Illustrations of taxation

It is needless to explain that there were neither myrtles nor vines about the pottery-house. Not that there was any deficiency of scent around the dwelling. A soap manufactory near obviated every charge of this kind. It had given out its odours in full power at the moment of the Le Brocqs’ first approach to their new abode, and had greeted them just when they paused to admire the symbols which were erected on their pottery wall. It was by uncle Anthony’s taste that the establishment bore this refined character. It was he who had mounted a huge filterer on one angle; and on another a ladle which seemed made to fish up Truth out of a well. Uncle Anthony had done much. Would he had done one thing more!—removed from the neighbourhood of the soap manufactory, or got it removed by indicting it as a nuisance. But he had lived for fifty years on good terms with this establishment, and never dreamt of hurting it. Indeed, when he had been persuaded, on rare occasions, to give himself a day’s airing at Hornsey, he relished the atmosphere of his native street on his return, as the fuller’s heart leaps at the sight of the dust about his mill, and the weaver’s at the sound of the click-clack of his loom. Mrs. Le Brocq did not take it so easily, nor believe what she was told of the certainty that she would enjoy the nuisance in time, as much as her neighbours. Anna felt it a sad addition to the excitements under which she had to labour from dawn till night. Every morning she was startled from sleep by the workmen knocking at the gate of the yard; and then came the peevish bell of the dustman, and then a gradual increase of street noises. If it rained, the sprinklings of white earth in the yard became mud; if the sun shone in, the dust danced thick in its beams, and she felt as if she drew it in with every breath. At her former home, little dust was to be seen, as everything was green around, except the gravelly lane; but here no efforts to keep the furniture in a seemly state availed anything. It would have been as easy to parry one of the plagues of Egypt. There was a good deal to be admired, however, when it was not boiling day at the soapery, or when the wind was south. The river, as seen from the wharf behind the pottery, was not so fine, she thought, as the channel between Jersey and France; but the bridge was very grand, and nothing could be more beautiful than her father’s finely arranged stock of stone-ware. Mr. Studley, the foreman, had assured her that the process of the manufacture was in some parts very elegant; but her father would not let her see it till Aaron should be competent to the exhibition, on some holiday, or other occasion when the men should be absent. Through the stock-room, however, she was allowed to range; and her awe of London, as a place of civilization and wealth, was much increased by what she saw there;—such beautiful jars and pitchers, and so enormous a congregation of blacking bottles! Thither she carried her knitting, when not wanted in kitchen or parlour. She thought she must leave off knitting, as her mother could do all that was now required. Nobody seemed to wear knitted smallclothes or petticoats in London, nor even shawls. If it was really true that she must no longer make her father’s and Aaron’s coats, she feared she should want occupation: but it was difficult to credit that in a fine country like England the men would condescend to such womanish work as tailoring. She had no doubt she should find this to be a joke upon her, as a new comer. She had, indeed, seen a young man sitting upon a table, and doing tailor’s work; but he was very small and pale, and most likely permitted to do this because he was fit for nothing else.

While deep in thought over her work, she was planning how to make her mother more comfortable than she could possibly be at present. Mrs. Le Brocq could not live without apples, and was very much discomposed at having to purchase them; and when she went to the shop, or stepped out after a fruit-woman in the street, the neighbours invariably followed to stare at her costume. The butcher had given out that the new family were preciously stingy people, eating meat only once or twice a week, which was a sin and shame in the owners of a pottery. Mr. Studley cast a look of disgust at her, the only time he had entered the house,—which happened precisely at the moment when the dinner of lard and cabbage soup was being served up. If Mrs. Le Brocq could not be made more popular in the neighbourhood, it was to be feared that the possession of a pottery would not insure perfect happiness to the family.

How different from Studley had been another visitor who entered at a similar important point of time! “A gentleman,” who did not declare his name, called to speak to Mr. Le Brocq, a few days after his arrival, and walked in, as a matter of course, without waiting to hear whether the person he sought was at home. He uttered a cry of delight at the spectacle of the soup, and kissed Mrs. Le Brocq and her daughter, in sign of being a countryman. Before he could be asked, he drew a chair, rubbed his hands, and sang a verse of a song in the French of the island,—the language which it refreshed their ears to hear. He had not done when Le Brocq came in, expecting to find a customer for his stoneware rather than his dinner.

“Ha! countryman!” cried the stranger. “Don’t try to remember me. For my own sake, don’t try to remember me. There’s no use in looking back too far, when all is done; but I could not slink away when once I had seen the hem of your wife’s Jersey petticoat. My name is Durell: there is no occasion to remind us all that you have heard it before.”

Mr. Le Brocq looked grave. A farmer, of the name of Durell, had committed an assault on the King’s highway, in the neighbourhood of Gorey, and had anticipated his sentence of banishment by making off in a fishing-boat, within an hour of the information being laid against him. Every one had been sorry for the offender, who was known to be of a passionate temper, and to have received such provocation as would have gone far to justify him. Every one was sorry that he had precipitately given up his pretty farm, and compelled his wife and child to wander after him to another land; but Le Brocq now wished to have some evidence of the respectability of Durell, before he admitted him as a guest on terms of familiarity.

“You should have such a love of country as mine, man, and then you would not look so cold upon me,” cried Durell. “If you knew how my heart longs for a word about the deep shady lanes, and those blessed little coves, where the sea comes to kiss one’s feet, and slips away again! I have not seen what I call a dell any where else; and the pastures, with a green that makes one’s eyes water! Heaven keep them so! And how are they?”

“Did you come to hear this sort of news?” Le Brocq inquired.

“The devil take what I came for! that will do afterwards. Can’t you tell me whether the doves coo as they used to do when the wind dropped? For the soul of me, I can’t believe you are a Jerseyman! If I had not thrown open my doors wider to poor Stephen, I should have doubted my being a Jerseyman myself.”

“Poor who?” inquired Le Brocq, hoping to obtain something in the form of a reference,

“A poor helpless body that lives with me, and tells me every night what makes me dream that I am leaning against a mossy stone gate-post, or throwing pebbles into the ivy to bring out the birdies. You shall see him; and we will make ourselves all of a company.”

Le Brocq was going to rebuke this familiarity, when Studley put his head in, and respectfully told Durell that all was ready for him when he pleased to come. Durell’s air was immediately as sober and business-like as that of Studley.

“I believe,” said he, “you have not told your principal what I am here for. Ay, you think he must know by instinct; but let me tell you that no more is heard of the excise in Jersey than there is here of knit small-clothes. Had he told you to expect me?” he inquired of Le Brocq.

