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Title: The golden fleece;
or, Who wins the prize?
Author: A. L. O. E.
Release date: April 21, 2026 [eBook #78512]
Language: English
Original publication: London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1897
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78512
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN FLEECE; ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: THE PRIZE OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE.]
THE
GOLDEN FLEECE;
OR,
Who Wins the Prize?
BY
A.L.O.E.
_Author of "The Shepherd of Bethlehem," "The Young Pilgrim,"_
_"Wings and Stings," &c._
[Illustration]
London:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
——————————
1897
Contents.
[Illustration]
Chapter.
I. OWLS AND EAGLES
II. LADIES IN COUNCIL
III. A SHOT AT THE OWL
IV. AIM HIGHER
V. WILL IT STRIKE?
VI. A SLACKENED BOW
VII. A GOLDEN STRING
VIII. SOMETHING TO BEAR
IX. RANDOM SHOTS
X. WHO WINS THE PRIZE?
List of Illustrations.
[Illustration]
THE PRIZE OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, _Frontispiece_
MEREDITH AND CALEB
PHILOMEL'S FIRST SOVEREIGN
PHILOMEL'S VISIT TO HER UNCLE
CALEB STATING THE CONDITIONS
THE FIRST TRESS CUT
MEETING OF PHILOMEL AND MISS ECCLES
THE GOLDEN FLEECE.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
OWLS AND EAGLES.
"OWLS have, no doubt, their proper place in the social as well as the
natural world, but of all birds under the sun—or moon—they are the
last that I should have chosen as types of wisdom; unless it be wisdom
to prefer darkness to light, and to see, by choice, the night-side
of everything in creation! To my mind, the lark that soars singing
towards the sun in summer, or the robin that whistles his merry lay in
the winter, is more emblematic of wisdom than all the owls that ever
hooted!" Such were the reflections of Meredith, as he quitted Burnesbey
Abbey, and sauntered along the broad avenue bordered with ancient
beeches.
"There goes one of your eagle-spirits, always for mounting and soaring,
and leaving comfort and common sense a long way behind him!" This
was the comment of Caleb Coffin upon his late visitor, as the new
proprietor of Burnesbey Abbey stirred his fire (no matter what the
weather might be, Caleb had always a fire), and then leaned back in his
easy-chair, and rubbed his lean wrinkled hands.
Caleb Coffin was an elderly man, wrapt in a gray dressing-gown, with
a black velvet cap on his head, and a large pair of tortoise-shell
spectacles resting upon a hooked nose. That beak-like nose, the goggle
glasses, the round contour of the face, and the peculiar expression
which it wore, gave Caleb a whimsical resemblance to the bird of
Minerva. Though Mr. Coffin liked his fire, his warm dressing-gown, and
his easy-chair, he was no valetudinarian, but a man in full vigour
of body and mind—one disposed to enjoy life, much as an owl might be
supposed to enjoy it, wrapping himself up in his feathery mantle, and
screeching at the follies of the rest of the world. A sneer lurked in
the corner of the lip overshadowed by the beak, a satirical gleam in
the keen gray eyes that peered through the glasses, that bespoke the
cynic. But if Caleb was a modern Diogenes, he had learned at least to
line his tub with down.
The owner of Burnesbey Abbey had nothing of the air of a country
gentleman, and had looked much more in his natural sphere at his
office-desk in Threadneedle Street, than in the ancient mansion which
he had lately inherited from a distant relation. The lord of the manor
appeared as little suited to his new position, as his dusty ledger
books would have been to one in his study panelled with carved oak, or
a pane of ground glass from his office window to a place amongst the
fine-stained diamonds of the mullioned casement behind him.
Meredith had been Coffin's ward, and had from childhood been familiar
with the eccentric humour of the merchant; but this had been his first
visit to the landed proprietor since, by a singular coincidence,
each of the two men had come by inheritance into possession of a
large estate. Characters are often so much influenced and altered by
circumstances that Meredith had felt some curiosity to see how the
shrewd money-making, money-loving merchant of Threadneedle Street,
would play the new part assigned him in the drama of life. Would Caleb
Coffin exemplify the lesson taught to Parnell's hermit of the effect of
sudden prosperity upon a selfish, niggardly nature?—
"Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead
By heaping coals of fire upon its head:
In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow,
And, free from dross, the silver runs below."
But Meredith had found nothing changed in Caleb except his
surroundings: it was the old picture in a new frame, and one that did
not harmonize with it. Mr. Coffin did not rise from his easy-chair to
welcome his guest, but holding out to him two thin fingers, nodded to
Meredith to take a seat. The following conversation then passed between
them:—
_Caleb._—An odd twirl of Fortune's wheel this, Meredith, that has
landed me in a romantic old abbey—and you in a coal-pit! Matters would
have been better had we exchanged places. I should have squeezed gold
out of coal-dust without minding blacking my fingers; and you would
have played the grand signor to perfection, throwing away your money
like a cavalier of old, entertaining ragged villagers by the hundred,
and building scores of picturesque cottages for grateful tenants—he!
he! he! (Mr. Coffin's laugh was peculiar, being usually accompanied by
a hiss uttered between his closed teeth.)
_Meredith._—I shall have tenants enough in Northumberland. There are
more than two thousand souls on the Pitsmouth property.
_Caleb._—And you'll look upon all these black diamonds as your
especial care to polish and preserve—he! he! he! I'll be bound you've
wasted quires of foolscap already in planning houses and schools,
lecture-rooms, libraries, and that sort of thing; that you mean to be
a protector, pastor, parent, patron, and pattern to every one of your
grimy friends, and spend at least twelve hours out of the twenty-four
groping underground like a mole. Have you not some such mad schemes as
these in your brain?
[Illustration: MEREDITH AND CALEB.]
_Meredith._—Of course, I shall endeavour to look after the wants of my
people.
_Caleb._—Don't I know you as you've been from your boyhood—with your
philanthropic Quixotism, your mania for night schools and ragged
schools, your dashing at misery, vice, and dirt, as the Knight of
the rueful countenance went full-tilt at the wind mills—I daresay
with much the same result—he! he! he! I know how you'll go at them at
Pitsmouth—reforming here, building there, trying to manufacture poets,
philosophers, and saints out of grimy miners, till—till you get a wife,
and she'll tether you down, and tame you down from a soaring eagle into
a quiet domestic barn-door fowl.
_Meredith (smiling)._—Perhaps I shall find a wife who will rise higher
far than myself as regards these same plans and projects for usefulness
which seem to you so Quixotic.
_Caleb._—Wheugh! Don't believe it, Meredith. I don't mean to say that a
fellow of your inches, with a good deal of the manner that takes with
women, and plenty of the cash which constitutes "an eligible," will
have any difficulty in finding a girl willing to go to Pitsmouth, or
to Kamtschatka itself, as your wife. Ay, and ready to enter into every
freak and fancy of yours—building all her air-castles of coal—willing
to go down with you in a bucket to the deepest depths that ever were
dug, declaring that she really prefers black to white, and that miners,
to her mind, are the most interesting beings in creation. Of course
your fair lady will say all this, and may believe that she feels
it,—there's no more accounting for a girl's fancies than for those of a
philanthropic mine-owner.
But wait a bit, my dear fellow, and see how the coal-castle in the
air goes off into smoke! When the good lady finds that she must be
perpetually changing her curtains, and covering up her butter from
coal-dust; when she sees that her geraniums will not flourish, and
discovers that her own pretty face is always wanting washing; when
friends think Northumberland much too far off for a visit; and
even miners do not appear thankful for being taught, tutored, and
trained;—why, then, you'll find matters changed. Your wife will not
say, mark ye, "I wash my hands of the whole concern;" but she'll find
that Northumberland air don't suit her health, or the health of her
squalling baby, and she'll rush up to London by train—pay a round of
visits—do no end of shopping—see the exhibitions, and half a score
of doctors, and get the opinions of the faculty that she, or baby,
can't possibly live so far north as Northumberland; that Mentone, or
Florence, or Algiers, or Patagonia, is the only place in the world for
her—or the precious brat.
And so—coaxing woman in one scale, Pitsmouth plans, projects, and
philanthropy in the other—you will find, as plenty of husbands have
found, that a man can't do good unless his wife will let him; and that
had Quixote himself married Dulcinea, he would soon have settled down
into a sober, sensible, family man.
_Meredith._—I think that you do injustice to the fair sex, Mr. Coffin.
In every work of beneficence, woman is found ready to lend effectual
aid. In her labours, she is usually more devoted and more disinterested
than man.
_Caleb._—My dear fellow, you know little of the world, least of all
of the female half of it. There are two motives which sway the human
race—interest and vanity, the love of gold and the love of praise. Now
woman, I grant ye, has, as a rule, less of the money-making quality
than we have; but of the vanity, the love of praise, woman has a
thousand times more. It comes out in everything that she does; it is
her very mainspring of action. Not "What will it be?" but "How will it
look?" is woman's perpetual question. Depend on't, woman invented the
vile Russian dinner, such as Lady Macaw gave yesterday to introduce me
as lord of the manor to the society of Thwayte. There was everything to
please the eye no doubt—plenty of plate, glass, and flowers (one can't
eat plate, glass, and flowers)—but the dishes handed round were but
so-so, and the cheap wines handed round but so-so; I'd have had a much
better dinner at home, bating of course the company, the plate, the
glass, and the flowers.
_Meredith._—Lady Macaw has no great fortune.
_Caleb._—But she must make a great display—that's the point. She must
keep her carriage; she must entertain; she must be the leader in
society; she must manage everything and everybody;—she tried to manage
"me"—he! he! he! I guess she'll find that a tough job!
_Meredith._—What course did she take?
_Caleb._—Not a straight one. Her ladyship tacked towards every point
in the compass, sounding carefully as she went. She could not well
work upon my self-interest, so she'd get round me by means of my love
of praise. I was soon well-informed as to what a country gentleman of
large property—one of an ancient honourable family—is expected to do
when he comes to take possession. I believe that Lady Macaw would have
him cut a hole in his pocket, and strut about dropping gold guineas at
every step that he takes. Amongst other things, she tried to nail me
down to patronizing her stall at the fancy-fair to be held at G— for
some nonsensical object. I suppose that when she and the pretty girls
of her working-party constrain old bachelors to buy their bibs and pink
socks, pincushions, pinafores, and parrots, they fancy that they are
doing a deed of charity—I would simply call it pocket-picking.
_Meredith._—But we have wandered somewhat from the point from which we
started, the disinterested beneficence of woman.
_Caleb._—That it "is" disinterested is just what I deny. I tell you
that every woman, plying her fingers to work, or her tongue to beg,
looks for payment in pleasure or praise. There's my little niece
Philomel Lamb, the parson's daughter, as good a creature as lives, and
as deep as you yourself could desire in schools, and savings' banks,
and cottage visiting—a philanthropist over head and ears! Why, where's
the self-denial in this? She sets to her work because she likes it,
and because the world says that it becomes a parson's daughter to look
after her father's flock. She likes all the curtseying and bobbing of
the village children, and the name of being clever, active, and good.
I don't say that there's harm in her liking it,—if she hadn't a bit of
vanity, she wouldn't be a woman—he! he! he!
_Meredith (to himself)._—What a blind owl this is; and yet he fancies
himself clearer sighted than the rest of the world!
_Caleb._—Why, that merry black-eyed damsel, Lucy Langton, who sat next
to me yesterday evening, can play at charity when she has nothing
better to play at, hunt out "cases" when there's no other game to hunt,
and I daresay cuts and snips and stitches for Lady Macaw's fancy-fair,
as energetically as she would whirl round and round in a polka. And
her pretty sister, Miss Delia, with her perpetual simper, will think
herself doing a mighty good deed when showing off her taper fingers and
jewelled rings selling frippery behind a counter.
Folk must mount their hobbies; and charity with most of your good
people, especially the ladies, is an easy-going hack that carries bells
on its harness and trots all the better for the jingle—he! he! he!
With fiery philanthropists, like yourself, it may be like a hunter,
that bears you right over hedge and ditch, but I suppose that you find
pleasure in the excitement, and on neither hack nor hunter is the rider
likely to take the leap of Quintus Curtius.
_Meredith._—But surely, Mr. Coffin, you cannot so close your eyes to
facts as to deny that real sacrifices, great sacrifices, are made for
the sake of charity by women.
_Caleb._—No one denies it, my good friend, so you need not look so
indignant as a champion of the sex. Woman sometimes will, and does
sacrifice, money, time, strength, and a good deal besides, for the
sake of being, or of seeming, charitable; don't shake your head so
impatiently—the two things are closely connected. All that I argue
for is, that there is one thing which woman does not, and will not
sacrifice, and that is her vanity, her love of being admired. She'll
go anywhere with that wind in her sails, but she can't beat up channel
against it.
Find me a girl who will do good in the dark, prove that she cares not
a straw for what the world says of her doings, that she wants neither
praises nor thanks, and I'll believe in the phœnix, or mermaids, or
anything else that you will; I'll believe that you've chosen a wife who
will help, not hinder you, in making a paradise of Pitsmouth; you shall
have a rare gift for your nonpareil bride, and I'll dance myself at the
wedding!
_Meredith (rising)._—Take care what you promise, Mr. Coffin; I may one
day hold you to your word.
_Caleb._—Mind you, I must have the choice of the test, and be satisfied
that the metal has fairly stood it; I must look through my own good
spectacles, and not through your lover's eyes.
And so the companions parted, as we saw at the commencement of the
chapter; the eagle to make bitter reflections on the dull cynicism of
the owl, and the owl to hoot ridicule at the romantic flights of the
eagle. The remarks of Caleb Coffin had, however, disturbed the serenity
of the young owner of Pitsmouth more than he chose to own. Meredith had
seen in his own family the power of a domestic tether to keep down an
ardent spirit; he had seen a woman's influence divert into channels of
ostentation what had once flowed in that of charity. And the thought
had often crossed his mind that the philanthropist who would soar high
must be content to soar alone.
CHAPTER II.
LADIES IN COUNCIL.
WHILE Mr. Coffin was criticising the ladies of Thwayte, the ladies, on
their part, were passing judgment upon Mr. Coffin.
When the late easy-tempered, openhanded, good-natured proprietor of
Burnesbey Abbey had paid the debt of nature, the character of his
successor became a subject of curious conjecture, a matter of personal
interest to all who dwelt in the neighbourhood. Sir John Coffin had
held no very lofty place in men's esteem during his lifetime; but, like
many more noble than himself, the fox-hunting squire was destined to be
more highly appreciated after his departure from earth than during his
residence in it.
At the dinner-party given in his honour by Lady Macaw, Mr. Coffin may
be said to have made his first appearance in that circle in which
his position as a large landed proprietor would henceforth give him
a prominent place. Caleb had indeed spent two or three days in the
parsonage of Thwayte during the lifetime of his sister, Mrs. Lamb, the
wife of the vicar—but years had elapsed since that visit. Lady Macaw,
who had chanced then to meet him, had described Mr. Coffin to her
husband as a satirical, talkative man, who looked as if he would be
shrewd in business and sharp in driving a bargain. The lady had almost
forgotten the merchant's existence when, by succeeding to the Burnesbey
estate, Caleb suddenly became to her, as to the other residents near
him, an object of curious interest, and a topic of gossiping talk. Lady
Macaw had, as we have seen, asked the lord of the manor to dinner,
giving him a formal entertainment, the preparation of which had cost
her a good deal of consideration and arrangement, if it had cost her
little besides. Lady Macaw, who regarded herself as the ruling spirit
in Thwayte, had determined to secure, if possible, the master of
Burnesbey Abbey, as one of the ministers of her will.
"First impressions are everything," as Lady Macaw observed to Sir
Patrick, her meek little husband, who passed a quiet life of obscurity
under the shadow of his wife.
What impressions had been made on Mr. Coffin may have been gathered
from the conversation related in the last chapter; what impressions the
new lord of the manor had himself made upon Thwayte society, shall be
recorded in this.
Let me introduce my reader into the pretty country-residence to
which Lady Macaw has given the name of the Villa of Roses. In her
drawing-room is gathered together the little working-party of ladies
who meet on each Tuesday to make pretty trifles for the fancy-bazaar,
the proceeds of which are to place a bronze statue of a very
distinguished statesman in the market-place of G—, the nearest county
town.
