CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Longstaff rides over to Snitterton Lodge to obtain Colin a situation.—Miss Maria Sowersoft and Mr. Samuel Palethorpe,—his future mistress and master,—described.

AT the distance of some five or six miles from Bramleigh, and to the south-west of that village, lies an extensive tract of bare, treeless country, which some years ago was almost wholly uninclosed—if we except a small farm, the property of the Church—together with some few scattered patches, selected on account of their situation, and inclosed with low stone walls, in order to entitle them to the denomination of fields. Owing to the abundance of gorse, or whins, with which the uncultivated parts of this district were overgrown, it had obtained the characteristic name of “Whin-moor;” while, in order to cover the barrenness of the place, and to exalt it somewhat in the eyes of strangers, the old farm itself, to which I have alluded, was dignified with the title of Snitterton Lodge, the seat of Miss Maria Sower-soft, its present tenant.

Early one morning in the spring season, Mr. Longstaff mounted his horse in high glee, and jogged along the miry by-roads which led towards this abode, with the intention of consulting Miss Sowersoft upon a piece of business which to him was of the very greatest importance. He had ascertained on the preceding evening that Miss Sowersoft was in want of a farming-boy; one whom she could have cheap, and from some little distance. Indeed, from a combination of circumstances unfavourable to herself, she found some difficulty in getting suited from the immediate neighbourhood where she was known. If the boy happened to be without friends to interfere between him and his employer, all the better. Peace would thereby be much more certainly secured; besides that, it would be all the greater charity to employ such a boy in a place where, she well knew, he would never lack abundance of people to look after him, and to chastise him whenever he went wrong. In fact, Miss Maria herself regarded the situation as so eligible in the matters of little work, large feeding, and excellent moral tutorage, that she held the addition of wages to be almost unnecessary; and, therefore, very piously offered less than half the sum commonly given elsewhere.

Mr. Longstaff had been acquainted with Miss Sowersoft for some years, and had enjoyed various opportunities of becoming acquainted with her character. He knew very well, that if he had possessed the power to make a situation for Master Colin Clink exactly after the model of his own fancy, he could not have succeeded better in gratifying his own malice than he was likely to do by getting the boy placed under the care of the mistress of Snitterton Lodge.

Mr. Longstaff arrived at the place of his destination about two hours before noon; and, on entering the house, found Miss Sowersoft very busily engaged in frying veal cutlets for the delicate palate of a trencher-faced, red-clay complexioned fellow, who sat at his ease in a home-made stuffed chair by the fire, looking on, while the operation proceeded, with all the confidence and self-satisfaction of a master of the house. This worthy was the head farming-man, or director-general of the whole establishment, not excluding Miss Maria herself; for he exercised a very sovereign sway, not only over everything done, and over every person employed upon the premises, but also, it was generally believed, over the dreary region of Miss Sowersoft's heart. That he was a paragon of perfection, and well entitled to wield the sceptre of the homestead, there could be no doubt, since Miss Maria herself, who must be considered the best judge, most positively declared it.

In his youth this useful man had been christened Samuel; but time, which impairs cloud-capped towers, and crumbles palaces, had fretted away some portion of that stately name, and left to him only the fragmentary appellation of “Sammy.”

“What!” exclaimed Mr. Longstaff in surprise as he caught the sound of the frying-pan, and beheld a clean napkin spread half over the table, with one knife and fork, and a plateful of bread, laid upon it; “dinner at ten o'clock, Miss Sowersoft?”

“Oh, bless you, no!” replied the individual addressed, “it is only a bit of warm lunch I was just frizzling for Sammy. You see, he is out in these fields at six o'clock every morning, standing in the sharp cold winds till he is almost perished, and his appetite gets as keen as mustard. Really, I do say sometimes I wonder how he manages to be so well as he is: but then, you know, he is used to it, and I generally do him up a bit of something hot about nine or ten o'clock, that serves him pretty well till dinner-time.” Then, handing up a dish of cutlets sufficient for a small family, she continued,—“Now, Sammy, do try if you can manage this morsel while it is hot. Will you have ale, or a sup of warm gin-and-water?”

Palethorpe was in no hurry to inform her which of the two he should prefer; and therefore Miss Sowersoft remained in an attitude of expectation, watching his mouth, until it pleased him to express his decision in favour of gin-and-water.