“He said something yesterday about sending a notice to the excise; but I do not rightly see what the excise has to do with my manufacture.”

“That you shall see presently. We have only to visit you once a day, and to see your bottles come out of the furnace, and make you count and weigh them, if we choose, and measure them across the neck, to see if they are of the legal size, and——”

“What is all that to you?” cried Aaron, who had just entered.

“In order to determine the payment we are to take from you.”

“Payment! What payment? People are to pay us for our bottles, I suppose, and not we them, or I see little use in making bottles. What payment can you mean?”

“The excise duty,—the tax on home manufactures. In your case——”

“But we were told that the people in England paid no tax, except a mere trifle that they give without knowing it. Father, did not you understand that the English pay no tax?”

“That is a little mistake,” averred Durell. “Their paying without knowing it is partly true. What you are going to pay me, for instance, is not the same kind of contribution as you have paid out of your own pocket in Jersey, when the States wanted to erect a new pier, or other public building. You will repay yourselves by putting such a price on your bottles as will defray the tax, besides yielding you a profit; and the buyers of your bottles will not know the amount they pay for the tax from that which buys the bottle. You advance the tax for them, that is all.”

“But that is very hard,” observed Aaron. “Why are we to be obliged to advance money for hundreds of people that we do not know or wish to serve?”

“Oh! you must pay yourselves by charging interest upon this advance. Studley will tell you that you clap on a little more still upon the price, as interest upon your advance.”

“Well, I think that is hard upon our customers, I must say. I don’t call it any favour to them to take their money in such a way, instead of giving them a choice whether they will pay directly, or wait awhile and pay the interest too.”

“The buyer of your bottles pays no more for interest than he gains in time. There is no cheat in making him pay interest upon this kind of loan, any more than upon other kinds of loans.”

“But there is a cheat in not letting him know how the matter stands, so that he may have a choice. It is like putting physic between bread and butter for a grown man, who had, perhaps, much rather swallow a pill of his own accord.”

“Well; every man has the power of looking between his bread and butter. Every buyer may know how much duty is paid upon any article he buys.”

“But he is not able to choose between the pill and the powder. If he won’t take the powder as it is spread, he must go without both physic and bread and butter.”

“And I am far from sure,” observed Le Brocq, “whether our customers be not cheated, after all. I was frightened enough when I came, as Studley knows, to find what wages we have to pay. I set down the concern as ruin when the first Saturday night came; and I like the plan but little better now I find that these high wages are paid, in the same manner as the tax and the interest, out of the price of the article. I believe that the high wages are owing to this very tax. I must think so, because our workmen are not nearly so well off with their high wages as our Jersey labourers with only half the sum.”

Mrs. Le Brocq wondered that English labourers used so many stone bottles as to make all this difference. Her husband explained that the same tax was laid on other articles, more used by labourers than stone bottles—on soap, and beer, and spirits, and tea. Now, if the tax made the articles on which the labourer subsists much more expensive than they would otherwise be, the labourer’s wages must be much higher to buy the same comforts than they would otherwise be; and the wages being high acts again on the price of the article made by the labourer; and so the buyer pays twice over, and everything is put out of its natural course.

Le Brocq heaved a deep sigh, which was echoed by his son. They had calculated, from the price of their wares, compared with the expense of production, that they should be abundantly rich in a year or two. They had been startled by the amount of wages; and now, when they found that the price of their bottles was also to cover the tax, and interest upon its advance, their golden visions began to melt into the twilight of doubt.

The first object now was to finish dinner, and go over the premises with the exciseman, to see what his visit was like. Durell declined all further hospitality on the present occasion, declaring, with a look of gravity very unlike what he wore when Studley came in, that though he had tasted a favourite old dish for once, to show his goodwill, it was but for once. He always avoided occasion of misinterpretation in his office, and should therefore desire his visits to be strictly confined to business. Considering how frequent they must be, it was necessary to come to an understanding from the beginning, especially with strangers who might not be aware of the strictness of the rules by which excise officers must be guided. He requested Mr. Le Brocq and all his family to take notice that it would be better to offer no kind of favour to him or his excise brethren, since none could be accepted.

“So we are to have the pleasure of seeing you often?” observed Le Brocq.

“You will see me often,—one or other of us every day; but I advise you not to call this a pleasure. It can never be a pleasure; but you may prevent its being a plague by letting us go and come, and by being perfectly correct in your conduct——Ah! I perceive you are offended at the word; but when you have lived here a few months longer, you will see that I mean nothing more than a friendly caution. Finish your dinner; and I will go with Studley, and learn what your people are doing.”

Aaron was on the point of saying once more, “What’s that to you?” but his father desired him to dispatch his meal, and follow as soon as he could, to take a lesson in excise visitations.

“You may wonder now that you have not seen us before,” observed Durell to Le Brocq, as they passed into the manufactory; but your predecessor was on very good terms with us; and, from his long connexion with us, could be trusted to send for us on all proper occasions, so as to save himself from a daily visitation; and the same favour was continued to Studley till we found that the management had gone into other hands. You cannot do better than follow his advice. He will inform you of all that is necessary in your dealings with us. Ho! ho! what a brickmaking here is! For how many thousand are you going to account to us, Studley?”

“Sir, we do not sell bricks,” protested Le Brocq.

“Nor tiles. But those tiles that are now burning in every one of your furnaces would have paid tax a few months ago.”

“What! tiles that are used only for our ware to stand upon while it is burning! Bless me! are all these charges to be paid by the article when sold? Our bottles may well be called dear.”

“Though I fancy you take a little off the price of the bottles, and put it upon the jars which are not taxed. Hey?”

Studley observed that this was a very fair way of defeating the intentions of the glass-manufacturers, to whose jealousy it was owing that stone bottles were taxed at all.

Le Brocq was quite out of humour at being threatened with a charge of 5s. 10d. a thousand for his bricks. Was he to be expected to buy bricks to build that upper story, while he had the clay on his premises? He might do which he pleased, he was told: he was to pay the duty either way,—in the price of bought bricks, or into the exciseman’s hand.

“By the way,” observed Durell, “that new upper story is not entered. How comes that?”

“We keep that for articles that are not exciseable,” answered Studley. “You have no concern with that floor. There is not an exciseable article in it.”

“Take care that there never is, then. You may find that your walls have tongues, if you give them anything to tell. You know, friend,” turning to Le Brocq, “that for each and every of premises not entered according to law, there is a heavy penalty. If you did not know it before, you know it now; and heaven help you to keep out of my hands! Ah! here are your tiles!—pitiful things to pay tax upon, indeed. I am glad to leave you to your own devices about that article.”

