Shirley
betrays you. You look raight down scornful sometimes when Mr. Donne is
by."
"Do you like him yourself, William?"
"Me? I'm stalled o' t' curates, and so is t' wife. They've no manners.
They talk to poor folk fair as if they thought they were beneath them.
They're allus magnifying their office. It is a pity but their office
could magnify them; but it does nought o' t' soart. I fair hate pride."
"But you are proud in your own way yourself," interposed Caroline. "You
are what you call house-proud: you like to have everything handsome
about you. Sometimes you look as if you were almost too proud to take
your wages. When you were out of work, you were too proud to get
anything on credit. But for your children, I believe you would rather
have starved than gone to the shops without money; and when I wanted to
give you something, what a difficulty I had in making you take it!"
"It is partly true, Miss Caroline. Ony day I'd rather give than take,
especially from sich as ye. Look at t' difference between us. Ye're a
little, young, slender lass, and I'm a great strong man; I'm rather more
nor twice your age. It is not _my_ part, then, I think, to tak fro'
_ye_--to be under obligations (as they say) to _ye_. And that day ye
came to our house, and called me to t' door, and offered me five
shillings, which I doubt ye could ill spare--for ye've no fortin', I
know--that day I war fair a rebel, a radical, an insurrectionist; and
_ye_ made me so. I thought it shameful that, willing and able as I was
to work, I suld be i' such a condition that a young cratur about the age
o' my own eldest lass suld think it needful to come and offer me her bit
o' brass."
"I suppose you were angry with me, William?"
"I almost was, in a way. But I forgave ye varry soon. Ye meant well. Ay,
_I am_ proud, and so are _ye_; but your pride and mine is t' raight
mak--what we call i' Yorkshire clean pride--such as Mr. Malone and Mr.
Donne knows nought about. Theirs is mucky pride. Now, I shall teach my
lasses to be as proud as Miss Shirley there, and my lads to be as proud
as myseln; but I dare ony o' 'em to be like t' curates. I'd lick little
Michael if I seed him show any signs o' that feeling."
"What is the difference, William?"
"Ye know t' difference weel enow, but ye want me to get a gate o'
talking. Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne is almost too proud to do aught for
theirseln; _we_ are almost too proud to let anybody do aught for us. T'
curates can hardly bide to speak a civil word to them they think beneath
them; _we_ can hardly bide to tak an uncivil word fro' them that thinks
themseln aboon us."
"Now, William, be humble enough to tell me truly how you are getting on
in the world. Are you well off?"
"Miss Shirley, I am varry well off. Since I got into t' gardening line,
wi' Mr. Yorke's help, and since Mr. Hall (another o' t' raight sort)
helped my wife to set up a bit of a shop, I've nought to complain of. My
family has plenty to eat and plenty to wear. My pride makes me find
means to have an odd pound now and then against rainy days; for I think
I'd die afore I'd come to t' parish; and me and mine is content. But t'
neighbours is poor yet. I see a great deal of distress."
"And, consequently, there is still discontent, I suppose?" inquired Miss
Keeldar.
"_Consequently_--ye say right--_consequently_. In course, starving folk
cannot be satisfied or settled folk. The country's not in a safe
condition--I'll say so mich!"
"But what can be done? What more can I do, for instance?"
"Do? Ye can do not mich, poor young lass! Ye've gi'en your brass; ye've
done well. If ye could transport your tenant, Mr. Moore, to Botany Bay,
ye'd happen do better. Folks hate him."
"William, for shame!" exclaimed Caroline warmly. "If folks _do_ hate
him, it is to their disgrace, not his. Mr. Moore himself hates nobody.
He only wants to do his duty, and maintain his rights. You are wrong to
talk so."
"I talk as I think. He has a cold, unfeeling heart, yond' Moore."
"But," interposed Shirley, "supposing Moore was driven from the country,
and his mill razed to the ground, would people have more work?"
"They'd have less. I know that, and they know that; and there is many an
honest lad driven desperate by the certainty that whichever way he turns
he cannot better himself; and there is dishonest men plenty to guide
them to the devil, scoundrels that reckons to be the 'people's friends,'
and that knows nought about the people, and is as insincere as Lucifer.
I've lived aboon forty year in the world, and I believe that 'the
people' will never have any true friends but theirseln and them two or
three good folk i' different stations that is friends to all the world.
Human natur', taking it i' th' lump, is nought but selfishness. It is
but excessive few, it is but just an exception here and there, now and
then, sich as ye two young uns and me, that, being in a different
sphere, can understand t' one t' other, and be friends wi'out
slavishness o' one hand or pride o' t' other. Them that reckons to be
friends to a lower class than their own fro' political motives is never
to be trusted; they always try to make their inferiors tools. For my own
part, I will neither be patronized nor misled for no man's pleasure.
I've had overtures made to me lately that I saw were treacherous, and I
flung 'em back i' the faces o' them that offered 'em."
"You won't tell us what overtures?"
"I will not. It would do no good. It would mak no difference. Them they
concerned can look after theirseln."
"Ay, we'se look after werseln," said another voice. Joe Scott had
sauntered forth from the church to get a breath of fresh air, and there
he stood.
"I'll warrant _ye_, Joe," observed William, smiling.
