The Squire of Sandal-Side: A Pastoral Romance

"No, indeed. Launcelot's death made a deal of difference to your father and me. Father was very solemn and set about his brother's rights; and even after grandfather died, he didn't like to be called 'squire' until every hope was long gone. But I would as soon have thought of poor Launcie coming back from the dead as of Tom's son visiting here; and it is inconvenient right now, exceedingly so; harvesting coming on, and preserving time, and none of the spare rooms opened since the spring cleaning."

"It is trying for you, mother, but perhaps Julius may not be very much trouble. He'll be with father all the time, and he'll make a change."

"Change! That is just what I dread. Young people are always for change. They are certain that every change must be a gain. Old people know that changes mean loss of some kind or other. After one is forty years old, Sophia, the seasons bring change enough."

"I dare say they do, mother. I don't care much for change, even at my age. Have you told Charlotte?"

"No, I haven't told her yet. I think she is off to Dalton. Father said he was going this morning, and he never would go without her."

Indeed, the squire and his younger daughter were at that moment cantering down the valley, mid the fresh green of the fields, and the yellow of the ripening wheat, and the hazy purple of mountains holding the whole landscape in their solemn shelter except in front, where the road stretched to the sea, amid low hills overgrown with parsley-fern and stag's-horn-moss. They had not gone very far before they met Stephen Latrigg. He was well mounted and handsomely dressed; and, as he bowed to the squire and Charlotte, his happy face expressed a delight which Sandal in his present mood felt to be offensive. Evidently Steve intended to accompany them as far as their roads were identical; but the squire pointedly drew rein, and by the cool civility of his manner made the young man so sensible of his intrusion, that he had no alternative but to take the hint. He looked at Charlotte with eyes full of tender reproach, and she was too unprepared for such a speedy termination to their meeting to oppose it. So Stephen was galloping at headlong speed in advance, before she realized that he had been virtually refused their company.

"Father, why did you do that?"

"Do what, Charlotte? Eh? What?"

"Send Steve away. I am sure I do not know what to make of you doing such a thing. Poor Steve!"

"Well, then, I had my reason for it. Did you see the way he looked at you? Eh? What?"

"Dear me! A cat may look at a king. Did you send Steve away for a look? You have put me about, father."

"There's looks and other looks, my lass. Cats don't look at kings the way Steve looked at you. Now, then, I want no love-making between you and Steve Latrigg."

"What nonsense! Steve hasn't said a word of love-making, as you call it."

"I thought you had all your woman-senses, Charlotte. Bethink you of the garden walk last night."

"We were talking all the time of the sweetbrier and hollyhocks,—and things like that."

"You might have talked of the days of the week or the multiplication-table: one kind of words was just as good as another. Any thing Steve said last night could have been spelled with four letters."

"Four letters?"

"To be sure. L-o-v-e."

"You used to like Stephen."

"I like all bright, honest, good lads; but when they want to make love to Miss Charlotte Sandal, they think one thing, and I think another. There has been ill-luck with love-making between the Sandals and the Latriggs. My brothers Launcie and Tom quarrelled about one of Barf Latrigg's daughters, and mother lost them both through her. There is no love-line between the two houses, or if there is nothing can make it run straight. Don't you try to, Charlotte; neither the dead nor the living will like it or have it."

He intended then to tell her about Julius Sandal, but a look at her face checked him. He had a wise perception about women; and he reflected that he had very seldom repented of speaking too little to them, but very often repented of speaking too much. So he dropped Stephen, and dropped Julius; and began to talk about the fish in the becks and tarns, and the new breed of sheep he was trying in the lower "walks." Ere long they came into the rich valley of Furness; and he made her notice the difference between it and the vale of Esk and Duddon, with its dreary waste of sullen moss and unfruitful solitudes.

"Those old Cistercian monks that built Furness Abbey knew how to choose a bit of good land, Charlotte. Eh? What?"

"I suppose so. What did they do with it?"

"Let it out."

"I wonder who would want to come here seven hundred years ago."

"You don't know what you are saying, Charlotte. There were great men here then, and great deeds doing. King Stephen kept things very lively; and the Scots were always running over the Border for cattle and sheep, and any thing else they could lay their hands on. And the monks had great flocks, so they rented their lands to companies of four fighting men; and one of the four was to be ready day and night to protect the sheep, and the Scots kept them busy. Eh? What?"

"The Musgraves and Armstrongs and Netherbys, I know," and the cloud passed from her face; and to the clatter of her horse's hoofs, she lilted merrily a stanza of an old border song:—

"The mountain sheep were sweeter,
But the valley sheep were fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a force, and quelled it;
We took a strong position,
And killed the men who held it."

And the squire, who knew the effort it cost her, fell readily into her mood of forced gayety until the simulated feeling became a real one; and they entered Dalton neck and neck together, after a mile's hard race.

In the mean time the letter which was to summon Fate sped to its destination. When it arrived in Oxford, Julius had left Oxford for London, and it followed him there. He was sitting in his hotel the ensuing night, when it was delivered into his hands; and as it happened, he was in a mood most favorable to its success. He had been down the river on a picnic, had found his company very tedious; and early in the day the climate had shown him what it was capable of, even at mid-summer. As he sat cowering before the smoky fire, the rain plashed in the muddy streets, and dripped mournfully down the dim window-panes. He was wondering what he must do with himself during the long vacation. He was tired of the Continent, he was lonely in England; and the United States had not then become the great playground for earth's weary or curious children.

