A LOVE AFFAIR AT CRANFORD.ByMRS. GASKELL.II thought, after Miss Jenkyns’s death, that probably my connection with Cranford would cease. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by receiving a letter from Miss Pole proposing that I should go and stay with her. In a couple of days after my acceptance came a note from Miss Matey Jenkyns, in which, in a rather circuitous and very humble manner, she told me how much pleasure I should confer if I could spend a week or two with her, either before or after I had been at Miss Pole’s; “for,” she said, “since my dear sister’s death, I am well aware I have no attractions to offer: it is only to the kindness of my friends that I can owe their company.”Of course I promised to go to dear Miss Matey as soon as I had ended my visit to Miss Pole. The day after my arrival at Cranford, I went tosee her, much wondering what the house would be like without Miss Jenkyns, and rather dreading the changed aspect of things. Miss Matey began to cry as soon as she saw me. She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my call. I comforted her as well as I could; and I found the best consolation I could give was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the deceased. Miss Matey slowly shook her head over each virtue, as it was named and attributed to her sister; at last she could not restrain the tears which had long been silently flowing, but hid her face behind her handkerchief, and sobbed aloud.“Dear Miss Matey!” said I, taking her hand; for indeed I did not know in what way to tell her how sorry I was for her, left deserted in the world.She put down her handkerchief and said: “My dear, I’d rather you did not call me Matey.Shedid not like it. But I did many a thing she did not like, I’m afraid; and now she’s gone! If you please, my love, will you call me Matilda?”I promised faithfully, and began to practise the new name with Miss Pole that very day; and, by degrees, Miss Matilda’s feeling on the subject was known through Cranford, and the appellation of Matey was dropped by all, except a very old woman, who had been nurse in the rector’s family, and had persevered, through many long years, in calling the Miss Jenkynses “the girls”:shesaid “Matey” to the day of her death.* * * * *It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had offered to Miss Matey long ago. Now, this cousin lived four or five miles from Cranford, on his own estate; but his property was not large enough to entitle him to rank higher than a yeoman; or, rather, with something of the “pride which apes humility,” he had refused to push himself on, as so many of his class had done, into the rank of the squires. He would not allow himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, Esq. He even sent back letters with this address, telling the postmistress at Cranford that his name was Mr. Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic innovations. He would have the house door stand open in summer, and shut in winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant. The closed fist, or the knob of the stick, did this office for him, if he found the door locked. He despised every refinement which had not its root deep down in humanity. If people were not ill, he saw no necessity for moderating his voice. He spoke the dialect of the country in perfection, and constantly used it in conversation; although Miss Pole (who gave me these particulars) added, that he read aloud more beautifully, and with more feeling, than any one she had ever heard, except the late rector.“And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?” asked I.“Oh, I don’t know. She was willing enough, I think; but you know Cousin Thomas would not have been enough of a gentleman for the rector and Mrs. and Miss Jenkyns.”“Well, buttheywere not to marry him,” said I, impatiently.“No, but they did not like Miss Matey to marry below her rank. You know she was the rector’s daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter Arley; Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that.”“Poor Miss Matey!” said I.“Nay, now, I don’t know anything more than that he offered and was refused. Miss Matey might not like him; and Miss Jenkyns might never have said a word: it is only a guess of mine.”“Has she never seen him since?” I inquired.“No, I think not. You see Woodley (Cousin Thomas’s house) lies half-way between Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made Misselton his market-town very soon after he had offered to Miss Matey; and I don’t think he has been into Cranford above once or twice since. Once, when I was walking with Miss Matey in High Street, she suddenly darted from me and went up Shire Lane. A few minutes after, I was startled by meeting Cousin Thomas.”“How old is he?” I asked, after a pause of castle-building.“He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,” said Miss Pole, blowing up my castle, as if by gun-powder, into small fragments.Very soon after, I had the opportunity of seeing Mr. Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with his former love, after thirty or forty years’ separation. I was helping to decide whether any of the new assortment of colored silks, which they had just received at the shop, would help to match a gray and black mousseline-de-laine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don Quixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woollen gloves. I had never seen the person before, and I watched him rather attentively, while Miss Matey listened to the shopman. The stranger was rather striking. He wore a blue coat, with brass buttons, drab breeches, and gaiters, and drummed with his fingers on the counter, until he was attended to. When he answered the shop-boy’s question, “What can I have the pleasure of showing you to-day, sir?” I saw Miss Matilda start, and then suddenly sit down; and instantly I guessed who it was. She had made some inquiry which had to be carried round to the other shop.“Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarcenet, two-and-twopence the yard.” Mr. Holbrook caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.“Matey,—Miss Matilda,—Miss Jenkyns! Bless my soul! I should not have known you.How are you? how are you?” He kept shaking her hand, in a way which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as if to himself, “I should not have known you!” that any sentimental romance I might be inclined to build was quite done away with by his manner.However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and then waving the shopman, with the unpurchased gloves, on one side, with “Another time, sir! another time!” he walked home with us. I am happy to say Miss Matilda also left the shop in an equally bewildered state; not having purchased either green or red silk. Mr. Holbrook was evidently full with honest, loud-spoken joy at meeting his old love again. He touched on the changes that had taken place; he even spoke of Miss Jenkyns as “Your poor sister! Well, well! we have all our faults”; and bade us good by with many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matey again. She went straight to her room, and never came back till our early tea-time, when I thought she looked as if she had been crying.A few days after, a note came from Mr. Holbrook, asking us,—impartially asking both of us,—in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at his house,—a long, June day,—for it was June now. He named that he had also invited his cousin, Miss Pole; so