CHAPTER IV.
LETTY’S WEDDING.
The wild, tempestuous weather, which attended the death of Sir Emanuel Clavering, renewed itself at his funeral. In the interval betwixt these events there had been calm, clear days. The snow lay white and dazzling over the whole landscape; the nights were brilliant with stars, which seemed to derive double lustre from the frost. The funeral of Sir Emanuel took place in the little church just by, and was conducted by a neighbouring clergyman, a friend of the rector’s. None were invited but the immediate relatives, and the tenants, who received a notice that their presence at the church would be regarded as a mark of respect. But in the middle of the night preceding the day of the funeral, the wind again rose, snow began to fall, and the two elements seemed as if they had concerted to make the scene as miserable as possible. The winds raged, the snow fell, and drove as in a riotous madness. A stupendous ash-tree on the lawn, under which Sir Emanuel had been fond of sitting and reading, was blown down; the windows of his observatory on the hill, on the north side were driven in, and a small turret on the house, in which he kept piles of papers, fell inwards, and buried them. It was necessary to cut a way from the hall door to the church door, through the deep snows, amidst which six stout yeomen bore the coffin, staggering in the howling, tossing winds. Such was the war of the storm in the trees about the church and the rector’s house, that the voice of the clergyman could scarcely be heard as he read the burial service. The tenants, who came from some distance, gained their homes with much difficulty. For three or four days the weather continued its riotous character, and a winter of unremittent severity followed. The snows covered the hedges of the fields so completely that, when hard frozen, people walked over them as on a highway. Great numbers of sheep were lost in the mountain districts, and many people in different parts of the kingdom perished on heaths and moors amid the snows. Farmers were at their wits’-end for food for their cattle, which had all to be kept up. Alternate thaws and frosts hung from the eaves of buildings icicles a yard or more long, and a sudden frost following on driving rain, froze the wings of birds to their bodies, and in that condition incalculable numbers were seized and destroyed. The spring was late in coming, and was attended by floods, doing immense damage in their headlong course.
Such an outburst of weather at the death and funeral of Sir Emanuel Clavering was certain to excite in the imagination of the country people round the most awful ideas of the mortal exit of a man who had acquired so mysterious a reputation. It is a favourite idea that tempests of a fearful character often attend the departure of men remarkable for their daring deeds in life—deeds not very scrupulous regarding the rights or lives of men. Such was the case at the deaths of Cromwell and many other great innovators or troublers of the earth. The people believe that the great enemy of mankind thus comes to signalise the departure of those who have been his devoted servants on a large scale. The country people about Cotmanhaye, and far around, did Sir Emanuel the honour of classing him with this satanically distinguished tribe, though they could point to no actions but such as were kindly and benevolent.
But the black art was ample enough, in their opinions, for any disturbances of nature, and this they firmly believed that he had practised. The driving in of his observatory windows, the fall of the little turret where he kept his mysterious papers, were facts of a significance not to be withstood. They did not take into their consideration that this tempestuous and severe winter extended far beyond any influence or knowledge of Sir Emanuel—that it extended, indeed, not only over the whole kingdom, but over the whole of Europe. Their knowledge and experience lay only within a very minute circle; but then Sir Emanuel died, and those furious elements battled over his dying head. That was enough. Many were the stories, by the cottage and the village inn firesides, of the horrors of that night at Cotmanhaye Manor. Of the strange sights, strange sounds, burning blue of the fire-flames, the howling of dogs, and the strange neighing of horses in the turmoil of the winds.
It was said that all the clergy had been collected for miles round to endeavour to lay the devil, and prevent him seizing on his victim—the only clergyman present being poor, dear Thomas Clavering, who was too much overwhelmed with grief to be able to articulate more than a few words of affection, and of confidence in the love and merits of the Saviour. It was said that Mrs. Heritage had been sent for when all the efforts of the clergy failed, and that in the midst of her prayers the turret fell, the observatory windows flew shivered to atoms, and then all was still. The devil had thus gone off in a fury of disappointment. All remembered the calm, clear weather that attended this good woman back, and which lasted till the funeral, when it broke out again, and raged on for days and weeks. Not all the reasonings of a Bacon, or the eloquence of a Chatham, could have driven from the minds of the rural population the fixed idea that Sir Emanuel had been accustomed to practices of an awful character, or that the pre-eminent piety of Mrs. Heritage had most signally triumphed over the Prince of Darkness. For twenty years after, the grand epoch of all relative dates was the hard winter when Sir Emanuel Clavering died.