While Mr. Palethorpe was intently engaged in putting the cutlets out of sight, Mr. Longstaff introduced the subject of his visit in a brief conversation with the mistress of the house. He gave the lady to understand that he had taken the trouble of riding over on purpose to name to her a boy, one Colin Clink, who, he believed, would just suit the situation she had vacant. He was now about fifteen years old, but as strong as an unbroke filly; he had sense enough to learn anything; had no friends, only one, in the shape of a helpless mother, so that Miss Sowersoft need not fear being crossed by anybody's meddling; and, at the same time, he thought that by a little dexterous management she might contrive to obtain him for an old song. For several reasons, which it would be needless to explain, he himself also strongly wished to see the boy comfortably settled in her house, as he felt convinced that it would prove highly advantageous to all the parties concerned. He concluded by recommending Miss Sowersoft to pay a visit to Bramleigh; when she could not only see the boy with her own eyes, but also make such statements to his mother as to her might at the time seem fit.

To this proposal Miss Maria eventually agreed; and this amiable pair parted on the understanding that she should be driven over by Mr. Palethorpe in the chaise-cart on the following day. Just as Mr. Longstaff was passing out at the door, he was invited in again to take a glass of wine; an appeal which he felt no great desire to resist, especially as it was immediately reached out and filled for him by the fair hand of the hostess herself.

“You'llhave one?” asked she, as she placed a glass upon the table close under the nose of Mr. Palethorpe, “for I'm sure it can do you no harm such a day as this.”

“Why, thank 'ee, meesis,” replied he, filling it to the brim, “but I feel as if I'd had almost enough.”

“Stuff and nonsense about enough!” cried Miss Maria; “you are always feeling as if you had had enough, according to your account; though you eat and drink nothing at all, hardly, considering what you get through every day.”

Palethorpe looked particularly spiritual at this, as though he felt half persuaded that he did actually live like a seraph, and took off his wine at a gulp, satisfied, in the innocence of his own heart, that no reflections whatever could be made upon him by the steward after the verbal warrant thus given by his mistress, in corroboration of the extreme abstinence which he endured.

“Well, meesis,” continued Palethorpe, rising from his chair, stretching his arms, and opening his mouth as wide as the entrance to a hen-roost, “I 'll just go again a bit, and see how them men's getting on. They do nought but look about 'em when I arn't there.” And, so saying, he walked out with the cautious deliberation of a man just returning from a public dinner.

“A man like that,” said Miss Sowersoft, as she gazed after him with looks of admiration, “Mr. Longstaff, is a treasure on a farm; and I am sure we could never get our own out of this, do as we would, till he came and took the direction of it. He is such an excellent manager to be sure, and does understand all kinds of cattle so well. Why, his opinion is always consulted by everybody in the neighbourhood; but then, you know, if they buy, he gets a trifle for his judgment, and so that helps to make him up a little for his own purse. I could trust him with every penny I possess, I'm sure. He sells out and buys in everything we have; and I never yet lost a single farthing by anything he did. Why, you remember that pony of Dr. Rowel's; he knocked it to pieces with his hard riding, and one thing or another: well, Sammy bought that; and, by his good management of his knees, and a few innocent falsehoods, you know, just in the way of trade, he sold it again to a particular friend, at a price that more than doubled our money.”

The steward, weary of Mr. Palethorpe's praises, and despairing of an end to them, pulled out his watch, and observed that it was high time for him to be in his saddle again. On which Miss Sowersoft checked herself for the present, and, having renewed her promise to go to Bramleigh on the morrow, allowed Mr. Longstaff to depart.

With such a clever master, and eloquent mistress, Colin could scarcely fail to benefit most materially; and so he did,—though not exactly in the way intended,—for he learned while there a few experimental lessons in the art of living in the world, which lasted him during the whole subsequent period of his life; and which he finally bequeathed to me, in order to have them placed on record for the benefit of the reader.

Enhances the reader's opinion of Mr. Palethorpe and Miss Sowersoft still higher and higher; and describes an interview which the latter had with Mr. Longstaff respecting our hero.

THE benevolent Mr. Longstaff lost no time after his return home in acquainting Mrs. Clink with the great and innumerable advantages of the situation at Snitterton Lodge, which he had been endeavouring to procure for her son. Nor did he fail very strongly to impress upon her mind how necessary it would be, when Miss Sowersoft should arrive, for her to avoid stickling much about the terms on which Colin was to go; because, if by any mishap she should chance to offend that lady, and thus break off the negotiation, an opportunity would slip through her fingers, which, it was highly probable, no concatenation of fortunate circumstances would ever again throw in her way.