Studley looked very impatient while the visiter went on talking, and turning over the burnt tiles. When Durell next entered a kiln that was cooling, and looked round at the streaks of glazing that the salt had left upon the sides, and afterwards descended to the place where the clay was being milled, and watered, and trodden, and conversed with the blind horse, and joked with the boys, the foreman thought it time to speak out.

“Pray, sir, do you know how long we have been waiting for you? Do you please that we should proceed without you?”

“By no means. Are you going to fill the kiln, or draw?”

“You seem to forget our notice, sir. We drew five hours ago; and your officer weighed the wares in due form. They are standing now for you to weigh; and if you keep us here to the end of the six hours, it will be too late to pack them off by the present opportunity. Another half-hour is our last chance this week. I told you so before, sir,” continued the vexed foreman, following as Durell skipped up the stairs, taking two at a time. “If I told you once, I told you thrice; but that stinking hotch-potch put everything else out of your head, I think.”

“You will pack off the larger articles, I suppose, Studley,” observed Le Brocq, “whether the bottles are ready or not? You will get off all but the exciseable articles to-night?”

Studley explained that the bottles were to be packed in between the larger articles, as in the kiln, thus saving carriage in the one case as they saved fuel in the other. If the officers meant to grow very strict just now, it might become necessary to have a separate kiln for burning, and a separate package, rather than keep eleven twelfths of the manufacture waiting for the rites to be performed on the exciseable portion.

The weighing was more a matter of show than use; for Durell was anxious not to prevent the departure of the goods. He even tried his hand at packing, and was not out of humour when plainly told that they could do better without him. Studley hinted that he might be more acceptable among the ladies, who had probably something to tell him about Jersey cows and orchards; but Durell took his stand near a boy who was beginning the practice of his art. The exciseman crossed his arms, and leaned against the wall while watching and commenting upon the progress of the lad, in shaping his little pots upon the wheel.

“Very fair! very fair, lad! Round it,—with a delicate rounding,—and coax it,—and bulge it,—and draw it narrow. ’Tis as if it made itself, or grew with a touch of magic. Pshaw! you have brought it off awry. ’Tis but a slovenly piece, after all. I should think myself a clever fellow, too, if I could come as near the mark as that. You are a lucky one to have that kind of work under your hands.”

The boy looked up with an intelligent smile. He had lately been promoted from turning the lathe, and the sense of his new dignity shone in his countenance as the gentleman looked on. The gentleman still soliloquized.

“Young thoughtless things like you see no more in such occupation than making so much clay into so many pots, for so much wages; and, perhaps, the pride of being a skilled workman. But those that have spent their first years in the fields, and have wandered about the world since, see much blessing to you in having beauty before your eyes, and growing up under your hands. ’Tis well for you that there is something to keep you fresh in all the dust of this place, and all the glare and noise of the street. The spirit of beauty that hung the cloud curtains of God’s throne may look bright down upon you, even here. Blessings on her, and Him that made her!”

The boy’s rising colour seemed to show that he heard and partly understood, though he proceeded diligently with his work.

“Did you ever go into the country, lad?” inquired Durell. “Did you ever see a green field?”

“Not he, I’ll be bound,” answered the little boy at the neighbouring lathe, who became impatient to be noticed. “My father took me to Tottenham once, and I had some ale; but his mother never lets him go anywhere.”

“She does,” asserted Brennan, turning red again. “She lets me stay out on the wharf till bed-time; and when I got a new coat given me, she went all the way into the Park with me, one Sunday afternoon.”

“You saw some green grass, there?”

“Yes, Sir, and the swans.”

“And plenty of ducks?”

“I did not care so much about them,—just like soda-water bottles with wings, when they are flying. But I made a swan, sir, when I came back.”

“What do you do out on the wharf till bed-time?”

“Look at the boats passing under the bridge, sir. And there are heaps of things that look better as it grows dark.”

“What sort of things?”

“Baskets of things on the wharf, heaped up; and barrows and packages——”

The boy at the lathe interrupted his companion by laying an information against him. There was not such a thing as a bit of slate ever found upon the wharf that was not covered over with Brennan’s drawings of barrows, and boats, and baskets, and sometimes Mr. Studley’s greyhound.

“I made a greyhound,” observed Brennan, looking up; “and when it was baked, Mr. Studley knew it for his own.”

“When shall you have a new coat again?” asked Durell. “Confound the question! just as if we could not get you a coat among us! You shall go to a place, Brennan,—I will take you to a place where you will see something prettier than that pitcher you seem to be admiring so much;—something that I think you will like better than green fields.”

“On a Sunday, sir?”

“No; I believe not. Studley! The British Museum is not open on a Sunday, is it?—No, boy; it must be some other day.”

“But I can’t go any other day,” said the boy mournfully,

“O yes; cursed be he that shuts out such as you from feeding your genius,—from adoring God in using his gifts”

“Perhaps you would ask for a part holiday, sir?” suggested the boy.

“Will I? Ay——” But Durell remembered that he was an exciseman, and must not ask favours. In a cooler tone, he promised the boy to remember him; and desired that the greyhound and the swan might be ready for exhibition the next time he came. He left the boy happy in devising an opportunity for asking some of the wise men about the pottery what the British Museum was. The information gleaned in the course of a week did not give him any clear comprehension of what he should see that he should like better than green fields. “There’s a monster of a wild beast on the stair, as I’ve heard,” said one. “There’s a power of stones, laid out in rows, as my own eyes saw,” attested another. “Gold and precious stones! Lord bless ye! nothing like it. Only what you may pick up in the road any day.” “You forget the skin of the head with the hair on it,” observed another. “A wild man’s hair and the skin of his head.” The boy could not conceive how any of these things could be prettier than swan or greyhound. He could only wonder whether the gentleman was in earnest about giving him a new coat, and would remember to take him to that odd place.

The ware was precisely in time for the waggon. It was as near missing as possible; and while Le Brocq wiped his brows after his toil and hurry, he looked reproachfully at Durell. He found that no farming labours were so fatiguing as waiting the pleasure of an exciseman, in the heat and dust of a pottery.

“You look at me,” observed Durell. “You wish me a hundred miles off, I see: but I can’t help the system; and I tell you, you are better off than many of your neighbours. Only one-twelfth of your manufacture is exciseable, and——”

“That is the very thing I complain of,” said Le Brocq. “To be worried and watched for such a little matter!”

