THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
"Still to ourselves in every place consigned.
Our own felicity we make or find."
"Catch, then, oh, catch the transient hour!
Improve each moment as it flies.
Life's a short summer, man a flower;
He dies, alas! how soon he dies!"
There are days which rise sadly, go on without sunshine, and pass into night without one gleam of color. Life, also, has these pallid, monotonous hours. A distrust of all things invades the soul, and physical inertia and mental languor make daily existence a simple weight. It was Christmas-time, but the squire felt none of the elation of the season. He was conscious that the old festal preparations were going on, but there was no response to them in his heart. Julius had arrived, and was helping Sophia to hang the holly and mistletoe. But Sandal knew that his soul shrank from the nephew he had called into his life; knew that the sound of his voice irritated him, that his laugh filled him with resentment, that his very presence in the house seemed to desecrate it, and to slay for him the very idea of home.
He was sitting in the "master's room," wondering how the change had come about. But he found nothing to answer the wonder, because he was looking for some palpable wrong, some distinctive time or cause. He was himself too simple-hearted to reflect that it is seldom a great fault which destroys liking for a person. A great fault can be forgiven. It is small personal offences constantly repeated; little acts of meanness, and, above all, the petty plans and provisions of a selfish nature. Besides which, the soul has often marvellous intuitions, unmasking men and things; premonitions, warnings, intelligences, that it cannot doubt and cannot explain.
Inside the house there was a pleasant air and stir of preparation; the rapid movements of servants, the shutting and opening of doors, the low laughter of gay hearts well contented with the time and the circumstances. Outside, the mesmerizing snow was falling with a soft, silent persistence. The squire looked sadly at the white hills, and the white park, and the branches bending under their load, and the sombre sky, gray upon darker gray.
Last Christmas the girls had relied entirely upon his help. He had found the twine, and driven the nails, and steadied the ladder when Sophia's light form mounted it in order to hang the mistletoe. They had been so happy. The echo of their voices, their snatches of Christmas carols, their laughter and merry badinage, was still in his heart. He remembered the impromptu lunch, which they had enjoyed so much while at work. He could see the mother come smiling in, with constant samples of the Christmas cheer fresh out of the oven. He had printed the verses and mottoes himself, spent all the afternoon over them, and been rather proud of his efforts. Charlotte had said, "they were really beautiful;" even Sophia had admitted that "they looked well among the greens." But to-day he had not been asked to assist in the decorations. True, he had said, in effect, that he did not wish to assist; but, all the same, he felt shut out from his old pre-eminence; and he could not help regarding Julius Sandal as a usurper.
These were drearisome Christmas thoughts and feelings; and they found their climax in a pathetic complaint, "I never thought Charlotte would have given me the go-by. All along she has taken my side, no matter what came up. Oh, my little lass!"
As if in answer to the heart-cry, Charlotte opened the door. She was dressed in furs and tweeds, and she had the squire's big coat and woollen wraps in her hand. Before he could speak, she had reached his chair, and put her arm across his shoulder, and said in her bright, confidential way, "Come, father, let you and me have a bit of pleasure by ourselves: there isn't much comfort in the house to-day."
"You say right, Charlotte; you do so, my dear. Where shall we go? Eh? Where?"
"Wherever you like best. There is no snow to hamper us yet. Some of the servants are down from Up-Hill. Ducie has sent mother a great spice-loaf and a fine Christmas cheese."
"Ducie is a kind woman. I have known Ducie ever since I knew myself. Could we climb the fell-breast, Charlotte? Eh? What?"
"I think we could. Ducie will miss it, if you don't go and wish her 'a merry Christmas.' You never missed grandfather Latrigg. Old friends are best, father."
"They are that. Is Steve at home?"
"He isn't coming home this Christmas. I wasn't planning about Steve, father. Don't think such a thing as that of me."
"I don't, Charlotte. I don't think of Charlotte Sandal and of any thing underhand at the same time. I'm a bit troubled and out of sorts this morning, my dear."