that we might join in a fly, which could be put up at his house.I expected Miss Matey to jump at this invitation; but, no! Miss Pole and I had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to go. She thought it was improper; and was even half annoyed when we utterly ignored the idea of any impropriety in her going with two other ladies to see her old lover. Then came a more serious difficulty. She did not think Deborah would have liked her to go. This took us half a day’s good hard talking to get over; but, at the first sentence of relenting, I seized the opportunity, and wrote and despatched an acceptance in her name,—fixing day and hour, that all might be decided and done with.The next morning she asked me if I would go down to the shop with her; and there, after much hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent home and tried on, that the most becoming might be selected to take with us on Thursday.She was in a state of silent agitation all the way to Woodley. She had evidently never been there before, and although she little dreamt I knew anything of her early story, I could perceive she was in a tremor at the thought of seeing the place which might have been her home, and round which it is probable that many of her innocent, girlish imaginations had clustered. It was a long drive there, through paved, jolting lanes. Miss Matilda sat bolt upright, and looked wistfully out of the windows, as we drew near the end of our journey. The aspect of the country was quietand pastoral. Woodley stood among fields, and there was an old-fashioned garden, where roses and currant-bushes touched each other, and where the feathery asparagus formed a pretty background to the pinks and gilly-flowers. There was no drive up to the door. We got out at a little gate, and walked up a straight, box-edged path.“My cousin might make a drive, I think,” said Miss Pole, who was afraid of ear-ache, and had only her cap on.“I think it is very pretty,” said Miss Matey, with a soft plaintiveness in her voice, and almost in a whisper, for just then Mr. Holbrook appeared at the door, rubbing his hands in the very effervescence of hospitality. He looked more like my idea of Don Quixote than ever, and yet the likeness was only external. His respectable housekeeper stood modestly at the door to bid us welcome; and, while she led the elder ladies up-stairs to a bed-room, I begged to look about the garden. My request evidently pleased the old gentleman, who took me all round the place, and showed me his six-and-twenty cows, named after the different letters of the alphabet. As we went along, he surprised me occasionally by repeating apt and beautiful quotations from the poets, ranging easily from Shakespeare and George Herbert, to those of our own day. He did this as naturally as if he were thinking aloud; as if their true and beautifulwords were the best expression he could find for what he was thinking or feeling. To be sure he called Byron “my lord Byrron,” and pronounced the name of Goethe strictly in accordance with the English sound of the letters. Altogether, I never met with a man, before or since, who had spent so long a life in a secluded and not impressive country, with ever-increasing delight in the daily and yearly change of season and beauty.When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the kitchen; for so I suppose the room ought to be called, as there were oak dressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the fireplace, and only a small Turkey carpet in the middle of the flag-floor. The room might have been easily made into a handsome, dark-oak dining-parlor, by removing the oven, and a few other appurtenances of a kitchen, which were evidently never used; the real cooking-place being at some distance. The room in which we were expected to sit was a stiffly furnished, ugly apartment; but that in which we did sit was what Mr. Holbrook called the counting-house, where he paid his laborers their weekly wages, at a great desk near the door. The rest of the pretty sitting-room—looking into the orchard, and all covered over with dancing tree-shadows—was filled with books. They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the table. Hewas evidently half ashamed and half proud of his extravagance in this respect. They were of all kinds; poetry, and wild, weird tales prevailing. He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own tastes, not because such and such were classical, or established favorites.“Ah!” he said, “we farmers ought not to have much time for reading; yet somehow one can’t help it.”“What a pretty room!” said Miss Matey,sotto voce.“What a pleasant place!” said I, aloud, almost simultaneously.“Nay! if you like it,” replied he; “but can you sit on these great black leather three-cornered chairs? I like it better than the best parlor; but I thought ladies would take that for the smarter place.”It was the smarter place; but, like most smart things, not at all pretty, or pleasant, or home-like; so, while we were at dinner, the servant-girl dusted and scrubbed the counting-house chairs, and we sat there all the rest of the day.We had pudding before meat, and I thought Mr. Holbrook was going to make some apology for his old-fashioned ways; for he began, “I don’t know whether you like new-fangled ways.”“O, not at all!” said Miss Matey.“No more do I,” said he. “My housekeeperwillhave things in her new fashion; or else Itell her, that when I was a young man, we used to keep strictly to my father’s rule, ‘No broth, no ball; no ball, no beef’; and always began dinner with broth. Then we had suet puddings, boiled in the broth with the beef; and then the meat itself. If we did not sup our broth, we had no ball, which we liked a deal better; and the beef came last of all; and only those had it who had done justice to the broth and the ball. Now, folks begin with sweet things, and turn their dinners topsy-turvy.”When the ducks and green peas came, we looked at each other in dismay. We had only two-pronged, black-handled forks. It is true, the steel was as bright as silver; but, what were we to do? Miss Matey picked up her peas, one by one, on the point of the prongs. Miss Pole sighed over her delicate young peas, as she left them on one side of her plate untasted; for theywoulddrop between her prongs. I looked at my host: the peas were going wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large round-ended knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived! My friends, in spite of my precedent, could not muster up courage enough to do an ungenteel thing; and, if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily hungry, he would probably have seen that the good peas went away almost untouched.After dinner, a clay pipe was brought in, and a spittoon; and, asking us to retire to anotherroom, where he would soon join us, if we disliked tobacco-smoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matey, and requested her to fill the bowl. This was a compliment to a lady in his youth; but it was rather inappropriate to propose it as an honor to Miss Matey, who had been trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in utter abhorrence. But if it was a shock to her refinement, it was also a gratification to her feelings, to be thus selected; so she daintly stuffed the strong tobacco into the pipe; and then we withdrew.“It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,” said Miss Matey, softly, as we settled ourselves in the counting-house; “I only hope it is not improper; so many pleasant things are!”