CHAPTER X.
THE PIC-NIC ON THE ISLAND.
The next morning, at breakfast, at Woodburn Grange, the Friends’ party was the great topic. All were unanimous in their expressions of pleasure. “The Heritages,” said Mr. Woodburn, “seemed to have thought of everything capable of making the evening pleasant. And only to think of their bringing out Sir Emanuel Clavering so!” Tom Boddily’s music, and his story of the poor musical child, were commented on with great enthusiasm.
“And, my dear Letty,” said Mr. Woodburn, “the Quakers, without singing, dancing, or playing music or games, do know how to make an amusing party.”
“Music and games!” said Letty, “why, we had both.”
“Yes, that improvised vocal concert of yours was a grand coup,” said Mr. Woodburn.
“And the noses!” said Letty. “Who could have suspected that odd Friend of being an actor!”
“And Miss Heritage,” said George, “did she take part in your singing?”
“Oh! she denied it,” said Letty. “She said she only ‘crooned to hersel’’ a little, as Burns says; but I caught some sweet tones coming out of that quarter every now and then. She has a charming voice; that I discovered; and I believe she knows more about singing than she wants to be known. I can tell you one thing—she is a very sweet poetess. I am promised a delicious little poem of hers some day, that she repeated to me. These Quaker girls, do you know, learn off lots of poetry, and the funniest of all—such poetry!—Moore’s, and Byron’s, and Burns’s—of all things. They have a poet at Birmingham; only think, at Birmingham!”
“A gunsmith, of course,” said Mr. Woodburn, satirically, “as they hate war.”
“No, a banker. What is his name? Moon—Moon——? something about the moon.”
“Obadiah Moonshine, I daresay,” said George.
“Now, don’t, George, drive the name out of my head,” said Letty. “Oh! there it is—Paul Moon James. Millicent repeated to me some verses called ‘The Beacon.’ I did not think them half so good as her own. But the Friends think much of them.”
“They are a very extraordinary people,” said George. “I found those two queer drab servants, Sylvanus Crook and William Theobald, exactly alike, only one in little and the other in large. They were sitting, and, of all things, discussing Swedenborgianism. I learnt that this Theobald, besides being a Quaker, is a Swedenborgian preacher, but he takes his Quaker notions with him into the pulpit. Instead of taking his text, Thorsby tells us, he says, ‘Here goes for the starting-place.’
“There was a young, rather conceited fellow, not eighteen, I should say, trying to make a little fun out of this old man.
“‘Now, William,’ he said, ‘does Swedenborg tell you what the soul is?’
“‘Yes,’ said the old man; ‘it is the real man. This body is but its covering, just as my coat is the covering of the body.’
“‘Do you expect then to rise, William, just as you are—asthma, and all?’ The poor man is often afflicted with asthma.
“‘No,’ said he, ‘there will be delightful breathing on the heavenly plains.’
“‘But I can’t tell how all these things are to be,’ said the young, conceited fellow.
“‘How shouldst thou?’ said the old man, taking off his cocked hat. ‘Put me the sky into my hat, Edward.’
“‘Ay, truly,’ said the lad, ‘that would be a feat.’
“‘Then fetch me all the water of the pond there in this tumbler,’ offering the pert youth a tumbler on a little hand-tray, in which he had been taking water to some one.
“‘Well, it just wouldn’t go in,’ said the youth, laughing.
“‘How should it?’ said the old Friend. ‘The sky is there, and the water is there, and the love of God to his creatures is everywhere, but they can none of them get into thy little measures, nor into thy little head, because these are too little for them. The things are there, but the capacity to receive them is wanting in them, and in thee, young man.’”
“That was a very fine answer,” said Ann. “I like that very much.”
“This William Theobald is the coachman of that odd man, Mr. George Barthe, who went about saying such odd things to the young people,” said George; “and he gave us some curious anecdotes of him, for he attends him to many great houses. At a great house in Derbyshire, he says, Mr. Barthe was fastening a lady’s teeth with gold wire, and as he snipped continually pieces of the wire off, the lady said, ‘Oh! let a cloth be spread on the carpet, or the gold will be lost.’
“‘No,’ said the dentist, ‘it won’t be lost, any of it.’
“‘But it must be lost,’ insisted the lady.
