“Varry good, dearie! Then we’ll start at seven to-morrow morning. We will drive to Leeds, and then tak t’ mail-coach for London there. If t’ roads don’t happen to be varry bad we may hev time enough in Leeds to go to the Queen’s Hotel and hev a plate o’ soup and a chop. I hev a bit o’ business at the bank there but it won’t keep me ten minutes. I hope we may hev a fairish journey, but the preacher tells me the whole country is in a varry alarming condition.”
“Antony, I am a little tired of the preacher’s alarm bell. He is always prophesying evil. Doan’t thee let him get too much influence over thee. Before thou knows what thou art doing thou wilt be going to a class meeting. What does the curate say? He has been fifty miles south, if not more.”
“He told me the roads were full of hungry, angry men, who were varry disrespectful to any of the Quality they met.”
Here Katherine entered the room. “Mother dear,” she said in an excited voice, “mother dear! My new traveling dress came home a little while ago, and I have put it on, to let you admire it. Is it not pretty? Is it not stylish? Is it not everything a girl would like? O Daddy! I didn’t see you.”
“I couldn’t expect thee to see me when tha hed a new dress on. I’ll tell thee, howiver, I doan’t like it as well as I liked thy last suit.”
“The little shepherd plaid? Oh, that has become quite common! This is the thing now. What do you say, mother?”
“I think it is all right. Put it on in the morning. We leave at seven o’clock.”
“Oh, delightful! I am so glad! Life is all in a mess here and I hate a tossed-up house.”
At this point the Reverend Mr. Yates entered. He had called to bid the squire and his family good-bye, but the ladies quickly left the room. They knew some apology was due the curate for placing the money intended for relieving the suffering in the village in the preacher’s care, and at his disposal. But the curate was reasonable, and readily acknowledged that “nearly all needing help were members of Mr. Foster’s church, and would naturally take relief better from him than from a stranger.”
The journey as far as Leeds was a very sad one, for the squire stopped frequently to speak to groups of despairing, desperate men and women:—“Hev courage, friends!” he said cheerfully to a gathering of about forty or more on the Green of a large village, only fourteen miles south of Annis. “Hev courage a little longer! I am Antony Annis, and I am on my way to London, with many more gentlemen, to see that the Reform Bill goes through the Lords, this time. If it does not then it will be the duty of Englishmen to know the reason why. God knows you hev borne up bravely. Try it a bit longer.”