"And I'll warrant my maister," was the answer.--"Young ladies,"
continued Joe, assuming a lordly air, "ye'd better go into th' house."
"I wonder what for?" inquired Shirley, to whom the overlooker's somewhat
pragmatical manners were familiar, and who was often at war with him;
for Joe, holding supercilious theories about women in general, resented
greatly, in his secret soul, the fact of his master and his master's
mill being, in a manner, under petticoat government, and had felt as
wormwood and gall certain business visits of the heiress to the Hollow's
counting-house.
"Because there is nought agate that fits women to be consarned in."
"Indeed! There is prayer and preaching agate in that church. Are we not
concerned in that?"
"Ye have been present neither at the prayer nor preaching, ma'am, if I
have observed aright. What I alluded to was politics. William Farren
here was touching on that subject, if I'm not mista'en."
"Well, what then? Politics are our habitual study, Joe. Do you know I
see a newspaper every day, and two of a Sunday?"
"I should think you'll read the marriages, probably, miss, and the
murders, and the accidents, and sich like?"
"I read the leading articles, Joe, and the foreign intelligence, and I
look over the market prices. In short, I read just what gentlemen read."
Joe looked as if he thought this talk was like the chattering of a pie.
He replied to it by a disdainful silence.
"Joe," continued Miss Keeldar, "I never yet could ascertain properly
whether you are a Whig or a Tory. Pray, which party has the honour of
your alliance?"
"It is rayther difficult to explain where you are sure not to be
understood," was Joe's haughty response; "but as to being a Tory, I'd as
soon be an old woman, or a young one, which is a more flimsier article
still. It is the Tories that carries on the war and ruins trade; and if
I be of any party--though political parties is all nonsense--I'm of
that which is most favourable to peace, and, by consequence, to the
mercantile interests of this here land."
"So am I, Joe," replied Shirley, who had rather a pleasure in teasing
the overlooker, by persisting in talking on subjects with which he
opined she, as a woman, had no right to meddle--"partly, at least. I
have rather a leaning to the agricultural interest, too; as good reason
is, seeing that I don't desire England to be under the feet of France,
and that if a share of my income comes from Hollow's Mill, a larger
share comes from the landed estate around it. It would not do to take
any measures injurious to the farmers, Joe, I think?"
"The dews at this hour is unwholesome for females," observed Joe.
"If you make that remark out of interest in me, I have merely to assure
you that I am impervious to cold. I should not mind taking my turn to
watch the mill one of these summer nights, armed with your musket, Joe."
Joe Scott's chin was always rather prominent. He poked it out, at this
speech, some inches farther than usual.
"But--to go back to my sheep," she proceeded--"clothier and mill-owner
as I am, besides farmer, I cannot get out of my head a certain idea that
we manufacturers and persons of business are sometimes a little--a _very
little_--selfish and short-sighted in our views, and rather _too_
regardless of human suffering, rather heartless in our pursuit of gain.
Don't you agree with me, Joe?"
"I cannot argue where I cannot be comprehended," was again the answer.
"Man of mystery! Your master will argue with me sometimes, Joe. He is
not so stiff as you are."
"Maybe not. We've all our own ways."
"Joe, do you seriously think all the wisdom in the world is lodged in
male skulls?"
"I think that women are a kittle and a froward generation; and I've a
great respect for the doctrines delivered in the second chapter of St.
Paul's first Epistle to Timothy."
"What doctrines, Joe?"
"'Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. I suffer not a
woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in
silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.'"
"What has that to do with the business?" interjected Shirley. "That
smacks of rights of primogeniture. I'll bring it up to Mr. Yorke the
first time he inveighs against those rights."
"And," continued Joe Scott, "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
deceived was in the transgression."
"More shame to Adam to sin with his eyes open!" cried Miss Keeldar. "To
confess the honest truth, Joe, I never was easy in my mind concerning
that chapter. It puzzles me."
"It is very plain, miss. He that runs may read."
"He may read it in his own fashion," remarked Caroline, now joining in
the dialogue for the first time. "You allow the right of private
judgment, I suppose, Joe?"
"My certy, that I do! I allow and claim it for every line of the holy
Book."
"Women may exercise it as well as men?"
"Nay. Women is to take their husbands' opinion, both in politics and
religion. It's wholesomest for them."
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed both Shirley and Caroline.
"To be sure; no doubt on't," persisted the stubborn overlooker.
"Consider yourself groaned down, and cried shame over, for such a stupid
observation," said Miss Keeldar. "You might as well say men are to take
the opinions of their priests without examination. Of what value would a
religion so adopted be? It would be mere blind, besotted superstition."
"And what is _your_ reading, Miss Helstone, o' these words o' St.
Paul's?"
"Hem! I--I account for them in this way. He wrote that chapter for a
particular congregation of Christians, under peculiar circumstances; and
besides, I dare say, if I could read the original Greek, I should find
that many of the words have been wrongly translated, perhaps
misapprehended altogether. It would be possible, I doubt not, with a
little ingenuity, to give the passage quite a contrary turn--to make it
say, 'Let the woman speak out whenever she sees fit to make an
objection.' 'It is permitted to a woman to teach and to exercise