn their souls, let the 
 mill go ! I'll never give in whilst there's law to be had 
 in England." 
 
 It was now mid-day, and as yet he had tasted no food. 
 He crept downstairs again, and groped his way to the 
 office, where the dust was nearly an inch thick over 
 everything. He routed out the stump of a pen which 
 the mice had despised, and uncorked an ink-bottle, and 
 with these materials he managed to scrawl on a scrap 
 of paper — 
 
 " Mr. Malt by, I'll take the hundred a year, with five 
 hundred pounds paid down ; but no less. 
 
 " Yours, 
 " Jacob Grimshaw, Senr." 
 
 This missive he despatched by his old servant, who 
 had just come to look for him, fearing he had made 
 away with himself. 
 
 He then returned to his solitary cottage, and went 
 groaning to bed. 
 
 Mr. Maltby did not like the idea of supplying fuel 
 to the fires fanned by lawyer Quetchett. On the other 
 hand, time was of consequence, and he knew the 
 obdurate character of the man he had to deal with. 
 Therefore, he accepted the miller's proposal immediately,
 
 268 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 and gave the necessary instructions to his solicitor to 
 carry it into effect. 
 
 There was some little trouble with the old man in 
 details, but Mr. Quetchett's demands were imperative, 
 and he was driven thereby to sign the necessary docu- 
 ments transferring the mill to his son, who immediately 
 set about placing the concern in thorough repair with 
 funds supplied by Mr. Maltby. 
 
 He also commenced the erection of the house to 
 which we have already been introduced, and one bright 
 morning in October a little knot of friends entered the 
 church at Lawley, and there Patty and Jacob were 
 united by the good Vicar, the little bride being given 
 away by her brother. 
 
 At that time marriages could not be celebrated in 
 Dissenting chapels, and therefore they were married 
 by special license at Lawley. 
 
 It was the quietest of all quiet weddings. Every one 
 remembered him who lay so stricken at Lauterdale, 
 whose wish it was that this ceremony should take 
 place whilst he was still living ; and after the wed- 
 ding they all returned to the cottage, where Patty 
 immediately resumed her old place by her father's 
 side. 
 
 One of Mr. Maltby' s dearest wishes was now satisfied, 
 and he seemed to be more at rest. 
 
 Once he was taken to see the new cottage in progress, 
 the plans of which Jacob had submitted to him, and he 
 smiled as he saw the great mill-wheel in motion once 
 more, and heard the whirr of wheels within.
 
 TWILIGHT. 2G9 
 
 It was the last concern of this lower troubled sphere 
 in which he exhibited any interest. A few weeks after, 
 he passed away so quietly that no one of those present 
 could say when he had ceased to breathe, his eyes 
 still fixed on the Book whose words had been a lamp 
 unto his feet. 
 
 They bore him to his last resting-place at Lawley, 
 where he wished to be buried, followed by a great con- 
 course of the Dale folk — the Company's works being 
 closed for the day as a mark of respect seldom before 
 exhibited. 
 
 The river-side fraternity flocked mournfully behind 
 the rest, sorrowing over the best master they had ever 
 known, whose hand was always open to relieve distress, 
 and who dealt liberally with all who served him ; and 
 if many of them sought to drown their grief in strong 
 drink ere evening, it must be admitted that for once in 
 their lives there were extenuating circumstances. 
 
 As the long funeral procession passed the gates of the 
 Dale House, it was observed that both the brothers 
 Field had joined in the rear, walking arm in arm with 
 uncovered heads, which, when it was told to Mrs. 
 Maltby, comforted her much, as evidence of the great 
 respect in which her husband was held, being, in fact, 
 the only instance of the kind on record. 
 
 The business by the river-side was bequeathed to her, 
 together with the cottage and ten thousand pounds. A 
 like sum was inherited by Edward Maltby, and in 
 addition to the money already paid to Jacob on his 
 marriage, as capital wherewith to work the mill, Mr.
 
 270 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 Maltby had also provided for the erection and furnish- 
 ing of the young miller's house, and for the annuity to 
 be paid to the old man, who did not live long to enjoy 
 it, but died of a broken heart, in consequence of the 
 absolute abandonment of proceedings for want of funds, 
 bequeathing nothing but evil counsel to his son on his 
 death-bed, to bear fruit later on. 
 
 Of the early married life of the young miller I have 
 little of interest to narrate beyond what has already 
 been told. He was industrious, frugal, and blessed 
 with good health and a good wife, whom he loved 
 tenderly, and who was much esteemed by all who knew 
 her. 
 
 Shortly after Mr. Maltby' s death they removed to 
 the new cottage, and there was born unto them the 
 son who was subsequently articled to old lawyer 
 Quetchett, and the little daughter who took the half- 
 drowned child into her bed on the night of Mr. Forster's 
 arrival in Lauterdale. 
 
 It is with this Second Generation that we shall 
 have most to do in the remainder of this story, working 
 out the history of their lives as affected by the lives of 
 those who went before them.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CLOSING IN. 
 
 " And the stately ships go on 
 
 To their haven under the hill ; 
 But for the touch of a vanish' d hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still. 
 
 " Break, break, break, 
 
 At the foot of thy crags, O sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 Will never come back to me." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 TTERY successful men, as distinguished from very 
 happy men, are generally found to have one 
 great object before them in life, to the attainment of 
 which all their energies are directed, whether it be 
 wealth or power or pre-eminence. Other things follow 
 after a fashion as matters of course, such as love, 
 marriage, and the accidents of existence generally, but 
 these are usually subordinate to the dominant idea, and, 
 as such, are more or less unsatisfactory, unless they 
 accidentally become strong enough in themselves to 
 divert attention from the original pursuit for a time. 
 
 Edward Maltby and his friend Robert Field had 
 started in life with great objects in view. The former
 
 272 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 meant, if he could, to rise in the church to high honour 
 and dignity, and to that end he had studied hard and 
 ordered his ways in strict accordance with the examples 
 of rising men of his time. 
 
 He was a man much respected by those who were his 
 elders, and but little loved by the juniors of his 
 acquaintance. Cold and reserved in temperament, and 
 cautious to a fault, but possessed of a clear and subtle 
 intellect, he was known as a sound scholar, whose ac- 
 quirements had been severely tested during his career 
 at Oxford. 
 
 His severe illness and subsequent residence in the 
 abode of Dora Clayton had done something in the way 
 of breaking down the philosophic barriers he took pride 
 in erecting as fences around his heart and mind. He 
 learned then, for the first time, that pure religion was 
 not a thing of schools or sects, and cast off much of his 
 strong prejudice against the Dissenters, amongst whom 
 he had been brought up ; and although his allegiance to 
 the Church of England was unshaken, his personal am- 
 bition was greatly modified. Then came the genial 
 warmth of a great friendship for Robert Field, all the 
 sweeter because of associations with the family at 
 Lawley. 
 
 It was fortunate for the young men that they had 
 not fallen in love with the same lady ; and perhaps 
 still more fortunate that the two they had chosen were 
 of different temperaments, suited so well to the peculiar 
 characteristics of their respective admirers. The elder 
 daughter of the Vicar admired scholarship above all
 
 CLOSING IX. 273 
 
 things, and valued intellect, with which she was herself 
 richly endowed, beyond all other gifts. The younger 
 and more enthusiastic girl reverenced most the men 
 who became heroes, and were ready to lay down their 
 lives for some great cause, although she hoped her 
 particular hero would contrive to preserve his. 
 
 Then had happened the dreadful accident to Mr, 
 Maltby, and his lingering illness and death, during 
 the residence of his son at Lawley, when the still 
 depths of the young man's heart were stirred, and the 
 idols he had set up melted away, and with them the 
 great idea with which he had set out in his career. 
 He was no longer the embryo of the cold ambitious 
 ecclesiastic, but became a type of the educated and 
 zealous parish clergyman, trained in the best school for 
 his work, and subject to the most favourable influences 
 in the example of the Vicar. 
 
 Occasionally his natural temperament would appear, 
 and mar for a little the general harmony of his 
 character ; still, such as he was, he had won the heart 
 of Martha Fletcher, who believed him to be perfect. 
 
 He was now placed in possession of sufficient means, 
 and there was no longer any obstacle to their marriage 
 after his ordination, when the days of his mourning 
 were ended. He particularly desired that his solitary 
 friend Robert Field, then steadily pursuing his college 
 course, should be present at his wedding ; and, con- 
 sequently, the latter was invited by the Vicar to visit 
 Lawley once more. 
 