Mrs. Clink's decision not being required before the following morning, she passed the night almost sleeplessly in considering the affair under every point of view that her anxious imagination could suggest. Colin himself, like most other boys, true to the earliest propensity of our nature, preferred a life passed in fields and woods, amongst horses, dogs, and cattle, to that of a dull shop behind a counter; or of any tedious and sickly mechanical trade. So far that was good. What he himself approved, he was most likely to succeed in; and with success in field-craft, he might eventually become a considerable farmer, or raise himself, like Mr. Longstaff, to the stewardship of some large estate. Visions, never to be realised, now rose in vivid distinctness before the mental eye of Mistress Clink. The far-off greatness of her son as a man of business passed in shining glory across the field of her telescope. But when again she reflected that every penny of his fortune remained to be gathered by his own fingers, the glass dropped from her eye,—all became again dark; the very speck of light she had so magnified, disappeared. But sleep came to wrap up all doubts; and she woke on the morrow, resolved that Colin should thus for the first time be launched upon the stream of life.

Early in the afternoon a horse stopped at Mrs. Clink's door, bearing upon his back a very well-fed, self-satisfied, easy-looking man, about forty years of age; and behind him, on a rusty pillion at least three generations old, a lady in black silk gown and bonnet, of no beautiful aspect, and who had passed apparently about eight-and-forty years in this sublunary world. Mistress Clink was at no loss to conjecture at once that in this couple she beheld the future master and mistress of her son Colin. Nor can it be said she was mistaken: the truth being that, after the departure of Mr. Longstaff from Snitterton Lodge on the preceding day, it had occurred to Miss Sowersoft that, instead of taking the chaise-cart, as had been intended, it would be far pleasanter to take the longest-backed horse on the premises, and ride on a pillion behind Palethorpe. In this manner, then, they reached Bramleigh.

While Mr. Palethorpe went down to the alehouse to put up his horse, and refresh himself with anything to be found there which he thought he could relish, Miss Sowersoft was conducted into the house by Fanny; and in a few minutes the desired interview between her and Mistress Clink took place.

Colin was soon after called in to be looked at.

“A nice boy!” observed Miss Sowersoft,—“a fine boy, indeed! Dear! how tall he is of his age! Come here, my boy,” and she drew him towards her, and fixed him between her knees while she stroked his hair over his forehead, and finished off with her hand at the tip of his nose. “And how should you like, my boy, to live with me, and ride on horses, and make hay, and gather up corn in harvest-time, and keep sheep and poultry, and live on all the fat of the land, as we do at Snitterton Lodge?”

“Very much,” replied Colin; “I should have some rare fun there.”

“Rare fun, would you?” repeated Miss Sowersoft, laughing. “Well, that is finely said. We shall see about that, my boy,—we shall see. Then you would like to go back with us, should you?”

“Oh, yes; I 'll go as soon as Fanny has finished my shirts, thank you.”

“And when you get there you will tell me how you like it, won't you?”

“Yes, ma'am,” continued Colin; “mother has taught me always to say what I think. I shall be sure to tell you exactly.”

“What a good mother!” exclaimed Miss Sowersoft.

“I like her better than anybody else in the world,” added Colin.

“What, better than me?” ironically demanded Miss Sowersoft.

“I don't like you at all, I tell you!” he replied, at the same time breaking from her hands; “for I don't know you; and, besides, you are not half so pretty as my mother, nor Fanny either.”

Miss Sowersoft blushed, and looked confused at this bit of truth—for a truth it was, which others would certainly havethought, but not have given utterance to.

“I will teach you your manners, young Impudence, when I get hold of you, or else there are no hazel-twigs in Snitterton plantation!”thoughtMiss Sowersoft, reversing Colin's system, and keeping that truth all to herself which she ought to have spoken.

“You will take care he is well fed?” remarked Mistress Clink, somewhat in a tone of interrogation, and as though anxious to divert her visitor's thoughts to some other topic.

“As to feeding,” replied Miss Maria, once more verging towards her favourite topic, “I can assure you, ma'am, that the most delicious dinner is set out every day on my table; with a fine, large, rich Yorkshire pudding, the size of one of those floor-stones, good enough, I am sure, for a duke to sit down to. If you were to see the quantities of things that I put into my oven for the men's dinner, you would be astonished. Great bowls full of stewed meat, puddings, pies, and, I am sure, roasted potatoes past counting. Look at Mr. Palethorpe. You saw him. He does no discredit to the farm, I think. And really he is such a clever, good, honest man! He is worth a Jew's eye on that farm, for I never in my life could get any man like him. Then, see what an excellent master he will be for this boy. In five or six years he would be fit to take the best situation that ever could be got for him, and do Sammy a deal of credit, too, for his teaching. And as to his being taken ill, or anything of that kind, we never think of such a thing with us. People often complain of having no appetite, but it requires all that we can do to keep their appetites down. A beautiful bracing air we have off the moor, worth every doctor in Yorkshire; and I really believe it cures more people that are ill than all of them put together.”