The room is furnished in modern style, and with some regard to taste.
Chromolithographs in elegant frames adorn the gilt papered walls,
mirrors on either side reflect each other in endless perspective,
from the ceiling hangs the bright chandelier, lighted only on grand
occasions. Every angle and "coign of vantage" holds the narrow shelf
laden with old porcelain, carved ivory, Italian cameos, or Chinese
idols (Sir Patrick made his money, and won his title, in China). A
large table, near the centre of the room, is heaped with muslin,
silk, tape, bobbins, dolls, things made and in process of making,
and at this table sits Lady Macaw, the presiding genius, a woman of
portly dimensions, large nose, and prominent chin, dressed with strict
regard to the fashion, and bearing herself with an air of stately
condescension which she mistakes for dignity. Lady Macaw is the
self-constituted patroness of the village of Thwayte in general, and of
its three unmarried ladies in particular; Philomel Lamb having lost her
mother, and Mrs. Langton, the doctor's sickly wife, being little better
than a cipher in the eyes of Lady Macaw.
The two Misses Langton form a striking contrast to each other. There,
on a footstool, sits merry black-eyed Lucy, making her "love of a
hedgehog" pincushion bristle all over with pins, as she laughs and
chats with her nearest neighbour, achieving as much in the talking way
as she does in the working. She is a girl ever ready for frolic and
fun, a restless little creature, who can never be happy in one place
for a fortnight together, and who is always paying visits or flying off
on her travels. Lucy has climbed the mountains of Norway, dived into
the catacombs of Rome, ascended the Great Pyramid itself, and cut her
initials on the top. Reclining amongst soft cushions, appears Delia,
her sister, a fair pretty girl, with languid air and conscious simper,
toying affectedly with the long strip of patchwork which is lying
across her knee. The one maiden reminds us of the swallow, all energy
and action; the other, of some pretty goldfinch, pruning its feathers
in sunshine.
Near to Delia appears an elderly lady. In her turned and faded
blue-green poplin, and long dingy olive-green veil, how familiar is
the stunted form of Priscilla Eccles to every child in the village!
No working-party would be complete without her; whenever a kind act
is to be done, especially if it involve inconvenience and trouble,
the aid of good Miss Eccles is always invoked, and is never refused.
Save a weakness for gossip, a little disposition to be curious about
her neighbour's concerns, natural to those who lead a secluded life
in a village, Miss Eccles has few faults. Thwayte is a little world
to the elderly maiden-lady, and though she occasionally visits G— for
shopping (rather to execute commissions than to improve her own slender
wardrobe), such a journey is as great an undertaking to Miss Eccles as
one across the Atlantic would be to Lucy Langton.
The only member of the little working-party at the Villa of Roses who
remains to be mentioned is Philomel Lamb, the vicar's daughter, a girl
with a bright sweet face, simply attired, and wearing no ornament but
a profusion of golden tresses, which shadow her temples and fall on
her shoulders. It is from this fashion of wearing her hair as she did
in the days of her childhood that Philomel has acquired the playful
cognomen of "the Lamb of the golden fleece." Never has that luxuriant
hair been imprisoned in plait, or twisted up into chignon.
In vain, had Lady Macaw given hints about attention to fashion, and
the incongruity of a young lady "who has come out" wearing her hair in
a way only suitable to a child, or a wax doll. Lady Macaw, who plumed
herself on deep knowledge of human nature, thought that there was a
little vanity and love of singularity in Philomel's choosing to keep
her curls when every other lady brushed her hair from her brows, and
wore a chignon at the back of her head. Miss Eccles, more good-natured
in her judgment, had suggested that Philomel kept to her old way
"because Mrs. Lamb, poor dear soul, was so fond of her child's yellow
curls." Delia believed that the vicar's daughter studied the becomings,
and liked to make the most of her only beauty; while Lucy always
laughingly averred that Philomel chose the style of coiffure which
cost her least trouble and thought. It is needless to decide which
conjecture was most correct, perhaps each had some shadow of truth; be
that as it may, Philomel retained her flowing locks, and her name of
Lamb of the golden fleece.
"And what did you think of our new squire?" inquired Miss Eccles,
in an audible whisper to Delia. The elder lady had not been at the
dinner-party on the preceding evening; she had not even had the usual
invitation to drop in at tea. Lady Macaw, after due consideration, had
decided that "the worthy old creature" would not improve Mr. Coffin's
first impressions of Thwayte society.
"He's an owl," lisped Delia.
"He's an old horror," cried Lucy; both sisters replying in a breath.
"My dears, you forget that Mr. Coffin is Philomel's uncle," said Lady
Macaw, glancing at the vicar's daughter, who was seated at the open
window, busy with a child's little frock.
"Oh, there is no one more provoked with him than I am," cried Philomel,
without raising her eyes from her work.
"Certainly Mr. Coffin has less idea of what society demands from one in
his position than any land-owner whom I ever met with," observed Lady
Macaw. "He carries the habits and ideas of the counting-house into the
fine old country mansion. When I expressed, as in courtesy bound, a
hope that I should see him at the fancy-fair to be held in June,—
"'You go there to "sell," I suppose,' said he, 'but I should go there
"to be sold." You should have Butler's lines over the door as a motto,—
"'"Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat."
"'Only I for one don't subscribe to the axiom.'
"Fancy any gentleman giving such a reply to a lady!"
"I daresay that he thought it witty," cried Lucy, "though every one
else would think it simply rude; and that he ended with that horrid
little hiss of a self-gratulatory laugh, which irritates more than
his words. I sat next to Mr. Coffin at dinner, you know, so had an
opportunity of testing his humour. I told him that we all looked to him
to keep up good old customs in the place; that I delighted in riding,
and hoped often to follow his pack as I had done that of Sir John,
whose hospitality and public spirit were famous over the county."
"And what did Mr. Coffin reply?" asked Delia, pausing in her occupation
of snipping pieces of many-coloured silks for her patchwork.
"That he would like to see me riding after hounds, but that they should
not be hounds fed in his kennels; and that, as for hospitality, though
he liked a good dinner well enough, he'd no notion of keeping open
house for every one else who might do so."
There was a murmur of disapprobation amongst the fair workers; and Lucy
stuck her pins into her hedgehog with savage rapidity, in a manner
which suggested the idea that she would willingly have bestowed her
quick pricks in another direction. Mr. Coffin was sinking lower and
lower in the estimation of the ladies of Thwayte.
"I had very little to say to the old owl," lisped Delia. "I only asked
him whether we should see him at the archery-meeting on Wednesday, to
which he assented. Then I ventured to observe that this time we had no
prize worth shooting for, the ladies' prize being but, a poor brooch in
form of a silver arrow. I showed him my own prize bracelet, which I won
last year, and remarked, quite 'en passant,' you know, that Sir John
had always presented a twenty guinea prize for the ladies to shoot for.
"'Did he?' said Mr. Coffin drily, peering through his goggles at my
bracelet, as if he meant to bid for it.
"I observed that Sir John had been a popular man."
"How did Mr. Coffin take so delicate a hint from a fair young lady?"
inquired Lady Macaw, with a smile.
"Oh, he answered me in his own cynical way.
"'So Sir John gave twenty guineas, did he?'
"I assented.
"'And Sir John bought popularity with a check for that sum?'
"I did not know what to reply to so odd a question, but I suppose that
Mr. Coffin took my silence for consent, for he went on,—
"'I think that popularity was dear at the figure—he! he! he!—He might
have made a much better bargain.'"
"Vulgar!" exclaimed Lady Macaw, with a slight toss of her stately head.
"Mean!" muttered the indignant Lucy.
"But I have something worse—much worse to tell," said Philomel Lamb,
laying down her work on her knee.
So alarming an announcement excited the curiosity and attention of
every member of the little conclave. Delia suspended her snipping, Lucy
her vigorous pin-sticking, Lady Macaw left off counting her stitches,
and the knitting-needles of Miss Eccles ceased their almost perpetual
motion.
"You know that for years and years before I was born," said Philomel,
"the pretty cottage on the moor has been used as our village school."
"From time immemorial it has been so," observed Lady Macaw.
"It has been as natural to go to the class there on Sundays as to
church!" cried Lucy Langton, who had taught by fits and starts, as she
did everything else, plunging into philanthropy with the same energy
that she did into pleasure.
"I never even knew until to-day," continued the Lamb of the golden
fleece, "that the cottage was part of the Burnesbey Abbey estate,
though we all were aware that the schoolmaster's salary was paid by the
lord of the manor. The money had come so regularly, so much as a matter
of course, that what had gone on for so long seemed as if it must go on
for ever."
"Certainly it did," said Lady Macaw.
"But Uncle Coffin does 'not' think it a matter of course," pursued
Philomel Lamb. "He means to stop the salary, turn out the good
Arkwrights, break up the school, and make a village inn, as he calls
it—I should say a public-house—of the cottage."
"Impossible!" cried both the Misses Langton.
"Impossible!" echoed Lady Macaw; while Miss Eccles, looking aghast,
dropped half-a-dozen stitches in her dismay.
"Papa is so dreadfully vexed about it," continued Philomel Lamb; "all
he could say he has said to prevent it. But there is no use arguing
with Uncle Coffin, so the school will be given up."
"This can't be allowed," cried Lady Macaw, with decision.
"How can it be hindered?" faintly sighed poor Miss Eccles.
"Can't we get up a school in some other spot?" inquired Lucy.
"There's not another cottage available, I am afraid; and then there's
the master and mistress's salary," began Philomel.
"Never mind salary!" exclaimed the energetic and unpractical Lucy.
"We'll have it an honorary affair; you'll take the girls—I'll go in for
the boys."
"My dear, my dear, you forget that you are going to Paris next week,"
interrupted Lady Macaw. "There must be salaried teachers, and where is
the money to come from?"
"Where, indeed?" said Miss Eccles, who could hardly be expected to
contribute much out of her fifty pounds per annum.
"Would not the people of G— help?" asked Lucy, with animation. "I
should like us to show this skin-flint that we can do very well without
him."
Lady Macaw shook her head with the grave dignity of a Burleigh. "The
people of G— will do nothing in the matter," she said; "no interest
will be felt in the school of a village five miles away. G— could not
get up subscriptions sufficient for the statue in its own market-place
without the assistance which I am giving it."
Miss Eccles whispered something to Delia, which no one else could hear.
The young lady slightly shrugged her shoulders, and raised her pretty
eyebrows as her only reply. Philomel guessed that the elderly lady in
the faded green veil had been giving voice to the thought in her own
mind, that a school in Thwayte was a good deal more needful than even a
statue in G—.
"I'll tell you what I will do," said Lady Macaw; every one present was
silent to hear the proposition of the ruling spirit in Thwayte. "I'll
write to Mr. Coffin myself."
"Much he is likely to care for that," was the silent comment on the
lady's words made by her hearers.
"Why should not Philomel try what she can make of her uncle?" cried
Lucy Langton. "Most men have a weak point, if one only knows where to
hit it. For aught that I know, the old screech-owl may be excessively
fond of his niece."
Philomel shook her curly tresses. "I am afraid there is no strong
affection between us," she said; "though my uncle has been rather kind
after his own peculiar fashion, and gave me the first sovereign that I
ever possessed in my life."
"Ah, he can then give something better than sneers and bad jokes,"
observed Delia.
"It was a long time ago," said Philomel, "when my uncle came here on a
visit. He showed me a sovereign and a large gilt medal, and asked me
which I would have for my own. Child as I was, I fancied that the medal
was but a larger piece of gold coin, and was about to choose it as that
with which I could buy most (for my dear parents had already taught me
something of what money can do), when the hole in the medal attracted
my notice.
"'What is that hole for?' I asked.
"'To put a ribbon in,' said my uncle, 'that you may hang the pretty
thing round your neck. The big piece is for ornament, the little piece
is for use.'
"I then took up the sovereign at once, saying, 'that I liked to have
money to spend, and not to hang round my neck.'
"Uncle Coffin clapped me on the shoulder, and said, laughing, 'Well
done, my little curly-poll, may you always have the sense to prefer use
to show.'"
"Then there is a way of getting round the old owl!" cried Lucy.
"I daresay that he has a kind heart after all," observed Miss Eccles.
"I will certainly write to him," said Lady Macaw, folding by her piece
of German work with an air of calm self-complacence and reliance on the
power of her pen, which roused a little spirit of emulation in the Lamb
of the golden fleece.
"I will do my best, my very best, to coax my uncle to let us have the
cottage for our schoolhouse still, and to continue the salary to the
Arkwrights, so kindly paid by Sir John. I will go over to the Abbey at
once," said Philomel, rising from her seat, for she felt impatient to
try her powers of persuasion, and being young and of a buoyant spirit,
she was now full of hope of success.
[Illustration: PHILOMEL'S FIRST SOVEREIGN.]
"You will not come with us, then, to practise archery in the field?"
asked Lucy Langton. "Remember the bow-meeting is to be to-morrow; and
if the silver arrow is scarcely worth contending for, we must shoot for
the credit of the ladies of Thwayte."
"The school is of more importance than the silver arrow," replied
Philomel; "and to save it from being broken up might do as much for
the ladies of Thwayte as carrying off a prize from all the archers in
England."
"By-the-bye, is Mr. Latour to be at the meeting?" inquired Miss Eccles
of Philomel Lamb.
The question was a simple one, but it was accompanied with a knowing,
inquisitive look; and it certainly heightened the colour on the cheek
of the village maiden. The blue eyes sank, perhaps because, for some
reason or other, all the other eyes in the room were turned towards her.
"I don't know—probably—I'm not sure," replied the young lady.
"But 'I' am sure," replied Miss Delia Langton. "Mr. Latour told me that
he would certainly be present, and shoot; no doubt he'll carry off the
gentlemen's prize, for we've no other such archer in the county."
Perhaps it was only fancy that made Philomel detect a slight emphasis
on the first personal pronoun used by the prettiest girl in Thwayte,
and only prejudice that made her feel provoked at what she thought a
conscious simper upon the lips of Delia Langton.
"Well, Philomel, if you're really bound for the Abbey on your
philanthropic mission," cried Lucy, "I heartily wish you success. May
you bring down the owl with your first shot, pluck his plumage to your
heart's content, and wear as a trophy a feather in your cap, or your
flowing hair, to the end of your days."
CHAPTER III.
A SHOT AT THE OWL.
BRIGHTLY fell the sunshine upon meadow and hedge-row, enamelled with
the blossoms of May, as Philomel lightly trod the path through the
fields which led to Burnesbey Abbey. Her spirit was in tone with the
season, and with the warbling of linnet and thrush. The young maiden
was as one of Nature's wild-flowers opening its petals to the light, or
as the free bird that has never beaten its wings against the wires of
a cage. Philomel was bound on what she felt to be a noble mission; a
grander opportunity of benefitting her kind appeared to be now before
her than had ever before occurred during her quiet, secluded life.
Perhaps the young girl, as she tripped along in her straw hat and
waving scarf, while the May breeze played with her golden tresses, did
not scan very closely her own motives for undertaking her mission.
Philomel had a natural pleasure in conquering difficulties, in the
hope of exercising power over a hard and sordid nature, of doing what
the self-reliant Lady Macaw would never be able to do. It is not to be
denied that a spirit of emulation, if it did not act as a spur, gave
at least a zest to Philomel's expectations. She pictured to herself
the pleasure of being the benefactress of her native village, and the
tenfold increased delight which she would take in the school if it owed
its preservation to her efforts.
And other thoughts would steal in—sweet and pleasant as the breeze of
spring—so sweet that Philomel unconsciously slackened her steps to
prolong the delicious reverie in which they now entranced her. The
winner of the gentlemen-archers' prize had, according to the custom of
the place, the privilege of presenting the ladies' prize to the fair
victor, who, on her part, as Queen of the day, presented his trophy to
him. Philomel had a presentiment that Delia would not be the one on the
morrow to receive the silver arrow, and her own heart throbbed, and her
blue eye sparkled, as fancy conjured up a bright scene. Philomel heard
in imagination words softly spoken, congratulations uttered by lips
that never flattered, to her who had won something better than trophy
of silver or gold—the power of being a blessing to many.