“What a number of books he has!” said Miss Pole, looking round the room. “And how dusty they are!”“I think it must be like one of the great Dr. Johnson’s rooms,” said Miss Matey. “What a superior man your cousin must be!”“Yes!” said Miss Pole; “he’s a great reader; but I am afraid he has got into very uncouth habits with living alone.”“Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call him eccentric: very clever people always are!” replied Miss Matey.When Mr. Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in the fields; but the two elder ladies were afraid of damp and dirt, and had only veryunbecoming calashes to put on over their caps; so they declined, and I was again his companion in a turn which he said he was obliged to take, to see after his niece. He strode along, either wholly forgetting my existence, or soothed into silence by his pipe; and yet it was not silence exactly. He walked before me, with a stooping gait, his hands clasped behind him, and as some tree, or cloud, or glimpse at distant upland pastures, struck him, he quoted poetry to himself; saying it out loud, in a grand, sonorous voice, with just the emphasis that true feeling and appreciation give. We came upon an old cedar-tree, which stood at one end of the house;‘More black than ash-buds in the front of March,A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.’“Capital term, ‘layers!’ Wonderful man!”I did not know whether he was speaking to me or not; but I put in an assenting “Wonderful,” although I knew nothing about it; just because I was tired of being forgotten, and of being consequently silent.He turned sharp round. “Ay! you may say ‘wonderful.’ Why, when I saw the review of his poems in ‘Blackwood,’ I set off within an hour, and walked seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in the way), and ordered them. Now, what color are ash-buds in March?”Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote.“What color are they, I say?” repeated he, vehemently.“I am sure I don’t know sir,” said I, with the meekness of ignorance.“I knew you didn’t. No more did I, an old fool that I am! till this young man comes and tells me. Black as ash-buds in March. And I’ve lived all my life in the country; more shame for me not to know. Black; they are jet-black, madam.” And he went off again, swinging along to the music of some rhyme he had got hold of.When we came home, nothing would serve him but that he must read us the poems he had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal, I thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful reading, of which she had boasted; but she afterwards said it was because she had got to a difficult part of crochet, and wanted to count her stitches without having to talk. Whatever he had proposed would have been right to Miss Matey, although she did fall sound asleep within five minutes after he began a long poem, called “Locksley Hall,” and had a comfortable nap, unobserved, till he ended, when the cessation of his voice wakened her up, and she said, feeling that something was expected, and that Miss Pole was counting, “What a pretty book!”“Pretty, madam? It’s beautiful! Pretty, indeed!”“O yes, I meant beautiful!” said she, fluttered at his disapproval of her word. “It is so like that beautiful poem of Dr. Johnson’s my sister used to read!—I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?” turning to me.“Which do you mean, ma’am? What was it about?”“I don’t remember what it was about, and I’ve quite forgotten what the name of it was; but it was written by Dr. Johnson, and was very beautiful, and very like what Mr. Holbrook has just been reading.”“I don’t remember it,” said he, reflectively; “but I don’t know Dr. Johnson’s poems well. I must read them.”As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr. Holbrook say he should call on the ladies soon, and inquire how they got home; and this evidently pleased and fluttered Miss Matey at the time he said it; but after we had lost sight of the old house among the trees, her sentiments towards the master of it were gradually absorbed into a distressing wonder as to whether Martha had broken her word, and seized on the opportunity of her mistress’s absence to have a “follower.” Martha looked good and steady and composed enough, as she came to help us out; she was always careful of Miss Matey, and to-night she made use of this unlucky speech: “Eh, dear ma’am, to think of your going out in anevening in such a thin shawl! It is no better than muslin. At your age, ma’am, you should be careful.”“My age!” said Miss Matey, almost speaking crossly, for her, for she was usually gentle; “my age! Why, how old do you think I am, that you talk about my age?”“Well, ma’am, I should say you were not far short of sixty; but folks’ looks is often against them, and I’m sure I meant no harm.”“Martha, I’m not yet fifty-two!” said Miss Matey, with grave emphasis; for probably the remembrance of her youth had come very vividly before her this day, and she was annoyed at finding that golden time so far away in the past.But she never spoke of any former and more intimate acquaintance with Mr. Holbrook. She had probably met with so little sympathy in her early love, that she had shut it up close in her heart; and it was only by a sort of watching, which I could hardly avoid since Miss Pole’s confidence, that I saw how faithful her poor heart had been in its sorrows and its silence.She gave me some good reason for wearing her best cap every day, and sat near the window, in spite of her rheumatism, in order to see, without being seen, down into the street.He came. He put his open palms upon his knees, which were far apart, as he sat with his head bent down, whistling, after we had replied tohis inquiries about our safe return. Suddenly he jumped up.“Well, madam, have you any commands for Paris? I’m going there in a week or two.”“To Paris!” we both exclaimed.“Yes, ma’am. I’ve never been there, and always had a wish to go; and I think if I don’t go soon I mayn’t go at all. So as soon as the hay is got in I shall go, before harvest-time.”We were so much astonished that we had no commissions.Just as he was going out of the room, he turned back, with his favorite exclamation, “Bless my soul, madam! but I nearly forgot half my errand. Here are the poems for you, you admired so much the other evening at my house.” He tugged away at a parcel in his coat pocket. “Good by, miss!” said he; “good by, Matey! take care of yourself.” And he was gone. But he had given her a book, and he had called her Matey, just as he used to do thirty years ago.“I wish he would not go to Paris,” said Miss Matilda, anxiously. “I don’t believe frogs will agree with him. He used to have to be very careful what he ate, which was curious in so strong-looking a young man.”Soon after this I took my leave, giving many an injunction to Martha to look after her mistress, and to let me know if she thought that Miss Matilda was not so well; in which case I would volunteera visit to my old friend, without noticing Martha’s intelligence to her.Accordingly, I received a line or two from Martha every now and then; and about November I had a note to say her mistress was “very low and sadly off her food”; and the account made me so uneasy, that, although Martha did not decidedly summon me, I packed up my things and went.I received a warm welcome, in spite of the little flurry produced by my impromptu visit, for I had only been able to give a day’s notice. Miss Matilda looked miserably ill, and I prepared to comfort and cosset her.I went down to have a private talk with Martha.