She kissed him affectionately for answer. She not only divined what a trial Julius had become, but she knew also that his heart was troubled in far greater depths than Julius had any power to stir. Harry Sandal was really at the root of every bitter moment. For Harry had not taken the five hundred pounds with the creditable contrite humiliation of the repenting prodigal. It was even yet doubtful whether he would respond to his parents' urgent request to spend Christmas at Seat-Sandal. And when there is one rankling wrong, which we do not like to speak of, it is so natural to relieve the heart by talking a great deal about those wrongs which we are less inclined to disguise and deny.
In the great hall a sudden thought struck the squire; and he stood still, and looked in Charlotte's face. "You are sure that you want to go, my dear? Won't you be missed? Eh? What?"
She clasped his hand tighter, and shook her head very positively. "They don't want me, father. I am in the way."
He did not answer until they had walked some distance; then he asked meaningly, "Has it come to that? Eh? What?"
"Yes, it has come to that."
"I am very glad it isn't you. And I'm nettled at myself for ever showing him a road to slight you, Charlotte."
"If there is any slight between Julius and me, father, I gave it; for he asked me to marry him, and I plainly told him no."
"Hear—you—but. I am glad. You refused him? Come, come, that's a bit of pleasure I would have given a matter of five pounds to have known a day or two since. It would have saved me a few good ratings. Eh? What?"
"Why, father! Who has been rating you?"
"Myself, to be sure. You can't think what set-downs I have given William Sandal. Do you mind telling me about that refusal, Charlotte? Eh? What?"
"Not a bit. It was in the harvest-field. He said he loved me, and I told him gentlemen did not talk that way to girls who had never given them the least encouragement; and I said I did not love him, and never, never could love him. I was very firm, father, perhaps a little bit cross; for I did not like the way he spoke. I don't think he admires me at all now."
"I dare be bound he doesn't. 'Firm and a little bit cross.' It wouldn't be a nice five minutes for Julius. He sets a deal of store by himself;" and then, as if he thought it was his duty not to show too much gratification, he added, "I hope you were very civil, Charlotte. A good asker should have a good nay-say. And you refused him? Well, I am pleased. Mother never heard tell of it? Eh? What?"
"Oh, no; I have told no one but you. At the long end you always get at my secrets, father."
"We've had a goodish few together,—fishing secrets, and such like; but I must tell mother this one, eh? She will go on about it. In the harvest-field, was it? I understand now why he walked himself off a day or two before the set day. And he is all for Sophia now, is he? Well, I shouldn't wonder if Sophia will 'best' him a little on every side. You have given me a turn, Charlotte. I didn't think of a son-in-law yet,—not just yet. Dear me! How life does go on! Ever since the sheep-shearing it has been running away with me. Life is a road on which there is no turning round, Charlotte. Oh, if there only were! If you could just run back to where you made the wrong turning! If you could only undo things that you have done! Eh? What?"
"Not even God can make what has been, not to have been. When a thing is done, if it is only the taking of a walk, the walk is taken to all eternity."
At the word "eternity," they stood on the brow of the hill which they had been climbing, and the squire said it again very solemnly. "Eternity! How dreadful to spend it in repentance which can undo nothing! That is the most awful conception of the word 'eternity.' Eh? What?"
They were silent a moment, then Sandal turned and looked westward. "It is mizzling already, Charlotte; the snow will turn into rain, and we shall have a down-pour. Had we not better go home?"
But Charlotte painted in such glowing colors Ducie's fireside, and the pipe, and the cosey, quiet dinner they would be sure to get there, that the squire could not resist the temptation. "For all will be at sixes and sevens at home," he commented, "and no peace for anybody, with greens and carols and what not. Eh? What?"
"And very likely, as it is Christmas Eve, you may be asked to give Sophia away. So a nice dinner, and a quiet smoke, and an hour's nap will help you through to-night." And the thought in each heart, beyond this one, was "Perhaps Harry will be at home."
