Illustrations of taxation

In treating of some of our methods of Taxation, it has been my object to show that they are unjust, odious and unprofitable, to a degree which could never be experienced under a system of simple, direct taxation. Believing that such a system must be finally and generally adopted, I have endeavoured to do the little in my power towards preparing and stimulating the public mind to make the demand.

If I had consulted my own convenience, and the value of my little books as literary productions, I should have written less rapidly than I have done. My conviction was and is, that the best means of satisfying the interest of my readers on such a subject as I had chosen, was to publish monthly. I am now about to compensate for my much speaking by a long silence. It costs me some pain to say this: but the great privilege of human life,—that of looking forward, is for ever at hand for stimulus and solace; and I already pass over the few years of preparation, and contemplate the time when, better qualified for their service, I may greet my readers again.

July 1st, 1834.

CONTENTS.

Chapter I.

THE MYSTERIES OF WISDOM.

“Come, my maiden: come and tell me. You know what it is I like to hear of a Sunday evening,” said Nurse Ede to her little girl. Nurse was sitting with her hands before her, beside the old round table from which she had cleared away the supper. As it was Sunday evening, she could not work; and nurse had never been taught to read. Little Mildred was standing on the door-sill, watching Owen and Ambrose who were engaged outside. As she turned in at her mother’s summons, she said she thought it rained; which the sheep would be glad of to-morrow.

Mrs. Ede went to the door to call in her boys, lest Owen’s best jacket should suffer by the rain.

“Bless the lads!” cried she. “What are they sprawling on the ground in that manner for?”

“Watching the ants home,” Mildred explained. “There are more ants than ever, mother: all in a line. Ambrose found where they went to at one end; and now he is looking for the other nest. They are running as fast as ever they can go.”

“Though ’tis Sunday,” observed nurse. “Well! ’tis not every body that Sunday is given to: and it is no rule, my dear, because the ants run as fast as ever they can go, that you should not walk quietly to school and to church, as the Lord bids. Come in, my dears, and leave the ants to go to their beds. It is coming up for rain, and mizzles somewhat already. Come in, and tell me about school this morning. I had not the luck to be at a school in my day,” she went on to say, while the boys followed her in, and brushed the dust from each other’s elbows and knees. “I had nothing to tell my poor father of a Sunday evening, of what I had learned. So let me hear now. I am sure you were steady children this morning.”

On the occasion of Sunday evening, the children were indulged with the use of the fine, large footstool, which the late Mrs. Arruther had worked with her own hands as a wedding present for nurse’s mother. When infants, it had been their weekly privilege to show their mother which of the embroidered flowers was a rose, and which a heart’s-ease, and which a tulip; and now that they were somewhat too old to confound the rose and the tulip, they took it in turn to sit on the stool at their mother’s knee, while they imparted their little learning to her who meekly received from her own children some scraps of knowledge which she had been denied the opportunity of gaining during her own young days.

“I warrant I know what set ye to look after the ants,” said she. “There is a bit about the ants in the bible that I have heard read in church. Which of ye can read it to me, I wonder?”

Ambrose looked at Owen, and Owen looked doubtfully at the large old bible which Mildred reverently brought down from the shelf, at a glance from her mother. Owen did not know where, in all that great book, to look for the bit about the ant. While he was turning over the leaves, stopping to consider every great A he came to, Mildred wanted to know whether it was an ant that had tickled her face at church this morning, and hung from her hair by a thread smaller than she could see.

It was of the nature of an ant, her mother thought. It had much the make of an ant: but it was called a money-spinner.

“Does it spin money?” asked Mildred quickly.

“O yes. My father used to tell me it would spin penny pieces from the ground up as high as our thatch.”

“And as high as the mill, perhaps?”

“I dare say. But my father did not tell me that, by reason of the mill not being built in his time.”

“I wish I had not put the money-spinner away,” said Mildred, thoughtfully. “I wish I could get another.”

“Perhaps one will be sent to you one of these days, if you be a steady girl. And you will get penny pieces, and perhaps silver as you grow bigger, if you look to the sheep as your master would have you. Now, boys: have you found about the ant?”

No. They had found “Adam” near the beginning, and had got past “Aaron,” and found that “Abimelech” was too long a word to be the one they wanted. The “Ands” abounded so as to tantalize and perplex them exceedingly; and when Owen recollected that “ant” might begin with a small “a,” both came to a full stop. Their mother was kind enough, however, to say that another part of the bible would do as well. They might read her the piece they had read in school in the morning.

Owen began. He did his best; never looking off the book, or sparing himself the trouble of spelling every word that he did not know: but his mother gained little by what he read. He mixed his spelling with his reading so completely, and varied his tone so little, not knowing that he should render the stops as evident to his mother’s ear as they were to his eye, that she could make nothing of the sense. The passage was about some priests carrying the ark over Jordan; and this was a puzzle to her. Her principal idea about Jordan was that almonds came thence; and she now therefore learned for the first time that almonds came like fish out of the water: and how the ark, which she knew had carried Noah and his family, and a pair of every living creature in the world, should itself be carried on the shoulders of a few clergymen, was what she could not clearly comprehend. It happened that Owen had been told that there were two arks, and the difference between them; but he did not remember to explain this: so his mother, who would not for the world wonder at anything that could be found in the bible, supposed that it was all right, sighed to think that her poor husband had not lived to witness his eldest boy’s learning, and then smiled at Ambrose when it became his turn to try.