“How long has your mistress been so poorly?” I asked, as I stood by the kitchen fire.“Well, I think it’s better than a fortnight; it is, I know. It was one Tuesday, after Miss Pole had been here, that she went into this moping way. I thought she was tired, and it would go off with a night’s rest; but no! she has gone on and on ever since, till I thought it my duty to write to you, ma’am.”“You did quite right, Martha. It is a comfort to think she has so faithful a servant about her. And I hope you find your place comfortable?”“Well, ma’am, missus is very kind, and there’s plenty to eat and drink, and no more work but what I can do easily; but—” Martha hesitated.“But what, Martha?”“Why, it seems so hard of missus not to let me have any followers. There’s such lots of young fellows in the town, and many a one has as much as offered to keep company with me, and I may never be in such a likely place again, and it’s like wasting an opportunity. Many a girl as I know would have ’em unbeknowst to missus; but I’ve given my word, and I’ll stick to it; or else this is just the house for missus never to be the wiser if they did come. It’s such a capable kitchen,—there’s such good dark corners in it,—I’d be bound to hide any one. I counted up last Sunday night,—for I’ll not deny I was crying because I had to shut the door in Jem Hearn’s face; and he’s a steady young man, fit for any girl; only I had given missus my word.” Martha was all but crying again; and I had little comfort to give her, for I knew, from old experience, the horror with which both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon “followers”; and in Miss Matey’s present nervous state this dread was not like to be lessened.I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her completely by surprise, for she had not been to see Miss Matilda for two days.“And now I must go back with you, my dear,” said she; “for I promised to let her know how Thomas Holbrook went on; and I’m sorry to say his housekeeper has sent me word to-day that he hasn’t long to live. Poor Thomas! That journey to Paris was quite too much for him. Hishousekeeper says he has hardly ever been round his fields since, but just sits with his hands on his knees in the counting-house, not reading, or anything, but only saying, what a wonderful city Paris was! Paris has much to answer for, if it’s killed my cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived.”“Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?” asked I, a new light as to the cause of her indisposition dawning upon me.“Dear! to be sure, yes! Has she not told you? I let her know a fortnight ago, or more, when first I heard of it. How odd, she shouldn’t have told you!”Not at all, I thought; but I did not say anything. I felt almost guilty of having spied too curiously into that tender heart; and I was not going to speak of its secrets,—hidden, Miss Matey believed, from all the world. I ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda’s drawing-room; and then left them alone. But I was not surprised when Martha came to my bed-room door, to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that missus had one of her bad headaches. She came into the drawing-room at tea-time; but it was evidently an effort for her. As if to make up for some reproachful feeling against her late sister, Miss Jenkyns, which had been troubling her all the afternoon, and for which she now felt penitent, she kept telling me how good and how clever Deborah was in her youth,how she used to settle what gowns they were to wear at all the parties; (faint, ghostly ideas of dim parties far away in the distance, when Miss Matey and Miss Pole were young!) and how Deborah and her mother had started the benefit society for the poor, and taught girls cooking and plain sewing; and how Deborah had danced with a lord; and how she used to visit at Sir Peter Arley’s, and try to remodel the quiet rectory establishment on the plans of Arley Hall, where they kept thirty servants; and how she had nursed Miss Matey through a long, long illness, of which I had never heard before, but which I now dated, in my own mind, as following the dismissal of the suit of Mr. Holbrook. So we talked softly and quietly of old times, through the long November evening.The next day, Miss Pole brought us word that Mr. Holbrook was dead. Miss Matey heard the news in silence. In fact, from the account on the previous day, it was only what we had to expect. Miss Pole kept calling upon us for some expressions of regret, by asking if it was not sad that he was gone, andsaying,—“To think of that pleasant day last June, when he seemed so well! And he might have lived this dozen years, if he had not gone to that wicked Paris, where they are always having Revolutions.”She paused for some demonstration on our part.I saw Miss Matey could not speak, she was trembling so nervously, so I said what I really felt; and after a call of some duration,—all the time of which I have no doubt Miss Pole thought Miss Matey received the news very calmly,—our visitor took her leave. But the effort at self-control Miss Matey had made to conceal her feelings,—a concealment she practised even with me; for she has never alluded to Mr. Holbrook again, although the book he gave her lies with her Bible on the little table by her bedside. She did not think I heard her when she asked the little milliner of Cranford to make her caps something like the Hon. Mrs. Jamieson’s; or that I noticed thereply,—“But she wears widows’ caps, ma’am?”“O, I only meant something in that style; not widows’, of course, but rather like Mrs. Jamieson’s.”This effort at concealment was the beginning of the tremulous motion of head and hands, which I have seen ever since in Miss Matey.The evening of the day on which we heard of Mr. Holbrook’s death, Miss Matilda was very silent and thoughtful; after prayers, she called Martha back, and then she stood uncertain what to say.“Martha!” she said at last; “you are young,”—and then she made so long a pause, that Martha, to remind her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a courtesy, and said: “Yes, please, ma’am; two-and-twenty last third October, please, ma’am.”“And perhaps, Martha, you may some time meet with a young man you like, and who likes you. I did say you were not to have followers; but if you meet with such a young man, and tell me, and I find he is respectable, I have no objection to his coming to see you once a week. God forbid!” said she, in a low voice, “that I should grieve any young hearts.”She spoke as if she were providing for some distant contingency, and was rather startled when Martha made her ready, eager answer: “Please, ma’am, there’s Jem Hearn, and he’s a joiner, making three-and-sixpence a day, and six foot one in his stocking-feet, please, ma’am; and if you’ll ask about him to-morrow morning, every one will give him a character for steadiness; and he’ll be glad enough to come to-morrow night, I’ll be bound.”Though Miss Matey was startled, she submitted to Fate and Love.* * * * *Godis our Father. Heaven is his high throne, and this earth is his footstool; and while we sit around and meditate, or pray, one by one, as we fall asleep, He lifts us into his bosom, and our awaking is inside the gates of an everlasting world.—Mountford.
A LOVE AFFAIR AT CRANFORD.ByMRS. GASKELL.
