Does any one imagine that such trials as these are small and insignificant? They are the very ones that make the heart burn, and the teeth close on the lips, and the eyes fill with angry tears. They take hope out of daily work, and sunshine out of daily life, and slay love as nothing else can slay it. There was an evil spirit in the house,—a small, selfish, envious, malicious spirit; people were cross, and they knew not why; felt injured, and they knew not why; the days were harder than those dreadful ones when fire and candle were never out, and every one was a watcher in the shadow of death.
As the season advanced, Julius took precisely the position which Stephen had foretold he would take. At first he deferred entirely to the squire; he received his orders, and then saw them carried out. Very soon he forgot to name the squire in the matter. He held consultations with the head man, and talked with him about the mowing and harvesting, and the sale of lambs and fleeces. The master's room was opened, and Julius sat at the table to receive tenants and laborers. In the squire's chair it was easy to feel that he was himself squire of Sandal-Side and Torver.
It was a most unhappy summer. Evils, like weeds, grow apace. There was scarcely any interval between some long-honored custom and its disappearance. To-day it was observed as it had been for a lifetime; the next week it had passed away, and appeared to be forgotten. "Such times I never saw," said Ann. "I have been at Sandal twenty-two years come Martinmas, but I'm going to Beverley next feast."
"You'll not do it, Ann. It's but talk."
"Nay, but I'm set on it. I have taken the 'fastening penny,' and I'm bound to make that good. Things are that trying here now, that I can't abide them longer."
All summer servants were going and coming at Seat-Sandal; the very foundations of its domestic life were broken up, and Charlotte's bright face had a constant wrinkle of worry and annoyance. Sophia was careful to point out the fact. "She has no housekeeping ability. Every thing is in a mess. If I only durst take hold of things. But Charlotte is such a spitfire, one does not like to offer help. I would be only too glad to put things right, but I should give offence," etc. "The poison of asps under the tongue," and a very little of it, can paralyze and irritate a whole household.
Mowing-time and shearing-time and reaping-time came and went, but the gay pastoral festivals brought none of their old-time pleasure. The men in the fields did not like Julius in the squire's place, and they took no pains to hide the fact. Then he came home with complaints. "They were idle. They were disrespectful. The crops had fallen short." He could not understand it; and when he had expressed some dissatisfaction on the matter, the head man had told him, to take his grumbling to God Almighty. "An insolent race, these statesmen and Dale shepherds," he added; "if one of them owns ten acres, he thinks himself as good as if he owns a thousand."
"All well-born men, Julius, all of them; are they not, Charlotte? Eh? What?"
"So well born," answered Charlotte warmly, "that King James the First set up a claim to all these small estates, on the plea that their owners had never served a feudal lord, and were, therefore, tenants of the crown. But the large statesmen went with the small ones. They led them in a body to a heath between Kendal and Stavely, and there over two thousand men swore, 'that as they had their lands by the sword, they would keep them by the same.' So you see, Julius, they were gentlemen before the feudal system existed; they never put a finger under its authority, and they have long survived its fall."
"Well, for all that, they make poor servants."