Nobody missed the fugitives. Mrs. Sandal was sure Harry would come, and she was busy preparing his room with her own hands. The brightest fire, the gayest greens, the whitest and softest and best of every thing, she chose for Harry's room.
Certainly they were not missed by Julius and Sophia. They were far too much interested in themselves and in their own affairs. From the first hour of his return to Seat-Sandal, Sophia had understood that Julius was her lover, and that the time for his declaration rested in the main with herself. When the Christmas bells were ringing, when the house was bright with light and evergreens, and the very atmosphere full of happiness, she had determined to give him the necessary encouragement. But the clock of Fate cannot be put back. When the moment arrives, the word is spoken or the deed done. Both of them were prepared for the moment, and yet not just then prepared; for Love still holds his great surprise somewhat in reserve.
They were in the drawing-room. The last vase had been filled, the last wreath hung; and Sophia looked at her beautiful hands, marked with the rim of the scissors, and stained with leaves and berries, in a little affected distress. Julius seated himself on the sofa beside her. She trembled, but he looked at her almost triumphantly. Over Sophia's heart he knew his power. With the questioning, unwinking gaze of love his eyes sought hers, and he tenderly spoke her name, "Sophia." She could answer only by her conscious silence.
"My wife! Mine in lives long forgotten."
"O Julius!"
"Always mine; missed in some existences, recovered in others, but bringing into every life with you my mark of ownership. See here."
Then he lifted her hand, and opening its palm upward, he placed his own in the same attitude beside it. "Look into them both, Sophia, and see how closely our line of fortune is alike. That is something, but behold." And he showed her a singular mark, which had in his own palm its precise counterpart.
"Is it not also in Charlotte's palm? In others?"
"No, indeed. Among all the women on earth, only yours has this facsimile of my own. It is the soul mark upon the body. Every educated Hindoo can trace it; and all will tell you, that, if two individuals have it precisely alike, they are twin souls, and nothing can prevent their union."
"Did they explain it to you, Julius?"
"An Oriental never explains. They apprehend what is too subtle for words. They know best just what they have never been told. Sophia, this hand of yours fits mine. It is the key to it; the interpreter of my fate. Give me my own, darling."
To Charlotte he would never have spoken in such a tone. She would have resented its claim and authority, and perceived that it was likely to be the first encroachment of a tyranny she did not intend to bow to. But Sophia was easily deceived on this ground. She liked the mystical air it gave to the event; the gray sanction of unknown centuries to the love of to-day.
They speculated and supposed, and were supremely happy. The usual lover wanders in the dreams of the future: they sought each other through the phantom visions of the past. And they were so charmed with the occupation, that they quite forgot the exigencies and claims of the present existence until the rattle of wheels, the stamping of feet, and a joyful cry from Mrs. Sandal recalled them to it.
"It is Harry," said Sophia. "I must go to him, Julius."
He held her very firmly. "I am first. Wait a moment. You must promise me once more: 'My life is your life, my love is your love, my will is your will, my interest is your interest; I am your second self.' Will you say this Sophia, as I say it?" And she answered him without a word. Love knows how such speech may be. Even when she had escaped from her lover, she was not very sorry to find that Harry had gone at once to his own room; for he had driven through the approaching storm, and been thoroughly drenched. She was longing for a little solitude to bethink her of the new position in which she found herself; for, though she had a dreamy curiosity about her pre-existences, she had a very active and positive interest in the success and happiness of her present life.
Suddenly she remembered Charlotte, and with the remembrance came the fact that she had not seen her since the early forenoon. But she immediately coupled the circumstance with the absence of the squire, and then she reached the real solution of the position in a moment. "They have gone to Up-Hill, of course. Father always goes the day before Christmas; and Charlotte, no doubt, expected to find Steve at home. I must tell Julius about Charlotte and Steve. Julius will not approve of a young man like Steve in our family, and it ought not to be. I am sure father and mother think so."