“I think it our business to complain of that,” replied Durell. “There is some satisfaction in one’s supervision when one collects enough to make it worth while—a hundred pounds or two. But it makes us feel like so many fools to be trudging here, and riding there, to collect less than would mend our shoes or feed our horses. In your business, there are but nine men that pay more than a hundred a-year in duty; and of that, they get back a third part when they export.”

“No more than nine?”

“In all England; and seven pay less than 1l. a-year. Here are we bound to visit their potteries every day, and as much oftener as they choose to call us, to collect fifteen-pence, or seven shillings and sixpence, or a guinea a-year! ’Tis a farce.”

“I should think these people would pay three times the sum to have you keep off their premises, every day of the year; and that would save your salary;—for I suppose you have one.”

“To be sure; and hundreds more of us. How would you have the whole kingdom watched,—every maker of glass, and soap, and beer, of bricks, and paper, and starch, and spirits,—every grower of hops,—every maltster and seller of tea and sweet wines and hides,—how would you have all these people watched and made to pay their fines and forfeitures, without an army of excisemen? and who will be an exciseman without pay? You may talk of the church,(heaven preserve it!) but I know one thing like it. The church has its hierarchy,—its gradation from the archbishop to the curate, all salaried. The excise has its hierarchy, too,—from the gentlemen that sit as judges in the court, with their messengers always in waiting, down to the poor devils that are for ever tramping in the outrides and footwalks.”

Le Brocq would not hear another word in the way of comparison of a hierarchy which existed for the purpose of supplying the people with religious aids, and one which levied a most vexatious tax. Durell could not refrain from going on to magnify the body to which he belonged. He told of the fifty-six collections into which England and Wales are divided; and the subdivision of these into districts, each with its supervisor; and the further division into outrides and footwalks, with a gauger or surveyor in each;—as elaborate a spy-system, at the utmost possible cost, as had ever been invented, his Jersey friend thought.

“By no means,” protested Durell. “The Customs beat us in expense, in more ways than one. In one respect only, the difference is more than 180,000l. We excisemen can live in houses that were built for other people: but the coast-guard must have cottages for themselves alone; and this 180,000l. is what they cost. And then, if we have excise duties that yield less than any customs, they have a vast number more that yield but little. When 566 articles pay customs duties, and 510 of them yield under 10,000l. a-year, the expense must be greater in proportion to the gain than in any folly that the excise can practise.”

“They are not quite foolish enough yet, I suppose, to interfere with an entire branch of trade, for the sake of raising a few shillings or pounds here and there?”

“The two are pretty much on a par there. If we plague all the stone-bottle makers in England for the sake of little more than 3000l. a-year, our brethren of the Customs pry into all the cordage that comes into the kingdom for the sake of less than 150l.”

Aaron could speak to the annoyance of having his cordage taxed at the custom-house on the south coast, when he had two or three times wished to sell in England such produce of his rope-walk as was not wanted in Jersey. Yet, as a Channel Island man, he had been treated leniently; being charged no more duty than would countervail what the English had paid in tax before they could bring their article into the market.

“Well; I am gone,” said Durell. “I only stayed to show you Jerseymen that we are not quite the worst set of tax-gatherers in the world. If you are willing to be on good terms, so are we: but I must tell you, Mr. Aaron, that it is not every man of our tribe that would bear to be scowled at, as you have scowled at me to-day; nor could I always bear it myself: for I do not boast of my temper. If you will consider your interest——”

“What’s that to you?”

“Very true: so good bye till to-morrow. If you should want me sooner, it may give you the least trouble to send to Finch’s glass-house, near at hand. I am going there now; and one or other of us will be on the premises till night. I wish you joy of that lad Brennan. If you make the most of him, you may find yourselves in luck. Good day.”

Chapter IV.

THE PHENOMENON AGAIN.

Mrs. Durell was the only acquaintance Anna wished to have in the neighbourhood of her new home. From what Durell had dropped about her, and from her being a native of Jersey, it seemed desirable that the women of Le Brocq’s family should know her. They gave broad hints to this effect; and Durell frequently promised that his wife should come and offer neighbourly assistance to the strangers: but she never came.

This neglect could not appear wonderful to any one who knew the parties. Durell projected more achievements for his wife than she could have executed if he had himself imposed no toils and cares upon her: and, besides, she had long learned to distrust his opinions of new people, and to dread his introductions to strangers; and for his sake as much as her own, she deferred to the last moment the forming of any new connexions, even of common acquaintanceship. She never reminded him, otherwise than by distant allusion, of the delightful family whom he had bidden her receive as friends, not thinking of doubting their honour because some mystery hung about them,—the family of dear friends who were afterwards all hanged or transported for coining. She never spoke of the runaway apprentice who had been housed by them that he might have the advantage of a fair trial on the stage, and who disappeared with his host’s best suit of clothes, with which to figure on some other stage. She allowed her husband to forget the scrape she had been brought into when taken up as a receiver of stolen goods, because she had been daily seen in company with the gipsies in whose society he delighted. She did not trouble him by a recurrence to past misfortunes; but she naturally grew more and more careful to avoid any future ones. On the present occasion, she held back, partly with the desire that something should be ascertained respecting the character of the Le Brocqs before she involved herself with them, and partly that her husband’s quarter’s salary might be in the purse before she was called upon to exercise hospitality. As often as Durell extolled Anna as the sweetest and softest of maidens, with a cheek which shamed the report that the lasses of a Jersey farm-house blush yellow, and an eye whose timid glance never fell before another, the wife assured herself that she should only see one more of the multitude of divinities who had caught her husband’s fancy without impairing his constancy to her. As often as he told her what she lost in not witnessing the initiation of Le Brocq and his partner into life in Lambeth, she felt that she could wait for the spectacle of their peculiarities till she wanted that variety at home which her husband’s caprices incessantly provided for her.

She was glad that his employment took him abroad during the early part of the day, that he might escape witnessing the toils which he imposed upon her. One morning, for instance, when she had evaded his question whether she would go that day to see Mrs. Le Brocq and the blessed Anna, she had to assist her maid in baking an extempore batch of bread, because one hearty person after another had been invited in, the night before, who had eaten up warm all that had just come out of the oven. An array of glasses, with remains of spirit and water, stood to be rinsed and put away. His coat lay craving mending in the flap, which had been almost torn off by the snappish dog, brought home because he thought it had lost itself. A beautiful piece of French china was to be put together again, if possible, the child having broken it after warnings duly repeated. Nobody could be more sorry for the disaster than Durell himself. He seemed ready to weep over his mother’s favourite bowl; but he really did not suppose the child would have let it down, and he had not the heart to take away any beautiful thing from before its eyes. It might please Heaven some day to take away the child’s eyesight, and then who would think of the china being broken, while in the sufferer’s mind it remained entire, an additional form of grace. It was impossible to dispute this reasoning while such a sufferer sat in the chimney-corner; and the bowl was carefully laid aside to be mended.