This discourse was not lost upon Mistress Clink. That lady looked upon the character of her visiter as a sort of essence of honesty, hospitality, and good-nature; and influenced by the feelings of the moment, she regarded Mr. Longstaff as really a friendly man, Miss Sowersoft as the best of women, and Colin the most fortunate of boys.

Under these circumstances it became no difficult matter for Miss Maria to settle the affair exactly to her own mind; and, under the pretence of instruction in his business, which was never to be given,—of abundance, which he never found,—and of good-nature, which was concentrated wholly upon one individual,—to persuade Mistress Clink to give the services of her boy on the consideration that, in addition to all his other advantages, he should receive twenty-five shillings for the first year, and five shillings additional per year afterwards. This bargain being struck, it was agreed that Colin should be sent over at the earliest convenient time; and Miss Sowersoft took her leave.

In order to save the expense of any slight refreshment at the tavern, Miss Maria called upon her friend the steward, on the pretence of communicating to him the result of her visit. She found that worthy in his dining-room, with Master Chatham Bolinbroke Longstaff—whom he was attempting to drill in the art of oratory,—mounted upon the table, and addressing his father, who was the only individual in the room, as a highly respectable and very numerous audience.

While this was proceeding here, Miss Æneasina Longstaff, in an adjoining room, sat twanging the strings of a harp. On the other side her younger sister, Miss Magota, was spreading cakes of Reeve's water-colours upon sheets of Whatman's paper, and dignifying the combination with the title of drawings: while, above stairs, young Smackerton William Longstaff was acquiring the art of horsemanship on a steed of wood; and the younger Longstaffs were exercising with wooden swords, with a view to future eminence in the army; and, altogether, were making such disturbance in the house as rendered it a perfect Babel.

Into this noisy dwelling did Miss Sowersoft introduce herself; and, after having stood out with great pretended admiration Master Bolinbroke's lesson, eventually succeeded in obtaining a hearing from the too happy parent of all this rising greatness.

Mr. Longstaff congratulated her upon the agreement she had made, but advised her to be very strict with the boy Colin, or in a very short time she would find him a complete nuisance.

“Ifyoudo not make something of him, Miss Sowersoft,” said he, “I am afraid he'll turn out one of that sort which a parish would much rather be without than see in it. He has some sense, as I told you yesterday, but that makes him all the more mischievous. Sense is well enough, Miss Sowersoft, where parents have discretion to turn it in the right channel, and direct it to proper ends; but I do conscientiously believe that when a little talent gets amongst poor people it plays the very deuce with them, unless it is directed by somebody who understands much better what is good for them than they can possibly know for themselves. If you do not hold a tight string over that boy Colin, he 'll get the upper hand of you, as sure as your head is on your shoulders.”

“You are right—very right!” exclaimed Miss Maria. “I am sure, if you had actually known how he insulted me this morning to my face, though I was quite a stranger to him, you could not have said anything more true. It was lucky for him that Palethorpe did not hear it, or there would not have been a square inch of white skin left on his back by this time. His mother cannot be any great shakes, I should think, to let him go on so.”

“His mother!” cried Longstaff; “pooh! pooh! Between you and me, Miss Sowersoft,—though it does not do to show everybody what colour you wear towards them,—there is not a person in the world—and I ought not to say it of a woman, but so it is,—there is not a single individual living that I hate more than I do that woman. She created more mischief in my family, and between Mrs. Longstaff and myself, some years ago, than time has been able altogether to repair. I cannot mention the circumstance more particularly, but you may suppose it was no ordinary thing, when I tell you, that though Mrs. Longstaff knows the charge to have been as false as a quicksand; though she has completely exonerated me from it, time after time, when we happened to talk the matter over; yet, if ever she gets the least out of temper, and I say a word to her, she slaps that charge in my face again, as though it were as fresh as yesterday, and as true as Baker's Chronicles.”

“Ay, dear!” sighed Miss Maria, “I feared she was a bad one.”

“Sheisa bad one,” repeated Longstaff.

“And that lad is worse,” added the lady.

“However, we'll cure him, Mr. Longstaff.” Miss Maria Sowersoft laughed, and the steward laughed likewise as he added, that it would afford him very great pleasure indeed to hear of her success.

This matter being settled so much to their mutual satisfaction, Mr. Longstaff invited his visiter to join Mrs. Longstaff and her daughters, the Misses Laxton and Magota, over a plate of bread and butter, and a glass of port, which were always ready when the lessons of the morning were finished. This invitation, being the main end and scope of her visit, she accepted at once; and after a very comfortable refection, rendered dull only by the absence of Palethorpe, she took her leave. Shortly afterwards Miss Maria might have been seen again upon her pillion; while her companion, mightily refreshed by the relishable drinks he had found at the tavern, trotted off his horse towards home at a round speed, for which everybody, save the landlady of the inn, who had kept his reckoning, was unable to account.