At this point in her reflections, she heard Charlotte enter her own room, but she did not go to her. Sophia had a dislike to wet, untidy people, and she was not in any particular flurry to tell her success. Indeed, she was rather inclined to revel for an hour in the sense of it belonging absolutely to Julius and herself. She was not one of those impolitic women, who fancy that they double their happiness by imparting it to others.
She determined to dress with extraordinary care. The occasion warranted it, surely; for it was not only Christmas Eve, it was also her betrothal eve. She put on her richest garment, a handsome gown of dark blue silk and velvet. A spray of mistletoe-berries was in her black hair, and a glittering necklace of fine sapphires enhanced the beauty and whiteness of her exquisite neck and shoulders. She was delighted with the effect of her own brave apparel, and also a little excited with the course events had taken, or she never would have so far forgotten the privileges of her elder birth as to visit Charlotte's room first on such an important personal occasion.
Charlotte was still wrapped in her dressing-gown, lazily musing before the crackling, blazing fire. Her hands were clasped above her head, her feet comfortably extended upon the fender, her eyes closed. She had been a little tired with buffeting the storm; and the hot tea, which Mrs. Sandal had insisted upon as a preventative of cold, had made her, as she told Sophia, "deliciously dozy."
"But dinner will be ready in half an hour, and you have to dress yet, Charlotte. How do I look?"
"You look charming. How bright your eyes are, Sophia! I never saw you look so well. How much Julius will admire you to-night!"
"As to that, Julius always admires me. He says he used to dream about me, even before he saw me."
"Oh, you know that is nonsense! He couldn't do that. I dare say he dreams about you now, though. I should think he would like to."
"You will have to hurry, Charlotte."
"I can dress in ten minutes if I want to."
"I will leave you now." She hesitated a moment at the door, but she could not bring herself to speak of her engagement. She saw that Charlotte was in one of her "no-matter-every-thing-right" moods, and knew she would take the important news without the proper surprise and enthusiasm. In fact, she perceived that Harry's visit occupied her whole mind; for, as she stood a moment or two irresolute as to her own desires, Charlotte talked eagerly of her brother.
"Well, I hope if Harry is of so much importance in your eyes, you will dress decently to meet him. The rector is coming to dinner also."
"I shall wear my blue gown. If I imitate you, I cannot be much out of the way. Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! I hope Harry will have a pleasant visit. We must do our best, Sophia, to make him happy."
"O Charlotte, if you have nothing to talk about but Harry, Harry, Harry, I am going! I am very fond of Harry, but I don't pretend to be blind to Harry's faults. Remember how many disagreeable hours he has given us lately. And I must say that I think he was very ungrateful about the hundred and eighty pounds I gave him. He never wrote me a line of thanks."
"You did not give it to Harry, you loaned it to me. Be just Sophia. I have paid you fifteen pounds of it back already, and I shall not buy a single new dress until it is all returned. You will not lose a shilling, Sophia."
"How Quixotic you can be! However, it is no use exciting ourselves to-night. One likes to keep the peace at Yule-tide, and so I will bow down to your idol as much as I can conscientiously."
Charlotte made no answer. She had risen hastily, and with rather unnecessary vigor was rattling the ewer and basin, and plashing out the water. Sophia came back into the room, arranged the glass at the proper angle to give her a last comprehensive review of herself; and this being quite satisfactory, she went away with a smiling complacency, and a subdued excitement of manner, which in some peculiar way revealed to Charlotte the real position of affairs between her sister and Julius Sandal.
"She might have told me." She dashed the water over her face at the implied complaint; and it was easy to see, from the impatient way in which she subsequently unbound her hair, and pulled the comb through it, and from the irritability of all her movements, that she felt the omission to be a slight, not only indicating something not quite pleasant in the past, but prefiguring also she knew not what disagreeable feelings for the future.
"It is not Sophia's fault," she muttered; "Julius is to blame for it. I think he really hates me now. He has said to her, 'There is no need to tell Charlotte, specially; it will make her of too much importance. I don't approve of Charlotte in many ways.' Oh, I know you, sir!" and with the thought she pulled the string of her necklace so impatiently that it broke; and the golden beads fell to her feet, and rolled hither and thither about the room.
