Chapter Nine.
Difficulties.
“And ’t was na for a Popish yoke
That bravest men came forth
To part wi’ life and dearest ties,
And a’ that life was worth.”
Jacobite Ballad.
“Ephraim Hebblethwaite!” I cried out.
“I believe so,” he said, laughing.
“Where did you come from?”
“From a certain place in the North, called Brocklebank.”
“But what brought you to London?” I cried.
“What brought me to London?” he repeated, in quite a different tone,—so much softer. “Well, Cary, I wanted to see something.”
“Have you been to see it?” I asked, more to give myself time to cool down than because I cared to know.
“Yes, I have been to see it,” he said, and smiled.
“And did you find it as agreeable as you expected?”
“Quite. I had seen it before, and I wanted to know if it were spoiled.”
“Oh, I hope it is not spoiled!” said I.
“Not at all,” said he, his voice growing softer and softer. “No, it is not spoiled yet, Cary.”
“Do you expect it will be?” I was getting cooler now.
“I don’t know,” he answered, very gravely for him, for Ephraim is not at all given to moroseness and long faces. “God grant it never may!”
I could not think what he meant, and I did not like to ask him. Indeed, I had not much opportunity, for he began talking about our journey, and Brocklebank, and all the people there, and I was so interested that we did not get back to what Ephraim came to see.
There is a new Vicar, he says, whose name is Mr Liversedge, and he has quite changed things in the parish. The people are divided about him; some like him, and some do not. He does not read his sermons, which is very strange, but speaks them out just as if he were talking to you; and he has begun to catechise the children in an afternoon, and to visit everybody in the parish; and he neither shoots, hunts, nor fishes. His sermons have a ring in them, says Ephraim; they wake you up, Old John Oakley complains that he can’t nap nigh so comfortable as when th’ old Vicar were there; and Mally Crosthwaite says she never heard such goings on—why, th’ parson asked her if she were a Christian!—she that had always kept to her church, rain and shine, and never missed once! and it was hard if she were to miss the Christmas dole this year, along o’ not being a Christian. She’d always thought being Church was plenty good enough—none o’ your low Dissenting work: but, mercy on us, she didn’t know what to say to this here parson, that she didn’t! A Christian, indeed! The parson was a Christian, was he? Well, if so, she didn’t make much ’count o’ Christians, for all he was a parson. Didn’t he tell old John he couldn’t recommend him for the dole, just by reason he rapped out an oath or two when his grand-daughter let the milk-jug fall?—and if old Bet Donnerthwaite had had a sup too much one night at the ale-house, was it for a gentleman born like the parson to take note of that?
“But he has done worse things than that, Cary,” said Ephraim, with grave mouth and laughing eyes.
“What? Go on,” said I, for I saw something funny was coming.
“Why, would you believe it?” said Ephraim. “He called on Mr Bagnall, and asked him if he felt satisfied with the pattern he was setting his flock.”
“I am very glad he did!” said I. “What did Mr Bagnall say?”
“Got into an awful rage, and told it to all the neighbourhood—as bearing against Mr Liversedge, you understand.”
“Well, then, he is a greater simpleton than I took him for,” said I.
“I am rather afraid,” said Ephraim, in a hesitating tone, “that he will call at the Fells: and if he say anything that the Squire thinks impertinent or interfering, he will make an enemy of him.”
“Oh, Father would just show him the door,” said I, “without more ado.”
“Yes, I fear so,” replied Ephraim. “And I am sure he is a good man, Cary. A little rash and incautious, perhaps; does not take time to study character, and so forth; but I am sure he means to do right.”
“It will be a pity,” said I. “Ephraim, do you think the Prince will march on London?”
“I have not a doubt of it, Cary.”
“Oh!” said I. I don’t quite know whether I felt more glad or sorry. “But you will not stay here if he do?”
“Yes, I think I shall,” said he.
“You will join the army?”
“No, not unless I am pressed.”
I suppose my face asked another question, for he added with a smile, “I came to keep watch of—that. I must see that it is not spoiled.”
I wonder what that is! If Ephraim would tell me, I might take some care of it too. I should not like anything he cared for to be spoiled.