A parting scene between Colin and Fanny, with the promises they made to each other. Colin sets out for his new destination.

SOMETHING closely akin to grief was visible in the little cottage at Bramleigh, even at daybreak, on that gloomy morning which had been fixed upon for Colin's departure. It was yet some hours before the time at which he should go; for his mother and Fanny had risen with the first dawn of light, in order to have everything for him in a state of preparation. Few words were exchanged between them as they went mechanically about their household work; but each looked serious, as though the day was bringing sorrow at its close: and now and then the lifting of Fanny's clean white apron to her eyes, or the sudden and unconscious fall of big tears upon her hands, as she kneeled to whiten the little hearthstone of the house, betrayed the presence of feelings in her bosom which put a seal upon the tongue, and demanded the observance of silence to keep them pent within their trembling prison-place. The mother, whose heart was more strongly fortified with the hope of her boy's well-doing, felt not so deeply; though the uppermost thoughts in her mind were yet of him, and of this change. To-morrow he would be gone. How she should miss his open heart and voluble tongue, which were wont to make her forget all the miseries she had endured on his account! She would no longer have need to lay the nightly pillow for him; nor to call him in the morning again to another day of life and action. The house would seem desolate without him; and she and Fanny would have to learn how to be alone.

His little box of clothes was now carefully packed up; and amongst them Fanny laid a few trifling articles, all she could, which had been bought, unknown to any one, with the few shillings which had been hoarded up through a long season. These, she thought, might surprise him at some unexpected moment with the memory of home, and of those he had left there; when, perhaps, the treatment he might receive from others would render the memory of that home a welcome thing. A small phial of ink, three penny ready-made pens, and half a quire of letter-paper, formed part of Fanny's freightage: as she intended that, in case he could not return often enough on a visit to them of some few hours, he should at least write to tell them how he fared.

When she was about completing these arrangements Colin entered the room, in high spirits at the anticipated pleasures of his new mode of existence.

“Is it all ready, Fanny?” he asked; at the same time picking up one end of the cord by which the box was to be bound.

“Yes,” she briefly replied; accompanying that single monosyllable with a sudden and convulsive catching of the breath, which told of an overladen bosom better than any language.

“Then I shall go very soon,” coolly observed Colin,—“there is no good in stopping if everything is ready.”

“Nay, not yet,” murmured Fanny, as she bowed down her head under the pretence of arranging something in the box, though, in reality, only to hide that grief which in any other manner she could no longer conceal. “We can't tell when we shall see you again. Do not go sooner than you can help, for the latest will be soon enough.”

“What, are you crying?” asked Colin. “I did not mean to make you cry;” and he himself began to look unusually serious. “It is a good place, you know; and, if I get on well, perhaps when I am grown up I shall be able to keep a little house of my own; and then you, and my mother, and I, will live there, and be as comfortable as possible together. You shall be dairy-maid, while I ride about to see that the men do their work; and, as for my mother, she shall do as she likes.”

Though not much consoled by this pleasing vision of future happiness, Fanny could not but smile at the earnestness with which Colin had depicted it. Indeed, he could not have offered this balm to her wounded spirit with greater sincerity had such a result as that alluded to been an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of his present engagement at Snitterton Lodge. But Fanny had still less faith in the prognostications of the little seer, in consequence of the opinion which she had secretly formed of the character of his mistress; notwithstanding the plausibility of her conversation. The natural expression of her countenance appeared to be that of clouded moroseness and grasping avarice; while a sort of equivocal crossing of the eyes, though only occasional, seemed to evince to those who could deeply read the human face divine, the existence of two distinct and opposite sentiments in her mind, to either of which she could, with equal show of truth, give utterance, as occasion might render necessary. Over all this, however, and, as it were, upon the surface, her life of traffic with the world seemed to have rendered it needful for her to assume a character which too often enabled her to impose upon the really honest and innocent; though it never left, even upon the most unsuspecting, any very deep feeling of confidence in her integrity. Such, at least, were the impressions which Miss Sowersoft's appearance produced upon the mind of Fanny; though the latter made no other use of them than that of taking some little precautions in order to be informed truly in what manner she and Colin might agree, which otherwise she would not have deemed at all needful.

“You will come over to see us every Sunday?” she asked.

“Yes, if they will let me,” replied Colin.