Ambrose was in the class below Owen. At present, he could read only by spelling every word. While he was about it, Mildred’s eyes and attention wandered. The rain was now pattering against the lattice, and dripping from the thatch in little streams, which a ray from the parting clouds in the west made to glitter like silver. Then the light grew almost into sunshine on the wall of the room, and on the shelf where nurse laid up the apparatus of her art. Mrs. Ede was employed by her few opulent neighbours as a nurse only; but she was regarded as also a doctor by the poor residents in the village of Arneside. She held herself in readiness, not only to nurse them, night or day, when they were ill, but to administer to them from the phials and bottles of red, yellow, and black liquids which stood on her shelf. These medicines now shone in the western light so brilliantly as to catch her little daughter’s eye; and, while looking, Mildred observed two or three new articles of a strange construction which lay upon the shelf, or hung against the wall. She could not wait till Ambrose had done reading to ask what they were; and she was answered as she might have known she would be,—by a mysterious look, and a finger laid upon the lips. It was not only that Ambrose was reading, but that it was utterly in vain to question Mrs. Ede about the circumstances of her art. Whether she was persuaded that knowledge as to her means would destroy faith in her practice, or that she wished to preserve a becoming degree of awe in her little ones by mystery in the one matter in which she was wiser than they,—it so happened that they had never enticed her into the slightest confidence respecting the furniture of the south wall of her room. When Ambrose brought in the roots he had been directed to procure on the heath, the basket and rusty knife were gravely delivered up, and received without a smile, and with only a word of inquiry as to whether the roots had grown on a moonshiny or shady piece of turf; and whether the dew was off or on when they were dug up. Sometimes, when she was believed to be gone out for the day, one little sinner placed a stool for another to climb, that the mysteries might be handled and smelled as well as looked at. Tasting was out of the question, so dreadful were the stories which they had heard of little people who had fallen down dead with the mere drawing of a forbidden cork. Once, also, nurse returned unexpectedly when Owen had come in from the mill, and Mildred from the moor, and they were trying experiments with the longest of her bandages; Owen in a corner, holding one end, and his sister at the opposite corner, turning herself round and round to see how many times the long strip would fold about her body. What she heard said by way of warning to Ambrose, when the exposure was made to him, might have taught her the uselessness of questions: but she forgot the incident of the bandage when she this evening offended again by her curiosity. She did what she could to profit by Ambrose’s reading, rocking herself and crossing her arms in imitation of her mother; but her eyes would still turn upon the shelf, and her heart could not help envying the kitten which had made a daring leap up, and was now thrusting in its nose, and making a faint jingle among the sacred vessels.

“This is what you should attend to, my dear,” nurse explained, laying her hand upon the bible, when the boy was at length taking breath after his task. “The Lord gave the bible for little girls to understand; and they should not ask what it is not proper for them to know.”

“How are we to find out what it is proper for us to know?” asked Owen.

His mother told him that there would always be somebody at hand to tell him;—either Mr. Waugh, or the parson, or herself. She would do her best, she was sure.

“I shall not ask Mrs. Arruther, I can tell her,” observed Owen. “She never lets Mr. Waugh alone about the Sunday school; and she has done all she can to set the parson against it.”

“She is very strong in her mind against that school, indeed, Owen; and many’s the time when she has been sharp with me for letting you learn, having herself a bad opinion of learning for such as we are. And often enough I have been uneasy about what I ought to do: but, having great confidence in Mr. Waugh, and having always heard my poor father and others say that a little learning is a fine thing for those that can get it, I hoped I was not out of my duty when I let you go to the school, as Mr. Waugh desired. And I hope Ambrose and Mildred are both very thankful for being allowed to go, as well as you, though not belonging to the paper-mill, and able only to take their schooling every other week, when it is not their turn with the sheep.”

“Ambrose can’t keep up in the class though, as if he went every Sunday, like the other boys.”

“The more reason for his making the best of his time when he is there. Only think, Ambrose, what it would have been for you to be out on the hills every Sunday, away from the church, and no more able to read your bible than I am. I trust, my dear, that you will be as well able as Owen, though not perhaps so soon, (but you will have time before you to go on learning when he is done,) to read a chapter to me when I grow old, and maybe not able to hear the clergyman in church. But you must none of you be bent upon learning more than it is proper for you to know, lest you should bring me to think that Mrs. Arruther has been right all the time, and that I have been doing harm when I was most anxious for your good. Why can’t my little maiden,” she went on to say, “play with the kitten, or look out at the door, as well as be for ever glancing up at that shelf?”

Mildred lost no time in availing herself of this permission to play. Puss had disappeared; but when called, she showed herself through a hole in the crazy wall of the cottage, and jumped upon Mildred all the way as she went to the door.

“Me! where are all the clouds gone?” exclaimed Mildred, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking up into the sky. “’Twas right black when you called me in; and now it is all blue. There’s not a cloud.”

“They are all fetched up above the sky, my dear, to make a fine Sunday evening.”

“I doubt whether the sheep will like it altogether as we do,” observed Ambrose. “There is a mist on their walk yonder; and it is my belief their coats are heavy with wet at this very time.”

Ambrose was very consequential about sheep, there being no one at home to contradict anything he might say about creatures that he had more to do with than either mother or brother. All that could be done was to question whether it signified to the sheep whether they were more in a mist on a Saturday or a Sunday evening. If it made no difference to them, and they were hidden and out of sight, it remained a fine Sunday evening to people below; and that was enough to be thankful for.

While the whole party was gazing with shaded eyes towards the upland which was enveloped with a white cloud, through whose folds neither beast nor man could at present be discerned, somebody seized little Mildred by the shoulders from behind. Of course, being startled, she screamed.

“Dear me, Ryan, is it you?” exclaimed nurse to the old man who had approached unawares. “And all dripping with the rain,—your sack and all—and we have no fire! But I will get one presently. Boys, bring in some furze from the shed; and Mildred, strike a light. Don’t think of standing in your wet clothes, neighbour. But who would have expected to see you travelling with your sack on a Sunday?”

Ryan would not be blamed for making a push to see an old friend. He had a mind for an hour’s chat with nurse Ede, if she would let him dry his sack, and lay his head upon it, in any corner of her cottage. As for the hour’s chat, nurse was quite willing; and Ryan was welcome to house-room: but she was engaged, she was sorry to say, to sit up with Mrs. Arruther to-night. She had promised to be at the Hall by nine o’clock. No time was lost. The fierce heat of the burning furze soon made Ryan as dry and warm as on any summer’s noon, and quite ready for chat and bread and eggs.

“So the poor old lady is ill, is she?” said he. “What, is she very bad?”

“Very bad. With all the trying, there is no getting down to the wound; and she is sadly afflicted with spasms in the blood that make her heart turn round till I sometimes doubt whether it will ever come right again. She has awful nights.”

“If all be true that is said,” declared Ryan, “there is enough happening to bend her heart till it breaks.”

