Shirley
"Oh, implicitly! Jesting apart, I feel that she and I will suit--_on ne
peut mieux_. Hortense, you know, is exquisitely susceptible--in our
French sense of the word--and not, perhaps, always reasonable in her
requirements; yet, dear, honest girl, I never painfully wounded her
feelings or had a serious quarrel with her in my life."
"No; you are most generously considerate, indeed, most tenderly
indulgent to her; and you will be considerate with mamma. You are a
gentleman all through, Robert, to the bone, and nowhere so perfect a
gentleman as at your own fireside."
"A eulogium I like; it is very sweet. I am well pleased my Caroline
should view me in this light."
"Mamma just thinks of you as I do."
"Not quite, I hope?"
"She does not want to marry you--don't be vain; but she said to me the
other day, 'My dear, Mr. Moore has pleasing manners; he is one of the
few gentlemen I have seen who combine politeness with an air of
sincerity.'"
"'Mamma' is rather a misanthropist, is she not? Not the best opinion of
the sterner sex?"
"She forbears to judge them as a whole, but she has her exceptions whom
she admires--Louis and Mr. Hall, and, of late, yourself. She did not
like you once; I knew that, because she would never speak of you. But,
Robert----"
"Well, what now? What is the new thought?"
"You have not seen my uncle yet?"
"I have. 'Mamma' called him into the room. He consents conditionally. If
I prove that I can keep a wife, I may have her; and I _can_ keep her
better than he thinks--better than I choose to boast."
"If you get rich you will do good with your money, Robert?"
"I _will_ do good; you shall tell me how. Indeed, I have some schemes of
my own, which you and I will talk about on our own hearth one day. I
have seen the necessity of doing good; I have learned the downright
folly of being selfish. Caroline, I foresee what I will now foretell.
This war _must_ ere long draw to a close. Trade is likely to prosper for
some years to come. There may be a brief misunderstanding between
England and America, but that will not last. What would you think if,
one day--perhaps ere another ten years elapse--Louis and I divide
Briarfield parish betwixt us? Louis, at any rate, is certain of power
and property. He will not bury his talents. He is a benevolent fellow,
and has, besides, an intellect of his own of no trifling calibre. His
mind is slow but strong. It must work. It may work deliberately, but it
will work well. He will be made magistrate of the district--Shirley says
he shall. She would proceed impetuously and prematurely to obtain for
him this dignity, if he would let her, but he will not. As usual, he
will be in no haste. Ere he has been master of Fieldhead a year all the
district will feel his quiet influence, and acknowledge his unassuming
superiority. A magistrate is wanted; they will, in time, invest him with
the office voluntarily and unreluctantly. Everybody admires his future
wife, and everybody will, in time, like him. He is of the _pâte_
generally approved, _bon comme le pain_--daily bread for the most
fastidious, good for the infant and the aged, nourishing for the poor,
wholesome for the rich. Shirley, in spite of her whims and oddities, her
dodges and delays, has an infatuated fondness for him. She will one day
see him as universally beloved as even _she_ could wish. He will also be
universally esteemed, considered, consulted, depended on--too much so.
His advice will be always judicious, his help always good-natured. Ere
long both will be in inconvenient request. He will have to impose
restrictions. As for me, if I succeed as I intend to do, my success will
add to his and Shirley's income. I can double the value of their mill
property. I can line yonder barren Hollow with lines of cottages and
rows of cottage-gardens----"
"Robert! And root up the copse?"
"The copse shall be firewood ere five years elapse. The beautiful wild
ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green natural terrace shall be a
paved street. There shall be cottages in the dark ravine, and cottages
on the lonely slopes. The rough pebbled track shall be an even, firm,
broad, black, sooty road, bedded with the cinders from my mill; and my
mill, Caroline--my mill shall fill its present yard."
"Horrible! You will change our blue hill-country air into the Stilbro'
smoke atmosphere."
"I will pour the waters of Pactolus through the valley of Briarfield."
"I like the beck a thousand times better."
"I will get an Act for enclosing Nunnely Common, and parcelling it out
into farms."
"Stilbro' Moor, however, defies you, thank Heaven! What can you grow in
Bilberry Moss? What will flourish on Rushedge?"
"Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed shall come to
Hollow's Mill from far and near; and Joe Scott shall give them work, and
Louis Moore, Esq., shall let them a tenement, and Mrs. Gill shall mete
them a portion till the first pay-day."
She smiled up in his face.
"Such a Sunday school as you will have, Cary! such collections as you
will get! such a day school as you and Shirley and Miss Ainley will have
to manage between you! The mill shall find salaries for a master and
mistress, and the squire or the clothier shall give a treat once a
quarter."
She mutely offered a kiss--an offer taken unfair advantage of, to the
extortion of about a hundred kisses.
"Extravagant day-dreams," said Moore, with a sigh and smile, "yet
perhaps we may realize some of them. Meantime, the dew is falling. Mrs.