“Let you!” But she suddenly checked herself. “And, if not, when they will not let you, you will be sure to write, Colin? Now promise me that. Or, if anything should be amiss,—if you should not like the place, for there is no telling till you have tried it; if itshouldso happen that they do not use you so well as they ought to do, send, if you cannot come, directly; and, if there is nobody else to help you that is better able,”—Fanny stood up, and clasped both his hands with deep energy between her own,—“I will stand by you as long as I live. I am not able to do much, but I can earn my living; and, if I work like a slave, you shall never want a farthing as long as I have one left for myself in the world! I have nursed you, Colin, when I was almost as little as yourself; and I feel the same to you as though your mother was mine too.”

While Colin, with tears in his eyes, promised implicit compliance with all that had been requested of him, he yet, with the candour and warm-hearted generosity peculiar to his character, declared that Fanny ought to despise him if ever he trusted to the labour of her hands for a single meal, No: he would save all his yearly wages, and bring them home for her and his mother; and in time he should be able to maintain them both by his own labour, without their having any need to struggle for themselves. As for the rest, if anybody ill-used him, he was strong enough to stand his own ground: or, if not, he knew of another way to save himself, which would do quite as well, or better.

“What other way? What do you mean?” asked Fanny very anxiously.

“Oh, nothing,” said Colin; “only, if people do not treat us properly, we are not obliged to stay with them.”

“But you must never think of running away,” she replied, “and going you do not know where. Come back home if they ill-treat you, and you will always be safe with us.”

Their morning meal being now prepared, the three sat down to it with an undefined feeling of sadness which no effort could shake off. Some little extra luxury was placed upon the table for Colin; and many times was he made to feel that—however unconsciously to themselves—both his mother and Fanny anticipated all his slightest wants with unusual quickness; and waited upon him, and pressed him to his last ill-relished meal, with a degree of assiduity which rendered the sense of his parting with them doubly painful.

The hour for going at length arrived. At ten o'clock the village-carrier called for his little box; and at twelve Colin himself was to set out. The last half-hour was spent by his mother in giving him that impressive counsel which under such circumstances a mother best knows how to give; while Fanny stood by, weeping as she listened to it, and frequently sobbing aloud when some more striking observation, some more pointed moral truth, or apposite quotation from the sacred volume, escaped the mother's lips. Twelve o'clock struck. At a quarter past our hero was crossing the fields on the foot-road to Whinmoor; and at about three in the afternoon he arrived at the place of his future abode.

Describes the greeting which Colin received on his arrival at Snitterton Lodge; together with a very serious quarrel between him and Mr. Palethorpe; and its fearful results.

AS Colin descended a gentle declivity, where the sterility of the moor seemed imperceptibly to break into and blend with the woods and the bright spring greenery of a more fertile tract of country, he came within sight of Miss Sowersoft's abode. Though dignified with the title of a seat, it was a small common farmhouse, containing only four rooms, a long dairy and kitchen, and detached outhouses behind. To increase its resemblance to a private residence, a piece of ground in front was laid out with grass and flower-beds. The ground was flanked on either extremity with gooseberry-bushes, potato-lands, broad-beans, and pea-rows; and, farther in the rear, so as to be more out of sight, cabbages, carrots, and onions. The natural situation of the place was excellent. Standing on the north side of a valley which, though not deep, yet caused it to be shut out from any distant prospect in consequence of the long slope of the hills, the little dwelling looked out over a homely but rural prospect of ploughed and grass land, and thick woods to the left; over which, when the light of the sun was upon it, might be seen the white top of a maypole which stood in the middle of the next village; and, still nearer, the fruitful boughs of an extensive orchard, now pink and white with bloom; while along the foot of the garden plunged a little boisterous and headlong rivulet, worn deep into the earth, which every summer storm lashed into a hectoring fury of some few days' duration, and, on the other hand, which every week of settled fair weather, calmed down into a gentle streamlet,—now gathering in transparent pools, where minnows shot athwart the sun-warmed water like darts of light; and then again stretching over fragments of stone, in mimic falls and rapids, which only required to be enlarged by the imagination of the listless wanderer, to surpass in picturesque beauty the course of the most celebrated rivers.

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As Colin entered the garden-gate, he observed the industrious Mr. Palethorpe sitting against the western wall of the house,—the afternoon being warm and inviting,—smoking his pipe, and sipping the remains of a bottle of wine. With his legs thrown idly out, and his eyes nearly closed to keep out the sun, he appeared to be imbibing, in the most delicious dreamy listlessness, at once the pleasures of the weed and the grape, and those which could find their way to his inapprehensive soul from the vast speaking volume of glad nature which lay before him.

“So, you 're come, are you?” he muttered, without relieving his mouth of the pipe, as the boy drew near him.

“Yes, I am here at last,” replied Colin; adding very good-humouredly, “you seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“And what in th' devil's name is that to you?” he savagely exclaimed; “what business of yours is it what I'm doing?”