How? What? Who was doing any harm to Mrs. Arruther?—There was no use in the children’s asking and listening. This was one of the pieces of knowledge not meant for them. They could find out no more than that the news related to Mr. Arruther, the lady’s son, and the member for a small borough in the district; and that the gentleman had done something very wicked. What was his crime could not be discovered. Whether he had overlooked seams in sorting rags, or let a lamb stray, or torn his clothes in the briers, and forgotten to mend them, or played with the hassock at church, must be ascertained hereafter: but some one of these offences it must be, as the children had heard of no others.

“And what is your news, Ryan?” asked his hostess in her turn. “Sure you must have some, so far as you travel this way and that?”

“Ay; I have news. I have news plenty; such as you have hardly chanced to hear in your day, I fancy.”

“Why, really! and yet I have lived in the time when all the news about Buonaparte used to come; when our people used to be hanging the flag from the church almost every month, for a victory or something. It can hardly be anything greater than that. Hark, children, hark! Mr. Ryan is going to tell us some news. But I hope, Ryan, it is such as may be told on a Lord’s day evening.”

“Certainly. If my news be not diligently spread, we may chance soon to have no more Lord’s day evenings. You may look shocked; but what is to come of all Christian things when the heathen come upon us? and what heathens are so bad as the Turks, you know?”

Mrs. Ede quailed with consternation, never having heard of the Turks, and having no other idea about heathens than that the bible called them very bad people, and that (for so she had always taken for granted) they lived upon a heath—probably after the manner of gipsies. She was afraid this bad news was too true, so many opportunities as Mr. Ryan had for knowing what was going on abroad.

“Indeed you are right, Mrs. Ede. It was a man from abroad that told me. He has not been three months over from Hamburgh with his lot of rags from the Mediterranean; and he informs me that the Turks are coming up to take Russia and Europe, and make Turkish slaves of all the Christians.”

“The Lord have mercy! And then, I suppose, I had better not let my boy and girl go out on the hills after the sheep. It will be safer to keep them at home, won’t it? I would do without their little wages, rather than that they should light upon any Turks under the hedges, or in any lane.”

“You will have notice in good time, neighbour. I myself will endeavour to let you know, the first minute I can. And if I don’t, you will find it out by all the church bells tolling, and the battles on all sides through the country. O, yes; every bell that has a clapper will toll, partly to give notice, and partly to see what the Turks can do against the Christian bells of our Christian churches. Yes, every bell in the land will toll.”

“Same as when the princess died,” said Mildred. “I heard the great bell all the way from P that day, when I was on the hill-top. Maybe I’ll hear it again, if the wind come from that way.”

“Indeed you shall not be on the hill-top, child, the day that the Turks come. Could you give us an idea when it will be, Ryan? It would be a pity but some of the ewes should yean first, if it is not dictating to the Lord to say so.”

The enemy could hardly be coming just yet, Ryan thought, as the Government was going to change the Parliament, in hopes of getting one that would be more fit to preserve the empire than the present. Mr. Arruther would be soon coming into the neighbourhood to manage his election; and that event might serve in some sort as a token.

“Mrs. Arruther would have known all about the Turks, if everything had been right,—you know what I mean?” said Mrs. Ede to her guest. “But I suppose, as it is, I had better not mention anything of danger to the poor lady, sick as she is.”

“By no means, unless she breaks the subject to you. Tell her other sorts of news. Tell her that I and my sack are likely soon to come travelling at the rate of a hundred miles an hour.”

“O, Mr. Ryan, where will you find the horses that will bring you at that rate? Why, a hundred horses would not bring you so quick as that, if you had money to hire them!”

Ryan smiled, and said that he meant to travel at this rate without horses at all. Ay; they might wonder at any one travelling at such a rate on foot; but the way was this:—there was a new sort of road going to be made, on which never a horse was to set foot, and where, by paying half-a-crown to get upon it, a man and his baggage,—and a woman too,—might do as he had said. It was to be called a rail-road.

Because it was to be railed in, no doubt, to keep off those who could not pay half-a-crown. Now, if the government could keep the enemy off this road, and let all its own people upon it, all might run away, so as to leave the Turks no chance of following. This seemed to open a prospect of escape; and nurse rose in better spirits, to put on her bonnet to go to Mrs. Arruther’s. A curious picture was before her mind’s eye, of Ryan’s gliding along a rail-road with his sack on his back, as fast as she had sometimes gone in dreams,—for all the world like boys sliding on the ice in winter. The wonder was that, if Ryan spoke truth, this curious road would be quite as efficacious on the hottest day of summer as after a week’s frost.

When she had finished her little arrangements for the comfort of her guest, and bidden him good night, she called Ambrose out after her, and desired him to fetch cheese from the village grocer’s for Ryan’s breakfast, the moment the shop should be opened. If he was there by the time the first shutter was taken down, he might cut for himself and Mildred a quarter of the cheese he should bring home. It would give a relish to their bread when they should have been after the sheep for a couple of hours, and feel ready for their breakfast on the hill-side.

Chapter II.

MATERNAL ANTICIPATIONS.

As there must be no communication with Mrs. Arruther about the most important article of Ryan’s news, nurse would have had no objection to talk it over a little on her way through the village; but she found no opportunity to do so. There were no walkers to be seen enjoying the cool of the evening by the side of the placid Arne, as it flowed on towards the fall where it turned the wheel of Mr. Waugh’s paper-mill. There were no husbands and wives sitting outside their doors, after having put their children to sleep. There were no lingerers in the churchyard, talking over the sermon of the morning. A low, confused murmur of suppressed voices issued from the narrow opening of the ale-house door, as it stood ajar, and let a gleam of light from within fall across the road. Almost every interior was visible from being more or less lighted up; but no one offered encouragement for a word of conversation in passing. Mrs. Dowley was slapping her boy Tom because he would not go to sleep as she bade him; and Mrs. Green, whose children were more obedient in this one respect, was dozing with her head upon the table, by way of whiling away the time till her husband should come home from the Rose. Kate Jeffery was reading to her grandfather as he sat in his great chair; and it would not do to interrupt her, lest it should be the bible that she was reading. A knot of lads were gathered about the churchyard gate; but their voices sounded so rude, that nurse, who was a somewhat timid woman, made a circuit to avoid passing through them. The porter at Mrs. Arruther’s let her in with a studious haste which seemed to intimate that he thought her late; and she did not stay to be told so. In the housekeeper’s room she only tarried to see that her close cap looked neat, and to pin on the shawl she always wore when she sat up at night. Mrs. Arruther had asked for her six times in the last ten minutes; so there was not a moment to be lost.