Many times the idea of seeking out his own relations occurred to him. He had promised his father to do so. But, as a rule, people haven't much enthusiasm about unknown relations; and Julius regarded his promise more in the light of a duty to be performed than as the realization of a pleasure. Still, on that dreary night, in the solitary dulness of his very respectable inn, the Sandals, Lockerbys, and Piersons became three possible sources of interest. While his thoughts were drifting in this direction, the squire's letter was received; and the young man, who was something of a fatalist, accepted it as the solution of a difficulty.

"Sandal turns the new leaf for me," he murmured; "the new leaf in the book of life. I wonder what story will be written in it."

He answered the invitation while the enthusiasm of its reception swayed him, and he promised to follow the letter immediately. The squire received this information on Saturday night, as he was sitting with his wife and daughters. "Your nephew Julius Sandal, from Calcutta, is coming to pay us a visit, Alice," he said; and his air was that of a man who thinks he is communicating a piece of startling intelligence. But the three women had already exchanged every possible idea on the subject, and felt no great interest in its further discussion.

"When is he coming?" asked Mrs. Sandal without enthusiasm; and Sophia supplemented the question by remarking, "I suppose he has nowhere else to go."

"I wouldn't say such things, Sophia; I would not."

"He has been in England some months, father."

"Well, then, he was only waiting till he was asked to come. I'm sure that was a proper thing. If there is any blame between us, it is my fault. I sent him a word of welcome last Wednesday morning, and it is very likely he will be here to-morrow. I'm sure he hasn't let any grass grow under his feet. Eh? What?"

Charlotte looked up quickly. "Wednesday morning." She was quite capable of putting this and that together, and by a momentary mental process she arrived at an exceedingly correct estimate of her father's invitation. Her blue eyes scintillated beneath her dropped lids; and, though she went calmly on tying the feather to the fishing-fly she was making, she said, in a hurried and unsteady voice, "I know he will be disagreeable, and I have made up my mind to dislike him."

Julius Sandal arrived the next morning when the ladies were preparing for church. He had passed the night at Ambleside, and driven over to Sandal in the first cool hours of the day. The squire was walking about the garden, and he saw the carriage enter the park gates. He said nothing to any one, but laid down his pipe, and went to meet it. Then Julius made the first step towards his uncle's affection,—he left the vehicle when they met, and insisted upon walking by his side.

When they reached the house, his valet was attending to the removal of his luggage, and they entered the great hall together. At that moment Mistress Charlotte's remarkable likeness seemed to force itself upon the squire's attention. He was unable to resist the impulse which made him lead his nephew up to it. "Let me introduce you, first of all, to your father's mother. I greet you in her name as well as in my own." As he spoke, the squire lifted his hat, and Julius did the same. It was a sudden, and to both men a quite unexpected, ceremonial; and it gave an air, touching and unusual, to his welcome.

And if that man is an ingrate who does not love his native land, how much more immediate, tender, and personal must the feeling be for the home of one's own race. That stately lady, who seemed to meet him at the threshold, was only the last of a long, shadowy line, whose hands were stretched out to him, even from the dark, forgotten days in which Lögberg Sandal laid the foundations of it. Julius was sensitive, and full of imagination: he felt his heart beat quick, and his eyes grow dim to the thought; and he loitered up the wide, low steps, feeling very like a man going up the phantom stairway of a dream.

The squire's cheery voice broke the spell. "We shall be ready for church in a quarter of an hour, Julius; will you remain at home, or go with us?"

"I should like to go with you."

"That's good. It is but a walk through the park: the church is almost at its gates."

When he returned to the hall, the family were waiting for him; Mrs. Sandal and her daughters standing together in a little group, the squire walking leisurely about with his hands crossed behind his back. It would have been to some men a rather trying ordeal to descend the long flight of stairs, with three pairs of ladies' eyes watching him; but Julius knew that he had a striking personal appearance, and that every appointment of his toilet was faultless. He knew also the value of the respectable middle-aged valet following him, and felt that his irreproachable manner of serving his hat and gloves was a satisfactory reflection of his own importance.

It is the women of a family that give the tone and place to it. One glance at his aunt and cousins satisfied Julius. Mrs. Sandal was stately and comely, and had the quiet manners of a high-bred woman. Sophia, in white mull, with a large hat covered with white drooping feathers, and a glimmer of gold at her throat and wrists, was at least picturesque. Of Charlotte, he saw nothing in the first moments of their meeting but a pair of bright blue eyes, and a face as sweet and fresh as if it had been made out of a rose. He took his place between the girls, and the squire and his wife walked behind them. Sophia, being the eldest, took the initiative, talking softly and thoughtfully, as it was proper to do upon a Sunday morning.

The sods under their feet were thick and green; the oaks and sycamores above them had the broad shadows of many centuries. The air was balmy with emanations from the woods and fields, and full of the expanding melody of church-bells travelling from hill to hill. Julius was conscious of every thing; even of the proud, shy girl who walked on his left hand, and whose attitude impressed him as slightly antagonistic. They soon reached the church, a very ancient one, built in the bloody days of the Plantagenets by the two knights whose grim effigies kept guard within the porch. It was dim and still when they entered: the congregation all kneeling at the solemn confession; the clergyman's voice, low and pathetic, intensifying silence to which it only added mortal minors of lament and entreaty. He was a small, spare man, with a face almost as white as the vesture of his holy office. Julius glanced up at him, and for a few minutes forgot all his dreamy philosophies, aggressive free thought, and shallow infidelities. He could not resist the influences around him; and when the people rose, and the organ filled the silence with melody, and a young sweet voice chanted joyfully,—