As I sat in a corner afterwards, I was looking at him, and comparing him in my own mind with all the fine gentlemen in the chamber. Ephraim was quite as handsome as any of them; but his clothes certainly had a country cut, and he did not show as easy manners as they. I am afraid Grandmamma would say he had no manners. He actually put his hand out to save a tray when Grandmamma’s black boy, Caesar, stumbled at the tiger-skin mat: and I am sure no other gentleman in the room would have condescended to see it. There are many little things by which it is easy to tell that Ephraim has not been used to the best society. And yet, I could not help feeling that if I were ill and wanted to be helped up-stairs, or if I were wretched and wanted comforting, it would be Ephraim to whom I should appeal, and not one of these fine gentlemen. They seemed only to be made for sunshine. He would wear, and stand rain. If Hatty’s “men” were all Ephraims, there might be some sense in caring for their opinions. But these fellows—I really can’t afford a better word—these “chiels with glasses in their e’en,” as Sam says, who seem to have no opinions beyond the colour of their coats and paying compliments to everything they see with a petticoat on—do they expect sensible women to care what they think? Let them have a little more sense themselves first—that’s what I say!
I said so, one morning as we were dressing: and to my surprise, Annas replied,—
“I fancy they have sense enough, Cary, when there are no women in the room. They think we only care for nonsense.”
“Yes, I expect that is it,” added Flora.
I flew out. I could not stand that. What sort of women must their mothers and sisters be?
“Card-playing snuff-takers and giddy flirts,” said Annas. “Be just to them, Cary. If they never see women of any other sort, how are they to know that such are?”
“Poor wretches! do you think that possible. Annas?” said I.
“Miserably possible,” she said, very seriously. “In every human heart, Cary, there is a place where the man or the woman dwells inside all the frippery and mannerism; the real creature itself, stripped of all disguises. Dig down to that place if you want to see it.”
“I should think it takes a vast deal of digging!”
“Yes, in some people. But that is the thing God looks at: that is it for which Christ died, and for which Christ’s servants ought to feel love and pity.”
I thought it would be terribly difficult to feel love or pity for some people!
My Uncle Charles has just come in, and he says a rumour is flying that there has been a great battle near Edinburgh, and that the Prince (who was victorious) is marching on Carlisle. Flora went very white, and even Annas set her lips: but I do not see what we have to fear—at least if Angus and Mr Keith are safe.
“Charles,” said Grandmamma, “where are those white cockades we used to have?”
“I haven’t a notion, Mother.”
Nor had my Aunt Dorothea. But when Perkins was asked, she said, “Isn’t it them, Madam, as you pinned in a parcel, and laid away in the garret?”
“Oh, I dare say,” said Grandmamma. “Fetch them down, and let us see if they are worth anything.”
So Perkins fetched the parcel, and the cockades were looked over, and pronounced useable by torchlight, though too bad a colour for the day-time.
“Keep the packet handy, Perkins,” said Grandmamma.
“Shall I give them out now, Madam?” asked Perkins.
“Oh, not yet!” said Grandmamma. “Wait till we see how things turn out. White soils so soon, too: we had much better go on with the black ones, at any rate, till the Prince has passed Bedford.”
It is wicked, I suppose, to despise one’s elders. But is it not sometimes very difficult to help doing it?
I have been reading over the last page or two that I writ, and I came on a line that set me thinking. Things do set me thinking of late in a way they never used to do. It was that about Ephraim’s not being used to the best society. What is the best society? God and the angels; I suppose nobody could question that. Yet, if an angel had been in Grandmamma’s rooms just then, would he not have cared more that Caesar should not fall and hurt himself, and most likely be scolded as well, than that he should be thought to have fine easy manners himself? And I suppose the Lord Jesus died even for Caesar, black though he be. Well, then, the next best society must be those who are going to Heaven: and Ephraim is one of them, I believe. And those who are not going must be bad society, even if they are dressed up to the latest fashion-book, and have the newest and finest breeding at the tips of their fingers. The world seems to be turned round. Ah, but what was that text Mr Whitefield quoted? “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are not of the Father, but are of the world.” Then must we turn the world round before we get things put straight? It looks like it. I have just been looking at another text, where Saint Paul gives a list of the works of the flesh; (Note: Galatians five 19 to 21.) and I find, along with some things which everybody calls wicked, a lot of others which everybody in “the world” does, and never seems to think of as wrong. “Hatred, variance, emulations, ... envyings, ... drunkenness, revellings, and such like:” and he says, “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” That is dreadful. I am afraid the world must be worse than I thought. I must take heed to my Aunt Kezia’s rules—set the Lord always before me, and remember that this world passeth away. I suppose the world will laugh at me, if I be not one of its people. What will that matter, if it passeth away? The angels will like me all the better: and they are the best society.