“You were to come at nine o’clock, and it is ten minutes past, nurse,” said the sick lady. “This is always the way people treat me,—as if there was not a clock in Arneside.”

There were several clocks in Arneside, by one of which it was two minutes past nine, by another it wanted a quarter to nine; a third was at half-past eight, and a fourth was striking three as nurse passed its door. But Mrs. Ede never contradicted her patients. She told of Ryan’s arrival, and was admonished that no guest of hers could possibly be of half so much importance as Mrs. Arruther.

“I know how it is, nurse. It is those children of yours that can do nothing for themselves, any more than any other children that are educated as the fashion is now. They will want you to wash their faces for them, and put them to bed, as long as they live, if you go on sending them to that Sunday school.”

Nurse was very sorry to hear this. She did not know, in such a case, what they were to do to get their faces washed when she should be gone to her grave, where she hoped to be long before her three children. But indeed she must say for her little folks that they could all put themselves to bed, and had done it, even the youngest, these two years past.

“Ay, ay; that was before you sent them to the school. Keep them there a little longer, and they will be fit for nothing at all. You never will believe any warning I give you about it; but I tell you again, the three last housemaids I had this year, one after the other, were the worst that ever entered my doors; and they could all read and write. What do you think of that? O, my head! My head!”

Nurse thought it was time that the draught should be taken, and proposed to smooth the pillow, and shade the light. This done, she wound up the lady’s watch, and sat down behind the curtain, in hopes that the patient would sleep. Of this, however, there seemed but little chance. Mrs. Arruther tossed about, and groaned out her wonder why she could not go to sleep like other people, till nurse was obliged to take notice, and ask whether there was anything that she could do for her.

“Do! yes, to be sure. Bring out the light from wherever you have hidden it. It is hard enough not to be able to go out and see things, as I have done all my life till now; and here you won’t let me see what is in my own room. Where are you going to put the light? Not under that picture. You know I can’t bear that picture. And, mind, to-morrow morning——Bless me! what do you lift up your hand in that manner for?”

Nurse could only beg pardon. She had made an involuntary gesture of astonishment on hearing that the lady could not bear that beautiful picture of her own only son,—that picture which represented him in his chubby boyhood, standing at his mother’s knee, with hoop in hand. She was told not to be troublesome with her wonder, but to see that the picture was carried up into the lumber garret to-morrow, and something put in its place to hide its marks on the wall; anything that would not stare down upon people as they lay in bed, as that child’s eyes did. By rousing the wearied maid, just as she was falling asleep, nurse obtained a muslin apron, which, when she stood on the table, she could hang over the picture: and two or three pins, judiciously applied below, obviated all danger of the veil rising with any breath of air, so as to disclose the features of the boy.

“You had better take warning, and look to your children in time, nurse, before they grow up to plague you as my boy has plagued me.”

She had drawn back the curtain, and now showed herself as much disposed for conversation as if she had taken a waking instead of a sleeping draught.

“And you lay it all to education, ma’am? You think the university to blame for it? Well! ’tis hard to say.”

“What put such a notion into your head? Who ever dreams of objecting to the university for gentlemen? You would not have my son brought up as ignorant as a ploughboy; would you? No, no. I have done my duty by him in that way. He had the best-recommended tutors I could get for him, and every advantage at the university that was to be had; and the best proof of what was done for him is the credit he got there, and the prizes, and the reputation. He is a very fine scholar. Nobody denies that.”

Nurse pondered the practicability of putting the question she would have liked to have had answered; whether learning had had the same effect upon Mr. Arruther that the lady had anticipated for Owen and Ambrose. Nurse would fain know whether Mr. Arruther could wash his own face, and put himself to bed.

“Let us hope, ma’am, that the young gentleman will live and learn. If he is not able to do little things now, perhaps——”

“Little things! What sort of little things?”

“Well, ma’am, I thought if your late house-maids could not polish the fire-irons, or make your bed to your liking, and if you fear that my boys should not keep themselves clean when I am gone, because of their learning, perhaps.... But indeed, when I once saw the young gentleman, his gloves were as white as my apron, and the sunshine came back from the polish of his boots. I never saw a neater gentleman.”

“He is a puppy,” replied the tender mother. “I suppose it was that dandy show of his that caught the eyes of the low creature he has married. If I never get the better of this illness, she shall have none of my clothes to wear. No shopkeeper’s daughter shall be seen in the laces my mother left to me. I had rather give some of them to you, nurse, at once.”

“God forbid, ma’am! What should I do with laces? Such as I!”

“Very true. Now it is strange that a sensible woman like you, who knows what is proper, in her own case, should be so wrong about her children. What have they to do with education any more than you have with laces?”

Nurse took refuge under the sanction of the clergyman and of Mr. Waugh; and protested that she had as little idea of sending Owen and Ambrose to the university, as of asking that Mildred should wear the lady’s family Valenciennes and Mechlin.

“Well; I wonder what it is that you would have! I can’t make out what it is that you would be at!”

“Ma’am, if I had all I wished for——but I may as well be setting on a cup-full of broth to warm, as I fancy you may take a liking to a little, by-and-by.”

The lady let nurse do this. When she was tired of wondering whether she could take any broth when it should be warm, she languidly said,—

“Go on. What would you have for your children? Pray remember what I have heard you say yourself—that pride comes before a fall.”

“And a much greater one than I said that before me, ma’am. But I would not have my children made proud, because I should be sorry they should fall below what they are. If I had my wish, it would be that Owen should have work at the mill as long as he lives, so as to be pretty sure of eighteen shillings a week for a continuance; and that he should marry such a girl as Kate Jeffery, who would take as much care of his house as I would myself; and that they should never want for shoes and stockings for their children’s feet. And much the same for Ambrose.”