In the little circle of Woodburn his departure left another gap. Of late years Sir Emanuel had lived more and come out more amongst his neighbours; and, where he had been known intimately, he was greatly beloved. In the families of Woodburn, Heritage, and Degge, he left a deep and lasting regret.
During the winter Henry Clavering, now Sir Henry, was for the most part in London, attending to family affairs. He had not ventured to call at Woodburn Grange before leaving, being much affected by the death of his father, the Claverings having strong family attachments; but he wrote a very kind farewell through a letter to Ann, and to her expressed a hope of a more cheerful prospect as regarded their relationship to each other. Ann herself could not help cherishing an idea that the change of sentiment in his father at last would operate a change in his own mind. Several times in the course of the winter he wrote more and more happily, and promised himself much of her society in spring.
As for other matters at Woodburn Grange, they were by no means dull. The wedding of Letty with Thorsby was to take place in May, and Thorsby was there every few days overflowing with fun and animal spirits. Since Betty Trapps knew that this marriage was inevitable, though she continued privately to shake her head over it, she endeavoured to be more respectful to Thorsby, out of respect to Letty; but Thorsby’s ebullient temperament sometimes tried her very hard, especially when he indulged himself with making merry over the Methodists, which he was very apt to do when Betty was waiting at table. Betty said “some people were hetter and some were heeler (that is, irritable or calm in disposition). For her part, she did not pretend to be ower heeler—tread on a worm, and it would turn—and if people would pinch her, she was pretty sure, she said, to cry out.” One day Thorsby was very merry over a master manufacturer in Castleborough, who was a great leader amongst the Methodists, and kept a horse for the use of the preachers who went into the country round, and rather irreverently called it God’s horse. Betty defended the title, and thought the profanity was in laughing at the manufacturer who kept it. The next time that Thorsby was obliged by the weather to stay all night at the Grange, he found that Betty had made him an “apple-pie bed;” that is, she had turned up the upper sheet to the pillow, so that, on getting into bed, he found himself stopped half-way. This, however, was nothing to the expression of her indignation conveyed to him by a frog, a bit of furze, or even a wasp, being put into his bed.
Thorsby, on another occasion, excited Betty’s wrath by asserting that he thought he could preach better than a favourite preacher of Betty’s. “Preach, i’ faith!” said Betty, as she shifted Thorsby plate—“Ay, may be, as well as old Parson Markham, of Rockville, who buzzes like a dumbledore[1] in a pitcher.” The conversation turning on somebody who had been unfortunate, Thorsby remarked that people ought not to expect to get on who did not exert themselves. “Oh, beleddy”—a great word of Betty’s, meaning, by-lady, from the old phrase, “By our lady”—Betty remarked, “I always see folks run to help a lazy duck that lies on its back and quackles, while stirring ducks may take care of themselves as they can.”
Such little skirmishes, however, only served to enliven the dinner-table; but Thorsby was quite as fond of quizzing his Quaker acquaintance, which was nearly as repugnant to Betty’s feelings, who had a profound admiration of Mrs. Heritage; and who said she did not like to hear any religious people fleered at. Thorsby was very merry one day at the expense of Sylvanus Crook, who, on hearing some one say that he could find any text in the Bible that any one could mention, had asked him where was the text which spoke of twenty-nine knives and never a fork. The man, who was a Methodist too, had stoutly declared that there was no such text, and Thorsby was of his opinion. Betty Trapps said Mr. Thorsby had something to learn yet, before he began to preach, for there was such a text, and it was in the first chapter and ninth verse of the book of Ezra. Thorsby jumped up and got a Bible, and found in the list of the vessels and other apparatus of the Temple nine-and-twenty knives.