And I was thinking the other night as I lay awake, what an awful thing it would be to hear the Lord Jesus, the very Man who died for me, say, “Depart from Me!” I think I could stand the world’s laughter, but I am sure I could never bear that. Christ could help and comfort me if the world used me ill; but who could help me, or comfort me, when He had cast me out? There would be nothing to take refuge in—not even the world, for it would be done with then.
Oh, I do hope our Saviour will never say that to me!
I seem bound to get into fights with Miss Newton. I do not mean quarrels, but arguments. She is a pleasant, good-humoured girl, but she has such queer ideas. I dare say she thinks I have. I do not know what my Aunt Kezia would say to her. She does not appear to see the right and wrong of things at all. It is only what people will think, and what one likes. If everybody did only what they liked,—is that proper grammar, I wonder? Oh, well, never mind!—I think it would make the world a very disagreeable place to live in, and it is not too pleasant now. And as to people thinking, what on earth does it signify what they think, if they don’t think right? If one person thinking that two and two make three does not alter the fact, why should ten thousand people thinking so be held to make any difference? How many simpletons does it take to be equal to a wise man? I wonder people do not see how ridiculous such notions are.
We hear nothing at all from the North—the seat of war, as they begin to call it now. Everybody supposes that the Prince is marching southwards, and will be here some day before long. It diverts me exceedingly to sit every Tuesday in a corner of the room, and watch the red ribbons disappearing and the white ones coming instead. Grandmamma’s two footmen, Morris and Dobson, have orders to take the black cockade out of their hats and clap on a white one, the minute they hear that the royal army enters Middlesex.
November 22nd.
The Prince has taken Carlisle! It is said that he is marching on Derby as fast as his troops can come. Everybody is in a flutter. I can guess where Father is, and how excited he will be. I know he would go to wait on his Royal Highness directly, and I should not wonder if a number of the officers are quartered at Brocklebank—were, I should say. I almost wish we were there! But when I said so to Ephraim, who comes every Tuesday, such a strange look of pain came into his eyes, and he said, “Don’t, Cary!” so sadly. I wonder what the next thing will be!
After I had written this, came one of Grandmamma’s extra assemblies—Oh, I should have altered my date! it is so troublesome—on Thursday evening, and I looked round, and could not see one red ribbon that was not mixed with white. A great many wore plain white, and among them Miss Newton. I sat down by her.
“How do you this evening, Miss Newton?” I mischievously asked. “I am so delighted to see you become a Tory since I saw you last Tuesday.”
“How do you know I was not one before?” asked she, laughing.
“Your ribbons were not,” said I. “They were red on Tuesday.”
“Well, you ought to compliment me on the suddenness of my conversion,” said she: “for I never was a trimmer. Oh, how absurd it is to make ribbons and patches mean things! Why should one not wear red and white just as one does green and blue?”
“It would be a boon to some people, I am sure,” said I.
“Perhaps we shall, some day, when the world has become sensible,” said Miss Newton.
“Can you give me the date, Madam?”
It was a strange voice which asked this question. I looked up over my shoulder, and saw a man of no particular age, dressed in gown and cassock. (Note 1.) Miss Newton looked up too, laughing.
“Indeed I cannot, Mr Raymond,” said she. “Can you?”
“Only by events,” he answered. “I should expect it to be after the King has entered His capital.”
I felt, rather than saw, what he meant.
“I am a poor hand at riddles,” said Miss Newton, shaking her head. “I did not expect to see you here, Mr Raymond.”
“Nor would you have seen me here,” was the answer, “had I not been charged to deliver a message of grave import to one who is here.”
“Not me, I hope?” said Miss Newton, looking graver.
“Not you. I trust you will thank God for it. And now, can you kindly direct me to the young lady for whom I am to look? Is there here a Miss Flora Drummond?”
I sprang up with a smothered cry of “Angus!”
“Are you Miss Drummond?” he asked, very kindly.
“Flora Drummond is my cousin,” I answered. “I will take you to her. But is it about Angus?”
“It is about her brother, Lieutenant Drummond. He is not killed—let me say so at once.”
We were pressing through the superb crowd, and the moment afterwards we reached Flora. She was standing by a little table, talking with Ephraim Hebblethwaite, who spoke to Mr Raymond in a way which showed that they knew each other. Flora just looked at him, and then said, quietly enough to all appearance, though she went very white—
“You have bad news for some one, and I think for me.”