 Two years had elapsed since the young man had left 
 
 VOL. T. T
 
 274 LATTTERDALE. 
 
 his father's house. During this time he had remained 
 constant to his love for Rachel, although he had not 
 been permitted to see or correspond with her. Whether 
 such prohibition was wise or proper is not the question 
 here. Mr. Fletcher conscientiously adhered to his 
 resolution, believing that by so doing he was best 
 serving the interests of the young man, and anxious 
 to close, if possible, the breach between him and his 
 father. As yet, however, the old man had shown no 
 sign of relenting, and it was believed by some that he 
 wished to ignore the fact of his son's existence alto- 
 gether. Now, this was incorrect and unjust. Mr. Field 
 was persuaded by his brother to require absolute sub- 
 mission in all things, and an admission of past errors 
 from his son. The son, on the other hand, would no 
 longer submit to such control in his private life, and 
 denied that there had been any fault on his part. 
 ~No doubt the balance of right lay with him. It is true 
 he made no effort to meet his father halfway towards a 
 reconciliation, whilst the latter waited in the hope of 
 such effort being made, and probably, if left to himself, 
 would have taken the initiative. Unfortunately, his 
 brother's strongly expressed opinions on the subject, 
 appealing as they did to his pride, turned the scale 
 against the young man, and fomented the anger of the 
 old ironmaster. 
 
 Those who have mixed with the older families of 
 Friends in England, amongst whom such strict 
 patriarchal ideas were frequently held, will quite 
 understand the nature of this strange quarrel ; but to
 
 CLOSING IX. 2 t 5 
 
 others its character will probably appear unnatural. 
 Joshua Field also hoped and expected that some 
 application would have been made to him for 
 money, either directly or indirectly, by his son ; but 
 the private liberality of Josiah Morris had obviated 
 the necessity for his doing so. This was in itself a fresh 
 offence. The old man knew very well that the student 
 had no private resources of his own, and, being unaware 
 of the funds supplied by the cashier, he believed that 
 his son was indebted to strangers for his college expenses 
 and the means of support, and wrongly suspected that 
 the Yicar supplied both. This was very galling to his 
 proud spirit, and a deep aggravation of the imaginary 
 wrongs he was enduring at the hands of both. The 
 tact that his son had entered a college at all was to 
 him evidence that the young man would ultimately 
 endeavour to maintain himself independently in some 
 profession ; and to men like the Fields, who were very 
 rich, this was a bitter humiliation. 
 
 The elder brother made some effort to obviate this 
 part of his punishment, and directed Josiah Morris to 
 remit such sums as he deemed requisite for the outcast, 
 without any reference to him as to the amount, or any 
 mention of his name. 
 
 Josiah endeavoured to carry out this rather un- 
 gracious provision, which relieved him from personal 
 advances, although he would have willingly placed his 
 last shilling at the young man's disposal ; but the im- 
 pression left on Robert Field's mind by the corre- 
 spondence which ensued on this matter was unfortunately
 
 276 EAUTEEDAEE. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 this — tiiat it was a kind pretence on the part of the 
 
 cashier to relieve him from any feeling of obligation. 
 
 Therefore, he was more careful than before in availing 
 
 himself of the funds placed at his command, and for a 
 
 graduate at Oxford his expenses were moderate indeed. 
 
 He would have accepted a reasonable allowance from 
 his father as a matter of just right, had it been directly 
 offered to him, and he felt the absence of such offer as a 
 cruel wrong and an injustice. 
 
 There was thus rising up between them a wall of 
 misunderstanding cemented with bitterness, which a 
 word from either would have shattered into dust ; but 
 no such word ever came to be spoken. 
 
 In due time Robert Field completed his college 
 course, and took his degree with credit, and then he 
 followed his friend's footsteps into the service of the 
 Church, having before him also the hope that in so 
 doing he would win the hand, as he had already won 
 the heart, of Rachel Fletcher. 
 
 He had visited Lawley, and seen her once more on 
 the occasion of Edward Maltby's marriage. 
 
 A moderate college living in a rich eastern county 
 had recently been offered to the latter, and to it he had 
 taken his young wife. We shall see them again nearer 
 home by-and-by. 
 
 It was during this visit that Robert Field finally 
 decided to enter the Church, and ultimately he took 
 his friend's place in assisting Mr. Fletcher, whose 
 active powers were somewhat impaired by time and 
 incessant work.
 
 CLOSING IX. Zi i 
 
 It had cost the Vicar some mental struggle before he 
 consented to this arrangement, and he had essayed 
 again to see Mr. Field, but, unhappily, no audience was 
 vouchsafed to him by the stern ironmaster, who was 
 then in the climax of his wrath. 
 
 Thus thrown back on his own judgment for counsel, 
 and urged by his son-in-law and by his eldest daughter ; 
 feeling also his own increasing infirmities, and the 
 absolute necessity for assistance in his parish, he had 
 reluctantly consented — first, to receive the young man 
 as his curate, and ultimately as his daughter's husband ; 
 to fill for a time, at least, the place of the son who had 
 gone to India, of whose return there was at that time 
 but little prospect. 
 
 He hoped that his youngest and best beloved child 
 would in this way be retained near him for the re- 
 mainder of his days, and so he bestowed her as his best 
 gift on the heir to the Dale property — albeit at that 
 time poor enough — and felt some pride in the thought 
 that no one could say he was marrying his child to a 
 rich man for the sake of wealth. 
 
 Robert Field had deserved and had fairly won the 
 reward of his faithful love, and valued the rich prize 
 that had fallen to him in his sweet wife far above all 
 the wealth and position he had laid down to win her. 
 
 They had no home but the vicarage, and there, in the 
 course of years, was born to them a son and a daughter ; 
 the latter being the lovely child whom we have seen for 
 a moment in the library of the Dale House when this 
 story opened. The years spent peacefully and usefully
 
 278 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 at Lawley by the young couple were years of unalloyed 
 happiness. The old Vicar's youth seemed to be re- 
 newed by the advent of the two grandchildren, who 
 played around his knees and made constant melody in the 
 house with their young fresh voices, whilst his strength 
 and energy were no longer taxed by wearisome journeys 
 to distant parts of his parish, now undertaken by his 
 zealous, active curate, who was looked on as something 
 more than an ordinary mortal by the parishioners, who 
 could never forget that only a few miles away lay vast 
 works and property of which he might have been the 
 ruler, had he not chosen to cast in his lot with them at 
 Lawley. 
 
 There were some, however, who thought his conduct 
 was utterly Quixotic, and who prophesied that sooner 
 or later, when the fancy had forsaken him, he would 
 return to the Dale House, or resume his proper position 
 in some way. 
 
 Speculation was rife amongst these folk as to how a 
 Church of England clergyman could lay aside his office 
 and assume the management of a great business. They 
 concluded it could be done somehow, and no doubt 
 would be done some day. Now, it was the belief that 
 no such change could be made which wounded the 
 curate's father and uncle to the quick. Other pro- 
 fessions might have been adopted and laid down, but 
 they knew that those who became priests in the Church 
 of England were never surrendered again to secular 
 uses, and with " the laying on of hands " the old iron- 
 master's heart was wrung to its core.
 
 CLOSING IX. 279 
 
 He would have given much of his wealth to prevent 
 the imposition, or to undo the past years of estrange- 
 ment ; now he concluded that he was powerless to re- 
 cover the lost prodigal, who certainly had not wasted 
 his substance, but absolutely despised it. 
 
 Once only they met on the highway — the father, as 
 usual, well mounted; the son on foot, trudging cheer- 
 fully on the dusty road. Then the old man turned 
 away his proud head, and passed by on the other side ; 
 and so they never came to be reconciled, although there 
 was absolutely no real quarrel, and no just cause of 
 anger on either side. 
 
 It must not be imagined that no efforts were made 
 to terminate this unnatural severance, or that the exist- 
 ence of such- a painful state of things did not cause 
 some anxiety to the young clergyman himself. He 
 knew well enough that his position as a peacemaker and 
 healer of feuds in the parish was weakened by the 
 apparent existence of a family feud in his own case, 
 and he had honestly endeavoured more than once to 
 put an end to it through the intervention of his faithful 
 friend, Josiah Morris. 
 
 There is no doubt that the unceasing efforts of the 
 latter might have been successful had it not been for the 
 counteracting influence of Jediah Field, whose evil star 
 was then particularly in the ascendant. It was not that 
 he bore any ill-will to his nephew, — on the contrary, he 
 really loved him after a fashion, and meant everything 
 he did for his ultimate benefit, with the special view to 
 his restoration, if possible, to his proper place as heir
 
 280 LATTTERDALE. 
 
 to the Dale property, and head of the great house. But 
 so long as the young man abode in the tent of his 
 enemy, and consorted with him, he used every means 
 in his power, and unfortunately with success, to thwart 
 any attempt at intervention on the part of others, and 
 laid down such terms as absolutely necessary to be 
 complied with by the son, before he approached the 
 father, as rendered all such approach impossible without 
 the sacrifice of self-respect. 
 
 Long after, when death had closed the door of hope 
 for ever, Joshua Field remembered who it was that 
 hindered the reconciliation for which he had longed, 
 and added fuel to the fierce pride that preyed upon his 
 heart. 
 