“But,” said Thorsby, “it does not say ‘and never a fork.’”
“It need not,” said Betty, “because there was never a fork.”
“Ah!” said Thorsby, “I see now—that was Crook’s way of putting it. But they are not always so sharp, these Quakers,” added Thorsby. “There is Solomon Jordan, the draper, you should have seen him one fine evening last summer; he is one of the plainest of the plain in his attire. Slipping on his warehouse stairs, he had dislocated his collar-bone and had his left arm in a sling. Sitting at his desk near his shop window, he observed an old militia officer, who had been at a festive dinner with the officers of his regiment, drop his spectacles in the middle of the street. Being well charged with wine, he made many vain attempts to stoop and take up the spectacles. Every time he staggered past them, and turned round to make an attempt equally hopeless. Solomon Jordan, believing the officer to lodge at a house just opposite, hastened out, picked up the spectacles, and offered his right arm to conduct the officer to his lodgings. The old captain was full of the most grateful acknowledgments of this politeness; but, on arriving at the door, he looked up and exclaimed,—‘But, my dear sir, these are not my lodgings; mine are away ever so far up the street.’
“They began to march on, but the officer perceiving that Mr. Jordan was without his hat, suddenly stopped, took off his cap and feather, and put them on the head of the astonished Friend.
“‘Take it off!’ exclaimed Solomon; ‘take it off, friend!’
“‘No, no’, replied the officer, energetically, ‘I could not think of such a thing as your going bare-headed up the street, and you so extremely kind to me.’
“‘Take off thy cap!’ exclaimed Solomon, more loudly, ‘or I’ll not go another step with thee.’
“As Solomon would not move, notwithstanding all the protestations of the officer, and could not get away, the officer holding his arm as in a vice; and as he could not raise the other arm, which was lamed, to take the cap off, the scene became highly ludicrous. The people in the street, and there were many, saw the dilemma and began to laugh, and the boys to run from all sides, crying, ‘Mr. Jordan is ’listed for a soldier,—Mr. Jordan is ’listed!’ There was a great running, and soon a great crowd, in the midst of which the Friend was angrily demanding the officer to take off the offensive cap; and the officer, with equal zeal, protesting against the Friend proceeding bareheaded. Sometimes the officer, for a moment, would concede the point to Solomon and replace his cap on his own head, but almost directly would whip it off again and put it on Solomon’s, which was the signal for a fresh roar of laughter from the people. Thus they advanced, now stopping and parleying—now moving on again; the cap sometimes on the soldier’s head, sometimes on the Friend’s, till they reached the officer’s lodgings with half the idle people of Castleborough at their heels. I think,” added Thorsby, “Friend Jordan will never again take compassion on a disabled soldier.”
“More’s the pity that he did,” said Betty Trapps. “I’d have left the intossicated old fellow to plough the street up with his nose afore I’d ha’ helped him; but such things are just egg and milk for some folks:” meaning that such satirical stories were delicious to Thorsby.
In March a great excitement was occasioned at Woodburn by the arrival of the Drurys to take possession of their farm. Mr. Drury took up his quarters at the Grange during the transfer of the farm with its crops and stock to him, for he had disposed of his own stock to his successor, and took to that on Bilts’ farm, as the most suitable to the country; for, with all Mr. Trant Drury’s theoretical notions, he had great faith in the fact, that experience of the character of a particular country and of the stock most suitable to it, was a guide not to be lightly neglected. He brought with him, however, a variety of new apparatus, and some teams and waggons, which excited the curiosity of his agricultural neighbours. The Woodburns, as friends of Mr. Drury’s, declined being engaged for him, or either of them, as his valuer, but recommended Mr. Norton, of Peafield. All seemed to go on well in the valuation, till one day Mr. Drury came home very pale and ill, saying he had had a fall down Mr. Barrowclouch’s cellar-steps as they descended to examine those regions, and Mr. Drury blamed Mr. Barrowclouch extremely for having his cellar-steps where there was a sudden turn in them unguarded by a handrail. Mr. Drury had evidently received a great shake, though no bones were broken, and was under the doctor’s hands for a fortnight, greatly to his chagrin at such a crisis. He continually murmured to himself that it was “most unfortunate—most unfortunate.” Mr. Woodburn and George, however, assured him that in the hands of Mr. Norton all would go as well as in his own. Mr. Drury looked rather astonished at such an opinion, and shook his head incredulously. It was evident that he thought his absence on the occasion, although all was left in the hands of two most competent and honourable men, a grand misfortune.