“Is that all? They might have all this without reading and writing.”

“Perhaps so, ma’am; but Kate reads to her grandfather of a Sunday evening, as I saw when I passed to-night; and the neighbours think, as well as I, that it is the boys that get on best with their learning that go straightest to their work; not swinging on the churchyard gate, nor swearing, to get a look that they may make game of from grave people passing by. As for Mildred, I don’t well know what to wish. ’Tis hard work for poor girls when they settle and have their families early: but then, I should be loth to leave her to live solitary in our cottage, spending her days all alone upon the hills. However, that will be as the Lord pleases. Meantime, I should best like that fifteen years hence, when the boys will be perhaps settled away, my girl should be keeping our place clean for me, and giving me her arm to church, and helping me with her little learning when, as often happens, I am at a loss to answer, for want of knowing. I have no wish to be idle, I am sure. I hope to knit her stockings and make her petticoats still, if she will clean the cupboard out, and entertain the clergyman better than I can do.”

The clergyman was not present to start the inquiry whether such were the sum total of the purposes for which spiritual beings were brought into a world teeming with spiritual influences. If he had been there, he might not, perhaps, have got a curtsey from nurse by telling her that her views were quite proper, and that she rightly understood what to desire for her young folks. Perhaps he might have thought little better of Mrs. Arruther’s aspirations.

“My boy has cruelly disappointed me,” she declared: “and yet I wished for no more than I had a right to expect from him. I wished that he should be a good scholar; and so he is. I wished that he should have the looks and manners of a gentleman.”

“And sure, ma’am, so he has?”

“O yes: and I hoped to see him in parliament, if it was only for once; and I carried this point, and mean to carry it again, if I can. He is in parliament with my money, and he shall have enough for the next election. But there’s an end. Instead of marrying as I wished, he has taken up with a tradesman’s daughter; and he may make the best of his bargain. Not an acre of my land, nor a shilling of my money that I can leave away, shall he have. If I am disappointed in him, I will have my satisfaction. I will do what I can to show people that they should take care what they expect from their children. He sha’n’t have all the laugh on his side. He sha’n’t say for nothing that my behaviour to him is unpardonable.”

Nurse wondered whether at the university they taught to forgive and forget. If they did, perhaps the young gentleman would be bent upon making up matters, if be thought himself put upon; and then there might be a coming round on the other side.

“I don’t know what they do there about forgiving; but I am sure they teach the young men to forget. He never wrote to me above once, the last year he was there; and that was for money. And he never thought more of his cousin Ellen, though I told him to marry her, and requested him to send her down a lap-dog like mine. When I asked him what he meant by it, he said Ellen and all had entirely slipped his memory. I told him my mind, pretty plainly; so I suppose it will slip his memory that I live hereabouts, when he comes down to his election. If he tries the gate——”

“O, ma’am! You will not turn him away?”

“No: it might cost him his election; and I don’t wish that. I should miss my own name from the newspapers then; and it would be hard to lose my pleasure in the newspapers. I will do nothing to hurt his election. He shall be let in to see me; and then I will say to him, ‘All that lawn and those fields, and all this house and the plate would have been yours very soon, (for I can’t live long,) if you had married your cousin Ellen, as I bade you: but it is too late for that now; and Ellen’s husband shall have every ——’—What do you look in that way for, nurse? I am not going to leave it into another name. Ellen’s husband shall take my name before he touches a shilling.”

“And if a judgment should come upon us meantime, ma’am. If the heathen should——Did not you say there is to be a new election? Is not that the same as the government getting a new parliament?”

“To be sure.”

“And that is done when a danger is thought to be at hand, is not it?”

“Not always; and if it was, no harm can come to my property. The deeds are all in my lawyer’s hands,—in his strong-box,—safe enough.”

It was plain that Mrs. Arruther knew nothing about the approach of the Turks; and it would be cruel to tell her, when she might very likely die before they appeared in Arneside.

“What are you afraid of, nurse? I am sure you are in a panic about something. It is too soon for your boys to be marrying against your will, I suppose?”

“Yes, thank God. And they will never be able to marry so far below them as your young gentleman may do; for the reason that they will never stand so high as he. But yet I can fancy that if my Owen took to a giggling jade, with her hair hanging about her ears, and a sharp voice, it would weigh heavy on my heart.”

“And your money would weigh light in his pocket, hey?”

“I shall have no money to leave, ma’am; and as to——”

“No money to leave! I dare say. You never will have money to leave while you throw away your services as you do. I did wonder at you last week, when you managed to find somebody else to sit up with old Mr. Barnes, that you might nurse Widow Wilks’s child. I saw beforehand what would come of it. The child died, just the same as if you had been with Mr. Barnes; and you missed your chop, and brandy and water, and the handsome pay you would have had; and Mr. Barnes is a nice, mild old gentleman, that you might have been glad to nurse. I thought you knew your duty to your children better than to waste your services in any such way.”

Nurse was very sorry the lady was displeased with what she had done. She had acted for the best, thinking what an aggravation it would be of the weary widow’s grief for her child if she fancied, after its death, that it might have been saved by good nursing. Having acted for the best, she hoped her children would not remember these things against her when she was gone.

“You seem to be always thinking how things will be after you are gone. What will all that signify when you are cold in your grave?”

“It seems natural, ma’am, when one has children to care for. I hardly think that God gives us children only that we may play with them while they sprawl about and amuse us, and make use of them while they are subject to our wills, having no steady one of their own. I think, by the yearning that mothers have after their sons and daughters when they are grown up into men and women, that it must be meant for us to keep a hold over their hearts when they have done acting by our wills. And so, when I talk of what is to happen when I am gone, it is with the feeling that I dare not go and appear before God without doing my best to have my children think of me as one that tried to do her duty by God and them.”

“But if Owen married as you said, how should he, for one, think pleasantly of you?”

