Chantry House

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Martyn spent the evening alone and in disgrace, and only his
unimpeachable character for truth caused the acceptance of his
affirmation that the yell was an impromptu fraternal compliment, and
that he had nothing to do with the noises in the mullion chamber.
He had been supposed to be perfectly unconscious of anything of the
kind, and to have never so much as heard of a phantom, so my mother
was taken somewhat aback when, in reply to her demand whether he had
ever been so naughty as to assist George in making a noise in
Clarence's room, he said, 'Why, that's the ghost of the lady that
was murdered atop of the steps, and always walks every Christmas!'

'Who told you such ridiculous nonsense?'

The answer 'George' was deemed conclusive that all had been got up
by that youth; and there was considerable evidence of his talent for
ventriloquism and taste for practical jokes. My mother was certain
that, having heard of the popular superstition, he had acted ghost.
She appealed to Woodstock to prove the practicability of such feats;
and her absolute conviction persuaded the maids (who had given
warning en masse) that the enemy was exorcised when George Sims had
been sent off on the Royal Mail under Clarence's guardianship.

None of the junior part of the family believed him guilty, but he
had hunted the cows round the paddock, mounted on my donkey, had
nearly shot the kitchen-maid with Griff's gun, and, if not much
maligned, knew the way to the apple-chamber only too well,--so that
he richly deserved his doom, rejoiced in it himself, and was
unregretted save by Martyn. Clarence viewed him in the light of a
victim, and tried to keep an eye on him, but he developed his talent
as a ventriloquist, made his fortune, and retired on a public-house.

My mother would fain have had the vaults under the mullion rooms
bricked up, but Mr. Stafford cried out on the barbarism of such a
proceeding. The mystery was declared to be solved, and was added to
Mr. Stafford's good stories of haunted houses.

And at home my father forbade any further mention of such rank folly
and deception. The inner mullion chamber was turned into a lumber-
room, and as weeks passed by without hearing or seeing any more of
lady or of lamp, we began to credit the wonderful freaks of the
goblin page.

CHAPTER XVI--CAT LANGUAGE

Soon as she parted thence--the fearful twayne,
That blind old woman and her daughter deare,
Came forth, and finding Kirkrapine there slayne,
For anguish greate they gan to rend their heare
And beate their breasts, and naked flesh to teare;
And when they both had wept and wayled their fill,
Then forth they ran, like two amazed deere,
Half mad through malice and revenging will,
To follow her that was the causer of their ill.'

SPENSER.

The Christmas vacation was not without another breeze about
Griffith's expenses at Oxford. He held his head high, and declared
that people expected something from the eldest son of a man of
property, and my father tried to convince him that a landed estate
often left less cash available than did the fixed salary of an
office. Griff treated all in his light, good-humoured way, promised
to be careful, and came to me to commiserate the poor old
gentleman's ignorance of the ways of the new generation.

There ensued some trying weeks of dark days, raw frost, and black
east wind, when the home party cast longing, lingering recollections
back to the social intercourse, lamp-lit streets, and ready
interchange of books and other amenities we had left behind us. We
were not accustomed to have our nearest neighbours separated from us
by two miles of dirty lane, or road mended with excruciating stones,
nor were they very congenial when we did see them. The Fordyce
family might be interesting, but we younger ones could not forget
the slight to Clarence, and, besides, the girls seemed to be
entirely in the schoolroom, Mrs. Fordyce was delicate and was shut
up all the winter, and the only intercourse that took place was when
my father met the elder Mr. Fordyce at the magistrates' bench; also
there was a conference about Amos Bell, who was preferred to the
post left vacant by George Sims, in right of his being our tenant,
but more civilised than Earlscombers, a widow's son, and not
sufficiently recovered from his accident to be exposed to the severe
tasks of a ploughboy in the winter.

Mrs. Fordyce was the manager of a book-club, which circulated
volumes covered in white cartridge paper, with a printed list of the
subscribers' names. Two volumes at a time might be kept for a month
by each member in rotation, novels were excluded, and the manager
had a veto on all orders. We found her more liberal than some of
our other neighbours, who looked on our wants and wishes with
suspicion as savouring of London notions. Happily we could read old
books and standard books over again, and we gloated over Blackwood
and the Quarterly, enjoying, too, every out-of-door novelty of the
coming spring, as each revealed itself. Emily will never forget her
first primroses, nor I the first thrush in early morning.