“Lieutenant Drummond was severely wounded at Prestonpans, and has fallen into the hands of the King’s troops,” said Mr Raymond, gently, as if he wished her to know the worst at once. “He is a prisoner now.”
Flora clasped her hands with a long breath of pain and apprehension. “You are sure, Sir? There is no mistake?”
“I think, none,” he replied. “I have the news from Colonel Keith.”
“If you heard it from him, it must be true,” she said. “But is he in London?”
“Yes; and he ran some risk, as you may guess, to send that message to you.”
“Duncan is always good,” said Flora, with tears in her eyes. “He was not hurt, I hope? Will you see him again?”
“He said he was not hurt worth mention.” (I began to wonder what size of a hurt Mr Keith would think worth mention.) “Yes, I shall see him again this evening or to-morrow.”
“Oh, do give him the kindest words and thanks from me,” said Flora, commanding her voice with some difficulty. “I wish I could have seen him! Let me tell Annas—she may wish—” and away she went to fetch Annas, while Mr Raymond looked after her with a look which I thought half sad and half diverted.
“Will you tell me,” I said, “how Mr Keith ran any risk?”
“Why, you do not suppose, young lady, that London is in the hands of the rebels?”
“The rebels!—Oh, you are a Whig; I see. But the Prince is coming, and fast. Is he not?”
“Not just yet, I think,” said Mr Raymond, with an odd look in his eyes.
“Why, we hear it from all quarters,” said I; “and the red ribbons are all getting white.”
Mr Raymond smiled. “Rather a singular transformation, truly. But I think the ribbons will be well worn before the young Chevalier reviews his army in Hyde Park.”
“I will not believe it!” cried I. “The Prince must be victorious! God defends the right!”
“God defends His own,” said Mr Raymond. “Do you see in history that He always defends the cause which you account to be right?”
No; I could not say that.
“How can you be an opponent of the Cause?” I cried—I am afraid, shifting my ground.
He smiled again. “I can well understand the attraction of the Cause,” said he, “to a young and enthusiastic nature. There is something very enticing in the son of an exiled Prince, come to win back what he conceives to be the inheritance of his fathers. And in truth, if the Old Pretender were really the son of King James,—well, it might be more difficult to say what a man’s duty would be in that case. But that, as you know, is thought by many to be at best very doubtful.”
“You do not believe he is?” cried I.
“I do not believe it,” said Mr Raymond.
I wondered how he could possibly doubt it.
“Nor is that all that is to be considered,” he went on. “I can tell you, young lady, if he were to succeed, we should all rue it bitterly before long. His triumph is the triumph of Rome—the triumph of persecution and martyrdom and agony for God’s people.”
“I know that,” said I. “But right is right, for all that! The Crown is his, not the Elector’s. On that principle, any man might steal money, if he meant to do good with it.”
“The Crown is neither George’s nor James’s, as some think,” said Mr Raymond, “but belongs to the people.”
Who could have stood such a speech as that?
“The people!” I cried. “The mob—the rabble—the Crown is theirs! How can any man imagine such a thing?”
“You forget, methinks, young lady,” said Mr Raymond, as quietly as before, “that you are one of those of whom you speak.”
“I forget nothing of the kind,” cried I, too angry to be civil. “Of course I know I am one of the people. What do you mean? Am I to maintain that black beetles are cherubim, because I am a black beetle? Truth is truth. The Crown is God’s, not the people’s. When He chose to make the present King—King James of course, not that wretched Elector—the son of his father, He distinctly told the people whom He wished them to have for their king. What right have they to dispute His ordinance?”
I was quite beyond myself. I had forgotten where I was, and to whom I was talking—forgotten Mr Raymond, and Angus, and Flora, and even Grandmamma. It seemed to me as if there were only two parties in the world, and on the one hand were God and the King, and on the other a miserable mass of silly nobodies called The People. How could such contemptible insects presume to judge for themselves, or to set their wills up in opposition to the will of him whom God had commanded them to obey?
The softest, lightest of touches fell on my shoulder. I looked up into the grave grey eyes of Annas Keith. And feeling myself excessively rude and utterly extinguished,—(and yet, after all, right)—I slipped out of the group, and made my way into the farthest corner. Mr Raymond, of course, would think me no gentlewoman. Well, it did not much matter what he thought; he was only a Whig. And when the Prince were actually come, which would be in a very few days at the furthest—then he would see which of us was right. Meantime, I could wait. And the next minute I felt as if I could not wait—no, not another instant.