All, however, came to an end as everything does; the valuation was brought in, examined by Mr. Drury, and the amount paid with the remark, that it might have been worse. Before Mr. Barrowclouch left, and before Mr. Drury had got out again, Mr. Woodburn went up to say good-bye to his neighbour of many years, the worthy old farmer.
“I hope all has gone off satisfactorily,” said Mr. Woodburn, “in the valuation. Mr. Drury seems satisfied.”
“Oh, is he?” said the farmer; “then I am sure I ought to be. They say it is an ill wind as blows nobody any profit, and bless me, if Mr. Drury had not fallen down those cellar-steps, I don’t think I should be worth so much by a thousand pound as I am. Pray God that he gets all right soon, and then I’m sure we shall both be right.”
“But how do you mean?” asked Mr. Woodburn. “Mr. Drury, of course, could not interfere with the valuers.”
“Well, no,” said Mr. Barrowclouch, laughing, “if valuers were always as stiff and peremptory as they should be. But my man was rather a soft one, and Mr. Drury is such a hurrying sort of man; bless me! he seemed as though he would ride rough shod right over us all. ‘Oh!’ he would say, ‘that is but a poor affair—that is not worth more than so and so, and that’s hardly worth valuing at all;’ and he kept hurrying along, saying time was precious, and had the valuers here and there and yonder, quick as lightning. ‘Mr. Drury,’ said I, ‘let you and me go away, and leave the gentlemen to their cool judgment, we have no business to say a word.’ ‘Oh no!’ he would say, ‘he must see how all was done, and the gentlemen could settle all afterwards.’ But I could see my man began to be quite flabbergasted, and to get a wonderful opinion of your Mr. Drury, and my heart began to sink in me. I felt that my effects would go very cheap, when, all at once, some taters were mentioned in the cellar. ‘Let’s see ’em,’ says Mr. Drury, and off he goes to the house, and calls for a candle. ‘Hold hard!’ said I, ‘hold hard! have a care! the cellar steps are dangerous to a stranger. Let me go first with a light.’ ‘Dangerous,’ said he, in his off-hand way, ‘how can cellar steps in a decent house be dangerous?’ Up he catches the light and hurries on. ‘For God’s sake,’ said I, ‘keep back;’ but it was no use, on he goes, holding up his light, and down he goes bang to the bottom. Oh Lors! oh Lors! I made sure he were killed, and I heard a dreadful groan, and there he lay as dead.”
“You had no handrail, Mr. Drury says.”
“No, that’s true,” said the farmer; “nor there’s been none since it was a house, but I never heard of anybody afore tumbling down. Everybody is warned when they come fresh, and they awllis tak’ a light, and look where they goon’. But Mr. Drury is such a hurrying, driving sort of a man; he seems as if he’d drive sun and moon, and th’ seven stars afore him. However, I hope he’ll be no worse for it. I am sure I’m not.”
Mr. Woodburn thought there was something very characteristic of his new neighbour in Mr. Barrowclouch’s remarks; he thought he saw symptoms of the same on-driving, overweening temperament in him, even in conversation. He was destined to see this only too fully confirmed.
A few weeks saw the Drurys settled at Bilts’ Farm. The furniture had arrived, and was all arranged—the house had become the fit residence for a gentleman. Elizabeth Drury, to her great delight and theirs, was living permanently amid her new friends. The reader can imagine the joy of the young people,—the Woodburns and Miss Heritage: the visitings and re-visitings at the Grange, at Fair Manor, at Bilts’ Farm. Elizabeth Drury had her own handsome horse, and joined her friends in their rides. The spring was advancing in light and daily growth of beauty and sweetness. May, and the marriage of Thorsby and Letty were approaching. Busy was the time at Woodburn Grange in the various preparations for it. Thorsby was all life and jollity. His house in Castleborough had been put into the most perfect order for the great event.