I thought, after Miss Jenkyns’s death, that probably my connection with Cranford would cease. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by receiving a letter from Miss Pole proposing that I should go and stay with her. In a couple of days after my acceptance came a note from Miss Matey Jenkyns, in which, in a rather circuitous and very humble manner, she told me how much pleasure I should confer if I could spend a week or two with her, either before or after I had been at Miss Pole’s; “for,” she said, “since my dear sister’s death, I am well aware I have no attractions to offer: it is only to the kindness of my friends that I can owe their company.”
Of course I promised to go to dear Miss Matey as soon as I had ended my visit to Miss Pole. The day after my arrival at Cranford, I went tosee her, much wondering what the house would be like without Miss Jenkyns, and rather dreading the changed aspect of things. Miss Matey began to cry as soon as she saw me. She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my call. I comforted her as well as I could; and I found the best consolation I could give was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the deceased. Miss Matey slowly shook her head over each virtue, as it was named and attributed to her sister; at last she could not restrain the tears which had long been silently flowing, but hid her face behind her handkerchief, and sobbed aloud.
“Dear Miss Matey!” said I, taking her hand; for indeed I did not know in what way to tell her how sorry I was for her, left deserted in the world.
She put down her handkerchief and said: “My dear, I’d rather you did not call me Matey.Shedid not like it. But I did many a thing she did not like, I’m afraid; and now she’s gone! If you please, my love, will you call me Matilda?”
I promised faithfully, and began to practise the new name with Miss Pole that very day; and, by degrees, Miss Matilda’s feeling on the subject was known through Cranford, and the appellation of Matey was dropped by all, except a very old woman, who had been nurse in the rector’s family, and had persevered, through many long years, in calling the Miss Jenkynses “the girls”:shesaid “Matey” to the day of her death.
* * * * *
It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had offered to Miss Matey long ago. Now, this cousin lived four or five miles from Cranford, on his own estate; but his property was not large enough to entitle him to rank higher than a yeoman; or, rather, with something of the “pride which apes humility,” he had refused to push himself on, as so many of his class had done, into the rank of the squires. He would not allow himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, Esq. He even sent back letters with this address, telling the postmistress at Cranford that his name was Mr. Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic innovations. He would have the house door stand open in summer, and shut in winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant. The closed fist, or the knob of the stick, did this office for him, if he found the door locked. He despised every refinement which had not its root deep down in humanity. If people were not ill, he saw no necessity for moderating his voice. He spoke the dialect of the country in perfection, and constantly used it in conversation; although Miss Pole (who gave me these particulars) added, that he read aloud more beautifully, and with more feeling, than any one she had ever heard, except the late rector.
“And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?” asked I.
“Oh, I don’t know. She was willing enough, I think; but you know Cousin Thomas would not have been enough of a gentleman for the rector and Mrs. and Miss Jenkyns.”
“Well, buttheywere not to marry him,” said I, impatiently.
“No, but they did not like Miss Matey to marry below her rank. You know she was the rector’s daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter Arley; Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that.”
“Poor Miss Matey!” said I.
“Nay, now, I don’t know anything more than that he offered and was refused. Miss Matey might not like him; and Miss Jenkyns might never have said a word: it is only a guess of mine.”
“Has she never seen him since?” I inquired.
“No, I think not. You see Woodley (Cousin Thomas’s house) lies half-way between Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made Misselton his market-town very soon after he had offered to Miss Matey; and I don’t think he has been into Cranford above once or twice since. Once, when I was walking with Miss Matey in High Street, she suddenly darted from me and went up Shire Lane. A few minutes after, I was startled by meeting Cousin Thomas.”
“How old is he?” I asked, after a pause of castle-building.
“He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,” said Miss Pole, blowing up my castle, as if by gun-powder, into small fragments.
Very soon after, I had the opportunity of seeing Mr. Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with his former love, after thirty or forty years’ separation. I was helping to decide whether any of the new assortment of colored silks, which they had just received at the shop, would help to match a gray and black mousseline-de-laine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don Quixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woollen gloves. I had never seen the person before, and I watched him rather attentively, while Miss Matey listened to the shopman. The stranger was rather striking. He wore a blue coat, with brass buttons, drab breeches, and gaiters, and drummed with his fingers on the counter, until he was attended to. When he answered the shop-boy’s question, “What can I have the pleasure of showing you to-day, sir?” I saw Miss Matilda start, and then suddenly sit down; and instantly I guessed who it was. She had made some inquiry which had to be carried round to the other shop.
“Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarcenet, two-and-twopence the yard.” Mr. Holbrook caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.
“Matey,—Miss Matilda,—Miss Jenkyns! Bless my soul! I should not have known you.How are you? how are you?” He kept shaking her hand, in a way which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as if to himself, “I should not have known you!” that any sentimental romance I might be inclined to build was quite done away with by his manner.
However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and then waving the shopman, with the unpurchased gloves, on one side, with “Another time, sir! another time!” he walked home with us. I am happy to say Miss Matilda also left the shop in an equally bewildered state; not having purchased either green or red silk. Mr. Holbrook was evidently full with honest, loud-spoken joy at meeting his old love again. He touched on the changes that had taken place; he even spoke of Miss Jenkyns as “Your poor sister! Well, well! we have all our faults”; and bade us good by with many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matey again. She went straight to her room, and never came back till our early tea-time, when I thought she looked as if she had been crying.
A few days after, a note came from Mr. Holbrook, asking us,—impartially asking both of us,—in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at his house,—a long, June day,—for it was June now. He named that he had also invited his cousin, Miss Pole; so that we might join in a fly, which could be put up at his house.
I expected Miss Matey to jump at this invitation; but, no! Miss Pole and I had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to go. She thought it was improper; and was even half annoyed when we utterly ignored the idea of any impropriety in her going with two other ladies to see her old lover. Then came a more serious difficulty. She did not think Deborah would have liked her to go. This took us half a day’s good hard talking to get over; but, at the first sentence of relenting, I seized the opportunity, and wrote and despatched an acceptance in her name,—fixing day and hour, that all might be decided and done with.
The next morning she asked me if I would go down to the shop with her; and there, after much hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent home and tried on, that the most becoming might be selected to take with us on Thursday.