And so the maiden's thoughts flowed on and on—ever in a deepening
channel, with brighter sunshine glittering upon them, till the stream
became lost in a wide-spreading sea of blissful hope, all the more
dazzling became Philomel scarcely dared to own to herself what caused
that intensity of light. As she heard the linnet calling to his mate,
and the lark on buoyant wing sprang up from the meadow which she was
crossing, almost unconsciously Philomel warbled to herself verses from
Lytton's May-song:—
"'Wherefore, light bird, art thou bearing
Twig and moss to yonder tree?
For the home that I am rearing,
High from earth, as Love's should be.
"'If thus rudely I begin it,
Love itself completes the nest,
And the downy softness in it
Comes, O lover, from the breast.
"'All the while the buds are springing,
May is round thee and above,
As the bird sings he is singing,
As the bird loves canst thou love?'"
Philomel hushed the song on her lips, but not the music in her heart as
she approached the romantic old pile of Burnesbey Abbey, which from its
antiquity and picturesque beauty had been the showplace of the county
in the days of Sir John, who had even winked at pic-nics held under the
shadow of its walls by tourists who did not despise creature-comforts
when in search of the picturesque. There was no danger now, however,
that Philomel would come suddenly upon a pleasure party, or find
the long grass strewn with fragments of sandwiches, or the corks of
ginger-beer bottles. Save for the sounds of Nature, the place had been
profoundly quiet since the gray owl had come to take possession of his
nest.
Originally, as its name denoted, Burnesbey Abbey had been built for
religious worship. The family into whose hands it had fallen in the
reign of King Harry the Eighth, had, in successive generations, added
to the pile, with little regard to symmetry of design. The student
of architecture saw, with surprise, massive stone gateway, Gothic
arch, and dim cloister—relics of the feudal age—in juxtaposition with
half-ruined Grecian colonnade, and the gilded and carved ceilings of
the reign of Louis Quatorze, the latest date which could be assigned to
any part of the building. But Nature had done her utmost to harmonize
all that otherwise would have seemed incongruous—she had draperied
the Gothic arch with ivy, thrown round Italian columns a mantle of
wild clematis, and set alike on old brick and more ancient stone the
gray-green lichen and the dull orange-stain; she had planted the
wall-flower in the niche, and half hidden the mullioned windows with
leaves. Sir John had never suffered painter or builder to touch his
romantic old home; he had left stone to crumble and lichen to grow, the
owl to form her nest in the ivy, and the jackdaw to wheel round the
tower; a hundred generations of swallows had made their homes under the
eaves of Burnesbey Abbey, no one had ever disturbed them.
To Philomel, the wildness and solitude of the place gave it a singular
charm. Though she had often, in company with others, partaken of Sir
John's hospitality, this was the first time that she had visited
Burnesbey Abbey on foot and alone. Never had she admired it half so
much as when, in the stillness which brooded over it, fancy could
people the ancient building with forms of the past. As Philomel crossed
the rough bridge over the dried-up moat, she paused to gaze up on the
time-worn abbey, and the exclamation, "How picturesque—how exquisite it
is!" escaped from the maiden's lips.
It was like the breaking of a fairy spell, when, as Philomel was
gliding past the windows of what—ages before—had been the monks'
refectory, she caught sight of her uncle, in brown coat, black velvet
skull-cap, and goggle spectacles, seated within at a table, with a
plate of biscuits and a decanter of old port before him. Caleb Coffin
saw his niece, rose, came to the window, and threw open the lattice.
"Why, Curly-poll, is that you, looking as bright and rosy as a May
morning, come to cheer up a sulky old uncle in this strange rambling
tumbledown old prison, into which his good or bad fortune has thrown
him? Talk of country delights indeed! There's something in London
to tell one that the world is alive—a roll of wheels and a hum of
voices—but here! I'd give something for a street cry; even a grinding
organ would not come amiss to me now!"
"O uncle, you have the birds!" cried Philomel Lamb.
"Yes indeed; I've endless cawing of rooks, chattering, chirping, and
twittering of swallows. I can't light a fire in my bed-room, but the
chimney must smoke because the birds, forsooth, have chosen to fill it
up with their nests. They build in the gutters, they stop up the pipes,
they wake me every morning with the noise of their chirping. I'll tell
John to get the long ladder and pull down every nest in the place, and
tear off the ivy that only serves as a harbour for earwigs, and give a
decent respectable look to the building."
"The birds and the ivy! Oh, without them half the charm of the abbey
would be gone!" exclaimed Philomel.
"That may be your opinion—that's not mine," said Caleb Coffin drily.
"Maybe you've a taste for cobwebs also, and would think it desecration
to let a carver and gilder set to work upon the old-fashioned ceilings.
But I mean to have workmen dawn from London—I've just been drawing up
estimates of what I think that it would cost to put this old place
into thorough repair. I don't want gimcracks, or kickshaws, or show,
but being neither an old baron nor an old monk, I like to have things
decent about me. 'Twill cost a good round sum, I've no doubt; but I've
made up my mind to spend it."
Philomel might at another time have burst into earnest expostulation
against this scheme for transforming a beautiful old abbey into a
prosaic "eligible residence" for a merchant from London. But Philomel
had come with a definite object, and on an important mission, and
was only too glad to find the old owl not only in a gracious humour
and inclined to welcome a visitor, but also disposed to loosen his
purse-strings. She therefore cheerfully accepted Caleb's invitation to
come into the house and have a chat with him.
"You'll find the little door which opens on the tumbledown colonnade on
the latch," said Mr. Coffin; "don't bother yourself or John by ringing
at the great front entrance; you can always get in without announcing
yourself; and come at what hour you will, you will always be welcome."
Philomel passed along that graceful colonnade, which, though much less
ancient than the Gothic portion of the building, bore traces quite as
evident of the touch of the finger of Time. The latch-door opened into
a passage dark, vaulted, and low, and through the nail-studded door at
the end of it the young lady entered the low refectory, where she was
kindly received by her uncle.
"Now, child, you must taste my old port—'tis prime, ninety-six a dozen,
and cheap at the figure," said the owner of Burnesbey Abbey, laying his
wrinkled hand upon the decanter before him, and nodding to his niece to
occupy one of the large heavy chairs enriched with faded blue velvet,
which had been bought in the reign of Queen Anne to supersede the old
oaken benches.
"Thanks, uncle; but I have long ago taken my unfashionable early
dinner, and I have the bad taste to prefer cowslip-wine to port a
hundred years old," replied Philomel. "Let me sit on this footstool
beside you, and tell you what brings me here to-day." Philomel drew
out the footstool and seated herself at the feet of her uncle, so that
she could rest her clasped hand upon his knee, and look up into his
face. She felt that in this child-like attitude of confidence and ease
she could better prefer her request, and that the stately old velvet
cushioned chair would have imparted to her its own stiffness.
[Illustration: PHILOMEL'S VISIT TO HER UNCLE.]
The merchant was looking down upon his niece through his tortoise-shell
glasses with as much kindliness as it was in the nature of the old owl
to show. If there was a being on earth who had a nook in his selfish
heart, it was this only child of the sister whom he had lost.
"I've come to ask a favour—a great favour," said Philomel, as she
raised her bright face towards her uncle's, and her straw hat fell back
upon her ringlets of gold. She won from him an answering smile, which
had nothing cynical in it, as Caleb playfully observed, "Ah, I guess
that you did not visit the old man for nothing. I'll be bound that
to-morrow's archery-meeting was in that little head of yours as you
came tripping along."
"I confess that it crossed my mind," owned the conscious maiden.
"You think you'll win the archery prize?"
"I hope so," said Philomel, smiling.
"And you came to ask me to give something handsome for the ladies to
shoot for—eh, Curly-poll? If I were sure that my little niece would
be the one to get it—why, I shouldn't so much mind doing the handsome
thing once in a way."
"No; my wishes fly higher than that, uncle; I am going to ask a much
more important boon," said Philomel Lamb. "I am going to entreat my
kind uncle to oblige not only me, but all who dwell near him, by
continuing to do what Sir John did for our little school on the moor."
The manner of Caleb instantly changed; he uttered a low hiss, and
roughly drew away the hand upon which Philomel had laid her own. "The
child is crazy," he said. "Why, the rent of that cottage, the salary
and all, can't come to less than seventy pounds per annum, the interest
of two thousand pounds at three and a half per cent! You don't suppose
that you have only to hold out your little hand and have two thousand
sovereigns drop into it, like a ripe plum from a tree?"
"I know that I am asking a great favour," said Philomel timidly, for
Caleb's roughness of manner discouraged her; "but you know that it is
not for myself. Your own honour, your own satisfaction, and—"
"Fiddlety dee!" exclaimed Caleb Coffin, rising abruptly from his
seat. "Don't attempt to humbug me with all those fine words, I'm
not such a gudgeon as to snap at that bait. Though," he added more
good-humouredly, "if I were, I should have plenty of idiots to keep me
in company. What says the epigram?—
"'The world of fools has such a store,
That he who would not see an ass,
Must shut his shutters, bolt his door,
And—"break his looking-glass!"'
"Though 'that's' the last thing that a woman would ever think of
doing—he! he! he!" And restored to complacence by his own joke, Caleb
quietly resumed his seat, and stretched out his hand to the decanter.
"But, uncle," expostulated Philomel, "you would not really have Thwayte
without a school, and we cannot support one unless you help us. The
children have been so well taught."
"What have they been taught?" interrupted Caleb, with the bottle in his
hand.
"Reading, writing—"
"Humbug!" cried Caleb Coffin. "What is their reading and writing to
me? If a lad sweep away my dead leaves, I'll not ask him whether he
has ever turned over the leaves of a book; if my housemaid rub up my
furniture well, what care I how her brain may be furnished; let my cook
mind her pans, not her pens—'tis food for the body and not for the
mind that I expect from my kitchen." And Caleb, having given out his
sentiments, filled his glass with the costly wine.
Philomel felt shocked by the selfishness of the master who regarded
his servants simply as instruments to minister to his own comfort. As
he sat holding up his glass to the light, as if to examine the colour
of its contents, and then slowly sipping, he looked to her eyes the
picture of selfish indulgence.
"There is some knowledge," Philomel observed, "that all should have—the
knowledge that will make them better Christians as well as better
servants. I am sure that if poor Sir John could speak now, he would
tell us that there is no part of his fortune which he spent more
wisely, more for his own happiness here and hereafter, than that with
which he earned the blessings of the poor around him."
Caleb Coffin set down his glass, and through his goggle glasses peered
searchingly into the face of his niece. "I should like you to sift
your own argument, for I take it there's more chaff than grain in your
sack," he observed. "Though all that sounds very pretty, and I daresay
that your father gets you to help him to write his sermons, do you mean
to say that my poor cousin, Sir John—who was no great saint, you'll
allow—bought for himself a certain reversionary interest in the other
world, by a certain expenditure in this?"
Philomel was embarrassed by the question, and the searching gaze
oppressed her. Sir John had been notoriously careless of even the forms
of religion, only going to church twice or thrice in the year, and then
doing so merely as "a compliment to the parson." He had been suddenly
cut off in the midst of a worldly career; and, liberal benefactor as he
had been to the village, no one ever imagined that he had ever given a
shilling from motives of piety. Sir John had kept up a school as he had
kept a pack of hounds and a plentiful board, because to do so naturally
belonged to his position as the wealthy lord of the manor.
"Do you suppose," continued Mr. Coffin, "that Sir John was able to keep
a kind of debtor and creditor account with Heaven; that if a jovial
careless sort of life, with an oath here and there, weighed down the
balance against him, he had just to chuck a school and schoolmaster
into the opposite scale, and have all even again? This abbey here was
built, they say, by a robber baron of old, as a kind of compensation
for cutting a score of throats. Neither consciences nor throats, I take
it, can be mended with brick and mortar; yet some such idea seems to
lie at the bottom of a good deal of what is called charity now—a notion
of purchasing by almsgiving here a reversion after death. But that's
not my idea of religion."
"Nor mine neither," exclaimed Philomel with warmth; "it would be
impiety to entertain it for a moment."
"Then what return did Sir John really get for what he laid out on that
school? I'll tell you," said Caleb Coffin, beginning to count on his
fingers. "First, he got Lady Macaw and her set to own that, with all
his faults, he understood his position. Then, when he died, he got
ditto ditto to say over their whist, 'Dear, what a pity; Sir John is
dead!—spades are trumps. I wish he'd remembered the school in his will,
but he was always so thoughtless, poor man! I'm afraid that we'll find
his successor a sad stingy fellow—will you let me see the last trick?'"
Philomel could not forbear smiling at the mimicking tone and manner of
the cynic.
"Thirdly," continued the owl, "Sir John will probably get the words,
'Liberal to the poor,' in black letters upon his monument. And now
I think that I've summed up the full amount of the return for the
interest of two thousand pounds expended by my cousin on the school,
and I can't say that the result tempts me to lay out my money on a like
speculation."
"Oh, Uncle Caleb, do you not take into account the present pleasure of
doing so much good?"
Perhaps that was a pleasure of which Mr. Coffin had no large
experience, for he did not seem inclined to reckon it as an additional
item in his calculation. "It's all very well for romantic young folk
like yourself or Meredith," he observed, with a shrug of his shoulders,
"to talk of such present pleasure, but I'll be bound that if you'd
nothing else to set you going on works of charity, you'd precious soon
come to a stop. Ay, Curly-poll, look indignant if you will, but I take
it that it was not pure pleasure in doing good that brought you here
begging to-day."
"I am sure that I neither asked nor wished for anything for myself,"
said Philomel Lamb, in the tone of one whose feelings are wounded.
"Nothing in the coin of the realm, I grant you; nothing in gold,
silver, or copper; but maybe something that you like better in the
crackling bank-notes of praise. Was there no pride in showing your
power to squeeze money out of a millstone; no thought of what would be
said of the pretty little maid who had coaxed her crabbed old uncle
into being liberal and kind against his will and his nature?"
The fair young face of Philomel Lamb was suffused with crimson; it
seemed as if those keen gray eyes, peering through their tortoise-shell
spectacles, were reading the secret which had made her walk to the
abbey a time for such delightful musings. Covering her confusion with
an air of childish petulance, Philomel Lamb hastily rose from her seat,
and drew over her curly head the straw hat which had fallen back on her
neck.
"I see, Uncle Caleb," she said, "that whatever motive brought me here,
at least I have come to no purpose. I only wish that our school had had
a better and a more successful pleader than I am."
And so, with something of coldness, the young lady bade good-bye to
her uncle, and, mortified and disappointed, retraced her steps. With
emotions of indignation against a selfish, stingy old man, were mingled
a feeling of discontent with herself. There "had" been self-seeking
in her attempt to influence her uncle, the secret desire to please
"one" had been at least as strong as the wish to benefit many. It was
certainly not love for the little scholars of Thwayte that had lent
the most vivid tints to the picture which fancy had been drawing in
Philomel's mind, of woman, like some beneficent being, scattering
blessings on the world at her feet.
CHAPTER IV.
AIM HIGHER.
BEYOND the ancient gate, through which Philomel emerged from the
grounds belonging to the abbey, spread to the left a tract of moorland.
On the further side of this were seen the spire of the church, village
roofs, and the shrubbery surrounding the vicarage, to which Philomel
Lamb was now bound. To the right lay the pleasant meadow-path which
she had pursued when coming from Lady Macaw's on the breaking-up of
the little working-party at the Villa of Roses. Philomel paused before
crossing the moor, as she saw the stunted figure of Miss Eccles,
conspicuous from afar by the long green veil which she wore, coming
from the direction of the villa. The elderly lady quickened her pace
as much as a slight lameness would permit when she caught sight of the
vicar's daughter, and Philomel, turning out of her way, went to meet
her old friend.
"My dear, you've just come from the abbey?" cried Miss Eccles, as she
limped towards Philomel, panting partly from eagerness to know the
result of the visit, partly from breathlessness caused by walking
unusually fast.
"Yes, I've seen my uncle," said Philomel.
"And what success have you had?" cried Miss Eccles.
Philomel sighed and shook her head as she answered, "None."
"If Mr. Coffin does not care for what you say, it is not likely that he
will care for what Lady Macaw writes," said Miss Eccles with a look of
disappointment, glancing down on a pink-tinted and musk-scented note
which she held in her hand.
"Are you carrying a letter from Lady Macaw to my uncle?"