“‘No,’ added Mr. Barthe, gravely, ‘I assure thee none of it will be lost. It will all be found in the bill.’
“The lady smiled, and was silent. At the same place, Mr. Barthe went into the servants’ hall, and made the servants very merry with his odd talk. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘why is your master like a penny loaf on the top of your church-steeple?’ They gave it up. ‘Because he is high-bred.’ The servants were very merry. ‘But,’ said the dry Quaker, ‘I know now you are expecting that I should leave you something. Well, I will leave as much money as shall last you till I come again, if you are careful,’ and with that he fillipped a new halfpenny up to the ceiling, where it stuck, to the great astonishment of the servants’ hall. And there it is sticking yet, says our Swedenborgian coachman, and is shown to all the people that come to the house.”
“How could he do it!” said Letty.
“I don’t know,” said George. “The old man said he did not know himself, but that he saw it done, and has seen it since.”
“I had a good deal of talk with that Mr. Ephraim Wire. Some wag said to me, ‘That is the Castleborough Nebuchadnezzar; he lives on grass.’ I have heard him termed an eccentric of the first rank. He certainly has some singular ideas, but there is something in them. In the first place, he wants a reform in the mode of spelling our words, which, he says, is barbarous. They ought to be spelled as they are pronounced. In the second, he refuses to eat meat on principle. He thinks it inhuman to kill animals for food. I bade him recollect that God expressly gave to Noah, and to all men after him, all flesh for food, and that our Saviour eat the paschal lamb. Those, he said, were Jewish customs, and might do for Jews; but we were Christians, and called to fulfil the perfect law of love. I reminded him of the preying of all animals on each other, from the greatest to the least, and that therefore it must be a law of nature, which is a law of God. ‘We are not mere animals,’ he replied, ‘but men and Christians,’ I reminded him that he could not fully carry out this system, that every day he destroyed insects by treading on them, and myriads of living things in water by drinking. ‘That,’ said he, ‘I cannot help, but I spare pain as far as I can.’”
“Well,” said Ann, “at least it is very humane and praiseworthy. And so they call him Nebuchadnezzar, because he lives on vegetables.”
“Just so,” added Mr. Woodburn; “but Mr. Wire goes further. He had a great deal to say on the mischievous modes of modern dress, on ladies’ stays, and even on garters. ‘All tight ligatures,’ he says, ‘impede the circulation of the blood, and injure the constitution.’ He pulled up his loose trowsers, and showed me that he wore short socks, and thus avoided the necessity for garters.”
Mr. Woodburn found much wisdom in what the public of Castleborough then set down as whims; but we know that Mr. Wire’s philosophy has now become extensively adopted. At that day he stood alone in it, in all its branches.
This conversation was not terminated when Miss Heritage and Miss Drury were seen coming up the front garden in their riding-habits. They were received with great gladness. Miss Heritage had lost the appearance of the Friend, for she wore a black hat with her dark habit; and both she and her friend looked fascinating. They were going an early ride, and wanted the young ladies to join them. They not only accepted the invitation joyfully, but George volunteered his company, and went out to see about the horses.
The whole Woodburn family were charmed with Miss Drury. There was something so bright and frank in her manner and intelligent countenance; her voice had an animating tone in it. She was, moreover, so much at home in all the affairs of a farm; though, unlike Mrs. Woodburn, she did not take any part in the actual economy of the dairy; could neither make a cheese nor mould a pound of butter, her father having had her educated exclusively as a lady to preside in a house, and not to partake in its professional labours, yet she knew all that belonged to the whole business of farm-life. She talked with Mrs. Woodburn of all matters within and without doors, and could give to Mr. Woodburn a most perfect idea of the style and routine of cultivation in the West Riding of Yorkshire, describe the cereals which flourished most there, the advantages of stall feeding, the particular character and value of stock there. Mr. Woodburn was delighted, and said he should inflict on her a walk through his farm one of these days, and enlighten himself by her opinions. Elizabeth Drury said she should enjoy such a walk greatly. All kinds of country life had attractions for her: even hunting; and she not unfrequently followed Lord Faversham’s hounds with her father.