The incident calmed her. She finished her toilet in haste, and went down-stairs. All the rooms were lighted, and she saw Julius and Sophia pacing up and down the main parlor, hand in hand, so interested in their sotto voce conversation as to be quite unconscious that she had stood a moment at the open door for their recognition. So she passed on without troubling them. She heard her mother's happy laugh in the large dining-room, and she guessed from its tone that Harry was with her. Mrs. Sandal was beautifully dressed in black satin, and she held in her hand a handsome silver salver. Evidently she had been about to leave the room with it, when detained by some remark of her son's; for she was half-way between the table and the door, her pretty, kindly face all alight with love and happiness.
Harry was standing on the hearth-rug, facing the room,—a splendidly handsome young fellow in a crimson and yellow uniform. He was in the midst of a hearty laugh, but when he saw Charlotte there was a sudden and wonderful transformation in his face. It grew in a moment much finer, more thoughtful, wistful, human. He sprang forward, took her in his arms, and kissed her. Then he held her from him a little, looked at her again, and kissed her again; and with that last kiss he whispered, "You good sister. You saved me, Charlotte, with that five hundred pounds."
"I would have given it had it been my all, it been fifty times as much, Harry."
There was no need to say another word. Harry and Charlotte understood each other, and Harry turned the conversation upon his cousin.
"This Indian fellow, this Sandal of the Brahminical caste, what is he like, Charley?"
"He does not admire me, Harry; so how can I admire him?"
"Then there must be something wrong with him in the fundamentals; a natural-born inability to admire what is lovely and good."
"You mustn't say such a thing as that, Harry. I am sure that Sophia is engaged to him."
"Does father like him?"
"Not much; but Julius is a Sandal, after all, and"—
"After me, the next heir. Exactly. It shall not be my fault, Charley, if he does not stand a little farther off soon. I can get married too."
"O Harry, if you only would! It is your duty; and there is little Emily Beverley. She is so beautiful and good, and she adores you, Harry."
"Dear little Emmy. I used to love Emmy a long time ago."
"It would make father so happy, and mother and me too. And the Beverleys are related to mother,—and isn't mother sweet. Father was saying"—
At that moment the squire entered the room. His face was a little severe; but the moment his eyes fell upon Charlotte and Harry, every line of sternness was gone like a flash. Harry's arm was round his sister's waist, her head against his shoulder; but in a moment he gently released himself, and went to his father. And in his nineteenth-century way he said what the erring son of old said, "Father, I have not done right lately. I am very sorry."
"Say no more, Harry, my lad. There shall be no back reckoning between you and me. You have been mixed up with a sight of follies, but you can over-get all that. You take after me in looks. Up-sitting and down-sitting, you are my son. You come of a good kind; you have a kind heart and plenty of dint;[4] now, then, make a fresh start, Harry. Oh, my dear, dear son!" The father's eyes were full of tears, his face shone with love, and he held the young man's hand in a clasp which forgave every thing in the past, and promised everything for the future.
Then Julius and Sophia came in, and there was barely time to introduce the young men before dinner was served. They disliked each other on sight; indeed, the dislike was anterior to sight, and may be said to have commenced when Harry first heard how thoroughly at home Julius had made himself at Seat-Sandal, and when Julius first saw what a desirable estate and fine old "seat" Harry's existence deprived him of. And in half an hour this general aversion began to particularize itself. The slim, suave youth, with his black eyes and soft speech, and small hands and feet, seemed to Harry Sandal in every respect an interloper. The Saxon in this Sandal was lost in the Oriental. The two races were, indeed, distinctly evident in the two men in many ways, but noticeably in their eyes: Harry's being large, blue, and wide open; those of Julius, very black; and in their long, narrow setting and dreamy look, expressing centuries of tranquil contemplation.