“I did not intend to offend you, I'm sure,” said Colin.

“You be dang'd!” replied Sammy. “You arn't mester here yet, mind you, if you are at home! I have heard a bit about you, my lad; and if you don't take care how you carry yourself, you 'll soon hear a little bit about me, and feel it an' all, more than we've agreed for at present. Get into th' house with you, and let meesis see you 're come.”

The blood rose in Colin's face; and tears, which he would have given half his life to suppress, welled up in his eyes at this brutal greeting, so different to that which he had expected, and to the feelings of happiness which a few minutes previously had thronged, like bees upon a flower, about his heart.

As he passed the wire-woven windows of the dairy at the back of the house, he observed a maid within busily employed, in the absence of Miss Sowersoft, in devouring by stealth a piece of cheese.

Colin knocked at the door; but before the maid could swallow her mouthful, and wipe the signs thereof from her lips, so as to fit herself to let him in, an ill-tempered voice, which he instantly recognised as that of Miss Sowersoft, bawled out, “Sally!—why don't you go to the door?”

“Yes, 'um!” bellowed Sally, in return, as she rushed to the place of entrance, and threw the door back.

“Is Miss Sowersoft at home?” asked the boy.

“Oh, it's you, is it?” cried his mistress from an inner room. “Come in, come in, and don't keep that door open half an hour, while I am in a perspiration enough to drown anybody!”

Colin passed through the kitchen into the apartment from which the voice had proceeded, and there beheld Miss Sowersoft, with a huge stack of newly-washed linen before her, rolling away at a mangle, which occupied nearly one side of the room.

“Why did n't your mother send you at a more convenient time?” continued Miss Sowersoft, looking askance at Colin, with her remotest eye cast crosswise upon him most malignantly. “If she had had as much to do as I have had, ever since she kept house of her own, she would have known pretty well before now that folks don't like to be interrupted in the middle of their day's work with new servants coming to their places. But I suppose she's had nothing to do but to pamper you all her life. I can't attend to you now;—you see I 'm up to my neck in business of one sort or another.”

So saying, she fell to turning the mangle again with increased velocity; so that, had our hero even felt inclined to make an answer, his voice would have been utterly drowned by the noise.

In the mean time Colin stood in the middle of the floor, doubtful what step to take next, whether into a chair or out of the house; but, in the lack of other employment, he pulled his cap into divers fanciful forms, which had never entered into the head of its manufacturer, until at length a temporary cessation of his mistress's labours, during which an exchange of linen was made in the mangle, enabled him to ask, with some chance of being heard, whether he could not begin to do something.

“I 'll tell you what to do,” replied Miss Maria, “when I 've done myself,—if I ever shall have done; for I am more like a galley-slave than anything else. Nobody need sit with their hands in their pockets here, if their will is as good as their work. Go out and look about you;—there 's plenty of stables and places to get acquainted with before you 'll know where to fetch a thing from, if you are sent for it. And, if Palethorpe has finished his pipe and bottle, tell him I want to know what time he would like to have his tea ready.”

Colin very gladly took Miss Sowersoft (who was more than usually sour, in consequence of the quantity of employment on her hands) at her word, and, without regarding her message to Palethorpe, with whom he had no desire to change another word at present, he hastened out of the house, and rambled alone about the fields and homestead until dusk.

Several times during this stroll did Colin consider and re-consider the propriety of walking home again without giving his situation any farther trial. That Snitterton was no paradise, and its inhabitants a nest of hornets, he already began to believe; though to quit it before a beginning had been made, however much of ill-promise stared him in the face, would but indifferently accord with the resolutions he had formed in the morning, to undergo any difficulties rather than fail in his determination eventually to do something, not for himself only, but for his mother and Fanny. The advice which the former had given him not twelve hours ago also came vividly to his recollection; the sense of its truth, which experience was even now increasing, materially sharpening its impression on his memory. It was not, however, without some doubts and struggles that he finally resolved to brave the worst,—to stand out until, if it should be so, he could stand out no longer.

Strengthened by these reflections, and relying on his own honesty of intention, our hero returned to the house just as all the labourers had gathered round the kitchen-grate, and were consuming their bread and cheese in the dim twilight. Amongst them was one old man, whose appearance proclaimed that his whole life had been spent in the hard toils of husbandry, but spent almost in vain, since it had provided him with nothing more than the continued means of subsistence, and left him, when worn-out nature loudly declared that his days of labour were past, no other resource but still to toil on, until his trembling hand should finally obtain a cessation in that place which the Creator has appointed for all living. What little hair remained upon his head was long and white; and of the same hue also was his week's beard. But a quiet intelligent grey eye, which looked out with benevolence from under a white penthouse of eyebrow, seemed to repress any feelings of levity that otherwise might arise from his appearance, and to appeal, in the depth of its humanity, from the helplessness of that old wreck of manhood, to the strength of those who were now what once he was, for assistance and support.

