It might be that the impress of those very dreams had formed the character she was admiring. Many a weak and fragile substance, moulded in its softness to a noble shape, has given a clear and lasting impress to a firm and durable material, either in the heat of the furnace, or the ductility of growth. So Robert and Phœbe, children of the heart that had lost those of her adoption, cheered these lonely days by their need of her advice and sympathy.
Nor was she without tasks at home. Mr. Henderson, the vicar, was a very old man, and was constantly growing more feeble and unequal to exertion. He had been appointed by the squire before last, and had the indolent conservative orthodoxy of the old school, regarding activity as a perilous innovation, and resisting all Miss Charlecote’s endeavours at progress in the parish. She had had long patience, till, when his strength failed, she ventured to entreat him to allow her to undertake the stipend of a curate, but this was rejected with displeasure, and she was forced to redouble her own exertions; but neither reading to the sick, visiting the cottages, teaching at school, nor even setting up a night-school in her own hall, availed to supply the want of an active pastor and of a resident magistrate.
Hiltonbury was in danger of losing its reputation as a pattern parish, which it had retained long after the death of him who had made it so. The younger race who had since grown up were not such as their fathers had been, and the disorderly household at Beauchamp had done mischief. The primitive manners, the simplicity, and feudal feeling were wearing off, and poor Honor found the whole charge laid to her few modern steps in education! If Hiltonbury were better than many of the neighbouring places, yet it was not what it had been when she first had known it, and she vexed herself in the attempt to understand whether the times or herself were the cause.
Even her old bailiff, Brooks, did not second her. He had more than come to the term of service at which the servant becomes a master, and had no idea of obeying her, when he thought he knew best. Backward as were her notions of modern farming, they were too advanced for him, and either he would not act on them at all, or was resolved against their success when coerced. There was no dismissing him, and without Mr. Saville to come and enforce her authority, Honor found the old man so stubborn that she had nearly given up the contest, except where the welfare of men, not of crops, was concerned.
A maiden’s reign is a dreary thing, when she tends towards age. And Honor often felt what it would have been to have had Owen to back her up, and infuse new spirit and vigour.
The surly ploughboy, who omitted to touch his cap to the lady, little imagined the train of painful reflections roused by this small indication of the altering spirit of the place!
CHAPTER XVI
Even in our ashes glow the wonted fires.—Gray
‘My dear, I did not like the voice that I heard just now.’
‘I am sure I was not out of temper.’