But the dinner passed off very pleasantly, more so than family festivals usually pass. After it the lovers went into private session to consider whether they should declare their new relationship during the evening, or wait until Julius could have a private audience with the squire. Sophia was inclined to the first course, because of the presence of the rector. She felt that his blessing on her betrothal would add a religious grace to the event, but Julius was averse to speak on any matter so private to himself before Harry Sandal. He felt that he could neither endure his congratulations nor his dissent; that, in fact, he did not want his opinion on the matter at all. Besides, he had determined to have but one discussion of the affair, and that must include all pertaining to Sophia's rights and her personal fortune.
While they were deciding this momentous question, the rector and Charlotte were singing over the carols for the Christmas service; the squire was smoking and listening; and Harry was talking in a low voice to his mother. But after the rector had gone, it became very difficult to avoid a feeling of ennui and restraint, although it was Christmas Eve. Mrs. Sandal soon went into the housekeeper's room to assist in the preparation of the Yule hampers for the families of the men who worked on the estate. Sandal fell into a musing fit, and soon appeared to be dozing; although Charlotte saw that he occasionally opened his eyes, and looked at the whispering lovers, or else shot her a glance full of sympathetic intelligence.
Music has many according charms, and Charlotte tried it, but with small success. Julius and Sophia had a song in their own hearts, and this night they knew no other. Harry loved his sister very dearly, but he was not inclined to "carolling;" and the repression and constraint were soon evident through all the conventional efforts to be "merry." It was the squire who finally hit upon the circumstance which tided over the evening, and sent every one to bed in a ripple of laughter. For, when the piano was closed, he opened his eyes, and said, "Sophia, your mother tells me she has had a very nice Christmas present from the little maid you took such a liking to,—little Agnes Bulteel. It is a carriage hap made of sheepskins white as the snow, and from some new breed of sheep surely; for the wool is longer and silkier than ever I saw."
"Agnes Bulteel!" cried Charlotte. "O Sophia! where are her last letters? I am sure father would like to hear about Joe and the jolly-jist."
"Joe Bulteel is no fool," said the squire warmly. "It is the way around here to laugh a bit at Joe; but Joe aims to do right, and he is a very spirity lad. What are you and Sophia laughing at? Eh? What?"
"Get the letters, Sophia. Julius and Harry will enjoy them I know. Harry must remember Joe Bulteel."
"Certainly. Joe has carried my line and creel many a day. Trout couldn't fool Joe. He was the one to find plovers' eggs, and to spot a blaeberry patch. Joe has some senses ordinary people do not have, I think. I should like to hear about Joe and the what?"
"The jolly-jist,—Professor Sedgwick really. Joe has been on the fells with the professor."
So they drew around the fire, and Sophia went for the letters. She was a good reader, and could give the county peculiarities with all their quaint variations of mood and temper and accent. She was quite aware that the reading would exhibit her in an entirely new rôle to Julius, and she entered upon the task with all the confidence and enthusiasm which insured the entertainment. And as both Professor Sedgwick and Joe Bulteel were well known to the squire and Harry, they entered into the joke also with all their hearts; and one peal of laughter followed another, as the squire's comments made many a distinct addition to the unconscious humor of the letters.
At that point of the story where Joe had triumphantly pocketed his last five shillings, and gone home reflecting on what a "famous job it would be to sell all the stones on their fell at five shillings a little bagful," Mrs. Sandal entered. A servant followed with spiced wine and dainty bits of cake and pastry; and then, after a merry interval of comment and refreshment, Sophia resumed the narrative.
All this happened at the end of May, Miss Sandal; and one day last August father went down Lorton way, and it was gayly late when he got home. As he was sitting on his own side the fire, trying to loose the buttons of his spats, he said to Joe, "I called at Skeàl-Hill on my road home." Mother was knitting at her side of the hearth. She hadn't opened her mouth since father came home; nay, she hadn't so much as looked at him after the one hard glower that she gave him at first; but when he said he'd been at Skeàl-Hill, she gave a grunt, and said, as if she spoke to nobody but herself, "Ay, a blind body might see that."—"I was speaking to Joe," said father. "Joe," said he again, "I was at Skeàl-Hill,"—mother gave another grunt then,—"and they told me that thy old friend the jolly-jist is back again. I think thou had better step down, and see if he wants to buy any more broken stones; old Abraham has a fine heap or two lying aside Kirgat." Joe thought he had done many a dafter thing than take father at his word, whether he meant it or not; and so thought, so done, for next morning he took himself off to Skeàl-Hill.