Blankets, broth, and what were uncomfortably termed broken victuals
had been given away during the winter, and a bewildering amount of
begging women and children used to ask interviews with 'the Lady
Winslow,' with stories that crumbled on investigation so as to make
us recollect the Rector's character of Earlscombe.

However, Mr. Henderson came in the second week of Lent, and what our
steps towards improvement introduced would have seemed almost as
shocking to you youngsters, as what they displaced. For instance, a
plain crimson cloth covered the altar, instead of the rags in the
colours of the Winslow livery, presented, according to the queer old
register, by the unfortunate Margaret. There was talk of velvet and
the gold monogram, surrounded by rays, alternately straight and
wavy, as in our London church, but this was voted 'unfit for a plain
village church.' Still, the new hangings of pulpit, desk, and altar
were all good in quality and colour, and huge square cushions were
provided as essential to each. Moreover, the altar vessels were
made somewhat more respectable,--all this being at my father's
expense.

He also carried in the Vestry, though not without strong opposition
from a dissenting farmer, that new linen and a fresh surplice should
be provided by the parish, which surplice would have made at least
six of such as are at present worn. The farmers were very jealous
of the interference of the Squire in the Vestry--'what he had no
call to,' and of church rates applied to any other object than the
reward of birdslayers, as thus, in the register -

Hairy Wills, 1 score sprows heds 2d.
Jems Brown, 1 poulcat 6d.
Jarge Bell, 2 howls 6d.

It was several years before this appropriation of the church rates
could be abolished. The year 1830, with a brand new squire and
parson, was too ticklish a time for many innovations.

Hillside Church was the only one in the neighbourhood where Holy
Week or Ascension Day had been observed in the memory of man. When
we proposed going to church on the latter day the gardener asked my
mother 'if it was her will to keep Thursday holy,' as if he expected
its substitution for Sunday. Monthly Communions and Baptisms after
the Second Lesson were viewed as 'not fit for a country church,' and
every attempt at even more secular improvements was treated with the
most disappointing distrust and aversion. When my father laid out
the allotment grounds, the labourers suspected some occult design
for his own profit, and the farmers objected that the gardens would
be used as an excuse for neglecting their work and stealing their
potatoes. Coal-club and clothing-club were regarded in like manner,
and while a few took advantage of these offers in a grudging manner,
the others viewed everything except absolute gifts as 'me-an' on our
part, the principle of aid to self-help being an absolute novelty.
When I look back to the notes in our journals of that date I see how
much has been overcome.

Perhaps we listened more than was strictly wise to the revelations
of Amos Bell, when he attended Emily and me on our expeditions with
the donkey. Though living over the border of Hillside, he had a
family of relations at Earlscombe, and for a time lodged with his
grandmother there. When his shyness and lumpishness gave way, he
proved so bright that Emily undertook to carry on his education. He
soon had a wonderful eye for a wild flower, and would climb after it
with the utmost agility; and when once his tongue was loosed, he
became almost too communicative, and made us acquainted with the
opinions of 'they Earlscoom folk' with a freedom not to be found in
an elder or a native.

Moreover, he was the brightest light of the Sunday school which Mr.
Henderson opened at once--for want of a more fitting place--in the
disused north transept of the church. It was an uncouth, ill-clad
crew which assembled on those dilapidated paving tiles. Their own
grandchildren look almost as far removed from them in dress and
civilisation as did my sister in her white worked cambric dress,
silk scarf, huge Tuscan bonnet, and the little curls beyond the lace
quilling round her bright face, far rosier than ever it had been in
town. And what would the present generation say to the odd little
contrivances in the way of cotton sun-bonnets, check pinafores, list
tippets, and print capes, and other wonderful manufactures from the
rag-bag, which were then grand prizes and stimulants?