“Indeed I am afraid the thought of his folly would rankle. But my endeavour would be to make the lightest and best of what could not be helped. I would tell him that there could be no offence to me in his judging for himself in a case where nobody has a right to judge for him; and I should make no difference between him and the rest. My father’s bible is, as they know, to go to the one that can read in it best when I am on my death-bed; and the other few things are to be equally divided. My girl is to have my spinning-wheel; and the deal table will be Owen’s; and the chair and three stools——”

“Those things are to your children, I suppose, much the same as my lawn and this house to my son?”

“I dare say they would be, ma’am; and, in some sense, all property that is left by the dying to the living seems to be much alike, whether it be great, or whether it be little. To my mind, it is not so much the use of a legacy to give pleasures to those that can enjoy little pleasure when a parent or other near friend is taken away, as to leave the comfort of feeling that the departed wished to be just and kind. It is all very well, you see, that my girl should have the use of my spinning-wheel; but if it was made of King Solomon’s cedar wood, Mildred’s chief pleasure would be to think, while she spun, that I remembered her kindly when I lay dying; and for this, a spinning-wheel does as well as a room full of pictures, or a mint of money. And when I see a family quarrelling and going to law about their father’s legacies, I cannot but think how much better it would be for them if each of the daughters had but a spinning-wheel, and each of the sons neither more nor less than a deal table, or the chair their father sat in.—But,” lowering her voice, “here am I chattering on without thinking, while you are just asleep, which I am glad to see.”

Whether from a disposition to sleep, or from some other cause, Mrs. Arruther’s eyes were closed; and she did not move while nurse once more softly drew the curtain. When, in the silence, nurse began to consider what, in the fullness of her heart, she had been saying, she was thunderstruck at her own want of good manners in uttering what must have seemed intended for a reproof to the lady about her conduct to her son. Her heart beat in her throat as one sentence after another of her discourse came back upon her memory. What was she that she should be lecturing Mrs. Arruther?—But perhaps the lady had been too drowsy to listen. It was to be hoped so, rather than that she should suppose that nurse was paying her off for her opposition to the children’s going to the school.

When sufficiently composed for the nightly duty which she never omitted, nurse added to her usual prayers the petition that this suffering lady might be spared till she could see clearly what it was just that she should do towards the son who had displeased her. Before she had finished, there was another movement, and a mutter of “O dear!” from within the curtain.

“I hoped you had been asleep, ma’am. Can’t you find rest?”

“No, nurse; but you cannot help that. I will see my lawyer to-morrow. It is too late to be thinking about wills to-night. But I don’t believe I shall sleep a wink to-night. Do you take that broth, nurse. I cannot bear the thought of it. It prevents my getting to sleep. I believe I shall never close my eyes all night.”

Nurse really thought she would, if she would only take the other draught, and settle her mind to trouble herself about nothing till to-morrow.

Chapter III.

LESSONS ON THE HILLS.

“Fetch down a plate from the cupboard, Ambrose, and cover up the beer, while I cut the cheese. I suppose we may have a quarter of the cheese, as mother said,” observed Mildred to Ambrose, as the early sun was peeping in through the upper panes of the cottage lattice the next morning.

“Yes; we may have the quarter. I was at the shop before the first shutter was down. Here—here’s a plate for Mr. Ryan’s cheese. We will carry ours in the paper I brought it in. How shall I keep puss from getting at the things? Is not that Mr. Ryan stirring?—Mr. Ryan! Mr. Ryan!” (calling through the door.) “Please to look to your breakfast here, that the cat does not get it. We are going now; and Owen is gone to the mill; and mother is not home yet.”

“Off with you, lad!” answered Ryan from within. “Leave the cat to me. And if you can pick up any rags for me among the briers, you know I always give honest coppers for them; and yet more for tarred ropes, if such an article comes in your way.”

“Tarred ropes! How should we get them? If tar by itself would do, I could help you to some of that. The shepherds always keep tar against the shearing. Would tar by itself do?”

The loud laugh from within showed Ambrose that he had said something foolish; and he hastily departed, supposing that Mr. Ryan had been making a joke of him.

Cool and moist as all had been in the valley as they passed, the children found that the dew was gone from the furze-bushes on the hills, and that the sun was very warm.

“What had we better do?” asked Mildred, contemplating the yellow cheese, which began to shine almost as soon as she opened the paper. “Shall we eat it directly? I think I am beginning to be very hungry; are not you? And it will be half melted, and the bread dry, if we carry it about in the sun.”

“Mother said we were to keep the sheep for a couple of hours first,” was Ambrose’s reply. “And besides, I have some leaves to get for her; and they won’t be fit if I let them stay till the dew is off; and it is off already, except under the shady side of the bushes. Put the breakfast under the shady side of this bush; I’ll look to it.—Do you go about and get some rags, if you can find any. The briers and hedges are the most likely places.”

“There won’t be any Turks under the hedges, will there?” asked Mildred, lowering her voice.

“I don’t know. I don’t rightly know what Turks are; but if anything happens amiss, call out loud to me, and I’ll come. Go; make haste. The sheep are quiet enough.”

“And how are we to know when two hours are over?”

“We must each guess, I suppose; and if we don’t agree, we’ll draw lots with a long spike of grass and a short one. The long one for me, you know, because I’m the eldest.”

In forty minutes, both were agreed that two hours were over; and each complimented the other on the fruits of the morning’s work. Ambrose exhibited a handful of leaves, which he placed under a big stone, that they might not be blown away; and Mildred brought the foot of a worsted stocking, which she had found in a ditch; a corner of a blue cotton handkerchief with white spots, which had been impaled on a furze bush; and a bit of white linen as large as the palm of her little hand, with twenty holes in it. How many coppers would Ryan be likely to give her for this treasure?

Ambrose rejected the worsted article, to which his sister gave a sigh as she saw it thrown backwards among a group of sheep, who scampered away in their first terror, but soon gathered together to look at the fragment. The other two might be worth the third part of a farthing, if Mr. Ryan should be in a liberal mood, Ambrose thought.

“I wonder how much paper they will make,” Mildred observed. “Mr. Ryan says they are to go into his sack with the rest of his rags, for paper. Mother did not tell you what she wanted the leaves for, I suppose?”

“No; and I sha’n’t ask her. Do you ever hear people talk about what mother makes?”