"I offered to do it; her servants are busy preparing for to-morrow's
archery-meeting, you know. I am sure that I would do anything to
help to keep up the school," continued the lady, raising her cotton
handkerchief to her heated face, "but there's nothing that a poor old
creature like me can do, except heartily wish and pray that those who
have the means to do great good may have the heart also."
"Better to have the heart than the means, Miss Eccles," said Philomel
kindly.
"It may be, my dear, it may be; but I own that I did feel a little
covetous to-day. I've everything I need for myself, but I should like
to be able to give something more than good wishes. But I will not
detain you, my dear; I promised to take the letter at once."
Philomel pressed her old friend's hand, cased in its neatly-mended
cotton glove, for, except upon very rare occasions, kid was a luxury
unknown to Miss Eccles. The two then separated, and Philomel watched
for a minute the little limping form as it hurried away on an errand of
kindness.
"There," thought she, "goes one who is ready to take a servant's
office, and to press on tired and heated on a mission which will bring
her no credit and scarcely a word of thanks. I sometimes think,"
reflected Philomel, as she turned to the path across the moor, "that
Miss Eccles cares less about self than any one else in our village
circle. She is 'content to fill a little space,' which is more than
can be said of most of us. I wonder whether in her youth she ever
got up little dramas in her own fancy of which she was the heroine,
inventing speeches that would never be spoken, and imagining looks that
would never be given." Philomel sighed as she pursued her reflections.
"What idle folly was mine! How my charity was but a froth covering the
surface of vanity—a froth so light, that a breath of satire could blow
it away! My uncle's society oppresses and chills me. He has no faith
in what is lofty, noble, and generous; he cannot believe in any motive
higher than that of covetousness or vanity. He would do with life what
he is going to do with his beautiful old abbey—tear away the clinging
associations, the blossoming hopes, silence the wild music, and reduce
all, if he could, to one tame uniformity of selfish comfort! All charm
of poetry destroyed, the beautiful sacrificed to the useful; as if the
beautiful had not a use of its own, and as if the heart were not likely
to be the happier and the purer for the poetry in it!"
As Philomel approached the cottage on the edge of the moor, she saw
that the little scholars of Thwayte were dispersing to their various
homes, as their afternoon lessons were just over. But there was no
joyful sound from—
"The playful children just let loose from school."
Tidings had already spread through the village that the place where the
little ones and their parents before them had learned to fear God and
read His Word was to be turned into a public-house, and the children
were thronging together in groups, with looks of grave concern that
were strange on their chubby faces. Philomel could scarcely bear to
think that the drunkard's song might soon be heard within those walls
which had so often resounded with hymns.
Without her usual merry smile, the vicar's daughter acknowledged the
bobs and curtseys from the various groups that she passed. As she went
up to the cottage porch, a little child ran up to her, caught her by
the dress, and looked up wistfully at Philomel, with her eyes brimming
over with tears.
"What ails you, my little Mary?" said Philomel, tenderly, stooping down
to the child.
"Oh, I hopes, I hopes it's not true as teacher is goin' away, and we
won't never have no more school! You won't let it be true, will you?"
pleaded the child.
It was bitter to Philomel to be able to speak no word of hope to the
child, who seemed to have such confidence in the lady's power to help.
"Shall I find Mrs. Arkwright within?" asked Philomel, glancing towards
the cottage.
Little Mary nodded her head. "She's a bin a-crying, and so has a lot on
us—we be all so sorry as teacher is goin' away." And the tears that had
been glistening in the eyes overflowed and ran down the sunburnt cheeks.
With a sigh, Philomel crossed the threshold of the little schoolhouse,
and found the mistress not resting after her teaching was over for
the day, but busily engaged with her needle, while her foot rocked
the cradle of her baby. Two elder children, but lately emerged from
infancy, were quietly playing together in a corner of the room.
Through the open backdoor, Arkwright, with his eldest son, could be
seen digging up potatoes in his garden. The cottage-scene would have
presented a picture of domestic happiness, but for the shadow of
approaching trouble darkening what had appeared to Philomel one of the
most cheerful homes in the world.
Philomel had known Mrs. Arkwright so long, and had so often come to
consult her in any difficulties that might arise in the parish that
the schoolmistress had become to the vicar's daughter almost like a
personal friend. Mrs. Arkwright poured out no complaints—her manner as
she greeted the young lady was quiet and placid as ever. But the sight
of her pale cheek and reddened eyelids touched the heart of Philomel
Lamb.
"I own, miss, that we were both taken aback when the notice to quit
came yesterday," Mrs. Arkwright observed, in reply to something said
by her guest; "it was so sudden, and we had not looked for it, seeing
that all had been going on so well. But John and I have been reminding
each other that nothing happens by chance, and that if the school be a
blessing to the place, God can find some way of keeping it going still."
"I see none," said Philomel, sadly.
And then she told the quiet listener by whom she was seated of the
vicar's futile endeavours, and then of her own unsuccessful attempt to
move her uncle to change his intentions.
"But I might as well have wasted my breath in attempting to stir the
monument by it," said Philomel, in conclusion. "I wish that I had not
gone near him; I might have known that all would be useless."
"And yet, dear Miss Lamb," said Mrs. Arkwright, "surely it was better
to fail than not to try. You have the comfort of knowing that you have
done what you could to please our heavenly Master, and what is done
unto Him can never be quite in vain."
"'Unto Him,'" repeated Philomel, thoughtfully; "I am afraid," she
added, looking down, "that not much of what we do, even in charity, can
be said to be done 'unto Him.'"
The conversation then took another turn, and ere long, the vicar's
daughter rose and quitted the cottage with her spirit calmed by contact
with the meek piety and submission of the schoolmistress of Thwayte.
Philomel's eyes had almost unconsciously rested on a copy in round
text-hand of a rhyme which had lain on the table,—
"'Our good works will be judged—and few will bear the trial—
By our purity of motive and our strength of self-denial.'"
And now the simple lines haunted her mind as she walked on. Was
Caleb right, after all; was there no such thing to be found as pure
disinterested charity; was the name but borrowed to cover vanity,
ostentation, and pride? Philomel thought of Lady Macaw's patronizing
beneficence, Lucy Langton's impulsive activity, Delia's sentimental
pity, Sir John's free and careless liberality, her own dreamy delicious
musings when going on an errand of mercy.
"'Unto Him,'" repeated Philomel to herself; "may not all true charity
be concentrated in these two words, as the future oak in the acorn?
What, then, is much to which we so readily, so self-complacently
give the name? Is it not as the mistletoe, clinging to the tree and
yet not of the tree, mingling its leaves with the oak's leaves, yet
neither drinking of its sap nor partaking of its nature? The cynic
grasped the parasite plant and it yielded to his grasp, but he could
not have thrown down the oak. He pulled down the false, because it was
false—even he would have reverenced the true.
"What chords did I attempt to touch in the heart of my uncle? I spoke
of pleasing his neighbours, gratifying myself, satisfying his own mind,
doing good to the village; the deeper notes never were struck; the
key-note of all was not struck; I never alluded to the work of giving
instruction to the Lord's lambs being a good work done 'unto Him.'"
Philomel looked on the sky, now crimson with the last glow of sunset,
and then over the moor to the abbey. Why should she not go back to
her uncle, impelled by a higher, holier, purer motive, to plead again
the cause of the poor? Caleb Coffin was a worldly, a selfish man; but
he was one who showed respect for at least the forms of religion, and
who dared affirm that there was no spark of its real life within him?
Philomel felt, indeed, a natural repugnance to entering on serious
subjects with her uncle. On such subjects, above all she dreaded his
sneer. But the vicar's daughter was thoroughly in earnest; she had
promised to do her best, and she felt that she, as yet, had not done
it. It was at least in no spirit of vanity or emulation that Philomel
Lamb, for the second time on that day, entered through the ancient
gateway the grounds that enthroned the abbey.
CHAPTER V.
WILL IT STRIKE?
PHILOMEL hailed as a good omen the sight of her uncle's form, with
the evening glow upon it, standing in the colonnade, which, of that
beautiful old building, had seemed to her the most beautiful part. She
could better plead with him, the fair petitioner thought, with the
fresh air of heaven around, and the rich sunset, sky before them. Had
not the master of Burnesbey Abbey come out to enjoy the deep calm of
Nature at its holiest hour, and would he not, at such a time and in
such a place, be more open to kindly and generous impressions?
It was well that Philomel did not know that Caleb, as he glanced upward
at the graceful capitals, the clematis-wreathed arches, the crumbling
statue on its time-worn pedestal, was not gazing in admiration, but
simply calculating "whether it would be worth while to improve and
modernize the western face of the mansion, by clearing away all this
ruinous rubbish, which serves as a shelter to the bats."
When Caleb caught sight of the slight figure of his niece advancing
towards him, he went to meet her with that peculiar expression on
his face which he intended for a smile, but which had something so
cynical in it, that it was wont to excite rather an uneasy suspicion of
ridicule in the person whom he might be addressing.
"So here you are again, Curly-poll, like a bad—'sovereign,' I suppose I
must say; for it would be uncivil to compare a young lady to a bit of
copper, be it bad or good."
"Nay, if either coin be false," replied Philomel Lamb, "the sovereign
is the worst of the two, as having the higher pretensions, and causing
the greater disappointment. You may wonder indeed to see me again
to-day, but I have come—"
"I know why you've come," said Caleb, pulling from the pocket of his
waistcoat a little tinted and scented note; "as your own arrow fell
short, you've come to see whether this had hit the mark. He! he! he!
I suppose that I shall have to stand as target for all the ladies of
Thwayte—one off, another on; but there's not one of 'em as will strike
the gold!—he! he! he!"
"I did not expect that Lady Macaw would succeed—"
"Where my pretty little niece had failed, eh, Philomel?" interrupted
Mr. Coffin. "You are a genuine woman; you would have been rather
provoked than pleased had her ladyship hit the bull's eye. There
was precious little chance of that, though she sent her arrow high
enough—right over my head. Of all things I hate the using religion
as a mask for worldliness; and a pretty specimen of that kind of
hypocritical cant is enclosed in this dainty pink note."
This was a discouraging commencement to the conversation, and Philomel
felt at the moment as if it had placed a leaden padlock upon her own
lips. But, conscious of the goodness of her cause, and resolved not
to return home until she had made an appeal to her uncle's better
feelings, Philomel linked her arm closely in his, and, in that
half-clinging position, began to speak in a tone which betrayed her
nervous emotion.
"I am really afraid to tell you what I have come here to say, lest you
should apply the same hard words to me. I have been reproaching myself
for the selfish, worldly spirit in which I visited this place an hour
ago; but now—" and warming with her theme, forgetting self in her
subject, Philomel pleaded earnestly and fervently, as to a Christian
man, influenced by Christian motives, looking beyond the narrow sphere
of this world, with its passing interests and empty praise, to the
beneficent Being from whom he had received all freely, that he too
might freely give—the Friend of the needy, who forgets not the smallest
service done to His poor, if done "unto Him."
The voice of Philomel trembled with earnestness as she spoke; the
profound silence observed by her hearer encouraged her to go on; her
eyes were fixed not upon him, but the crimson drapery of the clouds, as
if she drank in courage from the sight of their radiant beauty.
"You have accused me," she said in conclusion, "of vanity and selfish
desire to win credit while trying to do good, but I will show you
that I am, now, at least, seeking nothing for myself, not even 'the
crackling bank-notes of praise.' If you will write an answer to Lady
Macaw, assuring her that you will keep up the village school, never
will I hint to any mortal that 'my' persuasions had the slightest
influence; the credit shall be hers—yours—any one's—" here Philomel
looked her uncle full in the face with her honest blue eyes; "I will
have no thanks and no praise, for—
"'Our good works will be judged—and few will bear the trial—
By our purity of motive, and our strength of self-denial.'"
"So that is your division of labour, is it?" said Caleb abruptly,
smiling down into the eyes raised to his, but with his own cynical
smile. "You have the 'purity of motive'—granted—and you make over the
'strength of self-denial' to me! I protest against the division! 'Tis
clear that you know, when two carry a burden on a pole, how to get hold
of the lighter end. I am to expend two thousand pounds; you ladies any
amount of words, which cost you nothing! But
"'Words without deeds
Are—husks without seeds!'
"Would that fine Lady Macaw give up the gold cord on her footman's
shoulder for all the schools in the world, or Miss Lucy one gallop
after the hounds, or her pretty simpering sister one dress 'à la
mode,' or you—but I'll put you to the proof!" exclaimed Caleb Coffin,
suddenly interrupting himself, and changing his animated manner to one
of cold business-like decision. "Listen to me, Philomel Lamb—Lamb of
the golden fleece, as somebody called you. I will consent to do as you
have proposed; return a favourable answer to that fine lady's officious
note—tell her that I am going, not only to keep up the school, but to
endow it in perpetuity."
"Oh, uncle, you darling!" exclaimed Philomel, with a burst of delight
and gratitude, pressing the arm on which she was leaning with both her
little hands. She could hardly believe in her own success, it was so
much beyond her hopes.
"Softly, softly—hear the conditions first; if I'm to set up in the
self-denial line, I'll take care to have you in partnership," said
Caleb Coffin, with his irritating laugh. "My conditions are three,
Philomel Lamb, and must be observed to the very letter, or not one
farthing of my money will I throw away on that school."
"Oh, tell me them at once; don't keep me in suspense!" cried Philomel
gaily. "I shall not be easily frightened, I assure you. I would engage
to walk up to London, and back, or to reap a field, or to leap over
hedge and ditch with Lucy; anything that would tax my strength or my
courage—and I have not a great share of either—to induce you to write
such a letter to Lady Macaw."
"I will neither tax your strength nor your courage," said Caleb drily;
"your task shall be quite proportioned to your powers. My three
conditions are these: First, you shall clip off—pretty close to your
head, mind you—every lock of your golden fleece—"
"Uncle Caleb!" exclaimed the astonished Philomel, quitting her hold of
Coffin's arm, and drawing backwards.
"Secondly," pursued the owl, pronouncing every sentence with
deliberation, and keenly watching through his goggle glasses the effect
of his words, "you shall appear with your clipped poll—and no wig, no
false tresses, mind you—at the archery-meeting to-morrow, and shoot for
the prize as if nothing had happened."
"Every one present would think me crazy!" cried Philomel Lamb.
"Perhaps they might," said her uncle drily, "but not more crazy than
I should think myself were I to fling away two thousand pounds on a
school. Now for my last condition. You shall never convey a hint, by
word or by look, to any one living why you have cut off your curls."
"Uncle Caleb, I know that you are jesting; I am sure that you
are!" exclaimed Philomel, attempting to laugh off the annoyance and
disappointment which she felt.
"I never was more serious in my life," said Caleb Coffin. "I have made
you a fair offer, Philomel—a handsome offer, I should call it—golden
coin for golden tresses; you keep these, I keep that. But I'll never
listen to another word, I promise you, about maintaining and endowing
that wretched school for the brats of the village."
"You never could wish me to make myself the laughing-stock of the
county!" cried Philomel, with an expression of indignation, which
painted itself upon her expressive face.
[Illustration: CALEB STATING THE CONDITIONS.]
"Wish it—no, certainly I neither wish nor expect you to play the fool!"
cried the wily old man. "I only want you not to wish or expect another
to make sacrifices which you do not choose to make yourself. But
see—all the colour has gone from the clouds; it has transferred itself,
I think, to your cheeks—I never saw them before with such a fine
crimson tint; it's mighty becoming, set off by the tresses of gold!
You had better return home, Philomel, before it grows dark, namesake
though you be to the warbler of night. The nightingale herself, I take
it, only chooses to sing in darkness that she may have the field, or
rather the bush, all to herself. Go home, Philomel Lamb, go home; the
nightingale was never intended to soar to the lofty height which you
were attempting just now, she had better keep to her quiet bush and
her pleasant song. Be as charitable as you like in a sober, easy,
comfortable way, but leave fools and fanatics to follow the example of
the eider duck, that to warm others is ready to strip off the very down
from her breast!"
CHAPTER VI.
A SLACKENED BOW.
WITH wounded feelings and an embittered spirit, Philomel Lamb trod her
homeward path in the twilight, averting her eyes as she passed the
picturesque village schoolhouse on the edge of the moor. Caleb Coffin,
she saw clearly, had been trifling with her. He had craftily found a
method of silencing her earnest pleadings for what he was resolved not
to grant. The cynic was hugging himself in the comfortable conviction
that selfishness is a necessary constituent of solid sense, and that
enthusiasm in any cause is but the bubbling up of weaker fluid, easily
stirred, easily heated, without form or consistency of its own.