 Robert Field had now to all outward appearance 
 settled down to his work, and apparently abandoned 
 the visionary projects with which he set out so early in 
 life. The constant occupation of his mind in his duties, 
 and the necessity for performing them steadily, in order 
 to relieve his father-in-law, whose health was feeble, 
 seemed to leave no room for the wider schemes he had 
 originally embraced. Yet these projects were still very 
 dear to him, and he invariably evinced intense interest 
 in their progress. For the present, he did the work he 
 had found ready to his hand, hoping sooner or later to 
 be permitted to take part in something greater, and an 
 opportunity presented itself in the course of time. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher's son suddenly returned to England in 
 broken health, but with unbroken spirit, and rested 
 from his labours for a little space at Lawley. He
 
 CLOSING IN. 281 
 
 had been engaged in a great work in India, but was 
 compelled to leave it in order to repair the inroads 
 of the climate on his constitution, and would not be 
 permitted to return there for several years. The 
 enthusiasm with which he always spoke of the Mis- 
 sionary work roused the old spirit in the young curate, 
 and set him dreaming again, as in former days, of 
 great victories to be won over error and the powers of 
 darkness abroad. 
 
 Then came the opportunity to see the distant battle- 
 field, and to join in the warfare for a short time. A 
 little band of good and brave men was about to proceed 
 to America, to lift up their voices and cry aloud through 
 the length and breadth of the land against the Slave 
 Trade, which had apparently taken fresh root in the 
 Southern States at a time when it was being trampled 
 out elsewhere. 
 
 Geoffrey Fletcher was invited to join them, and was 
 desirous to do so ; but his physicians forbade it, and his 
 father begged him to remain a few years at Lawley, 
 feeling that but a short time remained in which they 
 might be together. In this dilemma Robert Field was 
 tempted to volunteer his services, seeing that the Vicar's 
 son could fill his place at home during his absence, and 
 fired with zeal in the greatest cause ever undertaken by 
 the philanthropists. His offer was gladly accepted, and, 
 with a vague sense of coming ill, he braced himself to 
 the task of parting from his young wife and children. 
 He desired to see his father before his departure, and 
 journeyed once more on foot to the Dale House, in the-
 
 282 LAITTERDALE. 
 
 hope of terminating the estrangement between them by 
 a personal interview. 
 
 Unfortunately Mr. Field, who rarely left the Dale, 
 was absent from home for a few days, attending the 
 annual gathering of the Friends at Manchester ; and 
 as the steam- vessel in which his son's passage from 
 Liverpool had been taken sailed almost immediately, 
 the two estranged men did not meet, and were destined 
 never to see one another again in this life. 
 
 The great steamer sailed, with the earnest little band 
 of pioneers of liberty on board, 
 
 " Out into the West when the sun went down ; " 
 
 but of her fate no man knoweth anything to this day. 
 News reached England from homeward-bound vessels 
 of her rapid progress through the great waters — news 
 which was read everywhere with interest, as steam 
 passages to America were then in their infancy, and 
 this large vessel was deemed one of the fastest of the 
 new line. Then there was a long interval of silence, 
 and people looked in vain in shipping reports for 
 tidings, and in time for news of her arrival out ; but no 
 tidings came. 
 
 Who can tell what was endured by that young wife 
 for many weary months, during which some hope still 
 existed that intelligence might come of the missing 
 vessel, until hope died out and sank into the aching 
 dulness of despair ? 
 
 There was one other suffering human being not far 
 off, whose heart was torn daily on the rack of expecta-
 
 CLOSING IN. 283 
 
 tion ; who grasped each morning at every scrap of 
 news or surmise that might tend to throw light on the 
 position of the missing vessel, with whose fate was 
 bound up that of his only son, and who tossed night 
 after night on a sleepless pillow, longing for the morn- 
 ing, which might bring healing on its wings with some 
 message from the deep. But no trace or sign, no 
 plank or waif, nor shred of garment has ever reached the 
 shore. Until the great day when the sea shall give up 
 its dead, the fate of the missing steamer must remain 
 a mystery. 
 
 One day there came to the vicarage an old man with 
 grey hair, who had walked on foot by the dusty high- 
 way from the Dale House, with bowed head and 
 trembling knees, and had knelt, and wept, and prayed 
 that his great sin might be forgiven — by the roadside, 
 on the spot where a few months since he had turned 
 his head and spurred his horse from the presence of the 
 son whom to see once more in life he would gladly 
 have laid down his great wealth, and with it his own 
 existence. 
 
 Nemesis had come to sit where love had been cast 
 out. 
 
 He had never before seen his son's wife or his son's 
 children. He had at one time steeled his heart to 
 think that their existence was to him a matter of in- 
 difference ; and, Grod forgive him ! he had thought only 
 of the Vicar's daughter as of some light leman who 
 had lured away the hope and pride of his house to 
 destruction. Now he recognised the majesty of her
 
 284 LATTTERDALE. 
 
 beauty as he stood before her in awe, whilst she strove 
 to control the intensity of her grief, holding in either 
 hand her fatherless children, who knew not yet the 
 magnitude of their loss. 
 
 This, then, was the woman for whom his son had left 
 home, kindred, and fortune behind him ; to win whose 
 hand he had worked all these years, first as a patient 
 student, and then as a lowly curate near his father's 
 door ; whose short, useful life at Lawley that father 
 had once looked on as a degradation to the family. 
 But now, as the old man stood before the prize which 
 had been won in this fair creature, there fell, as it 
 were, scales from his eyes. He saw that his son had 
 wisely chosen, and felt in his own heart that, were he 
 but young again, he would have done the same. 
 
 There was a long pause as they stood there in the 
 quiet room, whilst she wondered what could have 
 brought this troubled man to her house, who as yet 
 seemed dumb in her presence. Then his eyes fell from 
 her face to her children, and stretching out his great 
 arms as if to embrace her and them together, he groaned 
 and cried aloud, " Rachel, Rachel, my daughter, for- 
 give me for his sake ! " and sank down at her feet.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 MUDDING THE POOL. 
 
 " Then they clung ahout 
 The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times ; 
 And all the man was broken with remorse, 
 And all his love came hack a hundred-fold." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 fFHERE comes before me yet one other scene in this 
 sad story. When the young widow left the 
 vicarage, and entered the great house with Mr. Field, 
 she was still further bereft. The good Vicar had 
 passed away one summer evening in his chair, as if in 
 sleep, full of years and honour, and his son Geoffrey, 
 who had grown strong again, and was about to be 
 married, held the living, and trod in his father's foot- 
 steps. 
 
 There had been much entreaty on the part of her 
 father-in-law before Rachel consented to remove from 
 Lawley to live in the Dale House with her little ones. 
 He had won his way to her heart by the depth of his 
 grief for her husband and by his intense love for the 
 children ; and she knew that her son's place was, after 
 all, by rights, in the cradle of the race at the Dale. She
 
 286 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 wished also to make room at the vicarage for Geoffrey's 
 intended wife, who was a stranger to her ; and then 
 the Dale House was not so very far from her father's 
 and mother's last resting-place, as compared with the 
 home of her sister Martha, to which she had been 
 urgently invited. So at last with many tears she con- 
 sented to the removal, and now, clad in deep mourn- 
 ing, she leans on the old man's arm, and clings more 
 closely to him as she shrinks nervously from Jediah, 
 who stands in the great hall to bid her formal welcome, 
 and indeed is anxious to be as agreeable as possible, 
 but is somewhat disturbed by the gentle reproach of 
 those sad blue eyes, knowing well in his heart that he 
 has wrongfully caused her and hers some suffering. 
 
 After this there was a chance of much happiness for 
 Rachel. Nothing which could be thought of to con- 
 duce to her comfort was spared by Mr. Field, who 
 almost gave up all business for a time in his anxiety 
 to make the new home cheerful for her and the little 
 ones, to whom he was passionately devoted — his special 
 favourite being the boy, who was strikingly like his 
 own lost son. The best rooms in one wing of the 
 house were apportioned to her use, and even the staid 
 sister Rebecca became active in her efforts to make 
 Rachel comfortable, and began to love the gentle 
 stranger very much after her quaint fashion. Jediah 
 also did his best to atone for past misconduct, and 
 adopted the little girl as his especial protegee. 
 
 There would have been great peace in store for 
 them all had this pleasant state of things continued ;
 
 MUDDING THE POOL. 287 
 
 but it was ordained that Joshua Field should yet expe- 
 rience still lower depths of suffering, and so fill up the 
 bitter cup of his punishment. He was intensely fond 
 of the boy, who was a bright, interesting child, and he 
 retained him in his presence whenever he could. His 
 anxiety to protect him from every form of disease was 
 immense, as if he had some presentiment that his 
 treasure would be snatched away from him. Then 
 there came a hot season, in which there was much 
 sickness in the Dale, especially in the workmen's cot- 
 tages near the great pool below the mill, through 
 which flowed the river Lauter to drive the wheels and 
 machinery in the works, and into which much of the 
 house drainage of the district was discharged. 
 