“Mother,” said Mary, “do let me take my work into the parlour. I can stitch and wait upon Stephen too.”

“Stay where you are, my dear. Jack can wait upon Stephen. If you finish your wrist-band in half an hour, you shall help to mend the bowl.”

Mary knew there was no use in repeating her request. She could only sigh when she heard Jack’s bursts of laughter at Stephen’s droll faces, and wish that Stephen would come into the kitchen, and make faces there. When Stephen began to sing, all went well; for he could be heard, not only in the kitchen, but across the street. Some time after the song had come to an end, when two inches of stitching still remained to be done, Mary heard a tinkling among the unwashed glasses, and looked up.

“O, mother,” cried she, “there’s Jack draining the glasses!”

The little fellow explained that it was in behalf of Stephen, who had asked for these remains of spirit and water, because he was dry with singing. Mrs. Durell shook the flour from her hands, filled a fresh glass of spirit and water, and carried it herself to Stephen, requesting him to be so kind as not to offer a drop to the child. If he would call when he had done his glass, Jack should return to wait upon him. She meantime encouraged the boy to talk to her, in order to prevent his stealing back to Stephen before he was called. Jack was already as like his father as an infant can be to a grown man; and it was undesirable to give him any pleasant associations with a dram. Jack began with his usual question,

“Why can’t Stephen see?”

He had been told by the maid that it was because Stephen had no eyes; and he wanted to see whether this would be the reply now given. His mother told him that Stephen’s eyes were not like other people’s. Jack was now baffled. He had prepared his answer,—that Stephen had two eyes, for he had walked round Stephen and counted his eyes.

“But,” said he, “if his eyes are not like ours, how did he see Betty just going to let down the milk?”

“He never did, my dear. He never sees anything.”

“O, but he did: for he pulled away his coat tail, for fear the milk should fall upon it. Besides, he has two eyes, for I saw them myself.”

Whether Stephen’s ears were as serviceable as his eyes were the contrary, may be left to conjecture: but, before Mrs. Durell could question the child as to what he meant about the milk, Stephen was groping his way into the kitchen, and jokingly asking whether he could not assist in the baking. He had kneaded bread in his day, he said, and no one was more fond of the steams of the oven. He and Jack were presently busy with blind-man’s-buff, while Mary made a finish to her wrist-band with terrible long stitches, in order to put away everything that might be knocked down, and join in the sport, till mother should be ready to mend the china.

While she stood breathless to see what would become of Jack, now penned in a corner, stifling his screams and stamping, as Stephen’s broad hands seemed descending on his head, a tap at the door was heard, and Mary was desired to open it. As Anna stepped in, with a gentle inquiry whether she might speak with Mrs. Durell, Jack had an unexpected escape. Stephen relinquished his search in the corner, and slipped cleverly into the back parlour to search for his victim, though the child shouted,

“I am not there, Stephen: indeed I am not there. I am here.”

Mary pushed the noisy child into the parlour, and shut the door, that her mother might be able to hear what the visitor had to say.

“I hope you will not take it amiss that I came, Mrs. Durell; but Mr. Durell told us we might ask you anything we wanted, as strangers, to know. Our name is Le Brocq.”

“A name I know very well, through my husband. Pray sit down, and tell me if I can be of any service to you. Mary, set a chair.”

“Mr. Durell said you would come, or I should have come before,” observed Anna. “He thinks as we do, that God makes men love their country that they may help one another when they chance to be far away from it. That is,—I don’t know that we can help you; but you may like to talk about Jersey sometimes.”

“O, yes. We are very fond of thinking of Jersey. But can I assist you? As new-comers, you may want to be put in the way of something.”

“Why, we do; and my mother thought you would tell us where you buy your tea. We are sure they cheat us as new-comers, and I don’t know what we shall do if it goes on.”

“You do not expect to get fine tea at half-a-crown a pound, I suppose, as you did at St. Heliers.”Heliers.”

“We did not know—I don’t exactly see—Nobody told us there would be such a difference.”

“The difference there always is where the king lays on taxes.”

“O, yes: but the taxes are such a mere nothing, we are told! And there is such a difference between half-a-crown and seven shillings! The king can never spend all that difference on all the tea that is sold; especially as they say the Company get as much as they wish, selling it at half-a-crown in Jersey and Guernsey.”

“The Company has not to keep excisemen in the neighbourhood of every tea-shop, to take stock, and weigh the tea, and measure the canisters; and to see that prosecutions are set on foot when the excise laws are broken. All this cannot be done without money; and so the king does not get all the difference we have to pay.”

“So you pay seven shillings a pound for tea?”

“We did; but now we find we must be content with a lower-priced tea. We pay 5s. 6d., and we don’t take it three times a day, or make it so good as we did in Jersey.”

“Ah! but my mother has no idea of any change from what we used to do at home; and my father says we shall be ruined presently, if we go on paying away money as we do now. Till we came here, we had seldom anything to pay for but tea and sugar, and the tax; but now we have to buy almost everything; and we get quite frightened. The tea cannot be done without, on my mother’s account: but I must see whether I cannot manage to make some things at home that we now pay high for.”

“That will hardly help you much; for if you happen to miss the tax on the manufacture, you will have to pay the tax on the materials. In this country, you can scarcely use anything that is not taxed either in the material or in the making; and there is the difference between this place and Jersey. But, to set against this, what you sell is dearer, as well as what you buy.”

“But not in a way that profits us, my father says. If he reckoned only the clay, brought from Devonshire, and the mill, and the wheel and lathe, and the furnaces, and the salt, these would not cost enough to prevent the ware from being very cheap. But the coals pay tax, and the bricks pay tax, as well as the ware itself; and, especially, the men’s wages are high, because all that those wages buy is taxed: and my father has to pay all these taxes, and wait so long before he is paid again, that it requires a great deal of money to carry on his business, just at the time that we have to spend more for our living than we ever did before.”

“Ah! my dear, you have not yet got used to the ways of living in England. You never knew in Jersey, nor we either, what it was to fall short of money, though there was never much more than enough for present small purposes. Here it is the custom to receive larger sums, and to pay away largely also: so that it requires very close calculation to avoid being out of cash sometimes.”

“You find it so!” cried Anna, in a delighted tone. “Now, let me mend that china bowl for you, while you tell me all about it.”