George announced the horses at the door; and the little cavalcade was soon in the saddle. Sylvanus Crook, who had been the two ladies’ groom so far, returned home, and George Woodburn took charge of the whole party. It was a beautiful sight to see those four lovely women and the manly George Woodburn ascending the road from the house, and then, breaking into a canter, disappear beneath the trees at the turn of the road under the sand-cliffs.
“Nothing like youth, my dear,” said Mr. Woodburn to his wife, as they turned into the house.
“Except a happy middle-age, my dear Leonard,” replied Mrs. Woodburn, “with such good, happy children, and dear friends about us. I don’t envy youth, but I love to see them enjoying their golden days.”
“You are right, mother,” said Mr. Woodburn; “I sometimes almost tremble when I think on the long run of blessings that we have had.”
“Nay, my dear Leonard,” said Mrs. Woodburn, “don’t imagine trouble because you are happy; that’s a shadow out of Mrs. Heritage’s sermon.”
“Perhaps it is,” said Mr. Woodburn; “let us take a turn down the garden and orchard, and disperse it by seeing how things are coming on.”
So the two loving ones wandered slowly from flower-beds to kitchen-beds of vegetables; and saw what peas, what beans wanted gathering; how the raspberries were getting too ripe; how the wall-fruit was prospering; and then surveyed the apple, pear, and plum trees in the ample old orchard, and decided that the crop would be abundant and fine. They sate long on a seat under tall hazels overlooking the country, and conversed of many things, past and present, and of events connected with their neighbours, and the farms that lay around; and as they slowly wandered back towards the house, the shadow was gone, and a calm and sober joy, like that of the day itself, lay on their minds.
At noon the young people returned, full of enjoyment of their ride, and George escorted the two visitors to Fair Manor gate. All were eloquent in Miss Drury’s praise: her fine figure and easy grace on Maydew’s back; her light and kindly spirit; her admiration of their country, and familiarity with everything she saw. Ann loved her more and more for her love of her church, and of religion, without its formality. Letty was delighted with a boating excursion that Miss Heritage had proposed to-morrow, and tea on the great island, with only just themselves, Miss Heritage and Miss Drury.
“And,” said Ann—“Mr. Harry Thorsby; you did not mean to omit him, Letty?”
Letty was already half way upstairs, to be ready for dinner.
In the afternoon of the next day, Miss Heritage and Miss Drury walked down to Woodburn Grange, and said their boat was waiting at Wink’s Ferry, with Tom Boddily and Sylvanus Crook to assist in rowing. Thorsby was already at the Grange in high spirits, as usual, and soon the youthful party were descending through garden and old orchard to the river. Thorsby and Tom Boddily were to row Ann and Letty Woodburn, and George Woodburn, Millicent Heritage and Elizabeth Drury, aided by Sylvanus. This was done, for one thing, that Thorsby and Sylvanus might not get to sparring on religious points. The day was glorious, the wind was still, the sunshine lay tranquilly over the lovely landscape, and the two boats, with a pleasurable leisureliness, ascended the fair winding stream, amid much talk and sprightly “chaffing,” as Thorsby termed it, from one boat to another. The fields, now cleared of their hay-crop, were scattered over with fine herds of cattle, looking peacefulness itself; the trees on the slopes, on their left hand, as they ascended, seemed to dream in their slumbrous foliage. Our young girls came opposite to Cotmanhaye Manor, and admired its fine situation on its swelling hill, and the old tower a little in advance on the steeper ridge. When out of sight of the house, they moored their boats, and ascended the steep slope, to get a view from the hill. Then, having gazed over the extensive scenes beyond with many expressions of delight, they beckoned to the boats below, to advance up the river, and they themselves took a fine round through woods, and valleys, and past an old water-mill, half-hidden in its alder-trees. Here they made prize of a quantity of white and yellow water-lilies, and conveyed them to the boat. The descending sun warned them to return down the river to their appointed tea at five o’clock, on the great island under Rockville Grove.
Anon, they were landing there, and Miss Drury was in raptures with that little Fairyland. On one side, the woods of Rockville hung darkly down the steep slope, on the other ran the crystalline river, and the wide meadows showed greenly beyond. Abundant willows, mixed with midsummer flowers, made a soft, verdurous fence round the island. Its mown surface was like a garden, or park lawn. Already Betty Trapps was busy there. She had kindled a fire near the upper end, where a burnt spot evidenced the fact of former fires on similar occasions. The tea kettle was briskly boiling. Under a large oak, a snow-white cloth was spread, and upon it showed all apparatus for tea and coffee, with abundance of bread and butter, plum cake, spiced cakes, custards, cream, and grapes and peaches.