“Why, yes; I do. Molly at Mrs. Arruther’s was telling the gipsy woman one day about mother; and she said she had some strange secrets. And then they asked me what one thing meant, and another. But they did not mean me to hear all they said, any more than Mrs. Dowley when she winked at her husband, and glanced down at mother’s apron where some green was peeping out: but it was only cabbage that time. They all think her a very wise doctor.”

“How they do send after her when they are ill! Mr. Yapp said one day that she would be wise to bring up one of us to be a doctor after her: but Mrs. Dowley was there then, and she said it could not be, because mother’s was of the nature of a gift that could not be taught.—Here is your other bit of cheese. Will you have it now, or keep it till dinner?”

Mildred had intended to reserve part of her cheese for dinner; but having now nothing particular to do, and the sheep offering nothing which required her attention, the whole of the delicacy at length disappeared, crumb by crumb. Then she lay back, looking at a flight of birds that now met, now parted, now crossed each other in all directions, high in the air. Ambrose meanwhile stretched himself at length, with his face to the ground, watching a hairy brown caterpillar, which he took the liberty of bringing back with a gentle pinch by the tail, as often as it flattered itself that it was getting beyond his reach. He presently wished that they had a pair of scissors with them.

“Won’t the knife do as well?” Mildred languidly inquired.

“No. I want to cut off the creature’s hair.”

“What creature?” asked Mildred, starting up, but seeing no creature with hair, but a remote donkey and herself.

“Here: this young gentleman,” replied her brother, exhibiting the writhing caterpillar on the palm of his brown hand. Well might the creature feel uncomfortable; for this hand which had carried cheese must have been far from fragrant, in comparison with the thyme-bed on which the poor caterpillar had been disporting himself. What Ambrose wanted was to see whether it would come out a common green caterpillar, when stripped of its long sleek hairs. The process of plucking was tried in the absence of scissors: but the material was too fine. The knife was next applied, but the creature was destined never to be shaven and shorn. A slip of the knife cut it in two, and fetched blood on Mildred’s finger at the same time. The perturbation thus caused completely awakened her, and she was ready for the sport of shepherd and shepherd’s dog. For a very long time, Ambrose supported his dignity of shepherd. He strapped himself round with his sister’s pinafore and his own for a plaid; took long steps; wielded a thick stick, and made grand noises to the flock; while Mildred went on all fours till her back was almost broken, and barked all the while, like any dog. The sheep were silly enough to scud before her to the very last, as much alarmed as at first, till she was obliged to stop to laugh at them. All play must come to an end; and by-and-by the children were stretched, panting, on the very spot where they had breakfasted. To panting succeeded yawning; and it began to occur to both that they had yet a long day to pass before the sheep would be penned. It was against the rules of their employment that both should sleep at the same time; and, as Mildred could not keep awake, it was necessary for her brother to watch. She was not, as usual, wakened by his calling out so loud to some of his charge as to rouse her before her dream was done. She finished it, opened her eyes, sat up and stretched herself; and Ambrose was too busy to take notice.

“I had such a queer dream!” observed Mildred.—Her brother did not hear.

“I say, Ambrose, I dreamt that I was sorting rags at the mill, and there was a caterpillar upon every one of them; and—What have you got there, Ambrose? Did you hear what I said?”

“Come here,” replied her brother. “Here is a story! Help me to make it out.”

“A story! what, upon the very piece of paper that held the cheese! What is the story like? Tell me. You know I can’t read so well as you.”

“But you can help me with this part, perhaps. I will tell you what I have read when I know this word. The man would not go in somewhere; and this word tells where.”

Mildred pored over the soiled piece of print, and pronounced presently that the word in question signified something about a comb. In her spelling-book, c-o-m-b spelled comb. But of the rest of the word,—“inat,”—“in,”——“What could it be?

“It ends with ‘nation.’ ‘Comb’—‘nation.’ Well: I must let that alone. There was a man that would not go into this place,—whatever it is,—and the people that were in it were angry because he went to his work.”

“Because he did not go to his work, I suppose you mean.”

“No; because he would go when they bade him not. And they watched for him one day when he was going to work, and his little boy with him. They call him a little boy, though he was eleven years old. They flew upon the man, and thumped him and kicked him as hard as ever they could. And when the boy cried, and begged they would not use his father so cruelly, one of them caught up a thick rope, and beat the boy till it was a shocking sight to see him.”

“They were cruel wretches. I wonder whether there was anybody near to go for the constable? Did they get a constable?”

“I suppose so, for the people were asked how they dared to beat people so.”

“And what did they say?”

“This that I can’t make out, about going in and not going in: but they got a good scolding,—and that is as far as I have got.”

“See what is to be done to them, and whether there is anything more about the boy.”

Another half-hour’s spelling and consultation revealed that the child had pulled one of the assailants down by the leg, and thus turned the fury of the man upon himself; that it was doubtful whether the boy would recover; and that, this being the case, the decision of the magistrates was that——

Here came the jagged edges of the torn newspaper, instead of the magistrates’ decision. This was very disagreeable indeed. Not to know what became of the aggressors, and whether the brave boy lived or died, was cruel. Ambrose threw away the paper, and grew cross. Mildred’s consolations,—that very likely the boy was well by this time, and she had no doubt the cruel people were put in prison,—were of no use. A better device than to imagine the issue suggested itself to Ambrose. He would go and ask Mr. Yapp. The paper having come from Mr. Yapp’s shop, he no doubt knew the end of the story. Could not Mildred look after the flock while he ran down now? No harm could come to the sheep during the little time that he should be gone.

Mildred did not like this plan,—was sure her mother would not like it. Ambrose had better read the story over again, to try and understand it better; and she would go with him to Mr. Yapp’s when the flock was penned, in the evening. Never did the oriental scholar pore more diligently over a new tablet of hieroglyphics than these two children over the fragment of a police report which had fallen in their way. To no scholar can it be so important to ascertain a doubtful point of history, or to develope facts of the costume and manners of a remote people, as it was to these young creatures to learn the issue of a case in which rights like their own were invaded, and filial sympathies like their own were aggrieved.