“Sit down, Cary. You look tired,” said Ephraim beside me.
“I am not a bit tired, thank you,” said I, “but I am abominably angry.”
“Nothing more tiring,” said he. “What about?”
“Oh, don’t make me go over it! I have been talking to a Whig.”
“That means, I suppose, that the Whig has been talking to you. Which beat? I beg pardon—you did, of course.”
“I was right and he was wrong, if you mean that,” said I. “But whether he thinks he is beaten—”
“If he be an Englishman, he does not,” said Ephraim. “Particularly if he be a North Country man.”
“I don’t know what country he comes from,” cried I. “I should like to make mincemeat of him.”
“Indigestible,” suggested Ephraim, quite gravely.
“Ephraim, what are we to do for Angus?” said I, as it came back to me: and I told him the news which Mr Raymond had brought. Ephraim gave a soft whispered whistle.
“You may well ask,” said he. “I am afraid, Cary, nothing can be done.”
“What will they do to him?”
His face grew graver still.
“You know,” he said, in a low voice, “what they did to Lord Derwentwater. Colonel Keith had better lie close.”
“But that Whig knows where he is!” cried I. “He—Ephraim, do you know him?”
“Know whom, Cary?”
“Mr Raymond.”
“Is he your Whig?” asked Ephraim, laughing. “Pray, don’t make him into mincemeat; he is one of the best men in England.”
“He need be,” said I; “he is a horrid Whig! What do you, being friends with such a man?”
“He is a very good man, Cary. He was one of my tutors at school. I never knew what his politics were before to-night.”
We were silent for a while; and then Grandmamma sent for me, not, as I feared, to scold me for being loud-spoken and warm, but to tell me that one of my lappets hung below the other, and I must make Perkins alter it before Tuesday. I do not know how I bore the rest of the evening.
When I went up at last to our chamber, I found it empty. Lucette, Grandmamma’s French woman, who waits on her, while Perkins is rather my Aunt Dorothea’s and ours, came in to tell me that Perkins was gone to bed with a headache, and hoped that we would allow her to wait on us to-night, when she was dismissed by the elder ladies.
“Oh, I want no waiting at all,” said I, “if somebody will just take the pins out of my head-dress carefully. Do that, Lucette, and then I shall need nothing else, I cannot speak for the other young ladies.”
Lucette threw a wrapping-cape over my shoulders, and began to remove the pins with deft fingers. Grandmamma had not yet come up-stairs.
“Mademoiselle Agnes looks charmante to-night,” said she: “but then she is always charmante. But what has Mademoiselle Flore? So white, so white she is! I saw her through the door.”
I told her that Flora’s brother had been taken prisoner.
“Ah, this horrible war!” cried she. “Can the grands Seigneurs not leave alone the wars? or else fight out their quarrels their own selves?”
“Oh, the Prince will soon be here,” said I, “and then it will all be over.”
“All be over? Ah, sapristi! Mademoiselle does not know. The Prince means the priests: and the priests mean—Bon! have I not heard my grandmother tell?”
“Tell what, Lucette? I thought you were a Papist, like all Frenchwomen.”
“A Catholic—I? Why then came my grandfather to this country, and my father, and all? Does Mademoiselle suppose they loved better Spitalfields than Blois? Should they then leave a country where the sun is glorious and the vines ravissantes, for this black cold place where the sun shine once a year? Vraiment! Serait-il possible?”
I laughed. “The sun shines oftener in Cumberland, Lucette. I won’t defend Spitalfields. But I want to know what your grandmother told you about the priests.”
“The priests have two sides, Mademoiselle. On the one is the confessional: you must go—you shall not choose. You kneel; you speak out all—every thought in your heart, every secret of your dearest friend. You may not hide one little thought. The priest hears you hesitate? The questions come:—Mademoiselle, terrible questions, questions I could not ask, nor you understand. You learn to understand them. They burn up your heart, they drag down to Hell your soul. That is one side.”
“Would they see me there twice!” said I.
“Then, if not so, there is the other side. The chains, the torture-irons, the fire. You can choose, so: you tell, or you die. There is no more choice. Does Mademoiselle wonder that we came?”