Betty and Tom Boddily officiated, and Sylvanus, as of a soberer age, and a little tired with his rowing, was invited to join the merry circle which surrounded the rural feast Lively talk and flights of humour alternated with the emptying and filling of cups. Thorsby proposed a song, and sung Dibdin’s “Black-eyed Susan,” Miss Drury delighted them with the False Knight, “I love and I ride away.” When some other songs had followed, and Tom Boddily had given them a further bird performance on his magic pipes, “Now,” said Thorsby, “for a riddle. You don’t know it; for I have just made it.”
“Splendid!” said they all; “now for it.”
“What is that which lies down, and stands up, and sails, and flies, at the same time?”
“It is a genuine, bonâ-fide riddle, is it,” asked George Woodburn, “and no hoax, Thorsby?”
“Oh! out and out genuine,” said Thorsby.
Nobody could guess it. Thorsby was delighted, and would not tell it. “No, as it was bran new, it must not be let out all at once.” Suddenly he said. “Ah! I’ll ask Tom Boddily, he is as sharp as a needle with two points.” Tom was at the fire, at some distance, laying on more sticks. Up jumped Thorsby. There was a general titter, and hands held up in merry amazement—he did not hear or see them. The next moment Thorsby was at Tom’s side, and propounded the riddle.
“Did you see that heron?” Tom said, pointing down the river.
“No, Tom,” said Thorsby. He turned, gazing in vain down the river.
“But never mind the heron,” said Thorsby; “the riddle! the riddle!”
“I have it,” said Tom, “it is windmill sails.”
“Windmill sails!” exclaimed Thorsby. “How in the world could you guess that?”
“I read it,” said Tom.
“Read it! No, impossible!” exclaimed Thorsby; “for I only just made it. Read it! where did you read it?”
“Mr. George knows it,” said Tom.
“Never!” exclaimed Thorsby, running back to the party, whom, to his wonder, he found in a full chorus of laughter, and the ladies clapping their hands in delight.
“What is up?” said Thorsby, wondering still more; “what is the meaning of it?” And throwing himself down, he said, “Boddily says, George, you know my riddle, and that he himself knows it, and has read it.”
At this the merriment increased extremely, and George, taking a page of note-paper from Thorsby’s back, which he had pinned there, with the words largely written in pencil, “Windmill Sails,” held it before Thorsby’s face, amidst the jubilance of the ladies.
“Ha-a-a!” said Thorsby, “now I see! That’s where Boddily read it. That’s why he pretended there was a heron, to make me turn my back towards him. Well, George, I give you credit for great cleverness; I hope you give me a little for making that riddle.”
“Oh, it is excellent—first-rate,” said all together.
“And now I have another idea,” said Thorsby, suddenly getting up, and fetching the water-lilies from the boat. Putting these down, he took Tom Boddily, and soon returned with an armful of flowers, meadow-sweet, forget-me-nots, like lapis lazuli; and by the aid of the ladies, and some strings of osier-bark, these were woven into garlands, which he said they would hang up in honour of this day. When they were finished, however, here and there interspersed with oak and hazel-leaves, Thorsby immediately proceeded to crown the ladies with them. Truly they looked very beautiful, and Thorsby was complimented on his taste. George, who had quietly gone aside, dexterously took off Letty’s garland, and put her on one of willow, in pretence that she was forsaken. Thorsby as quietly plucked it off, and replaced it by one of forget-me-nots, putting the willow on George’s head amid much mirth.
Betty Trapps, however, was indignant at the water-lilies, because, she said, they came out of deep water, which meant trouble; and, as for forget-me-nots, “It’s all wrong,” she added.
“All wrong!” exclaimed Thorsby. “Why, forget-me-nots are most poetical and significant. Everybody likes forget-me-nots.”
“Well, everybody doesn’t, for I don’t,” said Betty.
“Why, you don’t like true blue, then, Betty,” said Thorsby.
“True fiddlesticks!” said Betty; “don’t tell me about true blue.