Mary put in her claim to be allowed to help; and while she worked the cement, and Anna nicely joined in bit after bit of the fragments, Mrs. Durell explained that she did not mean to say but that her husband was very properly paid; but that in a country whose custom is to charge the prices of commodities with a variety of taxes, the prices are not only high, but high in different proportions; and the charges get so complicated that people cannot at all tell how their money goes, and can with difficulty frame their calculations of expense when they come from a country where they have been accustomed to pay their contribution direct to the state. The only certainty is, that the articles they most need will bear the heaviest tax charge; because, in its choice of taxable articles, government naturally fixes on those which must be most extensively bought. And, as she shaped her loaf, she told how much bread, yielding duty, had been consumed within those walls since yesterday morning. Her husband had told her of a cruel method of taxation in Holland, in old times, when so much was paid to government for every loaf that passed the mouth of the oven. Disagreeable as this method must be, she doubted whether it could be so costly as the management by which the price of bread was raised in this country.

“Ah! I see you look surprised at the quantity of bread we bake: but my husband likes to be hospitable.”

“Such a man must like it,” replied Anna.

“What kind of man do you mean?” asked the wife, smiling.

“Men that give their best attention to what is of most consequence, instead of least. Mr. Durell looks very grave and attentive when he is talking to Mr. Studley, and counting the pots that come out of the kiln; but his mind is given to very different things from those. If Mr. Durell had but the shoes on his feet in all the world, he would give them to the first lame beggar he met, and go barefoot.”

“He would. You know him,” replied the wife. “He does as he would be done by.”

“He would leave the gleanings of the field, and the missed olives, for the widow, and the fatherless, and the stranger, if he lived in the Scripture land,” continued Anna; “and the reason why is, because he had rather see people happy than grow rich himself.”

“You should hear him when he speaks the piece of poetry that he loves above all others, though he knows a vast deal. It is about mercy that ‘blesses him that gives and him that takes.’”

“That is Scripture,” replied Anna, gravely. ‘And how the Lord Jesus said that it is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

“The one comes of the other, no doubt; but it is in poetry that he tells it to me. He has mercy for ever on his tongue. It is a sort of rule of his, in judging of other people. But people are very apt to say that justice and mercy do not agree.”

“How can they think of God, then?” asked Anna. “But if such a man as Mr. Durell is not always as just as he should be, it may be owing to something else than his being merciful.”

“How do you mean ‘not just?’” inquired the wife, rather coldly.

“I am sure we have no reason to think him otherwise than just in the business he has to do in the pottery,” replied Anna. “He is very strict and honourable to the king; and when he seems hard on my father, we know it is not his fault. But he speaks a little unfairly of people sometimes——”

“Only when they do mean things.”

“Well: but still harshly; and if he puts more upon you than is quite your share, and gives away money, now, don’t pretend to think such things right——it may be owing to his having been badly taught, or more sorely tempted than we are, and not to his tender heart.”

“I would not hear so much from another,” said Mrs. Durell; “but you mean no pain to me, nor slight to him, I see. And so I will say that I am so much of your mind, that I do not grudge baking bread even for those that eat it only for the sake of the spirit that is to wash it down; and as to the money we owe, God knows how vexed I am when I cannot pay it without putting my husband in mind of it. There is a poor creature with us now——”

“Here’s papa,” cried Mary.

Durell entered, looking not quite so full of mercy as Anna had sometimes seen him. He asked his wife sternly, why she had allowed a stranger to come and ask as a favour that which she ought to have offered?

“Well, John, I am sorry. I can truly say it. I am sorry I missed knowing this young woman till now.”

Anna interposed with a piece of information that she had lately gained,—that it was dangerous to make new acquaintances in London, without a very precise knowledge who people were; and how should Mrs. Durell know who they were?

“What more has she learned of that since breakfast?” inquired Durell. Anna looked bashful while she acknowledged that Mrs. Durell had yet had no further testimony than her own word for her respectability.

“But she has,” replied Durell. “The impress of truth upon the brow—God’s own seal. She might have trusted me for knowing it at sight.”

“It having never deceived you, John,—do you mean to say? Ah! you are going to protest that you knew all the time when people were cheating you. I ask no more than that you should let me see for myself when there is truth sealed upon the brow. I will not be so long in looking for it, next time.”

“Mr. Durell,” said Anna, “Aaron has been with you this morning; did he——”

“I beg your pardon. Your brother has not been with me this morning.”

“I heard him directed to go, and to give you notice of something. I was going to ask whether he told you that Brennan is to be let off his work, as you wished, for some reason,—I don’t know what. He said something about it to Mr. Studley,—that you were going to get some new clothes for him.”

“Did I promise that? O, I remember. The lad’s a genius, my dear,” (to his wife,) “and we must find up a suit of clothes for him, in some way; and then——”

Mrs. Durell shrugged her shoulders, while Anna explained that after the clothes should come the holiday.

“I thank you much. I thank your father as for a favour done to myself,” replied Durell. “My very best thanks to your father.——Jack, my boy, what’s the matter now?” cried he, snatching up the child, who was whimpering, and only wanted encouragement to burst into a loud cry.

“Stephen won’t let me go with him. Stephen is getting out of the window, and he won’t lift me out that I may lead him.”

True enough; Stephen was found stepping out of the low parlour window into the street.

“Poor fellow! what fancy has taken him now?” said Durell, running into the parlour, followed by every body from the kitchen. “He is a singular character,” he proceeded to explain to Anna. “It has pleased the Almighty to lay a heavy hand upon him, and to permit us to lighten the burden. I always held that this outward darkening of the man was like the shrouding of the firmament in midnight,—making all that moves in it the brighter and clearer; and, since I have known this man, I am sure of it.”

“He is not blind,” said Anna, quietly. “We know him well; we have too good reason to know him. He carried off half our stock of linen.”

“You are mistaken,” averred Durell, with sparkling eyes. “He has been living in our house,—never out of our sight, ever since you came to London.”

Anna explained that she referred to a time before her family left Jersey. Mrs. Durell looked at her husband, as if appealing to him whether Stephen had not proved himself familiar with Jersey.

“Damn your suspicious glances!” cried Durell. “You give glances that you know the poor fellow can’t see, because you are afraid to speak your thought in words that he can hear. Curse your cold-hearted way of giving ear to every slander you hear!”

“Do not say slander,” replied Anna. “I charge Stephen before his face. Let him say how he left our farm. Could a blind man, seen to his rest at night, find his way through the kitchen and out at the door of a strange house, and through the yard, and past the orchard down to the brook, and over the narrow foot-bridge, before he could even get to the winding lane, and then——”

“Stuff! All nothing to do with it!” cried Durell. “It was another man.”