 Now, as the Company's water-wheels were stopped 
 at night and on Sundays, and as water was gene- 
 rally scarce in the summer-time, the sluices were 
 closed and the river impounded for twelve hours out 
 of the twenty-four, and for a longer period at the end 
 of each week. In this way considerable deposits of 
 mud were formed in the flat bed of the reservoir, which 
 it became necessary to remove when the accumulation 
 became very great. This operation had always been 
 carried out hitherto when the river was very low, in 
 one of the summer months. 
 
 There was an agreement between the Company and 
 the miller that the mud should be removed at fixed 
 intervals, as otherwise it would so accumulate as to 
 impede the flow of the stream from the mill-wheel, 
 thereby impairing its power.
 
 288 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 The elder Grimshaw had succeeded so far in his 
 lawsuit, that he had made this " mudding of the pool " 
 a compulsory matter on the Dale Company, and his 
 son was equally determined to stand upon his rights. 
 
 The latter had not as yet attempted to revive the 
 litigation which had ruined his father, but he had 
 written a formal letter to the brothers, requiring the 
 immediate fulfilment of the covenant, the time for its 
 performance having elapsed. 
 
 Joshua Field was at this time as happy as he could 
 ever expect to be again in this life. He loved his 
 gentle daughter-in-law very much, and almost adored 
 the children. He had found a new zest in life in 
 their society. He was therefore anxious that there 
 should be no contretemps to his happiness in a renewal 
 of the old quarrel, the memory of which was still 
 green and unpleasant, as was also the bottom of the 
 pool whenever exposed by the withdrawal of the water 
 from its surface. 
 
 The mud which had to be removed was for the most 
 part accumulated sewage, and as such, when festering 
 under a hot sun, gave off most offensive odours, and 
 was dangerous to health. On the last occasion of its 
 exposure there had been a violent epidemic in the 
 neighbourhood, and many of the children in the cot- 
 tages had died ; and even when the water flowed back 
 again in its natural course, covering over the plague- 
 place from the sun's rays, a kind of low intermittent 
 fever hung about the neighbourhood for a time, and 
 wasted the strength of the workmen.
 
 MUDDING THE POOL. 289 
 
 This had occurred about seven years since, and now 
 the danger was almost forgotten ; but when it was 
 announced that the pool was to be emptied again in 
 consequence of a threat from the miller, one of the old 
 hands who lived near the place, and had lost some of 
 his children on the former occasion, shook his head 
 ominously as he looked up, blinking like an owl in the 
 hot sun, and said — 
 
 " Happen there 'ull be lots o' work for Doctor Dixon 
 when t' mud is shifted out o' Dale. Seems as how 
 Miller Grimshaw 'ull gang his feyther's gait. Barm'd, 
 if I was Musters Field, I'd see him up t' his neck in't 
 afore I'd stir a pund out till t' winter." 
 
 " Right enow, lad," said a little crooked man, who 
 had discussed the merits of the case with one of the mil- 
 ler's men who was supposed to know something of the 
 origin of the dispute ; " but, ye see, Dale Company 
 should ha' done it last year accordin' to 'greement, and 
 not ha' waited 'till t' last moment in middle o' summer. 
 Law is law all t' warld over, even for Quakers. Not 
 that I think Jacob Grimshaw 'ud insist on the strict 
 lines o' th' bargain, if Muster Jediah 'ud only spake 
 'im fair." 
 
 Xow this was strictly correct. Jacob Grimshaw 
 was not then so far committed to carry out the behests 
 of his dead parent, or so fond of quarrelling, but that a 
 soft answer would have turned away his wrath ; and 
 if his missive had been delivered in the course of busi- 
 ness to Mr. Joshua Field, probably the soft answer 
 might have been forthcoming, as at that time the 
 
 vol. i. u
 
 200 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 senior partner was in a very amiable frame of mind, 
 and especially anxious to live peaceably with all men, 
 in order that be migbt make tbe most of bis newly- 
 found bappiness during tbe few years tbat remained to 
 him. Jediah returned a curt reply, to the effect that 
 Jacob Grimshaw should have the strict letter of his 
 bond, and ordered the water to be run out of the Dale 
 Pool on the following Saturday evening, so that the 
 "mudding,'' which generally lasted four or five weeks, 
 might commence on the next Monday morning. 
 
 Strictly speaking, the order should have been given 
 by his brother, being a matter connected with the 
 external executive, which was the department of 
 Joshua, and involving the stoppage of a portion of the 
 works for a time, during the construction of a tempo- 
 rary watercourse round the margin of the pool. 
 
 Of late Joshua Field had tacitly allowed Jediah to 
 take on himself many duties which were not within 
 his strict province, any interference with which he 
 would have previously resented. Indeed, Jediah had 
 done so at first as a matter of necessity, during the 
 period in which his brother's mind was distracted by 
 suspense as to his son's fate, and subsequently he con- 
 tinued so to act when the old man occupied so much of 
 his time with his newly-found treasures. Jediah was 
 glad to see the reaction, and willing to make some 
 sacrifice of his own time and pleasures to increase those 
 of his brother ; at the same time he liked to play first 
 fiddle when he could, and always felt that he had 
 hitherto had too much of the second instrument.
 
 MUDDIXG THE POOL. 291 
 
 Therefore lie gave the order about the pool on receipt 
 of the miller's letter, without reflecting that before 
 doing so he should have consulted Joshua ; and in con- 
 sequence of the order, a number of the men were 
 thrown out of work, and ordered "to play " for a week 
 — in other words, to remain idle until the wheels 
 resumed work. 
 
 Xow, Joshua Field especially hated "play" and 
 holidays of every kind, and looked on enforced idleness 
 such as this, as the worst of bad management. There- 
 fore he always disliked the "mudding of the pool," 
 and had postponed the evil day when it should be done 
 to the last moment. He imagined that the old miller's 
 son had forgotten all about it, and was totally unaware 
 of the formal notice, or that the order had been issued 
 by Jediah. He had previously determined that if 
 such notice were received, he would postpone the work 
 to a cold season, either with or without the miller's 
 consent, well remembering the former sickness ; and 
 in the sequel it certainly was very unfortunate that he 
 had not been consulted. 
 
 At this period there was no church in Lauterdale. 
 Jediah Field had steadfastly set his face against 
 granting a site for the erection of any building 
 wherein his quondam foes might celebrate what he 
 termed " their idolatrous rites " under his very nose, 
 and he had carried his brother with him in refusing 
 several applications for land, of which they held every 
 available acre in fee. This was felt to be a hardship 
 amongst church- going people in the Dale, and more
 
 292 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 especially amongst the Company's workmen, many of 
 whom had gone the round of every form of Dissent, 
 and longed for rest in the formularies of the Esta- 
 blished Church, where their right of private judgment, 
 and the consequent troubles it had brought them into, 
 would be somewhat limited. It was a special grievance 
 to these people, inasmuch as each restless swarm which 
 emerged from the chapel hives readily received grants 
 of land from the brothers whereon to erect some hideous 
 tabernacle for their own special variety of worship. 
 Those who would go to church were therefore com- 
 pelled to go up to Lawley, where they crowded the 
 aisles and sat in the very windows for want of room, 
 or else they wandered down to Severnbridge, where 
 the clergyman was rather given to genuflexions and 
 crosses even in that day of feeble things. 
 
 Eachel Field had gone to "Meeting" with the 
 family on the first Sunday of her residence in the 
 great house, wishing to please in all things, and had 
 sat in solemn silence with the others during the 
 allotted time. 
 
 Her sad aspect in her deep mourning had apparently 
 acted as a spell on the tongues of those members of 
 the Society who were usually pretty safe to be moved 
 by the spirit at some period during the meeting, as on 
 this occasion there was a dismal silence, broken only 
 by occasional deep sighs from some of the elderly female 
 " Friends,'' who remembered they had amongst them 
 that day, as an example to be shunned, the veritable 
 daughter of Heth who had led away B,obert Field.
 
 MUDDIXG THE POOL. 293 
 
 Towards the close of this edifying performance a 
 brother had shot up suddenly in a corner of the room, 
 and startled Rachel with the shrill enunciation of a 
 truism to the effect that " truth was truth, and no one 
 could deny it," after which the assembly broke up, 
 and she returned to her own apartments, there to con- 
 trast this strange kind of worship with that which she 
 had hitherto enjoyed. 
 
 Then she made up her mind to ask a special favour 
 of her father-in-law, and prayed that his heart might 
 be moved to grant it. She knew well that if she were 
 to ask him to do some great thing, even to the half of 
 his kingdom in the Dale, he would give it her ; but she 
 feared greatly that he would refuse this very little 
 thing, and hesitated until the last day of the week to 
 prefer her request. 
 
 In the evening, as he blessed and kissed the children 
 ere they were taken away to the nursery, whither she 
 always accompanied them, returning again to his side 
 when she had seen them safely at rest, she turned 
 from the door, and brought them back again to his 
 knees, one in each hand, saying for them — for she 
 feared to ask for herself — 
 
 " Grandpapa, may we go to Lawley to papa's church 
 to-morrow ? " 
 
 Old Joshua Field started, as if stung by some sudden 
 remorse, and exclaimed hurriedly — 
 
 " Of course, Rachel — yes, darlings — of course ! — 
 to-morrow, and every Sunday as long as you please." 
 