As she hurried on her way, the sweet sounds and sights of nature seemed
for the time to have lost all attraction for Philomel Lamb. A thought
came flitting ever and anon across the mind of the maiden, always
thrust impatiently aside, yet ever returning. Again and again the
words, "Could I—ought I—no—absurd! Impossible!" unconsciously escaped
from Philomel's lips, as she approached the green gate which opened on
the vicarage lawn, and its half circle of narrow gravel drive.
Fresh hoof-marks were on that gravel; none had been there when, after
her early dinner with her father, Philomel had left her home on her
visit to the Villa of Roses. Visitors must have surely been rare, or
why should the heart of Philomel have fluttered at sight of those
hoof-prints; and why should she have looked so eagerly towards the
porch to see if a saddle-horse were standing before it? All thoughts of
Caleb Coffin, the Arkwrights, the abbey and the school, at once passed
away from her mind.
With rapid step Philomel passed along the drive, unconsciously
smoothing back from her brow with her hand the light hair that
the breezes had ruffled. There was no steed fastened by the rein
to the rose-covered porch, yet it was not without a sensation of
disappointment that the young lady, on entering the sitting-room, found
her father alone.
"Why, Philomel, what has become of you?" was the greeting of the vicar
to his daughter, as she hurried in, a little flushed and panting. "The
water is getting cold in the tea-pot. I told Sandi not to bring the
tray up till you made your appearance, but Sarah is a bit of clock-work
herself, and makes no allowance for the vagaries of young ladies."
"I'm sorry to be late, papa," said Philomel, as she hastily proceeded
to perform the duties of the tea-table, after unloosing her straw hat
and throwing her scarf across the back of a chair.
Mr. Lamb was a punctual man, and the hands of the little brass clock on
the mantelpiece—the most steady-going of clocks—pointed to quarter of
an hour beyond the usual time at which the vicar partook of his simple
repast.
"Any news, papa?" asked Philomel, as she unlocked the rosewood caddy.
"That wretched business about the school can hardly be called news
now," said the vicar; "nothing has ever happened in this parish that
has given me more annoyance."
"Has any one been here?" inquired Philomel, with her eyes fixed upon
the water which she was pouring into the cups to heat them.
"Yes, poor old Barnes was here; he wants me to get him a weekly
allowance from the Board. I think that the honest old fellow should
have it; I told him I'd do what I could."
Philomel was persuaded old Barnes had not come upon horseback, and felt
no strong interest at that moment in the worn-out ploughman.
"And Mrs. Bullen called for a letter to the G— Dispensary for her
child. I'll go and see poor little Martha to-morrow; I'm afraid that
she'll never get the better of that attack in her chest." And the
vicar, as he took his seat at the table, looked almost as grave as if
the washerwoman's child had been one of his own.
"Any other visitors, papa?" asked Philomel, after a pause. Had she seen
the mark of wheels as well as of hoofs on the gravel, she would have
asked the question more boldly.
"Visitors—yes," said the vicar, rousing himself from an apparently
painful train of thought to speak on a subject of indifference. "Young
Latour was here; he came just when I was up to my ears in the parish
accounts, and sat for nearly an hour. These young fellows seem to think
that time is of no more value to others than it is to themselves."
"I suppose that he'll be at the bow-meeting to-morrow," said Philomel
Lamb.
"I don't know—yes—I remember he said that he was going," replied the
vicar; "but really my mind was so much taken up, what with the accounts
and what with the conduct of Coffin regarding my school, that I could
scarcely give attention to what my visitor was saying."
Philomel felt provoked with herself for having gone a second time to
Burnesbey Abbey upon her unsuccessful mission.
"Stop—that's enough—you've put in three lumps already; I don't want
the sugar-basin emptied into my cup," said the vicar good-humouredly.
"If the tea prove colourless and cold, you seem resolved at least to
have it sweet. I might as well have asked Latour to stay and share our
bread and butter," continued the vicar, drawing his cup towards him; "I
wish that he had called a little later, when I should have been more
at leisure. I like the young man; he is not one of your drawing-room
puppies, dangling after ladies, and retailing mere gossip. I believe
that Latour has both heart and brains; and he is none the worse for
shooting better than any other man in the county."
The vicar himself had been no contemptible archer, and during the
earlier period of his residence in Thwayte might have been cited as
a specimen of muscular Christianity. Lady Macaw had been somewhat
scandalized by the pastor's energetic cricketing on the green with his
parishioners, and had often observed that a vicar who would pull off
his coat and rush about madly with butcher-boys and plough-boys, could
not have a becoming sense of the dignity of his position, nor inspire
respect in his flock.
It was certain, however, that Thomas Lamb succeeded in winning their
affections, for he threw himself heart and soul into their interests,
and would walk twenty miles and miss his dinner any day to serve the
poorest of his people. The vicar had for years given up cricketing and
archery; Miss Eccles said that he had had no heart for such sports
since the death of his poor dear wife; while Lady Macaw averred that
Mr. Lamb was growing stout, and that it was not heart but breath that
he wanted. In confirmation of the latter opinion, the rosy, cheerful
face of the parson was still always seen wherever his people gathered
together for harmless amusement; and his hearty "Well done!" would
resound over the green when there was a high leap over a hurdle, or a
skilful hit at a wicket.
In the pulpit, Thomas Lamb was simple, earnest, straightforward
preacher who forgot himself in his work. He spoke plainly and always
to the point, and grappled with sin in his parish, as, in his youth,
he would have grappled and wrestled with an opponent in one of the
athletic contests in which he then delighted. Thomas Lamb was, however,
no eloquent preacher in the pulpit, no ready writer at the desk. It
was no easy matter to the worthy vicar to compose a single sermon in
the week, especially since the loss of his wife, who had helped him to
write it; and he always on Sundays preached two. Thomas Lamb drew from
his library what he could not draw from his brain, and, to the great
disgust of Lady Macaw, made no secret of doing so.
"I really, much as I dislike using my carriage on a Sunday, have often
to drive to G— to attend service there," the lady would say, in a
tone of pathetic complaint. "Of course it is right to set an example
of regular attendance at a parish-church; and I know, in a village
like Thwayte, the people naturally look up for direction to those in
a position like mine; but really, to see a clergyman taking a book, a
bound book, into the pulpit, shocks all one's ideas of propriety. I
actually presented Mr. Lamb with a black silk manuscript cover, and
suggested that if he must preach the sermons of others, he should
at any rate copy them out, so that he might at least appear to his
congregation to be giving them the fruits of his own toil and study;
but he has never had the grace to take the hint, or make use of the
cover."
"If it is right for me to give my flock better sermons than I can make
myself, why should I be ashamed to let them know that I do so?" had
been the observation of honest Thomas Lamb. "If a man lend me his good
cloak to cover my threadbare suit, it seems to me only fair to let him
have credit for the loan."
The vicar of Thwayte was a kind-hearted, cheerful-tempered,
hard-working parson, more popular perhaps in the cottage than the
hall, but everywhere welcome, and everywhere at home. He enjoyed a
good story, he relished a good jest, but never when mirth had the
slightest tinge of profanity, or the joke could cause the smallest
degree of pain. Thomas Lamb was one of the fondest of fathers; he had
been Philomel's playmate in her childhood—quite as fond of a game of
romps as herself; and often had the vicar raced up and down the slip
of garden at the back of his house with his little one perched on his
shoulder, her golden locks streaming behind her, while the mingled
laughter of father and daughter sounded merrily on the breeze.
Though the gaiety of the Lambs had now a more sober cast, Philomel
still found in her surviving parent not only a guide and instructor,
but the most genial and cheerful of companions, fondly partial,
tenderly indulgent, whose rebuke seldom went beyond a smile and shake
of the head, or a playful admonition conveyed in a jest. But Thomas
Lamb's own standard of duty was high; and he had so impressed his views
and principles on his daughter, that the bridle of roses by which he
held her was in his hands a very powerful curb. Philomel would have
shrunk more from bringing a cloud over that frank loving face whose
smile made brightness in her home, than many a girl would from bringing
upon herself the sternest displeasure of a parent less tenderly beloved.
There was no smile on the face of the vicar, however, as he sat with
his daughter at their humble repast in the twilight of that spring
evening. There was an unwonted stamp of care on the brow of the pastor,
and not a single story or joke escaped him as he slowly stirred his tea
and emptied his plate.
Philomel also felt little inclined to converse. Her thoughts, however,
were of a more chequered character than those of her father, sunshine
or shadow prevailing as they reverted to the disappointments of the
day, or the expected pleasures of the morrow. To judge by the softened
yet bright expression of her blue eyes, the sunshine predominated;
for at the silent tea-table, as in the flowery fields, Philomel was
indulging in day-dreams. From these she was roused by an exclamation
from her father, whose meditations had been of a more sombre and
practical cast.
"It will do incalculable mischief!" And a sigh followed which came from
the depth of the vicar's soul.
"Ah, papa, you were thinking of the school."
"I was thinking of the public-house," said Mr. Lamb, pushing back his
chair and rising from the table. "Here have I been for twenty years
battling against drunkenness in my village, giving up my own glass of
ale for the sake of example. And when I hoped that I was showing a good
front to the foe, there comes my own brother-in-law and attacks me, as
it were, from the rear. Look at poor Wakefield, father of six children
(every one of them attending the school); he is just struggling out of
the mire, making resolutions not to drink, and keeping them sometimes
for three weeks at a time. What chance will he have to become a sober
fellow at last, when a new public-house is planted almost opposite to
his own door; and where will these wretched children of a drunkard be
taught anything but mischief, when the only schoolhouse within four
miles of them is turned into a pest-house instead!" The vicar used a
good deal of gesture in speaking, and his manner, usually animated, had
now the warmth of just indignation.
"I wish that Sir John had lived till he was a hundred years old," cried
Philomel.
"I wonder whether you could do anything with your uncle?" said the
vicar, as the idea suddenly presented itself to his mind. "He cared
not a straw for my words; I've not much of the knack of persuasion,
but a woman can sometimes coax when a man cannot convince; and you,
Philomel—" the father's hand was on the shoulder of his daughter,
playing with her soft golden tresses—"you have been rather a pet with
your uncle; suppose that you take him in hand."
"I have been twice at the abbey to-day," said Philomel Lamb.
"Ah, I might have been sure that you would leave no stone unturned. You
are the willing horse, my darling, that never needs the spurring. But,
of course, your request, like my own, met with flat refusal. Had the
least hope been held out by Caleb, you would have shared it with me at
once."
Had honest Thomas Lamb been fronting his daughter instead of standing
behind her, looking at her countenance suffused with crimson, instead
of toying with her curls, notwithstanding the deepening shades of
approaching night, he must have seen the confusion caused by his
observation. That confusion became more painful as the vicar went on.
"I know that you have the matter just as much at heart as I have, and I
would willingly part with my right hand to preserve that school to my
village."
A sharp pang shot through the heart of Philomel. She rose hastily and
busied herself with putting by sugar, locking the caddy, and ringing
the bell for Sarah to clear away the tea-things and bring the lighted
candle. Philomel then brought her workbasket from its corner. This was
the hour when the vicar delighted to listen to her music—to hear, as
he said, his nightingale sing in the gloaming—but Philomel felt this
evening that she had not the heart to sing.
After Sarah had brought in the single light, Philomel proposed that her
father should read aloud to her as she worked; Mr. Lamb made an attempt
to do so, but neither he nor his daughter could fix their thoughts on
the page. The volume was soon closed, and the vicar's conversation
again recurred to the school. Philomel, bending over her needle, was a
very silent listener.
Thus the evening wore on heavily till the time had arrived for
Bible-reading and prayer. In his simply-expressed supplications, the
vicar especially remembered the subject then uppermost in his mind. He
earnestly prayed that He who has all hearts in his hand would preserve
the village school, and make it a blessing to many; and give to those
who had power to help it a ready will, a self-sacrificing spirit.
As Philomel knelt by her father's side, two bright drops fell from her
closed eyes upon her clasped fingers, but so faint was her whispered
"Amen" at the close, that it reached no human ear.
CHAPTER VII.
A GOLDEN STRING.
THE brightest day may close in wind and rain—the joyous hopes which
spring from the young heart, like free birds on the wing, be driven
back chilled and drooping, like the same birds cowering for shelter
from the rattling hail and roughening blast. How different was Philomel
when she sought her quiet chamber that night from what she had seemed
when, with elastic step, she had crossed the fields on her way to
Burnesbey Abbey! Schemes of philanthropy had then blended in her fancy
with dreams of earthly delight, so closely intertwined, that she had
deluded herself into the idea that she was devoting herself to her
duty. Caleb Coffin's hand had rudely drawn aside a silvery veil, had
disenchanted fairy-land, and awakened a dreamer who would willingly
have dreamed on her pleasant dream still.
Philomel Lamb sat at her toilette-table, before an old-fashioned oval
mirror; the light of a single candle fell upon her fair face and
luxuriant hair, and their reflection in the glass looked like some
antique picture of a Saxon beauty, with a dark background to throw
out the figure. Almost as motionless as if they were indeed a work of
the painter's art, the thoughtful sad eyes from the mirror, seemed
to gaze into the living eyes which they reflected. Philomel was lost
in thought, and scarcely conscious that she was looking upon her own
image, as she sat with her cheek resting on the hand which was half
hidden beneath tresses of falling gold.
"He said that he would give his right hand," murmured Philomel, "and
with him it was no idle boast; what my father says, he would do. For
the good of his flock, for the honour of his Master, I believe, I know
that my father would cheerfully bear the loss, the suffering, the
dependence which such a sacrifice must bring. And I,—no anguish of
frame, no daily, hourly deprivation of comfort is required of me; a
temporary disfigurement, a sacrifice of petty vanity is all that is now
asked, and from that sacrifice I draw back! Yet, in my enthusiasm, I
have oft envied the missionary's labours, almost coveted the martyr's
crown. It has seemed nothing strange to me that tenderly nurtured women
should give themselves up to a living death, hardship, separation from
all that they loved, if but the sacrifice could be sweetened by thought
that it was accepted.
"I have longed for more ample means, that I might employ my wealth
in works of charity. Now every one of these locks is worth a hundred
times its weight in gold! In a few seconds, I could do more for the
good of others than I am likely to accomplish in all the course of my
future life. My uncle would keep his word, he has never yet broken
his promise; he believes, indeed, that he will never be called upon
to fulfil it, that a woman's vanity must be stronger within her than
mercy, gratitude, devotion! Can he be right—can he be right, at least,
in his judgment of 'mine!'"
Philomel raised her head, and stretched out the hand upon which it
had been resting towards a small work-box, which lay so near that she
could reach it without rising. Slowly she drew the box towards her,
slowly she opened it, and took out a little pair of scissors, fashioned
in the shape of a stork, the two points uniting to form the bill.
Philomel's large cutting-out scissors were in her workbasket below,
in the sitting-room, where the vicar, whose hours were later than his
daughter's, usually read or wrote for some time before he retired to
rest. Mr. Lamb was neither reading nor writing at this moment; Philomel
heard the sound of his steps as he paced up and down the room below, as
he never did but when his mind was troubled.
"Oh, that I could but go to him now!" thought Philomel, with her hand
on the scissors. "Lay my head upon his shoulder, ask his advice, tell
him what is disturbing my conscience. If I had but papa's smile and
word of encouragement, I believe—yes—I do believe, that I could let his
dear fingers clip off every one of these locks. He would be more proud
of his school than ever, if he owed its preservation to his child. But
I must not consult even my father, he must not know my secret; if he
did, it would soon be a secret to no one."
Philomel smiled to herself, as she thought how impossible it would be
to her parent to keep silence upon such a subject.
"Why, I might make papa angry at the very time when I was doing my
utmost to please him. Lady Macaw would have the credit of being the one
to influence my uncle, and confer a benefit upon all the village."
And, in the mirror of her fancy, Philomel saw the lady patroness of
Thwayte in her sweeping robe of rustling silk, with a smile even more
self-complacent than usual, receiving congratulations and thanks
from the little circle of which she was the self-constituted queen.