“Even my Jack found out that Stephen could see,” interposed Mrs. Durell.

“Shame on you! Shame to oppress an afflicted man on the word—the fancy of a child that has a fancy for marvels!” cried Durell. “God forgive me for such a scandal happening in my house! As if it was not enough that God’s blessed light is taken away, so that the afflicted cannot know his country by its lying green in the midst of the blue waters,—as if it was not enough that he must return daily thanks for daily bread to strangers that bestow charity, instead of to God that rewards toil,—but he must be insulted before those from whom he has his all! Have done with your sly looks, and your hinting that he is not blind! Bring me a dumb man that shall swear a perjured oath, and a deaf one that shall leer at a foul song, and I will believe that this sightless creature is he that robbed you. Then I will turn him out; but till then I will protect him. Sit down, Stephen.”

“I must go,” said Anna. “I say nothing now, Mr. Durell, about protection being every body’s right; and, as to insult——”

The tears sprang to her eyes, and she found it best to hasten away. She did not think she could stand another fiery glance from Durell, or bear to look again at Stephen, as he stood, the personification of resigned meekness.

“You will come again,” said Mrs. Durell, anxiously, as she followed Anna to the door.

“I don’t know, indeed. Mr. Durell would make one think one’s self wrong, in spite of every thing. He means only to be generous. He almost frightens me, lest I should have made a great mistake. I am sure, in that case, I could not do enough to make up for it. But, if ever I was certain, it is now.”

“There is no mistake, my dear, depend upon it. I have been suspecting, for some time, that Stephen is not so blind as he seems. Do not fret yourself about anything my husband said: but I am very sorry——the first time of your coming——”

“O, don’t be sorry. If it had been you, I should have minded it much more. Do you know, Mrs. Durell, I often wonder what would become of us all, if women quarrelled as men do.——Well; I know it is said that women’s quarrels are very sharp; it may be so, though I have never been in the way of seeing any: but there is something so deep and awful in men’s quarrels, that I can hardly fancy their being heartily made up again.”

Mrs. Durell looked as if waiting for a further explanation; but Anna caught another glimpse of Durell, and was gone.

Chapter V.

AN ECONOMICAL PROJECT.

Anna spoke from strong feeling when she reported ill of men’s tempers. In her own family the maternal despotism had been very quietly borne; and the paternal rule, however strict, could not materially interfere with the objects and pleasures of the young women in a retired farm-house. But Aaron had never been quiet in the yoke; and Malet sometimes forgot the policy of the lover in resenting the dictation of the father of his beloved. Since the removal of the family to London, there had been frequent contests between Le Brocq and Aaron, each of which was more bitter and more useless than the last. It was as absurd in Le Brocq to treat his son as a child, as it was in Aaron to conclude that every order given him by his father must be more or less wrong. The effect of the mutual folly was to throw Aaron into league with Studley,—a league which began when Studley smiled at Le Brocq’s instructions to his son on matters which neither of them understood; and which was strengthened in proportion as Le Brocq became discontented with Studley’s assumption of authority in the establishment where he was only foreman, after all. The proprietor was now frequently heard to say that he had no power over his own workmen, and that his foreman and his son carried every thing their own way; while Aaron had so far advanced in his progress to independence as to refuse to answer every question because it was a question, and to consult Studley before he acted on any suggestion whatever. There was, in consequence, so much constraint in every meeting of the household, such grave silence or painful bickerings at every meal, that it began to be a doubt in the mind of each member of the family, whether it would not be better for the father and son to separate at once than to go on in the high-road to an irreconcilable quarrel.

On returning home, Anna walked straight through the yard into the manufactory, hoping that the emergency of the occasion would be a sufficient excuse with her father for the intrusion. She gave unintentional notice of her approach by jingling a pile of ware as she passed.

“Here they come,” said one and another within hearing, as she advanced to the kiln where some knocking was going on, and three or four persons seemed to be busy. A man, who was holding a candle stuck in a lump of clay, observed hoarsely, “Here they come.” “Here they come,” repeated the treble voice of the boy who was receiving the blocks of baked clay which had filled up the arch. “Are they coming?” asked the mounted man who was removing the blocks, and letting out the hot air of the kiln. “Let them come, if they can’t let us alone for once,” growled Le Brocq, who was satisfying his sight with the piles of spirit casks ranged one above another in the kiln, with each its four rims of brown ochre, while jars and bottles were nicely packed in the spaces between, no one touching another, but with scarcely room for a hand to pass.

“Back! back! Go in!” exclaimed Le Brocq, when he saw Anna’s timid face, instead of meeting the bright brown eye of Durell. “This is no place for you. You know I desired——”

“But, father, I have something very particular to say. I have seen Stephen.—No, I have not got back our linen. I am afraid we shall never get it back. Perhaps if you spoke to Mr. Durell——”

“I will—I will: when he comes this afternoon. Go in, child. Go!”

“But I rather think Mr. Durell is not coming this afternoon. He says he has not seen Aaron, nor heard from him.”

“Not seen Aaron! Not had the notice! Bless my soul! what are we ever to do at this rate? No more of him!” suspecting that Anna was going to say something for her absent brother. “He shall know my mind when I see him. Booth, do you think we may go on?”

Booth considered that it would be a vexatious thing to be informed against for such a trifle. It was an ugly thing, too, to run the risk of the penalty. He stood with the bar in his hand, ringing it against the bricks.

“You can bear witness that I did all I could, by sending my son with a notice,” observed Le Brocq. “I dare say we shall find it is some mistake of Anna’s. It is too late now to defer the drawing.”

“As you please, sir: not that I can exactly say I witnessed Mr. Aaron’s being sent with the notice; but I dare say it will be all safe enough, sir. Shall I go on?”

“You could not draw all the large, and leave the duty-paid, could you? No, no; I see that would not do. You may go on.”

Studley came up while the hot ware was being quickly handed from man to boy, and from boy to the ground where it must stand to cool.

“So! No spies to-day! We are in luck. I thought Durell would oblige me so far as to consider you, as I made a point of requesting that he would. I congratulate you on having your premises to yourself, sir, for once. I shall take care and thank Durell.”

“Speak for yourself, if you please, sir, but not for me. I am quite capable of thanking any person that I feel obliged to.”

Studley made a ceremonious bow; and immediately asked Booth whether, in his old master’s time, it had ever been allowed to place the ware for cooling in such a manner as he now beheld.

“Why, no,” replied Booth; “but such are my orders.”