 Then she kissed him on the forehead, and the chil-
 
 294 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 dren hugged his knees, and were blessed and kissed 
 over again with tears. 
 
 Truly, Rachel was beginning to understand what 
 manner of man her father-in-law was, and to love him 
 for his own sake, as well as for the sake of him whom 
 they both loved. 
 
 Next morning the best carriage drew up at the 
 door of the Dale House, to convey them to Lawley in 
 time for the morning service. 
 
 Within the memory of the oldest servant, no one 
 had ever seen a horse harnessed in the Dale stables 
 before on first day, and there had been some inward 
 struggles of conscience on the part of the stiff Quaker 
 coachman before he ascended the driving-seat. But his 
 master's orders were imperative, and he knew his yea 
 was yea, and his nay nay, beyond question or argu- 
 ment ; therefore, he gathered up the reins with an 
 unmoved countenance, hoping this particular sin would 
 not be laid to his charge. His astonishment was 
 increased when, after Mr. Field had handed in his 
 daughter-in-law, and placed the children beside her, 
 he saw his master enter the vehicle himself, and leave 
 the Friends' Meeting House behind him on the road to 
 Lawley. 
 
 Rachel had ventured to say that " he need not 
 come," but he had only smiled, and taken her hand in 
 his, and held it all the way. When they reached 
 the church porch, he drew it gently within his arm, 
 and walked with bowed head by her side to the Vicar's 
 pew, and there sat down with her and her children
 
 MTJDDIXG THE POOL. 295 
 
 under the pulpit from which his son had so often 
 preached. 
 
 Thus Joshua Field endeavoured to atone for his great 
 fault, and to trample on his pride and prejudice in the 
 sight of all men. 
 
 From that day forth he went with Rachel every 
 Sunday to the church at Lawley, and entered the 
 Friends' Meeting no more, although he still used their 
 form of speech. It was a grief and a trouble to the 
 Society, and they now looked on " the daughter of 
 Heth " as a very dangerous person. " Had she not 
 led away the son, and now captivated the father ? " 
 But none of them dared open their lips in remon- 
 strance, as they had previously done in the son's 
 case. 
 
 Jediah was sore vexed at heart, but kept silence 
 even from good words, and Rebecca Field retired more 
 than before into the privacy of her own apartments, 
 where she spent the weary hours in wool-work and 
 meditation. 
 
 Rachel had yet one thing more to ask for, but she 
 waited a little longer, hoping it would some day be 
 bestowed as a free gift, and fearing also to cause any 
 further division in the family by broaching the sub- 
 ject. She mourned to see the people trudging those 
 weary miles on foot to and from Lawley on Sundays, 
 whilst she was carried thither so luxuriously in her 
 chariot. 
 
 Now the grievance of the Church people in the Dale 
 with reference to the land which they had been refused
 
 296 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 began to revive as they saw the carriage flash past 
 them, and some of them were already looking to Rachel 
 for deliverance, even as the Jews looked to Queen 
 Esther. 
 
 The road from the Dale House to Lawley led round, 
 the Dale Pool, and one Sunday morning, as the car- 
 riage proceeded across the bridge over the Lauter, 
 from which the miniature lake could be seen shining 
 like a steel mirror in the sun, the occupants observed an 
 unusual spectacle. The coachman pulled up involun- 
 tarily, and Mr. Field beheld, with some astonishment, 
 that the water was nearly all gone. Great ugly banks 
 of black mud were now visible, amidst which the little 
 river wound its way in a narrow tortuous channel, and 
 rushed roaring through the waste sluices in the dam. 
 A great number of boys and young workmen had be- 
 taken themselves to the mud banks, some in flat-bot- 
 tomed boats, others on rafts extemporised from kitchen- 
 tables, old doors and planks, a few in washing-tubs 
 and brewing vessels, but the great majority, bereft of 
 their nether garments, were floundering about up to 
 their knees in the sticky compound as best they could. 
 Most of them were armed with sticks, furnished with 
 every variety of spear-head, and with these they were 
 pursuing, stabbing, and capturing the eels, jacks, and 
 other coarse fish which sought refuge in the shallow 
 pools left by the retreating waters. 
 
 The " mudding of the pool V had from time imme- 
 morial been a great event for the urchins of the Dale, 
 and as soon as it was known that the waste sluices were
 
 MUDDTXG THE POOL. 297 
 
 up, great preparations were made for the capture and 
 destruction of the fish about to be deprived of their 
 natural element. 
 
 How these fish contrived to exist in such turbid 
 water was a matter for speculation ; but it must only be 
 surmised that they were used to it from their earliest 
 infancy, and so became impervious to the poisonous stuff 
 in which they swam. At all events, they were known 
 to be there in great numbers, and they evidently did 
 their best to escape from their tormentors, the eels 
 being especiallv fortunate in concealing themselves in 
 the thick slimy ooze, from whence, alas for them ! in a 
 few days they would be dug out by the excavators. 
 
 There was at this moment great screaming and 
 shouting, and spearing, and much stirring up of the 
 black mud, and splashing in the water. 
 
 Mr. Field looked in amazement at the riotous as- 
 sembly. " WTiat is this about ? " he said to a workman 
 who was leaning over the parapet. " Who gave orders 
 to let the water out ? " 
 
 The man touched his hat respectfully, and answered, 
 " Please, sir, they be going to mud t' pool." 
 
 " Who gave the order ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't zactly know, master, 'bout the order, 
 but folks say as how Miller Grimshaw hev wrote to 
 Muster Jediah, and so the bottom sluices is took up 
 since last night, and t' pool 'ull be dry afore sun- 
 down." 
 
 " Drive on," said Mr. Field, knitting his brows to- 
 gether with a vexed look.
 
 298 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 They returned from church by the same road, and 
 found a great number of men assembled on the bridge, 
 watching the capture of the fish. 
 
 The sun was now high in the heavens, and the mud 
 had been well stirred up by the boys ; a sickening 
 stench pervaded the air, and a yellow ascending vapour 
 was visible in the sun's rays. The coachman was com- 
 pelled to stop this time, as the men were so intent on 
 the unusual spectacle that they forgot to make way for 
 the carriage. 
 
 There was a deep pool beneath the bridge, in 
 which the largest of the fish had taken refuge, and 
 from whence they were being drawn out by vessels 
 lowered over the parapet. A huge pike had just been 
 captured and thrown on the footway, where he was 
 snapping and biting at all around him. Mr. Field 
 pointed out the voracious fish to the children, and the 
 little boy stood up for a moment on the seat to look at 
 the hurly-burly in the pool beyond. 
 
 At this moment, a tall man, dressed in black, ap- 
 proached the carriage, and said, " Mr. Field, I am 
 sorry for this ; I fear we shall see serious illness in the 
 Dale in this hot weather. Those boys in the pond are 
 in danger of their lives/ ' 
 
 " I did not know of it, friend Dixon," replied Mr. 
 Field, " and am as concerned as thou art. Tell them I 
 shall have the water let in again if they do not come 
 out. Phew ! what a horrible smell ! Drive on, Elihu." 
 
 The workmen had now crowded round the carriage 
 to get a good look at Rachel and the children, and
 
 MUDDIXG THE POOL. 299 
 
 some of them held out their horny hands to the little 
 fellow, whom they had never seen so close before. Mr. 
 Field smiled at the eagerness exhibited by the men to 
 touch the boy's hand. 
 
 " Fine boy, is he not ? " he said to those next him, 
 and raised his hand to stay the coachman's whip, and 
 so give them all time to see his idol. 
 
 " He's like his father, God bless him ! " said a care- 
 less well-meaning fellow in the crowd. 
 
 "Ay, men," said the old ironmaster with emotion, 
 " like his father. God grant he may live to be as good 
 a man ! " 
 
 At this the men solemnly uncovered their heads and 
 said " Amen," and the carriage moved slowly on 
 through the throng, and then more rapidly up the 
 hill to the gates, where it rolled in out of their view, 
 after which they broke into little groups to compare 
 notes on the boy's looks. 
 
 One rough-looking blacksmith held up a finger like 
 a knotted stick, and said, " Bless un, he wrostled wi' 
 my finger," and then he carried the black digit home, 
 held high in air, to show to his wife and children as the 
 finger "the young master had wrostled wi'."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 DARKNESS. 
 
 " We know not ; but when night had come at last, 
 And wore to clasp the first embrace of day, 
 An angel entered, though the door was fast, 
 And all unseen took what we held away. 
 
 " One took the mother from all earthly claim, 
 From out the bounds of life and all its harms, 
 But still I think 'twas God himself that came, 
 And took the child and laid it in her arms." 
 
 " ll/TAMMA, my throat is very sore." To how many 
 mothers have these words been uttered, and 
 with what widely different results ! To some who 
 read these pages they will perhaps call up no recol- 
 lection but the memory of many coughs and colds 
 which have afflicted their young hopefuls. To others 
 they will bring back the simple phrase with which the 
 last fatal illness of some dear child was ushered in. 
 