“No, indeed, Lucette. How could I? But that was in France. This is England. We are a different sort of people here.”
“You—yes. But the Church and the priests are the same everywhere. Everywhere! May the good God keep them from us!”
“Why, Lucette! you are praying against the Prince, if it be as you say!”
“Ah! would I then do harm to Monseigneur le Prince? Let him leave there the priests, and none shall be more glad to see him come than I. I love the right, always. But the priests! No, no.”
“But if it be right, Lucette?”
“The good God knows what is right. But, Mademoiselle, can it be right to bring in the priests and the confessions?”
“Is it not God who brings them, Lucette? We only bring the King. If the King choose to bring the priests—”
“Ah! then the Lord will bring the fires. But the Lord bring the priests! The Lord shut up the prêches and set up the mass? The Lord burn His poor servants, and clothe the servants of Satan in gold and scarlet? The Lord forbid His Word, and set up images? Comment, Mademoiselle! It would not be possible.”
“But, Lucette, the King has the right.”
“The Lord Christ has the right,” said Lucette, solemnly. “Is it not He whose right it is? Mademoiselle, He stands before the King!”
We heard Grandmamma saying good-night to my Uncle Charles at the foot of the stairs, and Lucette ran off to her chamber.
I felt more plagued than ever. What is right?
Just then Annas and Flora came up; Annas grave but composed, Flora with a white face and red eyes.
“O Cary, Cary!” She came and put her arms round me. “Pray for Angus; we shall never see him again. And he is not ready—he is not ready.”
“My poor Flora!” I said, and I did my best to soothe her. But Annas did better.
“The Lord can make him ready,” she said. “He healed the paralytic man, dear, as some have it, entirely for the faith of them that bore him. And surely the daughter of the Canaanitish woman could have no faith herself.”
“Pray for him, Annas!” sobbed Flora. “You have more faith than I.”
“I am not so hard tried—yet,” was the grave reply.
“You do not think Mr Keith in danger?” said I.
“I think the Lord sitteth above the water-floods, Cary; and I would rather not look lower. Not till I must, and that may be very soon.”
“Annas,” said I, “I wish you would tell me what right is. I do get so puzzled.”
“What puzzles you, Cary? Right is what God wills.”
“But would the Prince not have the right, if God did not will him to succeed?”
“The Lawgiver can always repeal His own laws. We in the crowd, Cary, can only judge when they be repealed by hearing Him decree something contrary to them. And there are no precedents in that Court. ‘Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He.’ We can only wait and see. Until we do see it, we must follow our last orders.”
“My Father says,” added Flora, “that this question was made harder than it need have been, by the throwing out of the Exclusion Bill. The House of Commons passed it, but the Bishops and Lord Halifax threw it out; if that had been passed, making it impossible for a Papist to be King, then King James would never have come to the throne at all, and all the troubles and persecutions of his reign would not have happened. That, my Father says, was where they went wrong.”
“Well,” said I, “it does look like it. But how queer that the Bishops should be the people to go wrong!”
Annas laughed.
“You will find that nothing new, Cary, if you search,” said she. “‘They that lead thee cause thee to err’ is as old a calamity as the Prophets. And where priests or would-be priests are the leaders, they very generally do go wrong.”
“I wish,” said I, “there were a few more ‘Thou shalt nots’ in the Bible.”
“Have you finished obeying all there are?”
I considered that question with one sleeve off.
“Well, no, I suppose not,” I said at length, pulling off the other.
Annas smiled gravely, and said no more.
Glorious news! The Prince is at Derby. I am sure there is no more need to fear for Angus. His Royal Highness will be here in a very few days now: and then let the Whigs look to themselves!
Grandmamma has bought some more white cockades. She says Hatty has improved wonderfully; her cheeks are not so shockingly red, and she speaks better, and has more decent manners. She thinks the Crosslands have done her a great deal of good. I thought Hatty looking not at all well the last time she was here; and so grave for her—almost sad. And I am afraid the Crosslands, or somebody, have done her a great deal of bad. But somehow, Hatty is one of those people whom you cannot question unless she likes. Something inside me will not put the questions. I don’t know what it is.
I wish I knew everything! If I could only understand myself, I should get on better. And how am I going to understand other people?
Note 1. A clergyman always wore his cassock at this time. Whitefield was very severe on those worldly clergy who laid it aside, and went “disguised”—namely, in the ordinary coat—to entertainments of various kinds.