“Ay, my boy!” said old George, as Colin entered, and a seat was made for him near the old man, “thou looks a bit different to me; though I knew the time when I was bonny as thou art.”

As he raised the bread he was eating to his mouth, his hand trembled like a last withered leaf, which the next blast will sweep away for ever. There was so much natural kindness in the old man's tone, that instantaneously, and almost unconsciously, the comparison between Miss Sowersoft and her man Samuel, who had spoken to him in the afternoon, and poor old George, was forced upon Colin's mind. In reply to the old man's concluding remark, Colin observed, “Yes, sir, I dare say; but that is a long while ago now.”

“Ay, ay, thou's right, boy,—it is a long while. I've seen more than I shall ever see again, and done more than I shall ever do again.”

Mr. Palethorpe, who sat in the home-made easy-chair, while the old man occupied a fourlegged stool, burst into a laugh. “You 're right there, George,” he retorted. “Though you never did much since I knowed you, you 'll take right good care you 'll not do as much again. Drat your idle old carcase! you don't earn half the bread you 're eating.”

The old man looked up,—not angry, nor yet seeking for pity. “Well, perhaps not; but it is none the sweeter for that, I can assure you. If I can't work as I did once, it's no fault of mine. We can get no more out of a nut than its kernel; and there's nought much but the shell left of me now.”

“Yes, yes,” returned Palethorpe, “you don't like it, George, and you'll not do it. Dang your good-for-nothing old limbs! you 'll come to the work'us at last, I know you will!”

“Nay, I hope not,” observed the old man, somewhat sorrowfully. “As I've lived out so long, I still hope, with God's blessing on my hands, though they can't do much, to manage to die out.”

“Come, then,” said Palethorpe, pushing a pair of hard clay-plastered quarter-boots from off his feet, “stir your lazy bones, and clean my boots once more before you put on th' parish livery.”

The old man was accustomed to be thus insulted, and, because he dared not reply, to take insult in silence. He laid down the remaining portion of his bread and cheese, with the remark that he would finish it when he had cleaned the boots, and was about rising from his seat to step across the hearth to pick them up, as they lay tossed at random on the floor, when young Colin, whose heart had been almost bursting during this brief scene, put his hand upon the poor old creature's knee to stop him, and, at the same time starting to his own feet instead, exclaimed, “No, no!—It's a shame for such an old man as you.—Sit still, and I 'll do 'em.”

“You shan't though, you whelp!” exclaimed Palethorpe, in great wrath, at the same time kicking out his right foot in order to prevent Colin from picking them up. The blow caught him in the face, and a gush of blood fell upon the hearthstone.

“I will, I tell you!” replied Colin vehemently, as he strove to wipe away the blood with his sleeve, and burst into tears.

“I'm d——d if you do!” said Palethorpe, rising from his chair with fixed determination.

“I 'll soon put you to rights, young busybody.”

So saying, he laid a heavy grip with each iron hand on Colics shoulders.

“Then if I don't,heshan't!” sobbed Colin.

“Shan't he?” said Palethorpe, swallowing the oath which was upon his lips, as though he felt that the object of it was beneath his contempt. “I 'll tell you what, young imp, if you don't march off to bed this minute, I 'll just take and rough-wash you in the horse-pond.”

Miss Sowersoft smiled with satisfaction, both at Mr. Palethorpe's wit and at his display of valour.

“Do as you like about that,” replied Colin: “I don't care for you, nor anybody like you. I didn't come here to be beaten by you!”

And another burst of tears, arising from vexation at his own helplessness, followed these words.

“You don't care for me, don't you?” savagely demanded Palethorpe. “Come, then, let's try if I can't make you.”

He then lifted Colin by the arms from the floor, with the intention of carrying him out; but the farm-labourers, who had hitherto sat by in silence, though with rising feelings of indignation, now began to watch what was going on.

“You shan't hurt him any more,” cried old George, “or else you shall kill me first!”

“Kill you first, you old fool!” contemptuously repeated Palethorpe. “Why, if you say another word, I 'll double your crooked old back clean up, and throw you and him an' all both into th' brook together!”

“Then I 'm danged if you: do, and that's all about it!” fiercely exclaimed another of the labourers, striking his clenched fist upon his thigh, and throwing the chair on which he sat some feet behind him, in his sudden effort to rise. “If you dare to touch old George,” he added, with an oath, “I 'll knock you down, if I leave this service to-night for it.”

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