 " Mamma, my throat is very sore." So spake little 
 Robert Field to his mother on the day after that on 
 which he had looked over the bridge at the boys' 
 sport in the pool. 
 
 " Let me see it, sonny."
 
 DARKNESS. 301 
 
 There was not much that was unusual to see in the 
 round chubby red mouth which he presented wide 
 open for inspection, and some slight remedy was applied, 
 which in an ordinary case would no doubt have been 
 effectual ; but sore throats caught by exposure to the 
 miasma of putrescent sewage, even for an instant, often 
 turn out to be very serious things, especially with 
 children. 
 
 Rachel Field was not a woman to run to the doctor 
 at the appearance of every slight malady, and as yet 
 her children had enjoyed excellent health ; but as the 
 day wore on, the little fellow often repeated his simple 
 complaint, and was unable to swallow any solid food. 
 Then the young mother desired to have some advice, 
 but Mr. Field was not at home, and so she anxiously 
 waited his return, before she sent for the regular 
 medical attendant of the family. 
 
 The senior partner had decided on the bridge, the 
 day before, that he would this day resume his proper 
 place, and take on himself the duties temporarily 
 usurped by his junior, Jediah ; therefore, he was up 
 betimes, and very early at the fatal pool. 
 
 A number of men were now busy driving piles and 
 fixing planks to form a temporary watercourse, in 
 order that the wheels might resume work, and a small 
 army of carts and waggons was invading the dry 
 surface of the mud, where the sun had baked a thin 
 crust over the pestilent stuff beneath. Mr. Field rode 
 round the busy scene many times, giving energetic 
 orders connected with the operations in progress.
 
 302 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 Jediah also ventured down on foot at a later hour, not 
 knowing of his brother's early visit, or of his resump- 
 tion of authority, and stood near the pool, holding a 
 scented handkerchief to his nose, for which there cer- 
 tainly was every necessity, the smell being intolerable 
 as the men dug into the pitchy stuff and heaved it 
 into the carts. 
 
 Notwithstanding the stench, the workmen who were 
 thrown out of work by the temporary stoppage of the 
 water-wheels seemed to have a strange predilection for 
 the place, and hung around the banks as if their pre- 
 sence was an essential thing to the proper performance 
 of the disagreeable work in hand. 
 
 The boys had been summarily ordered off the mud on 
 the arrival of Mr. Field, and were obliged to content 
 themselves with a distant view of their elysium, varied 
 by occasional investigations of the inky stuff in the 
 carts, with the view to the capture of stray eels therein. 
 
 Joshua Field rode up to his brother with a flushed 
 countenance. " Jediah," he said sharply, in the hearing 
 of the men standing near, " thou shouldst not have 
 taken on thyself to give this foolish order without con- 
 sulting me. This work should have been postponed 
 until winter. Now it will probably breed a plague in 
 the Dale, and the mischief will lie at our door." 
 
 Jediah would not have minded this little ebullition 
 elsewhere, out of earshot of others, but it galled him to 
 be taken to task in public, and he answered with 
 acrimony — " It appears to me, Joshua, thou hast 
 mounted thy steed at the wrong side this morning. "
 
 DAEKNESS. 303 
 
 Then he turned on his heel and betook him to the 
 inner sanctuary of his office. 
 
 No one had ever heard anything approaching to 
 a quarrel between the brothers before, although 
 once or twice in their lives there had been differences 
 of opinion in private ; and in ten minutes the news had 
 spread through the Dale that Mr. Joshua had been 
 soundly rating Mr. Jediah about the mudding of the 
 pool. 
 
 Various versions of the story were current during 
 the day, one of the most exaggerated being that Mr. 
 Joshua had expressed a wish that Jediah should be 
 ducked in the deepest hole in the pool — an operation 
 the bare contemplation of which seemed to give much 
 satisfaction to some of the workmen, and at which, I 
 am sorry to say, several of their wives volunteered to 
 assist, showing that Jediah, as an old bachelor, was 
 not exactly a favourite with the Dale womenkind. 
 
 Mr. Joshua Field did not see Rachel or the children all 
 that day until evening. Indeed, he purposely remained 
 out of the house, wishing to avoid the chance of any 
 infection from their accidental contact with the clothes 
 in which he had been engaged at the pool. He had 
 seen Mr. Dixon early in the day, who mentioned to 
 him that there was only one case of illness in the 
 neighbourhood as yet, being that of the miller's son, 
 who was a troublesome lad, and had been in the pool 
 for some time in pursuit of the fish, contrary to 
 strict orders from his parents, and was now laid up 
 with a bad throat. The doctor fully expected many
 
 304 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 other cases before night, and was not wrong in his 
 surmise. 
 
 It is to be feared that Mr. Field did not take much 
 interest in the welfare of the miller's son, and, on the 
 whole, would not have much regretted if he had been 
 made a striking example of the effects of disobedience 
 to parents ; but on hearing of the lad's illness, he 
 decided to avoid the two children at home, and took 
 his mid- day meal alone in his office, on the plea of 
 business. He was thus absent when Rachel most 
 needed him. 
 
 They met as usual at dinner in the great dining-hall, 
 where she always sat at his right hand. He had care- 
 fully changed every article of his dress, and was very 
 glad to see her again; but there was no greeting 
 between him and Jediah, who sat in grim silence. 
 
 The little boy's throat had grown much worse 
 towards evening, and Rachel had hoped to have seen 
 Mr. Field before dinner on this account ; but his 
 unusual delay in dressing had prevented her doing so, 
 and now she could not speak of the matter nearest to 
 her heart until the solemn meal was ended. 
 
 During dinner the nurse, whom she had brought 
 with her from Lawley, appeared unexpectedly at one 
 of the doors of the apartment with a white, troubled 
 face, and silently beckoned her mistress away. 
 
 A violent constriction of the boy's throat had sud- 
 denly set in, and the woman was alarmed. Rachel 
 returned to Mr. Field at once, and nervously begged 
 that one of the servants should be sent for a doctor,
 
 DARKNESS. 305 
 
 trying at the same time in vain not to alarm the grand- 
 father, who directed two or three of the men in the 
 room to fly in search of Mr. Dixon at once. 
 
 It was not very easy to find him now, as there were 
 already over fifty cases of malignant sore throat in the 
 Dale, chiefly amongst the boys who had been in the 
 pool. 
 
 " This is thy doing, Jediah," said the elder brother, 
 as he anxiously waited the return of his messengers, 
 or some better tidings from the nursery, whither his 
 grave sister Rebecca had followed Rachel. " Thou hast 
 been my son's enemy," he continued bitterly, "and 
 now thou wilt have destroyed my last hope. The Lord 
 help me ! " Then he rose, and hurried out of the room 
 to the bedroom floor of the house, before the astounded 
 Jediah could reply. 
 
 Rachel was holding her boy's hands as he lay in his 
 little bed, struggling with a severe spasm, when the 
 old man entered the room, and stood like one trans- 
 fixed, gazing at the scene before him. Rebecca Field 
 and the nurse were at either side, intently watching 
 the child's face, and in another little cot not far distant 
 sat the little girl in her night-dress, contemplating 
 with in her blue eyes the unusual assemblage 
 
 around her brother, and thinking herself rather 
 neglected under the circumstances. The child had. not 
 seen her grandpapa all day, and now looked with a 
 child's jealous affection for her fair share of attention 
 from some one. 
 
 had her in hi in an instant, with 
 
 VOL. i. x
 
 306 LATJTERDALE. 
 
 something like the instinct of a wild animal trying to 
 save its young in extreme peril, and, wrapping the 
 counterpane round the startled little creature, hurried 
 with her to the other wing of the house, as if from 
 the pursuit of death. There had come on him suddenly 
 the terrible fear that the King of Terrors would be 
 present in that room before long, for he knew well 
 that affections of the throat were almost always fatal 
 in his family amongst the children. Mr. Field rang 
 the bell loudly for the female attendants who ministered 
 to Jediah's wants at his side of the house, and con- 
 signed the little girl to their charge. 
 
 When he returned to the nursery, he found that the 
 doctor had just arrived. The boy was now much ex- 
 hausted by his struggles, and a light froth was con- 
 tinually forming round his lips. 
 
 " Friend Dixon," said Mr. Field, " I shall give thee 
 ten thousand pounds if thou savest hiin." 
 
 The doctor looked sadly at the excited old man. 
 
 "Mr. Field," he said, "money will do no good 
 here, and there are many worse than he is in the Dale 
 to-night. You must send at once for assistance ; the 
 plague has begun." 
 
 Then Joshua Field hastened away, and dispatched 
 men on horses far and near for physicians. 
 