Previous knowledge or intelligence scarcely existed, and then was
not due to Dame Dearlove's tuition. Mr. Henderson pronounced an
authorised school a necessity. My father had scruples as to vested
rights, for the old woman was the last survivor of a family who had
had recourse to primer and hornbook after their ejection on 'black
Bartholomew's Day;' and when the meeting-house was built after the
Revolution, had combined preaching with teaching. Monopoly had
promoted degeneracy, and this last of the race was an unfavourable
specimen in all save outward picturesqueness. However, much against
Henderson's liking, an accommodation was proposed, by which books
were to be supplied to her, and the Church Catechism be taught in
her school, with the assistance of the curate and Miss Winslow.

The terms were rejected with scorn. No School Board could be more
determined against the Catechism, nor against 'passons meddling wi'
she;' and as to assistance, 'she had been a governess this thirty
year, and didn't want no one trapesing in and out of her school.'

She was warned, but probably did not believe in the possibility of
an opposition school; and really there were children enough in the
place to overfill both her room and that which was fitted up after a
very humble fashion in one of our cottages. H.M. Inspector would
hardly have thought it even worth condemnation any more than the
attainments of the mistress, the young widow of a small Bristol
skipper. Her qualifications consisted in her piety and
conscientiousness, good temper and excellent needlework, together
with her having been a scholar in one of Mrs. Hannah More's schools
in the Cheddar district. She could read and teach reading well; but
as for the dangerous accomplishments of writing and arithmetic, such
as desired to pass beyond the rudiments of them must go to
Wattlesea.

So nice did she look in her black that Earlscombe voted her a mere
town lady, and even at a penny a week hesitated to send its children
to her. Indeed it was currently reported that her school was part
of a deep and nefarious scheme of the gentlefolks for reducing the
poor-rates by enticing the children, and then shipping them off to
foreign parts from Bristol.

But the great crisis was one unlucky summer evening when Emily and I
were out with the donkey, and Griffith, just come home from Oxford,
was airing the new acquisition of a handsome black retriever.

Close by the old chapel, a black cat was leisurely crossing the
road. At her dashed Nero, stimulated perhaps by an almost
involuntary scss--scss--from his master, if not from Amos and me.
The cat flew up a low wall, and stood at bay on the top on tiptoe,
with bristling tail, arched back, and fiery eyes, while the dog
danced round in agony on his hind legs, barking furiously, and
almost reaching her. Female sympathy ever goes to the cat, and
Emily screamed out in the fear that he would seize her, or even that
Griff might aid him. Perhaps Amos would have done so, if left to
himself; but Griff, who saw the cat was safe, could not help egging
on his dog's impotent rage, when in the midst, out flew pussy's
mistress, Dame Dearlove herself, broomstick in hand, using language
as vituperative as the cat's, and more intelligible.

She was about to strike the dog--indeed I fancy she did, for there
was a howl, and Griff sprang to his defence with--'Don't hurt my
dog, I say! He hasn't touched the brute! She can take care of
herself. Here, there's half-a-crown for the fright,' as the cat
sprang down within the wall, and Nero slunk behind him. But Dame
Dearlove was not so easily appeased. Her blood was up after our
long series of offences, and she broke into a regular tirade of
abuse.

'That's the way with you fine folk, thinking you can tread down poor
people like the dirt under your feet, and insult 'em when you've
taken the bread out of the mouths of them that were here before you.
Passons and ladies a meddin' where no one ever set a foot before!
Ay, ay, but ye'll all be down before long.'

Griff signed to us to go on, and thundered out on her to take care
what she was about and not be abusive; but this brought a fresh
volley on him, heralded by a derisive laugh. 'Ha! ha! fine talking
for the likes of you, Winslows that you are. But there's a curse on
you all! The poor lady as was murdered won't let you be! Why,
there's one of you, poor humpy object--'

At this savage attack on me, Griff waxed furious, and shouted at her
to hold her confounded tongue, but this only diverted the attack on
himself. 'And as for you--fine chap as ye think yourself,
swaggering and swearing at poor folk, and setting your dog at them--
your time's coming. Look out for yourself. It's well known as how
the curse is on the first-born. The Lady Margaret don't let none of
'em live to come after his father.'

Griff laughed and said, 'There, we have had enough of this;' and in
fact we had already moved on, so that he had to make some long steps
to overtake us, muttering, 'So we've started a Meg Merrilies! My
father won't keep such a foul-mouthed hag in the parish long!'