When he got there, and asked if the jolly-jist was stirring yet, one servant snorted, and another grunted, till Joe got rather maddish; but at last one of them skipjacks of fellows, that wear a little jacket like a lass's bedgown, said he would see. He came back laughing, and said, "Come this way, Joe." Well, our Joe followed him till he stopped before a room door; and he gave a little knock, and then opened it, and says he, "Joe, sir." Joe wasn't going to stand that; and he said, "'Joe, sir,' he'll ken its 'Joe, sir,' as soon as he sees the face of me. And get out with thy 'Joe, sir,' or I'll make thee laugh at the wrong side of that ugly face of thine." With that the fellow skipped out of our Joe's way gayly sharp, and Joe stepped quietly into the room.
There the little old gentleman was sitting at a table writing,—gray hair, spectacles, white neck-cloth, black clothes,—just as if he had never either doffed or donned himself since he went away. But before Joe could put out his hand, or say a civil word to him, he glinted up at Joe through his spectacles very fierce like, and grunted out something about wondering how Joe durst show his face again. Well, that put the cap on all for poor Joe. He had thought over what father said, and how he said it, on his road down till he found himself getting rather mad about it; and the way they all snorted and laughed when he came to Skeàl-Hill made him madder; and that bedgown fellow, with his "Joe, sir," made him madder than ever; but when the old jolly-jist—that he thought would be so fain to see him, if it was only for the sake of their sprogue on the fells together—when he wondered "how Joe durst show his face there," it set Joe rantin' mad, and he did make a burst.
At this point the squire was laughing so noisily that Sophia had to stop; and his hearty ha, ha, ha! was so contagious, that Harry and Julius and Charlotte, and even Mrs. Sandal, echoed it in a variety of merry peals. Sophia was calmer. She sat by the lamp, pleasantly conscious of the amusement she was giving; and, considering that she had already laughed the circumstance out in her room, quite as well entertained as any of the party. In a few minutes the squire recovered himself. "Let us have the rest now, Sophia. I'd have given a gold guinea to have heard Joe's 'burst.'"
"Show my face?" said Joe; "and what should I show, then? If it comes to showing faces, I've a better face to show than ever belonged to one of your breed, if the rest of them are aught like the sample they have sent us. But if you must know," said Joe, "I come of a stock that never would be frightened to show their face to a king, let alone an old noodles that calls himself a jolly-jist. And I defy the face of clay," said Joe, "to show that any of us ever did aught he need to be ashamed of, wherever we show our faces. Dare to show my face, eh?" said Joe again, "My song! but this is a bonnie welcome to give a fellow that has come so far to see you such a hot morning." Joe said a deal more of the same make; and all the time he was saying it, the old man laid himself back in his great chair, and kept twiddling his thumbs, and glancing up at Joe with a half-smirk on his face, as if he had got something very funny before him.
"Joe is like all these shepherd lads," said the squire, "as independent as never was. They are a manly race, but the Bulteels all come of a good kind."
Julius laughed scornfully, but the squire took him up very short. "You need not laugh, nephew. It is as I say. The Bulteels are as good stock as the Sandals; a fine old family, and, like the Sandals, at home here when the Conqueror came. Joe would do the right thing I'll be bound. Let us hear if he didn't, Sophia."
After a while Joe stopped, for he had run himself very near short of wind; and he began rather to think shame of shouting and bellering so at an old man, and him as whisht as a trout through it all. And when Joe pulled in, he only said, as quietly as ever was, that Joe was a "natural curiosity."