 "Is there no hope?" said Rachel. "Doctor, can 
 nothing be done ? " 
 
 At this moment a severe spasm seized the boy, who 
 was convulsed with pain. The doctor raised him in 
 his arms, and held him until the paroxysm was over ;
 
 DARKXESS. 307 
 
 then he sent a man- servant for some appliances to his 
 surgery, and directed some boiling water to be kept in 
 readiness in a covered kettle. When the next spasm 
 ensued he had a remedy at hand, having secured a 
 flexible tube to the spout of the kettle, and inserted it 
 in the child's mouth, who thus inhaled the light steam, 
 and was instantly relieved. Little beyond this could 
 be done for the poor little fellow, who could not swallow 
 either medicine or nourishment ; but he no longer suf- 
 fered such acute agony as before. 
 
 Later in the night a conclave of physicians assem- 
 bled round the child's bed, called from every available 
 distance by Mr. Field, and the old adage as to differ- 
 ence of opinion was certainly forcibly illustrated by 
 their proceedings. 
 
 Mr. Dixon, who had seen a good many such cases, 
 was anxious just then to do as little as possible, lest 
 the violent symptoms should supervene again ; but 
 as none of the others had seen the child during the 
 throat spasms, and as he was very weak, an attempt 
 was unfortunately made, after much discussion, to give 
 him food through a tube. A sudden renewal of the 
 spasmodic action of the throat resulted, which was 
 very difficult to subdue. 
 
 After this his mother would allow no more experi- 
 ments, and the doctors retired, to see some of the 
 numerous patients in the workmen's cottages, where 
 similar cases were reported every hour. Mr. Dixon 
 remained to fight the battle with death. He wished 
 his professional brethren had been at Jericho, but
 
 308 LAUTEEDALE. 
 
 discreetly kept his opinion to himself. Towards morn- 
 ing the boy seemed inclined to sleep, and Rachel was 
 beginning to hope ; but the doctor pointed gravely to a 
 dark livid spot which had appeared on the child's 
 white neck, and shook his head. Gradually the spot 
 increased in size, and although there was less pain, 
 there was more foam on the boy's mouth, and greater 
 difficulty in breathing, and so on to the end, when 
 actual suffocation terminated the child's sufferings, and 
 the little fellow yielded up his spirit as the day 
 dawned, lying on his mother's knees, who bent her 
 head in her mute agony — alas for her ! — to kiss the 
 sweet lips, from which she imbibed a deadlier poison 
 than that which lurks in the serpent's tooth. 
 
 Joshua Field had sat all night outside the door, re- 
 ceiving reports from the nurse at frequent intervals, 
 but unable to endure the sight of his darling in pain. 
 He perfectly understood the case and its dangerous 
 character from the first, but death had followed the last 
 struggle so rapidly, that he could not at once realize the 
 fact that the bright little soul was gone to rest. Then 
 when Rachel laid her dead boy down and knelt beside 
 him, and the tearful nurse pointed mutely aloft as she 
 opened the door and passed out to weep aloud else- 
 where, he entered the room with a bewildered aspect 
 as if stunned, and called the boy appealingly by his 
 name, until the doctor mercifully led him away. 
 
 There is a grief too great for tears, and such was 
 his. He could not weep, nor indeed could he yet un- 
 derstand his desolation, but, whenever he was allowed,
 
 DARKXESS. 309 
 
 would wander back to the child's bed, and speak to the 
 dead boy in his old endearing manner, as if to win the 
 child's spirit back again. It was evident now he 
 fancied he was in a hideous dream. He was observed 
 to beat his forehead with his hand, and to pinch his 
 arms. He suddenly left the house and walked rapidly 
 round the garden, cautiously followed by the doctor. 
 By-and-by he returned to the nursery and went 
 hurriedly to the bed, looking eagerly at the dead boy's 
 face, and creeping up to touch it with fear and trem- 
 bling. The instant he did so, the awful truth seemed 
 to come home to him ; he uttered a long wailing cry, 
 and fell on his face in a swoon.
 
 CHAPTER XXIY. 
 
 DESOLATION. 
 
 " The air is fall of farewells to the dying, 
 And mournings for the dead ; 
 The heart of Eachel, for her children cryim 
 Will not be comforted." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 " A ND there was a great cry in Egypt ; for there was 
 not a house where there was not one dead." 
 It is over three thousand years since the most terrible 
 of all the afflictions which befell the foes of Israel was 
 tersely summed up in the above sentence, and to-day I 
 know no better language to describe the state of things 
 which existed in the Dale a few days after the death of 
 the little heir, to whose young life the people had begun 
 to look forward as the beginning of a better time ; but 
 now he had been taken away suddenly from their 
 midst by a fell disease which decimated their children, 
 and in many instances virulently attacked the grown- 
 up members of their families. 
 
 The doctors were utterly at fault, and unable to 
 cope with the epidemic. They talked learnedly of 
 malaria and sporadic propagation, and wrote cabalistic
 
 DESOLATION. 311 
 
 prescriptions in bad Latin, but the plague was not 
 stayed. On the contrary, it spread rapidly on all 
 sides along the course of the river up to Lawley, and 
 down the Dale to Severnbridge, clinging mostly to 
 the cottages near the pools in the bottom of the valley, 
 and all the while the sun poured down its fierce rays on 
 the black stuff which still festered in the heat, sending 
 out its poisonous emanations on the errand of death. 
 
 Then a great thunderstorm broke over the valley, 
 and the rain fell in torrents on the hills above Lawley. 
 The Lauter rose rapidly, and came tumbling down in a 
 brown flood, tearing madly over the weirs, and rushing 
 like a frightened racehorse through the new channel 
 formed by the dam in the pool above the works. 
 Hitherto such floods had been absorbed in the reservoir, 
 and so did little damage lower down. Now the little 
 river sped on its way in foaming rage, without impedi- 
 ment, to the lower valley, and burst or overflowed its 
 banks on all sides, adding the misery of a flood of dirty 
 coal-stained water in the cottages, to the wretchedness 
 of the prevailing sickness. At this the harassed work- 
 men left their homes, and swarmed up the Dale in a 
 great body, like angry wasps, armed with such imple- 
 ments as they could hurriedly obtain ; and with a loud 
 shout they attacked the slopes of the new dam, and 
 tore open a great gap in its side, through which the 
 angry torrent soon cleared a wider passage into the old 
 channel, filling up the excavations in progress, and 
 covering over the black mud-banks with turbid water 
 to a depth of several feet.
 
 312 LAUTEIIDALE. 
 
 After this, an excited moulder, who had lost two 
 of his children by the epidemic, and whose wife 
 was ill, shouted to the men to punish the miller ; 
 whilst a grimy smith, in similar domestic distress, 
 and frenzied at finding his house half- full of water on 
 his return home, vociferated as loudly against Jediah 
 Field. 
 
 The mob of workmen separated into two divisions : 
 one streaming over the bridge, and up towards the iron 
 gates of the avenue to the Dale House ; the other by 
 the Brightmoor road, to the cottage of Jacob Grimshaw. 
 What they intended to do none of the men knew very 
 clearly, but they were excited and distressed, and felt 
 that there was a great wrong to be redressed, and that 
 Jediah Field and Jacob Grimshaw were in some way 
 the authors of their suffering; therefore they ranged 
 themselves on the side of one or other of the two furious 
 bands, according as their personal feelings, or sympathy 
 with the leaders, led them to wage war against the 
 master or the miller. 
 
 Mobs of this kind have often gone great lengths, and 
 done much injury to life and property. The merest 
 straw will set them in a blaze of wrath, and yet the 
 lightest feather may divert their surging passion into 
 some other channel. They had attacked the dam, more 
 as an exhibition of their anger than as a means of 
 stopping the flood and sickness, and in so doing they had 
 unwittingly done something- to diminish both, which 
 wiser heads than theirs had overlooked. This feat was 
 easily accomplished without opposition, and now they
 
 DESOLATION. 313 
 
 looked for some fresh object on which to wreak their 
 vengeance. 
 
 We shall follow the men who took the ro:id to the 
 miller's house first. The moulder had waxed valiant 
 at finding himself the leader of a division of malcon- 
 tents, and threw off his jacket in preparation for the 
 fray, rolling up his blackened shirt-sleeves to the 
 shoulders, and striking fierce blows in the air above 
 his head at imaginary foes. 
 
 " Come on, men," he shouted ; " we canna stand still 
 to be drownded out o' our housen like rats, whiles our 
 children choke in their beds — no, not for all the 
 millers as ever was." 
 
 " He's as bad a lot as t' owd miller in hell, wi' his 
 law and plaguing o' Dale folk, by whom he and his'n 
 gets their livin'," said a blacksmith who carried an 
 iron bar. 
 
 " And the first to raise the price o' flour," said a little 
 dirty stone- grinder, who had a large family. 
 
 " Let's souse 'im i' th' pool " was shouted in chorus, 
 and then they kicked open the green wicket, and 
 crowded round the miller's door. 
 
 Jacob Grimshaw was upstairs with his wife, waiting 
 anxiously for the doctor's verdict as to their son's chance 
 of recovery. The lad had been very near death, but 
 the worst was over, and he could now swallow a little 
 liquid. He was one of the first cases ; and as Mr. 
 Dixon lived close by, he had been speedily attended to. 
 