To which I had to respond that her cottage belonged to the trustees
of the chapel, whereat he whistled. I don't think he knew that we
had heard her final denunciation, and we did not like to mention it
to him, scarcely to each other, though Emily looked very white and
scared.

We talked it over afterwards in private, and with Henderson, who
confessed that he had heard of the old woman's saying something of
the kind to other persons. We consulted the registers in hopes of
confuting it, but did not satisfy ourselves. The last Squire had
lost his only son at school. He himself had been originally second
in the family, and in the generation before him there had been some
child-deaths, after which we came back to a young man, apparently
the eldest, who, according to Miss Selby's story, had been killed in
a duel by one of the Fordyces. It was not comfortable, till I
remembered that our family Bible recorded the birth, baptism, and
death of a son who had preceded Griffith, and only borne for a day
the name afterwards bestowed on me.

And Henderson, who was so little our elder as to discuss things on
fairly equal grounds, had some very interesting talks with us two
over ancestral sin and its possible effects, dwelling on the 18th of
Ezekiel as a comment on the Second Commandment. Indeed, we agreed
that the uncomfortable state of disaffection which, in 1830, was
becoming only too manifest in the populace, was the result of
neglect in former ages, and that, even in our own parish, the
bitterness, distrust, and ingratitude were due to the careless,
riotous, and oppressive family whom we represented.

CHAPTER XVII--THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE

'Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar,
Represt ambition struggles round the shore;
Till, overwrought, the general system feels
Its motion stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.'

GOLDSMITH.

Griffith had come straight home this year. There were no Peacock
gaieties to tempt him in London, for old Sir Henry had died suddenly
soon after the ball in December; nor was there much of a season that
year, owing to the illness and death of George IV.

A regiment containing two old schoolmates of his was at Bristol, and
he spent a good deal of time there, and also in Yeomanry drill. As
autumn came on we rejoiced in having so stalwart a protector, for
the agricultural riots had begun, and the forebodings of another
French Revolution seemed about to be realised. We stayed on at
Chantry House. My father thought his duty lay there as a
magistrate, and my mother would not leave him; nor indeed was any
other place much safer, certainly not London, whence Clarence wrote
accounts of formidable mobs who were expected to do more harm than
they accomplished; though their hatred of the hero of our country
filled us with direful prognostications, and made us think of the
guillotine, which was linked with revolution in our minds, before we
had I beheld the numerous changes that followed upon the thirty
years of peace in which we grew up.

The ladies did not much like losing so stalwart a defender when
Griff returned to Oxford; and Jane the housemaid went to bed every
night with the pepper-pot and a poker, the first wherewith to blind
the enemy, the second to charge them with. From our height we could
more than once see blazing ricks, and were glad that the home farm
was not in our own hands, and that our only stack of hay was a good
way from the house. When the onset came at last, it was December,
and the enemy only consisted of about thirty dreary-looking men and
boys in smock-frocks and chalked or smutted faces, armed only with
sticks and an old gun diverted from its purpose of bird-scaring.
They shouted for food, money, and arms; but my father spoke to them
from the hall steps, told them they had better go home and learn
that the public-house was a worse enemy to them than any machine
that had ever been invented, and assured them that they would get no
help from him in breaking the laws and getting themselves into
trouble. A stone or two was picked up, whereupon he went back and
had the hall door shut and barred, the heavy shutters of the windows
having all been closed already, so that we could have stood a much
more severe siege than from these poor fellows. One or two windows
were broken, as well as the glass of the conservatory, and the
flower beds were trampled; but finding our fortress impregnable they
sneaked away before dark. We fared better than our neighbours, some
of whom were seriously frightened, and suffered loss of property.
Old Mr. Fordyce had for many years past been an active magistrate--
that a clergyman should be on the bench having been quite correct
according to the notions of his younger days; and in spite of his
beneficence he incurred a good deal of unpopularity for withstanding
the lax good-nature which made his brother magistrates give orders
for parish relief refused to able-bodied paupers by their own
Vestries. This was a mischievous abuse of the old poor-law times,
which made people dispose of every one's money save their own. He
had also been a keen sportsman; and though his son had given up
field sports in deference to higher notions of clerical duty (his
wife's, as people said), the old man's feeling prompted him to
severity on poachers. Frank Fordyce, while by far the most earnest,
hardworking clergyman in the neighbourhood, worked off his
superfluous energy on scientific farming, making the glebe and the
hereditary estate as much the model farm as Hillside was the model
parish. He had lately set up a threshing-machine worked by horses,
which was as much admired by the intelligent as it was vituperated
by the ignorant.

