“The best thing I hev to say to you this night is, in the days of prosperity fast coming to Annis, stick to your religion. Doan’t lose yoursens in the hurry and flurry of the busy life before you all. Any nation to become great must be a religious nation; for nationality is a product of the soul. It is something for which ivery straight-hearted man would die. There are many good things for which a good man would not die, but a good man would willingly die for the good of his country. His hopes for her will not tolerate a probability. They hev to be realized, or he’ll die for them.
“If you are good Church of England men you are all right. She is your spiritual mother, do what she tells you to do, and you can’t do wrong. If you are a Dissenter from her, then keep a bit of Methodism in your souls. It is kind and personal, and if it gets hold of a man, it does a lot for him. It sits in the center. I am sorry to say there are a great many atheists among weavers. Atheists do nothing. A man steeped in Methodism can do anything! Its love and its honesty lift up them that are cast down; it gives no quarter to the devil, and it hes a heart as big as God’s mercy. If you hev your share of this kind of Methodist, you will be kind, or at least civil to strangers. You knaw how you usually treat them. The ither day I was watching the men budding, and a stranger passed, and one of the bricklayers said to another near him, ‘Who’s that?’ and the other looked up and answered, ‘I doan’t know. He’s a stranger.’ And the advice promptly given was, ‘throw a brick at him!’” This incident was so common and so natural, that it was greeted with a roar of laughter, and the squire nodded and laughed also, and so in the midst of the pleasant racket, went away with John Thomas Bradley at his side.
“It’s a fine night,” said Annis to Bradley. “Walk up the hill and hev a bite of supper with me.” The invitation was almost an oath of renewed friendship, and Bradley could on no account refuse it. Then the squire sent his man ahead to notify the household, and the two men took the hill at each other’s side, talking eagerly of the election and its probabilities. As they neared the Hall, Bradley was silent and a little troubled. “Antony,” he said, “how about the women-folk?”
“I am by thy side. As they treat me they will treat thee. Josepha was allays thy friend. Mistress Annis hed a kind side for thee, so hed my little Kitty. For awhile, they hev been under the influence of a lie set going by thy awn son.”
“By Harry?”
“To be sure. But Harry was misinformed, by that mean little lawyer that lives in Bradley. I hev forgotten the whole story, and I won’t hev it brought up again. It was a lie out of the whole cloth, and was varry warmly taken up by Dick, and you know how our women are—they stand by ivery word their men say.”
The men entered together. Josepha was not the least astonished. In fact, she was sure this very circumstance would happen. Had she not advised and directed John Thomas that very afternoon what to do, and had he not been only too ready and delighted to follow her advice? When the door opened she rose, and with some enthusiasm met John Thomas, and while she was welcoming him the squire had said the few words that were sufficient to insure Annie’s welcome. An act of oblivion was passed without a word, and just where the friendship had been dropped, it was taken up again. Kitty excused herself, giving a headache as her reason, and Dick was in Liverpool with Hartley, looking over a large importation of South American wool.
The event following this rearrangement of life was the return of Josepha to her London home. She said a combination of country life and November fogs was beyond her power of cheerful endurance; and then she begged Katherine to go back to London with her. Katherine was delighted to do so. Harry’s absence no longer troubled her. She did not even wish to see him and the home circumstances had become stale and wearisome. The coming and going of many strangers and the restlessness and uncertainty of daily life was a great trial to a family that had lived so many years strictly after its own ideals of reposeful, regular rule and order. Annie, very excusably, was in a highly nervous condition, the squire was silent and thoughtful, and in the evenings too tired to talk. Katherine was eager for more company of her own kind, and just a little weary of Dick’s and Faith’s devotion to each other. “I wish aunt would go to London and take me with her,” she said to herself one morning, as she was rather indifferently dressing her own hair.
And so it happened that Josepha that very day found the longing for her own home and life so insistent that she resolved to indulge it. “What am I staying here for?” she asked herself with some impatience. “I am not needed about the business yet to be, and Antony is looking after the preparations for it beyond all I expected. I’m bothering Annie, and varry soon John Thomas will begin bothering me; and poor Kitty hes no lover now, and is a bit tired of Faith’s perfections. As for Dick, poor lad! he is kept running between the mill’s business, and the preacher’s daughter. And Antony himsen says things to me, nobody else hes a right to say. I see people iverywhere whom no one can suit, and who can’t suit themsens. I’ll be off to London in two days—and I’ll take Kitty with me.”
Josepha’s private complaint was not without truth and her resolve was both kind and wise. A good, plain household undertaking was lacking; every room was full of domestic malaria, and the best-hearted person in the world, can neither manage nor yet control this insidious unhappy element. It is then surely the part of prudence, where combat is impossible, to run away.