 "I think he will pull through," said the doctor with 
 a sigh, thinking of the other boy in the Dale House,
 
 314 LAUTEKDALE. 
 
 to whom lie had been called in so late, and of the dif- 
 ference in the value of the two lives ; for the miller's 
 lad was no favourite of his. 
 
 Just then there was heard a loud knocking at the 
 door and a stamping of feet outside. Jacob Grimshaw 
 descended hurriedly to discover the cause. 
 
 " Come out, you white-faced villain ! " shouted the 
 wild-looking moulder who led the men. " Come out, 
 and stan' up afore a man for five minutes." 
 
 Jacob stepped outside the door, and closed it behind 
 him. 
 
 " Friends," he said calmly, " what is this ? " 
 
 " You be a darned villain ! " screamed the black- 
 smith, wielding his bar aloft, and aiming a blow from 
 behind the leader at the inoffensive-looking man who 
 confronted them. The leader himself was squaring his 
 black arms with much effective display, intended more 
 for the encouragement of the men behind him than for 
 the injury of the enemy in front. 
 
 Jacob caught the descending bar in his right hand, 
 and wrenched it from his assailant. Then he swung it 
 round his head, close to the moulder's face, who in 
 retreating fell over the legs of the man behind him. 
 At this there was a general stampede to the wicket 
 amongst his supporters. A contemptuous smile spread 
 over Jacob Grimshaw' s face for an instant. 
 
 " Get up, man," he said, spurning the fallen moulder 
 with his foot ; " get up, and tell me what you want." 
 
 Some of the men outside the gate had now armed 
 themselves with stones, but feared to hurl them at the
 
 DESOLATION. 
 
 31'5 
 
 tall figure by the door, lest they should injure their 
 leader, who was slowly gathering himself up. 
 
 At this moment the door opened again, and Mr. 
 Dixon emerged and stood beside Jacob. Mrs. Grimshaw 
 appeared in the porch behind them both, wondering 
 what this assemblage meant. 
 
 " Hullo ! " said the doctor, " what's this ? Benson," 
 he said to the moulder, "you here, and your wife 
 so ill ! I'm ashamed of you ! What do you want, 
 men ? " he continued, striding to the wicket. " Lay 
 down those stones, I say, and come here." 
 
 The men dropped their hands sulkily, and ap- 
 proached the doctor. 
 
 " He be the cause o' all this sickness," said one of 
 them, " and we be goin' to souse 'im i' th' pool, and 
 blacken his white face." 
 
 " You are wrong," said the doctor ; "he has nothing 
 to do with it. His own son is very ill, and in great 
 danger up- stairs. Go home, men, to your houses, and 
 cease this folly." 
 
 " His son be but small loss, or any o' the breed," 
 said one of the men. 
 
 " As much, and perhaps more, to him and his good 
 wife as yours," answered the doctor. 
 
 " Ay, his wife be a good 'un, that she be," said the 
 man who had many children. " She sent my old 
 'ooman a sack o' meal last winter. But miller raises 
 price o' flour." 
 
 "Yes, yes," echoed some of the men in the rear, 
 whose passions were cooling down, and who were
 
 316 LAI7TEKDALE. 
 
 anxious to adopt any peaceable solution of the discus- 
 sion ; " Mrs. Grimshaw be good enough ; but t' miller 
 should not ha' 'sisted on niuddin' t' pool, and desarves 
 to be soused ; but happen if he loses his lad, like some 
 on us, he'll be wiser next time." 
 
 Then they all turned to go away, leaving their leader, 
 whose star had waned since his fall inside the fence, 
 in the hands of the miller and his wife, whilst the 
 doctor walked down the road after the men, lest some 
 sudden whim should drive them back again. At the 
 foot of the hill he called them round him, and said a 
 few words. 
 
 ''Listen, men," he began ; " I'm glad you've cut the 
 dam ; but let there be no more violence. Go home, 
 and see that your houses are clean and sweet. I think 
 this thunderstorm will alter things for the better. 
 This is a punishment for our neglect of a simple law, 
 and not the miller's doing. Remember how often 
 I've told you that cleanliness is a better thing for you 
 in your cottages than any medicine of mine." 
 
 Then he turned back with a sigh, remembering that 
 he had been preaching this doctrine in vain to masters 
 and men for twenty years past. 
 
 When he reached the miller's house again, he found 
 the discomfited moulder seated in the kitchen, with a 
 large tankard of ale before him, relating his domestic 
 griefs to Mrs. Grimshaw, and endeavouring to explain 
 to her that he was fairly driven mad at seeing his two 
 children dead and his wife ill ; and he added mourn- 
 fully, " The flood com'd to top it all." When he had
 
 DESOLATION. 317 
 
 quaffed the brown liquor, he put on his jacket and 
 reeled off, more drunk with sorrow, and trouble, and 
 weakness from illness, than with the strong ale, of 
 which at another time he could have safely imbibed a 
 gallon. 
 
 The other division of distracted men, who set out for 
 the Dale House in search of Jediah Field, were still 
 more easily diverted from their angry mission. When 
 they reached the great iron gates, they were met by a 
 sad procession from within, bearing the bod}?- of the 
 little boy to its last resting-place. Behind the coffin, 
 which was borne by four of the old servants, walked the 
 man they were in search of, by the side of his brother, 
 and instinctively the men took off their hats, and stood 
 aside to let them pass. They closed in behind, and 
 reverently followed the sorrowing household and the 
 clerks of the Company inside the walled enclosure used 
 by the Friends as their burying-place, where a little 
 grave had been dug in the midst of many grassy 
 mounds, into which the coffin was lowered. After a 
 long interval of silent meditation, a tall man, clad in 
 plain drab cloth, with an ashen face, stood erect and 
 chanted out a kind of funeral oration, much inter- 
 spersed with long passages of Scripture. Then the 
 earth was filled in, and the turf replaced in a little 
 hillock, and Jediah turned and led the way back again, 
 passing unheeded amongst the men who had just 
 before sought to do him an injury. He was very 
 pale, his eyes were bloodshot, and his thin figure 
 bent ; but no one who saw him could doubt that he
 
 318 LAUTERDALE. 
 
 grieved deeply for the child, although he endeavoured 
 to bear up before the men like a bar of toughened steel. 
 
 " He's an owd flint," said the blacksmith, as he led 
 his followers out ; " a regl'ar flint ; but I'd gie my 
 right 'and for to see the little 'un alive again. 
 There's the finger he wrostled wi'," he added, holding 
 it up to view ; and the men crowded round him to look 
 once more at the honoured digit, and then drifted off 
 quietly to their several cottages. 
 
 The old man who had charge of the burial-place 
 was about to close the gates, when, glancing back, he 
 beheld Mr. Joshua Field still standing by the new- 
 made grave ; there he remained motionless for a full 
 hour, with folded arms and bent, uncovered head, 
 looking on the earth that had received the body of the 
 last male heir of his race. 
 
 At length the man ventured near, and jingled his 
 keys to attract attention. Mr. Field turned slowly 
 and looked at him. " Yes," he said, " I shall come 
 presently ; " then he raised his streaming eyes to 
 heaven, and murmured, as David did over his son, " I 
 shall go to him, but he cannot come to me." 
 
 Of a truth, the evil spirit of old Grimshaw was amply 
 avenged on his enemy in that hour. 
 
 I would that with this page I could lay down my 
 pen, and end the record of sorrows which befell this old 
 man, and then turn to brighter scenes ; but ere his fee t 
 recrossed his threshold, there met him, as the messengers 
 of evil met Job, one who bore tidings of yet another 
 sorrow to rend his feeble heart. He was called once
 
 DESOLATION. 319 
 
 more to the chamber of sickness, and this time he 
 stood beside the couch of Rachel, who had been 
 dangerously ill for three days, although the fact had 
 been studiously kept from him until now, at the request 
 of the physicians. 
 
 The last kiss she had impressed on her boy's lips was 
 to her the beginning of the end. Within a few hours 
 she felt the same soreness of throat, and, despite of 
 every remedy that could be applied, she grew rapidly 
 worse, until the livid blackness appeared on her fair 
 neck. Then the great pain and fever ceased, but the 
 hopeless stage set in, and she desired to see Mr. Field 
 once more. 
 
 " You have been very good to me," she said, when 
 he appeared, pale and trembling, by her bedside. " We 
 shall all meet again very soon, to part no more ; you 
 and my Robert and sonny. But you will see that 
 Esther is taken care of, will you not ? And perhaps — 
 perhaps — you will build the people a church in the 
 Dale, that we may be remembered." 
 
 Then her voice failed, but still she looked on him 
 lovingly out of the depths of her blue eyes, and he held 
 her in his arms until the last, praying earnestly the 
 while that his soul might pass with hers to Him who 
 gave it. 
 
 END OF vol. I. 
 
 MKTED BY VUiTUK AXD 00., CITY E0A1>, LOXDOfl.
 
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