Joe didn't know very well what this meant; but he thought it was sauce, and it had like to have set him off again; but he beat himself down as well as he could, and he said, "Have you any thing against me? If you have, speak it out like a man; and don't sit there twiddling your thumbs, and calling folks out of their names in this road." Then it came out plain enough. All this ill-nature, Miss Sandal, was just because poor Joe hadn't brought him the same stones as he had gathered on the fells; and he said that changing them was either a very dirty trick, or a very clumsy joke.
"Trick," said Joe. "Joke, did you say? It was ratherly past a joke to expect me to carry a load of broken stones all the way here, when there was plenty on the spot. I'm not such a fool as you've taken me for," said Joe. The jolly-jist took off his spectacles, and glowered at Joe without them. Then he put them on again, and glowered at Joe with them; and then he laughed, and asked Joe, if he thought there could be no difference in stones. "Why!" answered Joe, "you hardly have the face to tell me that one bag of stones isn't as good as another bag of stones; and surely to man you'll never be so conceited as to say that you can break stones better than old Abraham Atchisson, who breaks them for his bread, and breaks them all day long and every day."
With that the old man laughed again, and told Joe to sit down; and then he asked him what he thought made him take so much trouble seeking bits of stone on the fells, if he could get what he wanted on the road-side. "Well," Joe said, "if I must tell you the truth, I thought you were rather soft in the head; but it made no matter what I thought, so long as you paid me so well for going with you." As Joe said this, it came into his head that it was better to flatter a fool than to fight him; and after all, that there might be something in the old man liking stones of his own breaking better than those of other folks' breaking. We all think the most of what we have had a hand in ourselves, don't we Miss Sandal? It's nothing but natural. And as soon as this run, through Joe's head, he found himself getting middling sorry for the old man; and he said, "What will you give me to get you your own bits of stones back again?"
He cocked up his ears at that, and asked if his "speciments," as he called them, were safe. "Ay," said Joe, "they are safe enough. Nobody hereabout thinks a little lot of stones worth meddling with, so long as they don't lie in their road." With that the jolly-jist jumped up, and said Joe must have something to eat and drink. Then Joe thought to himself, "Come, come, we are getting back to our own menseful way again." But he would not stir a peg till he heard what he was to have for getting the stones again; for Joe knew he would never hear the last of it, if he came home empty-handed. They made it all right very soon, however; and the old man went up-stairs, and brought down the two leather bags, and gave them to Joe to carry, as if nothing had happened; and off they started, very like as they did before.
The Skeàl-Hill folk all gathered together about the door to look after them, as if they had been a show; but they neither of them minded for that, but walked away as thick as inkle-weavers till they got to the foot of our great meadow, where the stones were all lying just as Joe had turned them out of the bags, only rather grown over with grass. And as Joe picked them up one by one, and handed them to the old jolly-jist, it did Joe's heart good to see how pleased he looked. He wiped them on his coat-cuff, and wet them, and glowered at them through his spectacles, as if they were something good to eat, and he was very hungry; and then he packed them away into the bags till they were both chock full again.
Well, the bargain was, that Joe should carry them back to Skeàl-Hill; so back they put, the jolly-jist watching his bags all the way, as if they were full of golden guineas, and our Joe a thief. When they got there, he made Joe take them right into the parlor; and the first thing he did was to call for some red wax and a light, and he clapped a great splatch of a seal on either bag; and then he looked at Joe, and gave a little grunt of a laugh, and a smartish wag of the head, as much as to say, "Do it again, Joe, if you can." But after that he said, "Here, Joe, is five shillings for restoring my speciments, and here is another five shillings for showing me a speciment of human nature that I did not believe in until this day."[5]
"That is good," cried the squire, clapping his knee emphatically. "It was like the professor, and it was like Joe Bulteel. The story does them both credit. I am glad I heard it. Alice, fill our glasses again." Then he stood up, and looked around with a smile.
"God's blessing on this house, and on all beneath its roof-tree!
"Wife and children, a merry Christmas to you!
"Friends and serving hands, a merry Christmas to you!"