Impatiently, Philomel pushed the scissors aside, she would never
sacrifice her hair to swell the pride of that stately dame. Let the
school be given up, rather than be retained as a memorial of what one
pushing, managing, ostentatious woman could accomplish.
"There comes the spirit of emulation and pride again," exclaimed the
vicar's daughter, half aloud; "the very spirit which impelled me
onwards a few hours ago, is now drawing me back. Why should I care, if
another be thanked and lauded for a work which is not her own? I must
prize, indeed, those crackling bank-notes of praise, when I am thus
jealous of their being appropriated by another. Where is my purity of
motive? Where my simple desire to do my duty, seeking for no earthly
reward?"
Philomel took up the scissors; again she fixedly gazed into the glass
of the old-fashioned mirror.
"Cutting off the hair—why, to that every nun submits before she takes
the black veil! But then, all the world knows why the nun is clipped,
and she has not to go the next day to an archery-meeting."
The point of the scissors drooped, the hold on the rings relaxed;—fair
reader, had you been in Philomel's place, would you have grasped than
more firmly?
For several minutes Philomel sat buried in thought, or listening to
the restless footsteps heard from below, or the mellow note of a
nightingale warbling from a neighbouring tree. Then again the maiden
raised the scissors, opened them, and enclosed one fair little lock
within the gaping bill of the stork—but she had not the courage to
press the two steel rings together. Pride and jealousy might be
overcome indeed, but there was a more powerful obstacle than either
in the heart of the poor little maiden. A very different form from
that of Lady Macaw was flitting before her fancy. Once more the stork,
and the little hand which held it, rested upon the table—the released
tress fell again to its accustomed place on Philomel's temple. The
maiden shook her head, as if in reply to some question which she put to
herself, and leaving the scissors before the mirror, rose and went to
the window.
Philomel drew back the little white muslin curtain, opened the lattice,
and looked forth into the night. The balmy spring-air came softly
through the leaves of the clustering creepers, cooled the maiden's
flushed cheek, and stirred her golden hair. In the deep blue vault, a
few stars were glimmering with pale pure light. There are few things
that so raise and solemnize the mind as silent contemplation of these
orbs of beauty. Philomel thought for how many ages these "sentinel
stars had kept watch in the sky," while generations of men came and
passed, like successive waves on the beach, rising, rolling onward with
their freight of hopes, fears, sorrows, and joys, breaking and passing
away. Thousands of years before, the same feelings which moved her
spirit had influenced hearts which were now undistinguishable dust!
"They suffered—but their pangs are o'er;
Enjoyed—but their delights are fled;
Had friends—their friends are now no more;
And foes—their foes are dead!"
Was there then nothing enduring amidst that ever-flowing tide and ebb
of human existence and decay, nothing firm and solid, nothing abiding,
more lasting even than those stars upon which Eve gazed from Eden? Yes;
the memory, the joy, the blessing of God on the smallest act done "unto
Him!"
The mind of Philomel reverted to her father, his simple earnestness,
his fervent prayer; and linked with that thought came one, if sadder
yet sweeter, of the deathbed by which she had once stood in childish
awe, which almost overpowered sorrow, when she had felt the last
pressure of a thin wasted hand on her head, and heard a mother's
faintly-whispered blessing. But Philomel now thought not of her mother
as dead. Might not the spirit's home be amongst those glittering stars;
might she not be hovering near, her eyes looking down on her child;
could her voice be heard on the night-breeze, would it not be an echo
of what conscience was even now whispering so clearly?
Philomel turned suddenly from the casement, her eyes brimming over with
tears. She took up the little scissors and again enclosed a golden
forelock. This time she did her work in earnest. But it seemed as if
the delicate instrument refused to obey her will; Philomel found a
mechanical difficulty in severing the hair by the bill of the stork—the
screw of the scissors loosened with the strain on the lever, and some
seconds elapsed ere the forelock dropped on the toilette-table—the
first real sacrifice, perhaps, that the vicar's daughter ever had made.
A gasping sigh escaped from the maiden as she gazed on the soft severed
tress which lay before her; she was startled at her own act. It was
cutting the bridge behind her, for it would be almost as difficult to
account for the loss of one lock as for that of all. The sacrifice of
the first made that of the rest more easy—more indispensable—for if it
remained alone, it would be a sacrifice made in vain. But Philomel laid
down the little fancy scissors.
"I should be half the night cutting off my hair with these," she said
to herself; "I will go for the large pair in my basket down-stairs as
soon as papa has left the parlour; just now I could not bear to meet
him."
[Illustration: THE FIRST TRESS CUT.]
A strange feeling of impatience came over Philomel Lamb. Either she
mistrusted her own resolution, or the delay in its execution was to
her a prolonged mental torture from which she longed to escape. The
sound of her father's tramping excited in the girl painful nervous
irritation. To soothe it, Philomel employed the waiting-time in
devotion, making the school for which she was sacrificing so much, a
subject for special prayer. Philomel remained on her knees till she
heard the parlour door open, and then her father's well-known tread up
the stair. She rose and intuitively counted each step, and listened to
hear the closing of Mr. Lamb's door, before, with a nervous touch, she
noiselessly opened her own.
The staircase was quite dark, save for the feeble glimmer of starlight
through the unshuttered window which looked on the staircase. But
Philomel could find her way about the familiar dwelling without need
of using her eyes. She knew well the little table in the angle of
the sitting-room where her basket was regularly placed at night, for
order as well as punctuality was the rule in the vicarage of Thwayte.
Philomel in the darkness easily found what she sought, but the cold
feel of the scissors made her shiver as she carried it away.
Mr. Lamb heard the rustle of her dress as she reascended the stairs. He
opened his door a little, surprised at his daughter's moving about the
house at so late an hour.
"My darling, is anything wrong? Why are you not at rest?" he inquired.
"I only went for my scissors, papa," replied Philomel Lamb.
There was a "Good night," and a "Bless you, my child!" The blessing
went warm to poor Philomel's heart, and when she had regained her own
apartment, she set to her stern work with more courage.
There was certainly nothing of the stoic about the vicar's daughter.
Philomel dared scarcely trust herself to think of what she was doing;
but as each tress was shorn from her head, she tried to fix her
thoughts upon some individual child in her little school-class who
would benefit by the sacrifice which she was painfully making.
"There is for my little Mary. She did not plead to-day in vain, but
she little guessed what the pleading would cost me. There is for my
dark-eyed Katie; how her eyes will sparkle to-morrow when she hears the
good news that my uncle will keep up the school! There is for Annie
Wakefield, poor child, who prays night and morning that 'father may
keep sober.'"
This blending of personal interest in individuals did not detract from
Philomel's "purity of motive," while it softened the pain of sacrifice,
and increased her "strength of self-denial."
It was over—all over—at last; the golden fleece lay a mass of rich
beauty on Philomel's knee; she had done what could not be undone. Did
the maiden repent of the act? She could hardly have answered that
question, but she dared not look in her mirror. Philomel gathered the
fair hair in a little heap and placed it upon her toilette-table;
she then rose and went to a drawer, from which she took out a white
card-board box. From this, she emptied out the contents—a few ribbons,
laces, and trinkets, which had once belonged to her mother. Philomel
returned to her seat with the box, and then, one by one, placed in
it the golden tresses which since her childhood had been her richest
adornment. The girl handled each lock with a kind of tender regret, as
though it had been a living thing—and if she left a few diamond drops
on the gold, few young ladies will blame her for the weakness. Philomel
closed the lid over the box which held her offering, went to her little
desk, and wrote a few hurried lines:—
"The other conditions will be kept as faithfully as the first. Remember
your part of the bond."
Philomel put the note on the top of the box, enclosed the whole in
paper; and after carefully sealing up the parcel, addressed it to Caleb
Coffin. A little flash of triumph came over the maiden's spirit as she
directed that packet. She fancied the look of surprise on the crafty
merchant's face when he should raise the lid of the box, and see the
golden contents. Would not the cynic be convinced at last that woman is
capable of making a silent sacrifice, not only of her selfishness but
of her vanity!
And so the weary girl at last retired to rest, with a sweet
consciousness that she had indeed kept her promise, and done her
best—she would not now reflect at what a price. If her sleep was not
altogether refreshing—if her dreams were troubled—it was because there
was one special hope—undefined, unconfessed, yet perhaps the most
precious of all—that was driven shivering back upon her heart, as the
bird cowering in its nest from the force of the pitiless storm.
CHAPTER VIII.
SOMETHING TO BEAR.
THE day broke in sunny beauty. At "the breezy call of incense-breathing
morn," the merry birds filled the air with their twittering, and the
bleat of the lamb was heard from the meadow. Man roused himself to
his various labours. The sound of the woodcutter's axe came from the
forest, the clink of iron from the village forge, and the slow creak of
the waggon from the lane. Under the eaves the swallows were chattering,
and the "cock's shrill clarion" rose from the yard. Pleasant was the
blending of rural sounds which roused Philomel to consciousness that
another day had begun.
But the vicar's daughter awoke with a sense of oppression at her heart
which excluded all pleasure, a feeling that some strange thing had
occurred, that something painful was before her, though when she first
opened her blue eyes to the light, full consciousness had not returned,
and she knew not what caused the oppressive sensation. Then she felt
a chilliness at her head, and intuitively Philomel put up her hand to
that which some hours before had been so warmly, as well as so richly,
clothed; the first touch recalled to her in a moment all that had
happened upon the preceding evening.
How different often are our sensations in the morning from those
experienced in the night—in what an altered light events and objects
appear! If Philomel had been earnest, resolute, devoted, when the quiet
stars were shining over her—if the curtain of night had seemed to shut
out the world—all her courage and spirit of self-sacrifice now appeared
to have faded away with the stars. She sprang from her pillow with a
feeling akin to desperation, and for the first half-hour, while her
fingers intuitively went on with her toilette preparations, her mind
was wildly revolving schemes of escape from the consequences of what
appeared to her now a senseless, almost suicidal, act.
Where should she hide herself—what could she do? Should she feign
sickness, keep her apartment, shroud herself in darkness from the gaze
of inquisitive eyes, the reach of impertinent gossip? Philomel was half
wild with vexation when she looked at herself in her mirror; there was
a choking sensation in her throat; but she was too much excited to
cry, she was rather disposed in a fit of passionate distress to fling
herself down on the floor. This was all very childish indeed, but poor
Philomel was no heroine. She had done what could not be undone, and
was not able at first to remember that "things without remedy should
be without regard," and that the loss of her golden fleece was not the
heaviest of misfortunes.
The first thing to soften the distress of the shorn lamb was the
distant sound of children's voices singing a hymn which Philomel had
herself taught them in the little schoolhouse on the moor. She threw
open her lattice to let in the music, and with it came in the sweet
morning air, laden with perfume from the garden. Tears came into
Philomel's eyes as she listened, and then she turned them towards the
parcel which she had directed to Caleb Coffin on the preceding night,
and something of thankful pleasure mingled now with her pain.
"It has not been for naught; there is comfort at least in that thought.
If I am a loser, others are gainers. Those dear little voices—how
sweet they sound! I think that they were sent to cheer me, and give me
courage to go on; for go on I must! I am like one climbing a cliff,
who has reached a point whence he cannot go back. I must not stop on
my way, or the fruit of my effort is lost. I must go on—I must go on!"
Philomel repeated these last words again and again.
If, according to her own simile, she had been as one clambering up the
steep face of a cliff, till there was no way of turning or descending,
a jutting crag seemed to be overshadowing her now. Her nerve was
failing her, her courage was sinking, and yet she must rise above that
obstacle, or all the hard upward struggle already experienced would
avail her nothing.
Philomel's window looked out on a fair lawn girdled with shrubbery,
dotted with parterres. The village lay beyond it, backed by the wood,
and above the trees rose the tower of the church, its gilt weathercock
gleaming blight in the morning beam. Job, the labourer employed at
the vicarage, was standing on the dew-sprinkled lawn, by the lines of
newly-mown grass, whetting his scythe, and merrily whistling. There
were sounds of movement within the dwelling. Philomel heard Sarah the
maid setting down the jug of hot water and the cleaned boots outside
the door of the vicar's apartment. It was time that another step should
be taken on Philomel's difficult path, another point by an effort be
gained. She called the maid to her room, strangely dreading to meet
even the eye of the simple Scottish general-servant.
Sarah obeyed the young lady's call.
Philomel did not look at her as she entered; fancy painted vividly
enough the expression of blank amazement on the face of the maid as she
saw her mistress for the first time divested of all her long flowing
hair.
Philomel pointed to the parcel which lay on the table, and, in as
steady a voice as she could command, bade Sarah ask Job to take it
directly to Burnesbey Abbey. Philomel had to repeat the order in a
more peremptory tone before it was obeyed, for the servant was so much
astonished by what she saw, that she could scarcely take in the sense
of what she heard.
It was a relief to the vicar's daughter when Sarah had quitted the room
with that precious packet, though Philomel was persuaded that the first
words which would escape the maid's lips would be, "Sure my young leddy
has gone clean daft!"
Philomel watched Job from her window as he stopped in his mowing to
receive the message and parcel from Sarah. Few words seemed to pass
between the two. Job wiped his scythe, hung it up in a blossoming
lilac, took up his fustian jacket which had lain on the gravel drive,
put it on, and then set off on his errand, little guessing what were
the contents of the small white parcel which he carried under his arm.
"I have now compromised myself fully," murmured Philomel Lamb to
herself, as Job passed through the green gate, and she heard its clink
as it swung back behind him. "He carries my plighted promise as well
as my hair. Oh, may my uncle faithfully fulfil his part of a bond as
strange as that made by Shylock, I had almost said—as cruel!"
Philomel, though heavy-hearted, was no longer excited. The Rubicon had
been crossed, there was no more painful struggling with indecision and
doubt. The vicar's daughter quietly read her chapter, and knelt at her
morning devotions; she had never engaged in them with a more simple,
confiding faith. There is to a loving heart a sweetness in sacrifice;
notwithstanding all her fears and regrets, when Philomel rose from her
knees she felt no longer unhappy.
"Oh, that I could but tell my father why I have done this," murmured
Philomel half aloud, as she heard the vicar descending the stairs.
"For the first time in my life, I fear to face him. Papa will be so
much surprised, so much annoyed; my conduct will seem so inexplicable
to him. His vexation will be the worst—or almost the worst—part of my
trial."
Philomel went to her drawer, took out her small store of ribbons,
carried them to her toilette-table, and forced herself to look calmly
into the mirror. She must wear no false hair—even had any been at hand,
that was a part of her bond—but she might soften the effect of the
disfigurement which the loss of her ringlets occasioned.
Philomel used the scissors here and there where the golden fleece had
been hastily and unevenly clipped; and she bound a blue ribbon round
her temples, letting the ends fall behind on her shoulders. The maiden
felt little satisfied with the effect of her simple coiffure, and yet
not all the charm of her face had been lost with her curls. The contour
of the head was classical, the hair on it smooth and shining as gold,
the countenance beneath looked more youthful than ever, with its rosy
blush, and expression of mingled shyness and sweetness.
Thrice Philomel went to the top of the staircase, thrice she returned
to her own apartment, before she could summon up courage sufficient to
meet her father at the breakfast-table before family prayers. Delay,
however, could not make the inevitable trial more easy to be borne,
and when Philomel did enter the parlour at last, it was with a rapid,
hurried step. The vicar had his back to the door when it was opened
by his daughter, he was looking out the chapter for the day. But when
he turned round and suddenly confronted Philomel, his surprise at her
altered appearance was expressed in an ejaculation which was rarely
known to escape from his lips.
"Bless me," cried the vicar three times, and each time with stronger
emphasis, "what has the child done with her hair!"
Philomel went up to her father for her usual morning salute, but
instead of giving it, the vicar held her back by her shoulders, that he
might gaze with a long, puzzled, scrutinizing look at the head shorn
of its locks. Embarrassed and distressed by his gaze, poor Philomel
dared not raise her eyes, and felt her whole countenance suffused with
a burning glow.
"What mad freak is this?" said the vicar at last in a tone of
displeasure. "You are the last person whom I should have expected to
play the fool in a silly attempt to follow the fashion."
"It is not the fashion at all," replied Philomel, scarcely knowing
whether to cry or to laugh.
"Fashion or not—it is frightful; you look like a charity-child,"
bluntly observed the vicar. "I hate the masses of false hair with which
girls now-a-days disfigure their heads, and I thought that the pendulum
of fashion might be swinging back to no hair at all, but the latter
fancy would be the most absurd of the two."