She was in a state of silent agitation all the way to Woodley. She had evidently never been there before, and although she little dreamt I knew anything of her early story, I could perceive she was in a tremor at the thought of seeing the place which might have been her home, and round which it is probable that many of her innocent, girlish imaginations had clustered. It was a long drive there, through paved, jolting lanes. Miss Matilda sat bolt upright, and looked wistfully out of the windows, as we drew near the end of our journey. The aspect of the country was quietand pastoral. Woodley stood among fields, and there was an old-fashioned garden, where roses and currant-bushes touched each other, and where the feathery asparagus formed a pretty background to the pinks and gilly-flowers. There was no drive up to the door. We got out at a little gate, and walked up a straight, box-edged path.
“My cousin might make a drive, I think,” said Miss Pole, who was afraid of ear-ache, and had only her cap on.
“I think it is very pretty,” said Miss Matey, with a soft plaintiveness in her voice, and almost in a whisper, for just then Mr. Holbrook appeared at the door, rubbing his hands in the very effervescence of hospitality. He looked more like my idea of Don Quixote than ever, and yet the likeness was only external. His respectable housekeeper stood modestly at the door to bid us welcome; and, while she led the elder ladies up-stairs to a bed-room, I begged to look about the garden. My request evidently pleased the old gentleman, who took me all round the place, and showed me his six-and-twenty cows, named after the different letters of the alphabet. As we went along, he surprised me occasionally by repeating apt and beautiful quotations from the poets, ranging easily from Shakespeare and George Herbert, to those of our own day. He did this as naturally as if he were thinking aloud; as if their true and beautifulwords were the best expression he could find for what he was thinking or feeling. To be sure he called Byron “my lord Byrron,” and pronounced the name of Goethe strictly in accordance with the English sound of the letters. Altogether, I never met with a man, before or since, who had spent so long a life in a secluded and not impressive country, with ever-increasing delight in the daily and yearly change of season and beauty.
When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the kitchen; for so I suppose the room ought to be called, as there were oak dressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the fireplace, and only a small Turkey carpet in the middle of the flag-floor. The room might have been easily made into a handsome, dark-oak dining-parlor, by removing the oven, and a few other appurtenances of a kitchen, which were evidently never used; the real cooking-place being at some distance. The room in which we were expected to sit was a stiffly furnished, ugly apartment; but that in which we did sit was what Mr. Holbrook called the counting-house, where he paid his laborers their weekly wages, at a great desk near the door. The rest of the pretty sitting-room—looking into the orchard, and all covered over with dancing tree-shadows—was filled with books. They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the table. Hewas evidently half ashamed and half proud of his extravagance in this respect. They were of all kinds; poetry, and wild, weird tales prevailing. He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own tastes, not because such and such were classical, or established favorites.
“Ah!” he said, “we farmers ought not to have much time for reading; yet somehow one can’t help it.”
“What a pretty room!” said Miss Matey,sotto voce.
“What a pleasant place!” said I, aloud, almost simultaneously.
“Nay! if you like it,” replied he; “but can you sit on these great black leather three-cornered chairs? I like it better than the best parlor; but I thought ladies would take that for the smarter place.”
It was the smarter place; but, like most smart things, not at all pretty, or pleasant, or home-like; so, while we were at dinner, the servant-girl dusted and scrubbed the counting-house chairs, and we sat there all the rest of the day.
We had pudding before meat, and I thought Mr. Holbrook was going to make some apology for his old-fashioned ways; for he began, “I don’t know whether you like new-fangled ways.”
“O, not at all!” said Miss Matey.
“No more do I,” said he. “My housekeeperwillhave things in her new fashion; or else Itell her, that when I was a young man, we used to keep strictly to my father’s rule, ‘No broth, no ball; no ball, no beef’; and always began dinner with broth. Then we had suet puddings, boiled in the broth with the beef; and then the meat itself. If we did not sup our broth, we had no ball, which we liked a deal better; and the beef came last of all; and only those had it who had done justice to the broth and the ball. Now, folks begin with sweet things, and turn their dinners topsy-turvy.”
When the ducks and green peas came, we looked at each other in dismay. We had only two-pronged, black-handled forks. It is true, the steel was as bright as silver; but, what were we to do? Miss Matey picked up her peas, one by one, on the point of the prongs. Miss Pole sighed over her delicate young peas, as she left them on one side of her plate untasted; for theywoulddrop between her prongs. I looked at my host: the peas were going wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large round-ended knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived! My friends, in spite of my precedent, could not muster up courage enough to do an ungenteel thing; and, if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily hungry, he would probably have seen that the good peas went away almost untouched.
After dinner, a clay pipe was brought in, and a spittoon; and, asking us to retire to anotherroom, where he would soon join us, if we disliked tobacco-smoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matey, and requested her to fill the bowl. This was a compliment to a lady in his youth; but it was rather inappropriate to propose it as an honor to Miss Matey, who had been trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in utter abhorrence. But if it was a shock to her refinement, it was also a gratification to her feelings, to be thus selected; so she daintly stuffed the strong tobacco into the pipe; and then we withdrew.
“It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,” said Miss Matey, softly, as we settled ourselves in the counting-house; “I only hope it is not improper; so many pleasant things are!”
“What a number of books he has!” said Miss Pole, looking round the room. “And how dusty they are!”
“I think it must be like one of the great Dr. Johnson’s rooms,” said Miss Matey. “What a superior man your cousin must be!”
“Yes!” said Miss Pole; “he’s a great reader; but I am afraid he has got into very uncouth habits with living alone.”
“Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call him eccentric: very clever people always are!” replied Miss Matey.
When Mr. Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in the fields; but the two elder ladies were afraid of damp and dirt, and had only veryunbecoming calashes to put on over their caps; so they declined, and I was again his companion in a turn which he said he was obliged to take, to see after his niece. He strode along, either wholly forgetting my existence, or soothed into silence by his pipe; and yet it was not silence exactly. He walked before me, with a stooping gait, his hands clasped behind him, and as some tree, or cloud, or glimpse at distant upland pastures, struck him, he quoted poetry to himself; saying it out loud, in a grand, sonorous voice, with just the emphasis that true feeling and appreciation give. We came upon an old cedar-tree, which stood at one end of the house;
‘More black than ash-buds in the front of March,A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.’