Again, during the day, Ambrose called to his sister that he had something to say to her, and Mildred knew that it must relate to the story he had read, so complete was the possession it had taken of his mind. He thought the people round were great fools for not punishing the aggressors on the spot. If he had been there, he would not have waited to hear what the magistrates said; not he. He would have knocked down every one of them that he could get at, if it were by pulling by the leg as the poor boy had done.

“And then,” said Mildred, “they would have served you the same as the boy; and if anybody had taken your part, they would have served him the same. I don’t think that would do any good.”

“Nothing like a battle,” exclaimed Ambrose, waving his cap over his head. “I like a good battle better than all the justices and gentlemen in the world.”

“I don’t like battles,” Mildred observed. “I do not much mind seeing you and Sam Dobbs fight here on the heath, where you only throw one another down, and the grass is too soft to hurt you. But I saw the men fight before the Rose; and one of them lifted the other up high into the air, and dashed him down slap upon the pavement; and you might have heard the knock of his head as far as the pump, I’m sure. There was such a quantity of blood that I could not eat my supper! I should not like to see such a battle often!”

“O, only tell me when anybody does you any harm, and see how I will fight for you.”

“I am sure I shall not tell anything about it, if you go and fight in that manner. I would ask mother or Owen to go with me to Justice Gibson. If you consider, there would be fighting all day long in our place, and much more in L——, if all people chose to battle it out instead of going to the Justice. And besides, I think the Justice can take much better care of this poor little boy than anybody that just fought a battle for him, and then went away.”

Ambrose saw this; and before dinner was over, both the children had learned, after their own fashion, how far superior law is to vengeance, and security to retaliation. Confined as their ideas were (the picture of their own little village and few associates alone being before their eyes), this was a most important notion to have acquired. There needed only the experience of life to enable them to extend their conceptions,—Justice Gibson standing for the magistracy at large, and the little village of Arneside for social life in general.

Evening came. The sheep were penned, and the children were standing before Mr. Yapp’s shop-door, pushing each other on to the feat of asking the grocer for the rest of the story. They saw Mr. Yapp’s eyes turned on them once or twice; but they could not get courage to make use of the opportunity. It was Mr. Yapp himself who at last brought on the crisis.

“Come, younkers,” said he, “make your way in or make your way off. Don’t stand in my door, preventing people coming in.”

Mildred moved off; Ambrose bolted in; and then his sister came up to reinforce him. As the grocer had nothing very particular to attend to at the moment, he did not crush the aspiration for knowledge. He directed the children to the package of paper from which their fragment had been taken, and looked over the story himself. It would have been too long a task for such poor scholars to seek for what they wanted by reading. To compare the jagged edges of the paper was a much readier method; and Mildred did this, while Mr. Yapp gave her brother some imperfect idea (for he was not learned on the subject) what a Combination was, and why a man was ill-treated for not entering into one. This was worth coming for; but it was all. Mildred’s search was unsuccessful. The rest of the story was irrecoverable. Many customers, some from distant farms and cottages, had been at the shop to-day; and it was impossible to say who had carried it off.

Ambrose begged for his paper back again. There was something on the other side that he wanted to show to Owen.

“Let’s see,” said Mr. Yapp. “Why, this looks like magic,—all these waves, and dashes, and dots, and signs. O, ho! it is short-hand, I see. Somebody advertises to teach short-hand. There, take it to Owen, and see what he makes of it.”

Ambrose turned the paper about, but could see nothing like a hand. What could be meant by short-hand?

A way of writing short, he was told; and he remained as wise as he was before. But now Miss Selina Yapp, who stood smiling behind the counter, was desired to give the children half-a-dozen raisins apiece; and it was quite time to be going home.

Their mother was looking out for them from the door.

“Why, mother, are you going to be out again to-night? Sure the lady must be very bad!”

“I am not going to the lady till morning, dears. ’Tis poor neighbour Johns I am now going to. Sadly sunk he is; and his old woman is nigh worn out. So I’ve made my bit of a bed fit for her here; and it is full time she was in it. So, troop to bed, dears. Get your suppers while ye undress; and be as still as mice, sleeping or waking, when she comes in. Put your learning away till to-morrow, Owen, my boy. Pussy won’t eat your paper before morning, I dare say, if you put it where it will be safe. You’ve had your supper; so now to bed, my boy. You’ll be fresh all the earlier in the morning. But be sure you put on your shoes the last thing, lest you should wake the old woman with your clatter.”

Owen’s eye had been completely caught by the mysterious figures of the short-hand specimen. He held it between his teeth while he undressed, and went on looking at it by the twilight, after he was in bed, till his brother and sister had done talking; and then he put it under his bolster. Ambrose, meantime, stuffed his mouth with his supper very indefatigably, and yet managed to get out his story of the little boy who had been beaten for defending his father. Following his mother about wherever she moved, he made her mistress of the whole before he had done.

Mrs. Ede was not disappointed at their saying nothing about her sitting up again to-night. To them, it was so much a matter of course that she should sit up professionally, and to her that she should do what she could for a needy and suffering neighbour, that the circumstance did not seem worthy of remark. All were more occupied with Mildred’s disappointment. It was feared that Mr. Ryan was gone from the village this evening, and that he would not come on his rounds again for half-a-year. He had himself bid Mildred look for rags; and now he was gone before she came home! Her bits of blue and white must stand over till he appeared again; for Owen did not think any money would be given for them at the mill. Nurse stayed yet five minutes longer, to comfort her little daughter under this mischance; and within that five minutes, all three were sound asleep.

“Bless their little faces, how pretty they all do look!” thought the mother. “’Tis almost a pity to leave such a pretty sight. I wonder which of them will stand so by me, when I am old and failing like neighbour Johns; if it should please God I should live till then. But, dear me, what a puckered old face mine will be then!—little like their smooth rosy cheeks. ’Tis a cheerless thing for two old folks to be left without children, unfit to take care of one another, like poor neighbour Johns and his dame; and yet worse it would be for me that have laid my husband in his grave so long ago. But if God spares me my little ones, and my girl stays near me, I need not care what else betides. Bless them! how sweetly they do breathe in their sleep! And now, I must go and send the dame to her bed. I trust she will be thoughtful not to wake the children; and I’m sure they will be thoughtful towards her in the morning.”