"I hope, papa, that you don't mind much," said Philomel, timidly
approaching and giving the kiss which her parent, for once, did not
return.
"Well, I suppose that a girl has a right to do what she pleases with
her own hair; dress it like a Chinese or an Ojibeway Indian, if it
takes her fancy to do so," said the vicar, still looking a good deal
disturbed; "but I am sorry that a daughter of mine should make herself
the talk of the village. Of course you do not intend to show your
cropped poll at the archery-meeting to-day."
"Indeed, papa, I believe—I think—I know that I mustn't break my
engagement."
The vicar merely shrugged his shoulders, and to Philomel's relief at
that moment, Sarah came in for family prayers.
At breakfast, the vicar was unusually silent. When Sarah brought in
the steaming kettle, she observed to herself that master looked put
out, and no wonder, he had taken such pleasure in Miss Philomel's hair.
Mr. Lamb was, however, a good-tempered man, and had a kindly heart.
He saw that his daughter was pained, and he would not distress her by
questions. Only, during breakfast-time, Philomel several times found
her father looking at her short hair with a perplexed and troubled
expression.
"I shall not dine at home to-day," said Mr. Lamb, as he concluded his
meal; "I shall go to see Bullen's sick child, and then on to G—. I
shall look in there on the rector, and probably take early dinner with
him."
"Then will you not accompany me to the archery-meeting, papa?" asked
Philomel, who dreaded facing the company without the support of her
father's presence.
"Not accompany you, but join you there. I shall be in time, no doubt,
to see you receive the silver arrow, if you win the prize," said the
vicar smiling. "But, in truth," he added, more gravely, "I am scarcely
in a mood for all these gay doings to-day. This niggardly conduct of
Coffin's weighs on my spirits; my own village will look as strange to
me without my school, as—as you do, child, without your ringlets."
"Oh, papa, I don't despair of our keeping on the school!" exclaimed
Philomel, with a brighter glance than had beamed on her face since she
had met her father that morning.
The vicar sighed, and shook his head. "Caleb Coffin," he observed, "is
not a man to be changed by a word or led by a hair."
"We shall see," said Philomel, smiling.
And as she went up the stairs to her room, her heart felt much lighter
than it had done when she had descended them before breakfast.
CHAPTER IX.
RANDOM SHOTS.
"WHAT will be my uncle's reply to my note? Will he write? Will he come?
He will be a little sorry, I think, for the loss of my poor hair; but a
great deal more sorry for the loss of his money."
Such were the thoughts perpetually recurring to the mind of Philomel
Lamb, as she pursued her little household avocations, or, seated in her
own apartment, completed her simple preparations for the afternoon's
fête by fastening collar and cuffs on the white muslin dress with
blue forget-me-nots printed upon it, which she was to wear at the
archery-meeting. Philomel's fancy moved more rapidly than her needle,
and several times she laid down her work, and went to her little
flower-mantled casement to see if no messenger were in sight coming
from the direction of Burnesbey Abbey. Was it possible that her uncle
would deceive her; would the close-fisted, cold-hearted cynic actually
discover some method of keeping his promise to the ear, and breaking it
to the sense? Philomel felt indignant with herself at letting such a
suspicion cross her mind for a moment.
The clock on the stairs had just struck the midday hour, as if echoing
the chime from the church, when Philomel once more went to her
casement, and looked down on the shrubbery and lawn. Her father was
quitting the vicarage to go on his errands of kindness, umbrella in
hand, according to his invariable habit, though there was not a cloud
in the sky.
"An honest man, tight buttoned to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within."
Mr. Lamb had just issued from under the porch of the vicarage, when
Philomel heard the familiar click of the shrubbery gate, and saw Miss
Eccles, in her faded green poplin, with her long veil hanging limp
behind her, hurrying into the grounds as fast as lameness would let
her. The face of the elderly lady was all aglow with delight, her mouth
expanded in the broadest of smiles; it might be merely from pleasure
at meeting her pastor, but a child could have read fair weather in the
barometer of that kindly old face. Miss Eccles held an open note in her
hand, and Philomel guessed from her eager gesture that the note must
contain good news.
The vicar's daughter watched with curious interest the meeting between
her father and her friend, though she could not at the distance
distinguish a word that was uttered. Miss Eccles met her pastor
half-way on the gravel drive, with both her hands extended towards him;
she said something as she held out the note to Mr. Lamb, which made him
give a little start of pleasure or surprise. Of course, his back was
towards the vicarage; Philomel as she bent forward from the casement
would have given anything for a glimpse of her father's face, for she
guessed what were the tidings which the joyful messenger had brought.
Her wish was quickly gratified; as Mr. Lamb returned the note to Miss
Eccles, he turned suddenly round, looked up at the window at which his
daughter was standing, every feature of his countenance radiant with
honest pleasure, took off his hat and waved it aloft, then joyously
went on his way.
Philomel ran down-stairs to welcome Miss Eccles and hear the glad
tidings of which she was evidently the bearer. In the excitement of joy
and hope, the lamb quite forgot the loss of her fleece.
She met Miss Eccles in the porch. The elderly lady was smiling and
panting, but the expression of her face changed by a sudden transition
to that of wonder, when her glance fell on the vicar's daughter.
"Why, Philomel," she exclaimed, drawing back, "who on earth has been
clipping off your hair?"
"Never mind my hair, tell me your news!" cried Philomel eagerly,
catching from the hand of her old friend the open note, in which she
recognized the formal, peculiar handwriting of Caleb Coffin.
"Lady Macaw sent it for you and your father to see; she received it
not half an hour since. I chanced to be calling. But, dear heart! Dear
heart! What has become of your beautiful golden curls?"
Philomel scarcely heard the question, she was eagerly reading the note,
which was brief, as the epistles of Caleb Coffin were wont to be.
"DEAR MADAM,—There are some arguments which cannot be refuted, some
requests which cannot be denied. It is possible that woman's persuasion
may after all prop up the school, and turn an old cynic into a
philanthropist in spite of himself. You shall know my final decision at
the archery-meeting to-day.—Faithfully yours,—
"CALEB COFFIN."
"To think of his granting to Lady Macaw what he refused to you and your
dear excellent father! 'Tis a strange world," exclaimed Miss Eccles.
"I little knew that the tiny pink note which I carried myself to the
abbey would have worked such a wonderful charm. It must have been a
very clever, coaxing letter indeed. She is a remarkable woman, is Lady
Macaw. You should see her pride and delight; she is really looking
ten years younger to-day. She told me that she had never yet set her
heart upon any object which she did not accomplish, that she had felt
persuaded from the first that she could twist the old man round her
finger."
[Illustration: MEETING OF PHILOMEL AND MISS ECCLES.]
"She had better not let the old man know that she says so," observed
Philomel with a smile, as she accompanied her visitor into the parlour.
Philomel's pleasure at her own success was not to be without much
alloy. She needed all its sustaining power to enable her to endure
with tolerable patience the cross-questioning which followed from the
elderly lady regarding the loss of her tresses. The weakness of Miss
Eccles was curiosity, and, with all her kindliness of nature, she was
utterly deficient in tact. She was very inquisitive, very desirous to
know why Philomel had so disfigured herself, what she intended to make
of her hair, whether it were to be turned into a wig, or whether—here
Miss Eccles lowered her tone to a mysterious whisper—she meant to sell
it for some charitable purpose; she had heard before of such strange
things being done. Philomel, half amused, half angry, and a good deal
perplexed, felt inclined to make some excuse for escaping to her own
room, and so abruptly ending a conversation which teased her almost
beyond her powers of endurance.
"Why, here come the Langtons!" exclaimed Miss Eccles, suddenly
interrupting herself in the midst of an earnest recommendation of
Macassar oil, to stimulate the growth of short hair.
"Oh, I can't stand all this!" thought poor Philomel, starting to her
feet, and feeling like a hunted creature in her own father's home.
Lucy Langton, eager and impetuous as usual, came in first, brimful
of news; she had heard by this time—all the village had heard—of the
note to Lady Macaw, and the story, passing from mouth to mouth, had of
course received additions by the way. The Langtons—after calling to
congratulate the Arkwrights—had hastened on to the vicarage to tell
Philomel, should she not have heard of it already, that Mr. Coffin, in
the handsomest manner, had made a gift of schoolhouse and endowment to
the lady of the Villa of Roses!
But the rapid current of Lucy's thoughts was quickly turned into a
new channel by her first glance at Philomel Lamb. Bursting into an
uncontrollable fit of merriment, the young lady threw herself into an
arm chair, and rocked herself backwards and forwards, almost convulsed
with laughter. Lucy could hardly articulate between her bursts of
mirth, "Shorn lamb! Shorn lamb! What has become of your fleece?"
Lucy's exuberant merriment was infectious, and though Miss Eccles bit
her own lip and pinched her own arm to suppress by pain her inclination
to join in it, and Delia, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth,
turned away towards the window, Philomel found herself the unwilling
cause of great amusement to the three ladies, a position which caused
her considerable embarrassment and annoyance.
"I seem to afford you a good deal of diversion," said the poor young
girl, struggling to speak in a tone of good humour.
"Oh, dear child, I beg your pardon!" cried Lucy, with tears of laughter
in her merry black eyes. "But really you do look so funny, as if you
had just come out of an hospital or a prison—or—or a lunatic asylum!"
A little explosive sound of mirth escaped from under Delia's
handkerchief, and Miss Eccles desperately walked to the piano, and
pretended to examine the pieces of music on the top.
"But I don't know when wonders will cease. If the owl suddenly is
transformed into a bird of paradise—the last thing I should ever have
expected—it is no wonder if the nightingale herself appears in the new
character of an unfledged yellow—"
"Come, come, you're too hard on her," tittered Delia; "there's
no accounting for tastes. Perhaps Philomel has been studying the
becomings, or has anticipated a new style of coiffure not yet
introduced from Paris, and we shall all be roundheads before winter!"
This weak attempt at a jest elicited another burst of laughter, though
Miss Eccles, who had returned to her seat, cried again and again, "'Tis
too bad!" more in the way of self-reproach than of rebuke to the others.
"Perhaps, when your mirth has exhausted itself, you will tell me what
you meant by the owl becoming a bird of paradise," said poor Philomel,
who was anxious to effect a diversion.
"Oh! Have you not heard?—Surely you must know," cried Lucy, eagerly;
"Miss Eccles must have told you what has made all Thwayte beside itself
with joy. We were at the schoolhouse just now, and you should have seen
the rejoicings, heard the clamour. Mrs. Arkwright was almost in tears."
The countenance of Philomel brightened.
"But to think of Mr. Coffin's granting the boon to Lady Macaw," cried
Delia; "it really detracts from one's pleasure at having the school
retained. Her ladyship stood on a high enough pedestal already."
"I expect to have a proposition to have Lady Macaw's statue in the
market-place of G— instead of Lord —'s," laughed Lucy. "I'm certain
there will be a paragraph in the 'Times,' all about the school, and
probably a picture of it in the 'Illustrated.' It will be the Macaw
School from this time forward, for one could not call it the 'Coffin,'
you know."
"Certainly Lady Macaw will take good care that the world is informed of
her share in the matter," lisped Delia.
"I wonder," observed Lucy, "whether the benefactress and patroness of
Thwayte ever heard of the lines,—
"'Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will ne'er inscribe the marble with his name.'
"They come into my mind so often when I am at the Villa of Roses."
"Come come, my dear, Lady Macaw is a very charitable kind creature,"
said Miss Eccles, grateful for an invitation to the archery-meeting.
"She beats out her gold very thin, and makes it cover a marvellous wide
space," said Lucy. "I should like to know the exact point at which gold
takes the title of gilding."
"She has done a good deed now," expostulated the elderly lady; "have
you seen Mr. Coffin's note to Lady Macaw?"
"I should like to see it of all things!" cried Lucy. "It would be a
most amusing specimen of the correspondence of a cynic metamorphosed
into a courtier."
Miss Eccles had already drawn from her bag the note which she had
brought to the vicarage. It was eagerly seized upon by Lucy, who read
it aloud, mimicking the tone of Caleb Coffin as she did so. As she
concluded the little epistle, she dropped her hands on her knee with
the exclamation,—
"Depend on't, 'tis all a take in! The old miser is laughing in his
sleeve at the lady who lets herself be humbugged so readily!"
"What do you mean?" cried poor Miss Eccles, looking aghast at the doubt
suggested.
"Don't you see," exclaimed Lucy, striking the paper, "he does not
compromise himself. He promises nothing; that word 'may' is a loophole
through which he can always back out."
"Certainly," observed Delia, "from what I heard, I had imagined that
Mr. Coffin had given a much more decided assurance of his intentions to
Lady Macaw."
"She'll find her pedestal crumbling beneath her," said Lucy, laughing
as she returned the note to Miss Eccles, who looked crest-fallen and
anxious. "I wish that I were as sure of the silver arrow to-day as I am
that the owl is not a bird to be caught by any spring prepared for him
at the Villa of Roses."
The visitors soon after took their departure, and Philomel seemed to
breathe more freely when they had gone. But the ridicule to which she
had been subjected had left a sore pang behind.
"Will he regard me as they regarded, though chivalrous courtesy will
prevent him from showing outwardly what he thinks?" was the question
which she asked herself with a sinking heart. "I have had trial enough
for one day—I cannot, dare not meet 'him' at the archery-fête. And yet,
what Lucy observed is true. My wary uncle has not compromised himself
yet—he is doubtless in hopes that though I have fulfilled his first
condition, I will shrink back from the last. He 'has' kept a loophole
open, and I—I only—can close it! Heigh-ho! 'Tis a painful ordeal! I
would that the day were over!"
The idea of entering a nunnery or a prison would scarcely at that
moment have appeared so formidable to Philomel, as that of joining a
gay throng of neighbours and acquaintances at that fête to which she
had once looked forward with keenest delight.
CHAPTER X.
WHO WINS THE PRIZE?
MOST auspiciously shone the sun on the fête at the Villa of Roses; no
weather could be more favourable for an archery-meeting. There was not
even a puff of southerly breeze to blow an arrow aside. Soft white
clouds lay like snowy mountains on the horizon; all above was blue as
the sky of Italy.
Lady Macaw, brilliant in a dress that might have suited a duchess, and
with a gracious condescension of manner that might have befitted a
queen, received her numerous guests at the top of the steps which led
down into her pretty pleasure-grounds, beyond which lay the field with
the targets. The terrace, where an hour before nothing had been heard
but the song of a bird, was now crowded with gaily-dressed ladies, and
the hum of their voices filled the air. The school of Thwayte afforded
a topic which superseded even that of the weather. Lady Macaw imparted
information and received congratulations on all hands, with serene
self-consciousness of having well earned the laurels on which she
reposed. The unfavourable opinion which she had formed of the master of
Burnesbey Abbey had been much modified by his note; though even that,
as she owned, betrayed an ignorance of the forms of society such as
might hardly have been expected in a man of his station.
"Mr. Coffin," Lady Macaw blandly observed, "is one whose character is
misunderstood by many, and therefore severely judged. He has a great
knowledge of the world, but has unfortunately not seen the best side
of it. But there is a great deal of warmth of heart and generosity of
nature under a cynical manner; and no doubt, with a little judicious
advice from those whom he trusts and esteems, our good friend will soon
understand and fulfil all the duties attending his position."
Carriage after carriage set down its fair freight, and dresses and
parasols of every hue gave to the lawn the appearance of an animated
flower-bed. The gentlemen-archers and some of the ladies appeared in
uniforms of Lincoln green appropriate to the occasion: but such a
costume was not "de rigueur," and Delia Langton and Philomel Lamb, two
of the best lady-archers in the county, had both resolved not to wear
it; the latter from economy, the former because "cloth is so dreadfully
heavy, and green so shockingly trying to the complexion!" Delia adopted
instead a more becoming dress of white muslin, with a cerise-coloured
scarf, and a long feather of the same brilliant hue drooping from a hat
of the smallest dimensions. A graceful quiver hung from her shoulder,
filled with many-tinted darts; and as she stood leaning on her bow
which was adorned with ribbon of cerise, Delia Langton might certainly
have been pointed out as the prettiest girl in the gay assembly had she
not looked so conscious of being so.