‘More black than ash-buds in the front of March,A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.’
‘More black than ash-buds in the front of March,A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.’
‘More black than ash-buds in the front of March,
A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.’
“Capital term, ‘layers!’ Wonderful man!”
I did not know whether he was speaking to me or not; but I put in an assenting “Wonderful,” although I knew nothing about it; just because I was tired of being forgotten, and of being consequently silent.
He turned sharp round. “Ay! you may say ‘wonderful.’ Why, when I saw the review of his poems in ‘Blackwood,’ I set off within an hour, and walked seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in the way), and ordered them. Now, what color are ash-buds in March?”
Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote.
“What color are they, I say?” repeated he, vehemently.
“I am sure I don’t know sir,” said I, with the meekness of ignorance.
“I knew you didn’t. No more did I, an old fool that I am! till this young man comes and tells me. Black as ash-buds in March. And I’ve lived all my life in the country; more shame for me not to know. Black; they are jet-black, madam.” And he went off again, swinging along to the music of some rhyme he had got hold of.
When we came home, nothing would serve him but that he must read us the poems he had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal, I thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful reading, of which she had boasted; but she afterwards said it was because she had got to a difficult part of crochet, and wanted to count her stitches without having to talk. Whatever he had proposed would have been right to Miss Matey, although she did fall sound asleep within five minutes after he began a long poem, called “Locksley Hall,” and had a comfortable nap, unobserved, till he ended, when the cessation of his voice wakened her up, and she said, feeling that something was expected, and that Miss Pole was counting, “What a pretty book!”
“Pretty, madam? It’s beautiful! Pretty, indeed!”
“O yes, I meant beautiful!” said she, fluttered at his disapproval of her word. “It is so like that beautiful poem of Dr. Johnson’s my sister used to read!—I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?” turning to me.
“Which do you mean, ma’am? What was it about?”
“I don’t remember what it was about, and I’ve quite forgotten what the name of it was; but it was written by Dr. Johnson, and was very beautiful, and very like what Mr. Holbrook has just been reading.”
“I don’t remember it,” said he, reflectively; “but I don’t know Dr. Johnson’s poems well. I must read them.”
As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr. Holbrook say he should call on the ladies soon, and inquire how they got home; and this evidently pleased and fluttered Miss Matey at the time he said it; but after we had lost sight of the old house among the trees, her sentiments towards the master of it were gradually absorbed into a distressing wonder as to whether Martha had broken her word, and seized on the opportunity of her mistress’s absence to have a “follower.” Martha looked good and steady and composed enough, as she came to help us out; she was always careful of Miss Matey, and to-night she made use of this unlucky speech: “Eh, dear ma’am, to think of your going out in anevening in such a thin shawl! It is no better than muslin. At your age, ma’am, you should be careful.”
“My age!” said Miss Matey, almost speaking crossly, for her, for she was usually gentle; “my age! Why, how old do you think I am, that you talk about my age?”
“Well, ma’am, I should say you were not far short of sixty; but folks’ looks is often against them, and I’m sure I meant no harm.”
“Martha, I’m not yet fifty-two!” said Miss Matey, with grave emphasis; for probably the remembrance of her youth had come very vividly before her this day, and she was annoyed at finding that golden time so far away in the past.
But she never spoke of any former and more intimate acquaintance with Mr. Holbrook. She had probably met with so little sympathy in her early love, that she had shut it up close in her heart; and it was only by a sort of watching, which I could hardly avoid since Miss Pole’s confidence, that I saw how faithful her poor heart had been in its sorrows and its silence.
She gave me some good reason for wearing her best cap every day, and sat near the window, in spite of her rheumatism, in order to see, without being seen, down into the street.
He came. He put his open palms upon his knees, which were far apart, as he sat with his head bent down, whistling, after we had replied tohis inquiries about our safe return. Suddenly he jumped up.
“Well, madam, have you any commands for Paris? I’m going there in a week or two.”
“To Paris!” we both exclaimed.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve never been there, and always had a wish to go; and I think if I don’t go soon I mayn’t go at all. So as soon as the hay is got in I shall go, before harvest-time.”
We were so much astonished that we had no commissions.
Just as he was going out of the room, he turned back, with his favorite exclamation, “Bless my soul, madam! but I nearly forgot half my errand. Here are the poems for you, you admired so much the other evening at my house.” He tugged away at a parcel in his coat pocket. “Good by, miss!” said he; “good by, Matey! take care of yourself.” And he was gone. But he had given her a book, and he had called her Matey, just as he used to do thirty years ago.
“I wish he would not go to Paris,” said Miss Matilda, anxiously. “I don’t believe frogs will agree with him. He used to have to be very careful what he ate, which was curious in so strong-looking a young man.”
Soon after this I took my leave, giving many an injunction to Martha to look after her mistress, and to let me know if she thought that Miss Matilda was not so well; in which case I would volunteera visit to my old friend, without noticing Martha’s intelligence to her.
Accordingly, I received a line or two from Martha every now and then; and about November I had a note to say her mistress was “very low and sadly off her food”; and the account made me so uneasy, that, although Martha did not decidedly summon me, I packed up my things and went.
I received a warm welcome, in spite of the little flurry produced by my impromptu visit, for I had only been able to give a day’s notice. Miss Matilda looked miserably ill, and I prepared to comfort and cosset her.
I went down to have a private talk with Martha.
“How long has your mistress been so poorly?” I asked, as I stood by the kitchen fire.
“Well, I think it’s better than a fortnight; it is, I know. It was one Tuesday, after Miss Pole had been here, that she went into this moping way. I thought she was tired, and it would go off with a night’s rest; but no! she has gone on and on ever since, till I thought it my duty to write to you, ma’am.”