‘Green’s forsaken,
Blue’s forsworn,
Pink’s the colour as should be worn,
Blue and yellow
The lads will follow,
Green and blue
Will never prove true,’
and you’ve got both in these garlands.”
“Why, that is a new philosophy,” said Thorsby.
“New philosophy it may be,” said Betty, “but it’s old truth; old as my great-grandmother, and older, I’ll be bound. It is true as Scripture, for it comes down from our old auncetters, and has proved its-sen true, or it wouldna have lasted till now.”
Betty then began gathering the tea-tackle, as she called it, together, and sung to herself—
“How hard is my fate, once I freedah enjied,
Andars happy as happy could be;
I was seized by the forces their fires to feed,
And captain for loss of the sea.”
“What is the meaning of that, Betty?” asked Thorsby.
“Meaning? It’s a song my mother used to sing,” said Betty, going on with her picking up cups and saucers, and giving them to Boddily to stow away in a basket, “to us children to get us to sleep, and I’ve cried my eyes out many a time, and gone to sleep sobbing, and dost think I don’t know th’ meaning on’t? Oh, it’s very cutting, is that owd song.”
“Well,” said Thorsby, “I have heard something like it, which I do understand;” and he sang—
“How hard is my fate, once I freedom enjoyed,
And was happy as happy could be;
I was seized by the foes their fiat to feel,
And was captive, alas! on the sea.”
“Oh, get out,” said Betty; “that’s the way such shallow pates takes the life out of things. Dost think I should iver have cried over such stuff as that? Why, that is as flat as ditch-water; there’s nothing cutting in it. Oh! but th’ owd song is cutting! It goes to the quick; it goes through bone and marrow. It makes cowd water seem to run down my back when I sing it sometimes o’er my house-work.”
Thorsby laughed, and Betty cast a most disdainful look at him.
“Here’s a man, now,” she said, “who goes walking with a stick and a dog, like a gentleman, and knows no better nor that! But I’ll fit thee, young man, I will!”
And here we may antedate our story to say that Betty did not forget to do it. The next morning when the family came downstairs at Woodburn Grange, where Thorsby stayed all night, they were all edified by seeing pinned up conspicuously on the staircase a memorandum of his which Betty had found—“To remember not to forget to send my trousers to be mended, ditto, boots.” Thorsby came the last of all into the breakfast-room, looking very hot, but when the next person went upstairs, the memorandum had disappeared.
As our jovial party of islanders were sitting, the ladies in their garlands, suddenly a boat was perceived coming down under the side of the island; presently it moored, and two gentlemen ascended the bank, and approached the ladies.
“Dr. Leroy,” said several voices; “and,” added George Woodburn, “as I live, Henry Clavering!”
He rushed forward to meet Mr. Clavering, and there was a most affectionate handshaking. Letty and Millicent Heritage also ran forward to joyously welcome the son of Sir Emanuel, who had been two years abroad. Ann Woodburn advanced more sedately but cordially, and, with a somewhat flushed countenance, welcomed their young friend, introducing Miss Drury to him.
“Why, when did you arrive, Clavering?” asked George Woodburn.
“Only yesterday,” he replied; “but I happened to meet Dr. Leroy in Castleborough, and he was kind enough to come up to-day and tell me of your water-frolic, and here we are.”
“A thousand welcomes,” said George, looking very happy, and so said the ladies. A great many questions and answers from both sides passed, and Thorsby, springing up, said, “Well, now I declare, that was prophetic. I thought these garlands were only a sportive freak, but they were in honour of Mr. Clavering’s return, and they shall be suspended from the branches of this oak.”
“A bright idea,” said all the company; and all were up and very busy suspending the garlands from the boughs of the spreading tree. Henry Clavering thanked them for the compliment, and the party set out to return home. The boats were sent up the river with Tom Boddily, Sylvanus, and Betty, having first put on shore the young people, who walked through the woods and lanes in abundance of interesting talk. Supper awaited them, and a joyous welcome for Mr. Clavering from Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn. As the gentlemen took their leave at night, Miss Drury whispered to Ann Woodburn, “I like this Mr. Clavering. He is so thoroughly a gentleman, and, I am sure, so good and sensible.”
“True,” said Ann, “but, like us all, not without a fault.”
END OF VOL. I.
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.