Poor little Miss Eccles moved uneasily amongst the gay throng. She was
far more in her element in the cottage or at the sewing-class, than in
a scene so brilliant as this. She was conscious that even her dress
looked peculiar amongst the fashionable robes around her, though she
had donned her best—her only silk gown, that which her brother had
presented her with on his marriage, and which had since appeared, "just
as good as new," at the christenings of most of his nine children.
After perambulating the walks in a vain search for Philomel, by whose
side she would feel more at ease, the shy little woman took refuge
under the wing of Delia, whom she had known from her cradle, and who
was standing in an attitude which some might call graceful and others
affected, under a laburnum's gold-dropping boughs.
"My dear, I'm so glad to see you; it's so nice to be near somebody one
knows," cried Miss Eccles, limping up to the belle of Thwayte, who
happened at the moment to be speaking to no one. "I feel bewildered in
such a gay crowd. I've been hunting for Philomel Lamb—old Mrs. Brown
was to bring her from the vicarage. I wonder what can make her so late!
The shooting will begin in a few minutes, I suppose; people are moving
already towards the meadow."
"There is Philomel," observed Delia coldly, glancing in the direction
of a walk through the shrubbery, from which two figures were emerging.
"Ah, yes, with her father—but that's not Mr. Lamb; no, no, how dull
my old eyes are growing! It's Mr. Latour in his archery dress,
bow, quiver, and all! The two seem engaged in a very interesting
conversation. How happy our Philomel is looking—her cheeks are as
bright as your ribbon! Dearie me! I should never have believed that she
could have looked so well with all her pretty ringlets cut off!"
"She has made a fright of herself," observed Delia, and the cerise
feather quivered as she spoke.
"Some one does not think so, I'll be bound," said Miss Eccles, with a
knowing smile. Like most unmarried ladies, she took special interest in
anything that might end in a wedding. "I've thought for a long time,"
she added, dropping her voice to a confidential whisper, "that there
was a fancy in that direction."
"The fancy is all in your own brain," replied Delia, with the slightest
approach towards asperity.
The expression of her face, however, instantly changed, and her pretty
teeth were shown in a gracious smile, as she caught the eye of Mr.
Latour, who raised his cap, and came forward to greet her.
Miss Eccles limped off at once to Philomel, near to whom, faithful as a
shadow, she remained during the rest of the fête.
After a few commonplace observations had been exchanged between Mr.
Latour and Miss Langton, relative to the weather, the company, the
shooting, the archer, bending his tall form so that his accents might
be heard by his companion, without reaching any ear but her own, said,
with a little hesitation in his tone,—
"I believe that you and your sister are very intimate with Miss Lamb.
Can you inform me—have you any idea why she has adopted that new mode
of wearing her hair?"
"Wearing it!—Rather of 'not' wearing it," said Delia, with a little
affected simper. "She has certainly confided nothing to us, though Miss
Eccles and we were putting her to the question about it this morning.
I suppose that Philomel Lamb has her whims and fancies, like other
people."
"I should not think that Miss Lamb is one likely to act upon mere
whim," observed Mr. Latour. "She has perhaps some reason which she does
not choose to make known."
"Oh, surely young ladies are not bound to have reasons for all that
they do!" replied Delia, gently stroking down the feather of an arrow
which she had drawn from her quiver. "Some people like to be odd, and
different from others. Philomel belongs to rather an eccentric family."
"I never heard that before," said the archer, coldly.
"Her aunt was eccentric—very eccentric. I know that she was once under
restraint, poor thing!" observed the benevolent Delia.
"Mr. Coffin never had a sister except Mrs. Lamb. I suppose that
this poor lady was a sister of the vicar?" The observation took the
interrogatory form.
"Yes; that is, sister-in-law," replied Delia, biting her lip; for
she intuitively perceived that she was not raising herself in the
estimation of Mr. Latour. To change the conversation, the young lady
abruptly remarked: "Of course, you have heard that Mr. Coffin has held
out hopes of his keeping up our dear little school. Do you believe that
he will actually do so?"
"I have no doubt upon the subject," the archer replied. "I had a very
interesting conversation with Mr. Coffin at Burnesbey Abbey this
morning. Ah! Here he comes to answer for himself. I believe that we
were only waiting for his arrival to commence the shooting. Will you
permit me to string your bow, Miss Langton?"
Caleb Coffin was just entering the gate leading to the Villa of Roses
when he was overtaken by his brother-in-law, Thomas Lamb. The vicar
came, umbrella in hand, heated after his long walk to and from G—.
"I've just dropped in to see my little girl shoot," he observed, after
shaking hands with Mr. Coffin.
"What's this that I hear about Philomel?" asked Caleb, abruptly.
"People say that she has clipped off all her gold curls. What could
induce a young girl to do anything so absurd?"
The old merchant fixed his keen eyes, as he spoke, on the vicar, with a
penetrating glance of inquiry.
"I cannot conceive why she did it. It passes my comprehension," replied
the honest pastor, shrugging his shoulders.
"What! You have not asked her?" inquired Caleb Coffin.
"She keeps her own counsel," replied the vicar, looking rather annoyed.
"I never before knew my little girl have anything like a secret with
me."
Caleb indulged for a moment in his little hissing laugh. And then, in
his stiff, ungainly manner, advanced towards Lady Macaw, who came down
the steps with both hands extended to welcome her guest. She was too
much absorbed in doing the honours to the liberal master of Burnesbey
Abbey, to have much attention to bestow on the simple honest-hearted
vicar who stood at his side.
Caleb received all the courteous and flattering things that were said
to him by Lady Macaw with a little shake of the head and twinkle of the
eye, which puzzled and somewhat disconcerted her. She noticed (nothing
ever escaped the notice of Lady Macaw) that Mr. Coffin was followed
by his servant, bearing two narrow boxes under his arm. She inquired
the meaning of this with her eyes; but as Caleb Coffin either did not
understand that kind of language, or did not choose to appear to do
so, she left him to make his explanation when he pleased. Lady Macaw
had her own ideas, her own hopes, regarding the contents of those
mysterious boxes, but had sufficient tact not to trouble her eccentric
guest with questions. "After a salmon has taken the bait, it must be
given line, and humoured and played with, or it may break away after
all," thought the sagacious lady of the Villa of Roses.
All the company now adjourned to the field where the archery contest
was to take place. A double set of targets had been put up; one at
long range for the gentlemen, the other at shorter range for the
ladies. While the archers, bow in hand, betook themselves to their
own appointed place, by far the larger portion of the company ranged
themselves in a semicircle behind one of the ladies' targets, as the
point of greatest interest. In the centre of this semicircle stood Lady
Macaw, her long train sweeping the grass. Caleb Coffin was at her side.
A little to the left, ever keeping as close as possible to Philomel
when her turn for shooting arrived, appeared the vicar, leaning with
both hands on his umbrella, firmly planted in the sod; while Miss
Eccles kept rather in the background, save when the flight of an arrow
shot by a friend was succeeded by the plop which told that the target
was struck, when her eagerness made her press forward a little.
Philomel Lamb looked bright and hopeful, as she slowly drew the
lengthening cord. A spring of pleasure was rising in the young maiden's
heart, not altogether springing from a sense of duty performed, though
owing much of its sweetness to that source. The vicar's daughter had
felt that in the eyes of one at least she was not disfigured; and such
being the case, she could cheerfully part with the admiration of all
the world beside.
Several ladies from G— and its neighbourhood contended for the silver
arrow; but it was soon evident that one of the fair archers of Thwayte
was likely to carry off the prize. The arrows of Lucy Langton, indeed,
seemed as erratic as herself: over or under the mark, to the right
or the left—now ringing against the iron stand of the target, now
disappearing no one knew where—it was clear that the silver prize was
not likely to be won by her bow.
But Delia had practised diligently, had a good eye and a steady hand,
and had set her heart upon being the queen of the day. In shooting, no
lady approached her except Philomel Lamb, who kept for some time but a
little behind her.
The vicar's daughter was encouraged and animated by the hearty sympathy
of her father, who was standing near her, eagerly watching the flight
of each of her arrows. The vicar's love of archery, and partiality for
his child, made him take a keen interest in the sport; and he could not
refrain from calling out directions as Philomel pointed her arrow, or
exclaiming with hearty pleasure when that arrow quivered in the target.
The last arrows were at length to be shot off. Delia and Philomel were
the last to shoot; and before they did so, both were in advance of all
their rivals. The prize must therefore, of necessity, be gained by one
or other of these fair maidens of Thwayte. Delia had marked a point
higher than Philomel before this last decisive trial, and therefore the
chances of success were in her favour. Very slowly and cautiously Delia
took her aim and drew the tightening cord. The arrow flew through the
air.
"A hit!—'Tis in the outer circle," exclaimed Caleb Coffin, who, peering
through his goggle spectacles, showed more interest in the game than
was consistent with his character of cynic.
"Now, success to you, my child!" cried the vicar, as he handed the last
arrow to Philomel, then drew back, eagerly awaiting the result.
A shout from the spot where the gentlemen were shooting was heard at
this moment.
"Latour has it!" was the cry.
Philomel paused, turned her head for an instant to listen, and then,
with a bright smile on her lips, drew her bow, and her last arrow
went quivering right into the centre of the gold! The vicar could not
refrain from a shout, and Miss Eccles clapped her hands with delight.
"Well done, lamb of the shorn fleece!—Well done!" exclaimed Caleb
Coffin. "I thought you would win the day. You've hit the right point in
more than one sense."
There were smiles and congratulations on all sides, in which the
gentlemen-archers, who now joined the circle around the ladies' target,
united. There was but one face on which a cloud rested. Delia unstrung
her bow with a feeling of deeper mortification at her heart than could
have been caused by mere failure in winning the silver brooch.
"And now let us adjourn to the Villa of Roses," said Lady Macaw, "that
our Robin Hood and the sylvan queen may receive the prizes which
are awaiting them there. Mr. Latour, you have won the privilege of
escorting Miss Lamb, and of presenting to her—our fair victor—the
silver arrow, trophy of success."
"A moment—excuse me. Let me have a part in this matter," said Caleb
Coffin, who, as soon as the contest had been decided, had beckoned
to his servant, who had been waiting at a little distance while the
shooting went on. "Let Mr. Latour and my niece Philomel respectively
have the honour, or pleasure, or privilege, or whatever you may call
it, of presenting each other with prizes. But I have on this occasion
followed your suggestion, Miss Delia Langton."
Caleb seemed to take a little malicious pleasure in teasing the
discomfited lady archer. "You showed me your golden prize bracelet, and
gave me a pretty strong hint that if I wished to be a popular man in
Thwayte, I should follow Sir John's example by giving something worth
shooting for. I am not above taking a lady's advice. I am going to
appear in my new character of a popular man. I have provided prizes not
only for the lady, but for the gentleman winner also; and I hope that I
may have succeeded in pleasing the taste of each."
There was a murmur of applause through the circle, and the proceedings
of Caleb Coffin were watched with no little interest as he took the
first box from his servant and said, as he placed it in the hands of
Mr. Latour, "Meredith, present that to the lady whose arrow struck the
centre of the gold."
Smiling and blushing and sharing in no small degree the curiosity of
those around her, Philomel received and opened the box which contained
the gift of her uncle, and drew out a piece of parchment written over,
signed, and sealed.
"What is it? What can it be?" passed from mouth to mouth, as inquiring
glances were exchanged amongst the spectators.
"Allow me to explain," said Meredith Latour, who was assuredly not the
least pleased or interested member of the throng. "This parchment is a
deed, which I had the gratification of signing as witness this morning,
by which my late guardian, Mr. Coffin, makes over the cottage now used
as a schoolhouse in Thwayte, with a liberal endowment in perpetuity, to
any trustees whom Miss Lamb, his niece, may be pleased to appoint."
There was a general murmur of satisfaction, amidst which Lady Macaw's
faint "Oh!" was unheeded and unheard.
"In the name of all my parishioners, as well as in that of my daughter,
I thank you most heartily, Caleb Coffin, for your generous gift!" cried
the delighted Vicar of Thwayte.
"There is no generosity in the matter, nor is that deed a gift,"
replied Caleb, with a significant nod at Philomel, whose eyes spoke the
joy and gratitude which she could not put into words. "The affair is
a mercantile transaction between my niece Philomel and me. I have had
a 'quid pro quo' for my money, goods delivered beforehand, an honest
bargain has been made and kept by both parties concerned,—he! he! he!"
"What on earth can he mean!" exclaimed Lady Macaw.
Curiosity became intense, and the circle of listeners drew closer,
while Philomel, embarrassed notwithstanding her happiness, would gladly
have made her escape.
"But let us finish our business before we tell our stories," said
Caleb. "Philomel, queen of the bow, it is your duty now to present the
prize to the victor."
Philomel gave over her own box with its precious contents to her
father, and receiving the other from Mr. Coffin, shyly and with
downcast eyes placed it in the hands of Meredith Latour.
Every one, except Caleb and the winner of the prize, gave an
exclamation of amazement when the lid was raised, and disclosed the
contents of the box to be rich tresses of golden hair!
"There! Talk of generosity now, if you will!" said the cynic gaily,
turning towards the astonished vicar. "That little heap of lady's
locks has cost me two thousand guineas this morning. I challenged you
yesterday," continued Caleb Coffin, addressing himself to Meredith—"I
challenged you to find in the world a woman who would sacrifice vanity
to duty, who would be content to do good in the dark, and I promised
a golden forfeit should such a phœnix be found. Philomel has twice
purchased the deed which she has received—first, by the sacrifice of
her hair, and secondly, by her silence; and now I redeem my pledge—the
Golden Fleece is your own."
Philomel caught the exclamation of "My noble girl!" and felt the
pressure of her father's hand on her shoulder. The words and the
pressure filled her with keener joy than the volley of applause and
congratulation which resounded on all sides.
"I was certain that she had her reasons—that she must have her
reasons!" exclaimed Miss Eccles, almost crying with pleasure.
"I never saw anything so shocking—so—so improper," whispered the
indignant Delia to her sister. "Only fancy the bad taste—that word is a
thousand times too mild—shown by the horrid old owl in presenting his
niece's hair as an archery prize to a gentleman! What on earth will he
do with it?"
"Oh, he will know well enough what to do with it," laughed Lucy,
greatly amused. "Meredith Latour has the golden chain—the gold ring is
sure to follow. Caleb Coffin would never have given the fleece, had he
not had the best reasons for knowing that the lamb was sure to follow
it."
"Mr. Latour will be carrying her off to Northumberland," said Miss
Eccles, confidentially. "I always guessed, you know, that something was
going on in that quarter."
"I pity her—from my soul I pity her!" observed Delia, shrugging her
shoulders. "I would prefer Newgate to Northumberland with its horrid
colliers and coal-dust! To crop her hair close before sending her to
prison was really a sensible thing!"
Philomel neither felt nor looked an object for pity at that moment,
though she who had "done good by stealth" might and did "blush to find
it fame." She longed, indeed, to be out of the throng, and freed from
its embarrassing gaze—alone, if but for an hour, with her father or
somebody else; but the intensity of her happiness overpowered even the
pain of her shyness.
Lady Macaw had at first experienced a sense of disappointment, as one
who finds that she has been unconsciously appropriating and wearing the
laurel-wreath due to another. She had the tact, however, not to betray
her mortification. Approaching the shy young maiden before her, she
took her graciously by the hand, and said, addressing herself to the
master of Burnesbey Abbey:—
"We have all to thank you, Mr. Coffin, not only for your munificent
gift to our village, but for making known to us the full value of the
treasure which we have long cherished amongst us. Philanthropy will be
named from henceforth in Thwayte, 'the Order of the Golden Fleece.' And
I hope that it will be found that we have many 'companions' in that
illustrious order."
"With Lady Macaw for grand-master," whispered Lucy Langton to her
sister.
"Nay, nay," observed old Caleb, in his own cynical manner; "to give
money may be common, to beg money more common; there's many a man will
do the first—many a woman the second; but I've been told that—
"'Our good deeds must be judged—and few will bear the trial—
By our "purity of motive" and "strength of self-denial."'"
If Philomel's proof of sincerity were made the touchstone for all, I
suspect that many whose names figure on subscription-lists, and whose
fair persons at charity-meetings, would hardly come forward to claim
the honours of this new order of—
_The Golden Fleece_
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