“Do you mean to talk to my men about their old master before my face?” asked Le Brocq.

“A rather superfluous question, sir, if you heard what I said.”

“O, father!” interposed Anna, breathlessly. “How I wish you would take us back to Jersey, and let Malet and Louise come here. My mother is always talking about the cows, and——”

“And you want to be milking them again, child? Go away. Go to your mother. Nobody can leave me to my own business, I think.”

“If you think so, sir,” said Studley, “perhaps we had better part.”

“With all my heart, Mr. Studley. I should not have made the proposal first, as you are an old servant of my uncle’s; but since you offer it, I am quite willing; and the sooner the better, if I may declare my opinion.”

The work-people within hearing had all suspended their business to listen to this amiable dialogue; and the having an audience determined Studley to finish with dignity. He thought it a pity that Mr. Le Brocq had not been more explicit. He would have conferred an obligation by being so; for an office of high honour and profit had been within reach of his humble servant for some little time past, which he should certainly have accepted but for the promise he had given his old master not to refuse his best services to the new proprietor,—with a sort of understanding, moreover, that some acknowledgment in the form of some kind of partnership would follow.

Out of the question entirely, Le Brocq declared. While he had a son and a son-in-law——

Beside the question entirely, Studley averred. The son-in-law being in charge of the Jersey farm (unlike all other farms, if the family report were true), and the son being in course of establishing himself in a distinct line of business, there could be no competitor;—not that he now desired a partnership. He would not accept the largest share that the nature of his services could be supposed to authorise; the office he spoke of being, to a man of ambition like himself, so far preferable. He would take leave to commence his canvas immediately; explaining to all his friends (meaning no offence) the reasons of his appearing so tardily in the field.

A pang shot through the heart of Le Brocq at the intimation that his son was about to leave him. He made no inquiry, and had the resolution to avoid showing that the intelligence was new to him. While he commanded every man to resume his employment, Studley stalked out of the manufactory by one door, while Anna stole back by the way she had come.

In the yard she met Aaron. Her immediate object was to prevent his meeting his father at present. She wanted to know whether he had delivered the notice a sufficient number of hours before. No: he had had something else to do first. He meant to go presently. When told that it was too late, he supposed that it would not signify, but did not see why there should have been such a prodigious hurry about drawing the kiln. He was sure Studley could not have authorised it.

Anna had so much to ask and to tell that she wished Aaron would now go with her, as he had promised, on an expedition which must not be much longer delayed. It was time to be thinking about a washing of clothes; there having been none since the unfortunate one which Stephen had turned into an occasion of disaster. Anna and her mother knew nothing yet of English society which could lead them to suppose that there was anything peculiar in their methods touching the purification of their apparel; but as their stock had been somewhat circumscribed since the trespass of the thief, Anna began to think of arranging the circumstances of time and place; and in a few minutes, when she had accounted to her mother for her proceedings, her brother and she were on their way in search of a clear stream where the operation might be conducted after the only method she had yet heard or conceived of.

It seemed a pity to wander so far from home, when a prodigious river was running near the back door: but Anna had watched the Thames, through all its moods, for a fortnight, and had never found it sufficiently pure for her purpose. Besides, there were so many people always about that she should not have courage to sing at the pitch which was necessary to insure good washing. Her having seen no washing in the river since she came was a strong presumption that the Thames did not afford the proper bath. It must be some pure brook between two green hills, with alder bushes on which to hang the linen to dry, and some quiet nook where it might be deposited for a night or two in safety. Such a brook were the brother and sister now in search of, on a hot day in June, when alders and green banks would be peculiarly refreshing. They were prepared for having some way to go, which was very well. They were in no hurry, and promised each other not to return till they had accomplished their object. They little knew what they promised; for, though they were cured of the fancy of myrtles before the house and an orchard behind, they had no doubt whatever that “country” meant hill and dale, wood and stream. When they arrived at Kennington Common, they stood and laughed at the entire absence of trees, quite as much as from the pleasure of seeing an expanse of green once more. While panting with heat, they wondered that the Kennington people did not prefer high banks with overhanging hedges to white palings which fatigued the eye under a summer sun. The stream which flanks the Brixton road was the first thing they saw which could at all answer their purpose; and this was decided to be too public. On they wandered, tempted by the sight of rising ground, to some lanes near Herne Hill and Dulwich; and in these lanes, and the fields which bordered them, Anna found something at last which nearly satisfied her heart. There was a carpet of daisies under foot; and wild roses, some blushing and unfolding, others flaring and bleached in the sun, bloomed in the hedges. There were no sleek Jersey cows, with their delicate taper horns and countenances more refined than ever cows had before; and Anna was disappointed as often as she unconsciously looked for the blue sea through a gap in the hedge: but the smell of hay came from some place near, and a thorn which stood in a damp nook had still blossom enough to remind her of an apple tree. This thorn suggested a happy thought; and Anna was glad to perceive, on looking round her, that thorns were abundant in the neighbouring field. She had heard something of thorn leaves being dried to mix with tea. The most terrifying of the many fearful household expenses of the Le Brocqs was tea; and it would be a great relief to lessen it one-half by mixing a large proportion of English tea with the foreign.

“And there is the kiln to dry it in,” suggested Aaron. “The frying-pan full can be dried in no time; and I will look to the shaking the pan, if my father does not like that you should have anything to do with the kiln.”

“And if we find it really good tea, I may perhaps mix some for sale, and get enough profit to find us in tea. I am sure that would please my father; and my mother might drink as much as she likes.”

Anna lost no time in spreading her shawl on the ground, and plucking leaves from the lower boughs, while her brother climbed somewhat higher, and chose the most juicy sprouts from the youngest shoots. They agreed that some good might arise out of the extravagantly high prices which prevailed in England. In Jersey, where they paid for tea only one-third what was charged in London, they should never have thought of making use of the leaves of the thorn; and they supposed that, as they had been made inventive in this one particular, the people of England might be generally ingenious in a similar manner.

Several persons passed through the field before the green heap on the shawl had grown very large. A woman with a basket on her arm and a little boy at her heels looked back again and again, all the way to the stile, and then had to return to fetch away her child, who stood staring, as if longing to help.

“You have a basket, I see,” said Anna, smiling. “If you like to carry away any leaves, pray help yourself.”

“What may they be for?”

“To mix with tea. Tea is so very dear now! I suppose you drink tea?”

“O, yes, ma’am, we take tea,” said the woman: but, instead of filling her basket, she shook a handful of leaves from her child’s grasp, and, disregarding his roaring, took him up on one arm, and her basket on the other, and carried him till he was fairly past the stile.