Moore, I shall take you in."
* * * * *
It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire, but
through England. From Spain the voice of a trumpet has sounded long; it
now waxes louder and louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is
Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry dine
together; the Hollow's Mill workpeople will be assembled for a like
festal purpose; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were
two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church--Louis Gérard Moore, Esq.,
late of Antwerp, to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles Cave Keeldar,
Esq., of Fieldhead; Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Mill, to
Caroline, niece of the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, M.A., rector of
Briarfield.
The ceremony, in the first instance, was performed by Mr. Helstone,
Hiram Yorke, Esq., of Briarmains, giving the bride away. In the second
instance, Mr. Hall, vicar of Nunnely, officiated. Amongst the bridal
train the two most noticeable personages were the youthful bridesmen,
Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke.
I suppose Robert Moore's prophecies were, partially at least, fulfilled.
The other day I passed up the Hollow, which tradition says was once
green, and lone, and wild; and there I saw the manufacturer's day-dreams
embodied in substantial stone and brick and ashes--the cinder-black
highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens; there I saw a mighty
mill, and a chimney ambitious as the tower of Babel. I told my old
housekeeper when I came home where I had been.
"Ay," said she, "this world has queer changes. I can remember the old
mill being built--the very first it was in all the district; and then I
can remember it being pulled down, and going with my lake-lasses
[companions] to see the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two
Mr. Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and a deal of
fine folk besides, and both their ladies; very bonny and grand they
looked. But Mrs. Louis was the grandest; she always wore such handsome
dresses. Mrs. Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she
talked. She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she had een
that pierced a body through. There is no such ladies nowadays."
"What was the Hollow like then, Martha?"
"Different to what it is now; but I can tell of it clean different
again, when there was neither mill, nor cot, nor hall, except Fieldhead,
within two miles of it. I can tell, one summer evening, fifty years
syne, my mother coming running in just at the edge of dark, almost
fleyed out of her wits, saying she had seen a fairish [fairy] in
Fieldhead Hollow; and that was the last fairish that ever was seen on
this countryside (though they've been heard within these forty years). A
lonesome spot it was, and a bonny spot, full of oak trees and nut trees.
It is altered now."
The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his
spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his sagacity
to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!
THE END.
ESTABLISHED 1798
T. NELSON AND SONS
PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS
THE NELSON CLASSICS.
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=Jack Sheppard.= HARRISON AINSWORTH.
=Masterman Ready.= CAPTAIN MARRYAT.
=Michael Strogoff.= JULES VERNE.
=The Wide Wide World.= ELIZ. WETHERELL.
This famous American novel has for many years been a classic in every
home. It is a masterpiece of the best type of domestic fiction.
=Hereward the Wake.= CHARLES KINGSLEY.
This brilliant romance tells of the last stand of the great English
leader, Hereward, against the advance of the Normans. The scene is
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strife. The fall of Hereward is one of the greatest death scenes in
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=David Copperfield--I.= CHARLES DICKENS.
=David Copperfield--II.= CHARLES DICKENS.
"David Copperfield" is, by general consent, Dickens's masterpiece,
showing, as it does, all his peculiar merits in their highest form. It
is the most autobiographical of his novels, and the one into which he
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=Jane Eyre.= CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
"Jane Eyre" is Charlotte Brontë's first and most famous work. It was the
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literature, and its influence has been beyond reckoning. It ranks as one
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=Verdant Green.= CUTHBERT BEDE.
This is the humorous classic of Oxford life. Published more than half a
century ago, its humour is as fresh to-day as ever.
=Pickwick Papers--I.= CHARLES DICKENS.
=Pickwick Papers--II.= CHARLES DICKENS.
Every year sees a new edition of "Pickwick," and the world still asks
for more. It is one of the world's greatest romances of the road, where
adventures fall to those who seek them. It is also a faithful and loving
picture of an older England, from which we have travelled far to-day. We
may become a wiser people, but we shall never again be so humorous.
=Windsor Castle.= HARRISON AINSWORTH.
The romances of Harrison Ainsworth need no advertisement. In this, as in
his "Tower of London" and "Old St. Paul's," he has taken one of
England's great historical sites, and woven around it an appropriate
romance.
=Peg Woffington.= CHARLES READE.
"Peg Woffington" was the first of Charles Reade's romances, and was
founded upon his comedy, "Masks and Faces." The story of the famous
Irish actress who dazzled London in the eighteenth century, and with
whom Garrick was in love, has been made the foundation of a charming
romance.
=Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character.= Dean RAMSAY.
The only book of jests that has ever attained an honourable place in
literature. Its wealth of genuine humour is a perpetual refutation of
the old slander that Scots joke "wi' deeficulty."
=Parables from Nature.= Mrs. GATTY.
This is one of the great children's books of the world. It was a classic
in our grandmothers' time, and possesses that imperishable charm which
makes it as attractive to-day as when it was first written.
=Lavengro.= GEORGE BORROW.