Neither paupers nor poachers abounded in Hillside; the natives were
chiefly tenants and employed on the property, and, between good
management and beneficence, there was little real want and much
friendly confidence and affection; and thus, in spite of surrounding
riots, Hillside seemed likely to be an exception, proving what could
he done by rightful care and attention. Nor indeed did the attack
come from thence; but the two parsons were bitterly hated by
outsiders beyond the reach of their personal influence and
benevolence.

It was on a Saturday evening, the day after Griff had come back for
the Christmas vacation, that, as Emily was giving Amos his lesson,
she saw that the boy was crying, and after examination he let out
that 'folk should say that the lads were agoing to break Parson
Fordy's machine and fire his ricks that very night;' but he would
not give his authority, and when he saw her about to give warning,
entreated, 'Now, dont'ze say nothing, Miss Emily--'

'What?' she cried indignantly; 'do you think I could hear of such a
thing without trying to stop it?'

'Us says,' he blurted out, 'as how Winslows be always fain of ought
as happens to the Fordys--'

'We are not such wicked Winslows as you have heard of,' returned
Emily with dignity; and she rushed off in quest of papa and Griff,
but when she brought them to the bookroom, Amos had decamped, and
was nowhere to be found that night. We afterwards learnt that he
lay hidden in the hay-loft, not daring to return to his granny's,
lest he should be suspected of being a traitor to his kind; for our
lawless, untamed, discontented parish furnished a large quota to the
rioters, and he has since told me that though all seemed to know
what was about to be done, he did not hear it from any one in
particular.

It was no time to make light of a warning, but very difficult to
know what to do. Rural police were non-existent; there were no
soldiers nearer than Keynsham, and the Yeomanry were all in their
own homesteads. However, the captain of Griff's troop, Sir George
Eastwood, lived about three miles beyond Wattlesea, and had a good
many dependants in the corps, so it was resolved to send him a note
by the gardener, good James Ellis, a steady, resolute man, on
Emily's fast-trotting pony, while my father and Griff should hasten
to Hillside to warn the Fordyces, who were not unlikely to be able
to muster trustworthy defenders among their own people, and might
send the ladies to take shelter at Chantry House.

My mother's brave spirit disdained to detain an effective man for
her own protection, and the groom was to go to Hillside; he was in
the Yeomanry, and, like Griff, put on his uniform, while my father
had the Riot Act in his pocket. All the horses were thus absorbed,
but Chapman and the man-servant followed on foot.

Never did I feel my incapacity more than on that strange night, when
Emily was flying about with Martyn to all the doors and windows in a
wild state of excitement, humming to herself -

'When the dawn on the mountain was misty and gray,
My true love has mounted his steed and away.'

My mother was equally restless, prolonging as much as possible the
preparation of rooms for possible guests; and when she did come and
sit down, she netted her purse with vehement jerks, and scolded
Emily for jumping up and leaving doors open.

At last, after an hour according to the clock, but far more by our
feelings, wheels were heard in the distance; Emily was off like a
shot to reconnoitre, and presently Martyn bounced in with the
tidings that a pair of carriage lamps were coming up the drive. My
mother hurried out into the hall; I made my best speed after her,
and found her hastily undoing the door-chain as she recognised the
measured, courteous voice of old Mr. Fordyce. In a moment more they
were all in the house, the old gentleman giving his arm to his
daughter-in-law, who was quite overcome with distress and alarm;
then came his tall, slim granddaughter, carrying her little sister
with arms full of dolls, and sundry maid-servants completed the
party of fugitives.

'We are taking advantage of Mr. Winslow's goodness,' said the old
Rector. 'He assured us that you would be kind enough to receive
those who would only be an encumbrance.'

'Oh, but I must go back to Frank now that you and the children are
safe,' cried the poor lady. 'Don't send away the carriage; I must
go back to Frank.'

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