“You did quite right, Martha. It is a comfort to think she has so faithful a servant about her. And I hope you find your place comfortable?”
“Well, ma’am, missus is very kind, and there’s plenty to eat and drink, and no more work but what I can do easily; but—” Martha hesitated.
“But what, Martha?”
“Why, it seems so hard of missus not to let me have any followers. There’s such lots of young fellows in the town, and many a one has as much as offered to keep company with me, and I may never be in such a likely place again, and it’s like wasting an opportunity. Many a girl as I know would have ’em unbeknowst to missus; but I’ve given my word, and I’ll stick to it; or else this is just the house for missus never to be the wiser if they did come. It’s such a capable kitchen,—there’s such good dark corners in it,—I’d be bound to hide any one. I counted up last Sunday night,—for I’ll not deny I was crying because I had to shut the door in Jem Hearn’s face; and he’s a steady young man, fit for any girl; only I had given missus my word.” Martha was all but crying again; and I had little comfort to give her, for I knew, from old experience, the horror with which both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon “followers”; and in Miss Matey’s present nervous state this dread was not like to be lessened.
I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her completely by surprise, for she had not been to see Miss Matilda for two days.
“And now I must go back with you, my dear,” said she; “for I promised to let her know how Thomas Holbrook went on; and I’m sorry to say his housekeeper has sent me word to-day that he hasn’t long to live. Poor Thomas! That journey to Paris was quite too much for him. Hishousekeeper says he has hardly ever been round his fields since, but just sits with his hands on his knees in the counting-house, not reading, or anything, but only saying, what a wonderful city Paris was! Paris has much to answer for, if it’s killed my cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived.”
“Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?” asked I, a new light as to the cause of her indisposition dawning upon me.
“Dear! to be sure, yes! Has she not told you? I let her know a fortnight ago, or more, when first I heard of it. How odd, she shouldn’t have told you!”
Not at all, I thought; but I did not say anything. I felt almost guilty of having spied too curiously into that tender heart; and I was not going to speak of its secrets,—hidden, Miss Matey believed, from all the world. I ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda’s drawing-room; and then left them alone. But I was not surprised when Martha came to my bed-room door, to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that missus had one of her bad headaches. She came into the drawing-room at tea-time; but it was evidently an effort for her. As if to make up for some reproachful feeling against her late sister, Miss Jenkyns, which had been troubling her all the afternoon, and for which she now felt penitent, she kept telling me how good and how clever Deborah was in her youth,how she used to settle what gowns they were to wear at all the parties; (faint, ghostly ideas of dim parties far away in the distance, when Miss Matey and Miss Pole were young!) and how Deborah and her mother had started the benefit society for the poor, and taught girls cooking and plain sewing; and how Deborah had danced with a lord; and how she used to visit at Sir Peter Arley’s, and try to remodel the quiet rectory establishment on the plans of Arley Hall, where they kept thirty servants; and how she had nursed Miss Matey through a long, long illness, of which I had never heard before, but which I now dated, in my own mind, as following the dismissal of the suit of Mr. Holbrook. So we talked softly and quietly of old times, through the long November evening.
The next day, Miss Pole brought us word that Mr. Holbrook was dead. Miss Matey heard the news in silence. In fact, from the account on the previous day, it was only what we had to expect. Miss Pole kept calling upon us for some expressions of regret, by asking if it was not sad that he was gone, andsaying,—
“To think of that pleasant day last June, when he seemed so well! And he might have lived this dozen years, if he had not gone to that wicked Paris, where they are always having Revolutions.”
She paused for some demonstration on our part.I saw Miss Matey could not speak, she was trembling so nervously, so I said what I really felt; and after a call of some duration,—all the time of which I have no doubt Miss Pole thought Miss Matey received the news very calmly,—our visitor took her leave. But the effort at self-control Miss Matey had made to conceal her feelings,—a concealment she practised even with me; for she has never alluded to Mr. Holbrook again, although the book he gave her lies with her Bible on the little table by her bedside. She did not think I heard her when she asked the little milliner of Cranford to make her caps something like the Hon. Mrs. Jamieson’s; or that I noticed thereply,—
“But she wears widows’ caps, ma’am?”
“O, I only meant something in that style; not widows’, of course, but rather like Mrs. Jamieson’s.”
This effort at concealment was the beginning of the tremulous motion of head and hands, which I have seen ever since in Miss Matey.
The evening of the day on which we heard of Mr. Holbrook’s death, Miss Matilda was very silent and thoughtful; after prayers, she called Martha back, and then she stood uncertain what to say.
“Martha!” she said at last; “you are young,”—and then she made so long a pause, that Martha, to remind her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a courtesy, and said: “Yes, please, ma’am; two-and-twenty last third October, please, ma’am.”
“And perhaps, Martha, you may some time meet with a young man you like, and who likes you. I did say you were not to have followers; but if you meet with such a young man, and tell me, and I find he is respectable, I have no objection to his coming to see you once a week. God forbid!” said she, in a low voice, “that I should grieve any young hearts.”
She spoke as if she were providing for some distant contingency, and was rather startled when Martha made her ready, eager answer: “Please, ma’am, there’s Jem Hearn, and he’s a joiner, making three-and-sixpence a day, and six foot one in his stocking-feet, please, ma’am; and if you’ll ask about him to-morrow morning, every one will give him a character for steadiness; and he’ll be glad enough to come to-morrow night, I’ll be bound.”
Though Miss Matey was startled, she submitted to Fate and Love.
* * * * *
Godis our Father. Heaven is his high throne, and this earth is his footstool; and while we sit around and meditate, or pray, one by one, as we fall asleep, He lifts us into his bosom, and our awaking is inside the gates of an everlasting world.—Mountford.
Godis our Father. Heaven is his high throne, and this earth is his footstool; and while we sit around and meditate, or pray, one by one, as we fall asleep, He lifts us into his bosom, and our awaking is inside the gates of an everlasting world.—Mountford.