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Page 66
Does any one imagine that such trials as these are small and
insignificant? They are the very ones that make the heart burn, and the
teeth close on the lips, and the eyes fill with angry tears. They take
hope out of daily work, and sunshine out of daily life, and slay love as
nothing else can slay it. There was an evil spirit in the house,--a
small, selfish, envious, malicious spirit; people were cross, and they
knew not why; felt injured, and they knew not why; the days were harder
than those dreadful ones when fire and candle were never out, and every
one was a watcher in the shadow of death.
As the season advanced, Julius took precisely the position which Stephen
had foretold he would take. At first he deferred entirely to the squire;
he received his orders, and then saw them carried out. Very soon he
forgot to name the squire in the matter. He held consultations with the
head man, and talked with him about the mowing and harvesting, and the
sale of lambs and fleeces. The master's room was opened, and Julius sat
at the table to receive tenants and laborers. In the squire's chair it
was easy to feel that he was himself squire of Sandal-Side and Torver.
It was a most unhappy summer. Evils, like weeds, grow apace. There was
scarcely any interval between some long-honored custom and its
disappearance. To-day it was observed as it had been for a lifetime;
the next week it had passed away, and appeared to be forgotten. "Such
times I never saw," said Ann. "I have been at Sandal twenty-two years
come Martinmas, but I'm going to Beverley next feast."
"You'll not do it, Ann. It's but talk."
"Nay, but I'm set on it. I have taken the 'fastening penny,' and I'm
bound to make that good. Things are that trying here now, that I can't
abide them longer."
All summer servants were going and coming at Seat-Sandal; the very
foundations of its domestic life were broken up, and Charlotte's bright
face had a constant wrinkle of worry and annoyance. Sophia was careful
to point out the fact. "She has no housekeeping ability. Every thing is
in a mess. If I only durst take hold of things. But Charlotte is such a
spitfire, one does not like to offer help. I would be only too glad to
put things right, but I should give offence," etc. "The poison of asps
under the tongue," and a very little of it, can paralyze and irritate a
whole household.
Mowing-time and shearing-time and reaping-time came and went, but the
gay pastoral festivals brought none of their old-time pleasure. The men
in the fields did not like Julius in the squire's place, and they took
no pains to hide the fact. Then he came home with complaints. "They were
idle. They were disrespectful. The crops had fallen short." He could not
understand it; and when he had expressed some dissatisfaction on the
matter, the head man had told him, to take his grumbling to God
Almighty. "An insolent race, these statesmen and Dale shepherds," he
added; "if one of them owns ten acres, he thinks himself as good as if
he owns a thousand."
"All well-born men, Julius, all of them; are they not, Charlotte? Eh?
What?"
"So well born," answered Charlotte warmly, "that King James the First
set up a claim to all these small estates, on the plea that their owners
had never served a feudal lord, and were, therefore, tenants of the
crown. But the large statesmen went with the small ones. They led them
in a body to a heath between Kendal and Stavely, and there over two
thousand men swore, 'that as they had their lands by the sword, they
would keep them by the same.' So you see, Julius, they were gentlemen
before the feudal system existed; they never put a finger under its
authority, and they have long survived its fall."
"Well, for all that, they make poor servants."
"There's men that want Indian ryots or negro slaves to do their turn. I
want free men at Sandal-Side as long as I am squire of that name."
"They missed you sorely in the fields, father. It was not shearing-time,
nor hay-time, nor harvest-time to any one in Sandal this year. But you
will stand in your meadows again--God grant it!--next summer. And then
how the men will work! And what shouting there will be at the sight of
you! And what a harvest-home we shall have!"
And he caught her enthusiasm, and stood up to try his feet, and felt
sure that he walked stronger, and would soon be down-stairs once more.
And Julius, whose eyes love did not blind, felt a little scorn for those
who could not see such evident decay and dissolution. "It is really
criminal," he said to Sophia, "to encourage hopes so palpably false."
For Julius, like all selfish persons, could perceive only one side of a
question, the side that touched his own side. It never entered his mind
that the squire was trying to cheer and encourage his wife and daughter,
and was privately quite aware of his own condition. Sandal had not told
him that he had received "the token," the secret message which every
soul receives when the King desires his presence. He had never heard
those solemn conversations which followed the reading of "The Evening
Service," when the rector knelt by the side of his old friend, and they
two talked with Death as with a companion. So, though Julius meddled
much with Sandal affairs, there was a life there into which he never
entered.
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