At length May sent forth one of her fairest, most lovely, and odorous mornings for the occasion. There was an unusual bustle in every house and cottage in Woodburn. All was expectation in every dwelling to see the carriages driving up from the Grange, and there they came! But why need we particularise the persons and details of the scene? There, however, were three charming bridesmaids, Miss Woodburn, Miss Degge, and Miss Drury, in their white dresses and white veils, in the first carriage, followed by Sir Simon and Lady Degge, in their most splendid equipage, then Mr. and Mrs. Drury, accompanied by George Woodburn, and lastly, Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn, with the lovely, blushing Letty, with somewhat flushed cheeks, and eyes in which joy and tears stood together. Every creature was out as they passed through the village, and bows and curtseys, and women with apron corners to their eyes, and yet with the most beaming delight on their faces. At the church appeared already, Harry Thorsby, in superb costume, and his best man, Sir Henry Clavering, his mother, and two or three other friends. The ceremony was performed by the worthy old Thomas Clavering, assisted by Mr. Markham. All went off well. You, dear readers, may see the carriages dashing away again down to the Grange, and the streaming eyes, noddings, and waving hands of the villagers, and dancings and skippings of the children; you may imagine the déjeuner, and all the speeches, and—away the happy pair are gone to the Highlands of Scotland, where, no doubt, they will enjoy themselves amid the rocks, and hills, and lakes, and heather.
Meantime a certain blank and another degree of shade, have fallen on Woodburn Grange. When Letty, that sunbeam which was ever darting here and there, yet always making bright the house, returns, it will be to Castleborough. Not far off, to be sure, but still not exactly at Woodburn. Meantime, Ann and George, too, have their friend, Miss Drury, to enliven them by her genial and ever lively society. There are frequent passings between the Grange and Bilts’ Farm, where Mr. Trant Drury is always busy, though there really, just now, seems little to do, but for the dews to fall, and the crops to grow in the sunshine.
A month after the wedding Mr. and Mrs. Thorsby returned, full of happiness and health, to commence their new life in Castleborough—to receive Letty’s new circle of friends. That over, things resumed something of their old routine. Though Letty was no longer a resident at Woodburn Grange, but of Castleborough, greatly admired by a wide circle of new friends, yet she was frequently taking that way in her drives, and bringing in floods of sunshine and life with her; and she and Thorsby generally spent their Sundays there. Visits to the town were more attractive to the Woodburns, and more frequent. George always dined at his sister’s on market-day, and Mrs. Woodburn and Ann found a considerable number of shoppings and bargainings to make in town. Every one saw, and every one approved, the growing regard of George Woodburn and Elizabeth Drury. No formal engagement was yet made, but both at the Grange and at Bilts’ Farm it was looked on as a settled affair, and that with mutual pride and satisfaction. Then there was a little loving intercourse going on at Fair Manor. Dr. Frank Leroy seemed to have found perfect favour with Miss Heritage, and with her parents. Every one thought him a fortunate fellow with such a lovely and amiable wife, and such a fortune in view: and every one thought that he deserved both, for he was extremely admired for the modesty which clothed so gracefully great knowledge and talent, and esteemed for his good and generous nature. Dr. Leroy was a member of the Society of Friends, though the orthodox did not class him as a “consistent member;” for he dressed and spoke as any other gentleman, having seen a great deal of the world at home and abroad, and learned that religion does not consist of caps and coats, but of great and ennobling principles.
Taking a sober view of the facts just stated, a not very sanguine calculation would conclude that in much less than two years there would be a succession of weddings in this quarter; that Frank Leroy and Millicent Heritage, George Woodburn and Elizabeth Drury, and, perhaps, Sir Henry Clavering and Ann Woodburn, would have each and all passed into the holy state of matrimony, and that all the romance of that transitive epoch, that young elective life of love merging into sober domestic union, would be passed and gone. Let us see.