“Pet ruins everything and everybody; and you are ruining him, Eliza. I am the only one who has the smallest power over him. And he is beginning to cast off that. If it comes to open war between us, I shall be sorry for Lancelot.”
“And I shall be sorry for you, Philippa. In a few years Pet will be a man. And a man is always stronger than a woman; at any rate in our family.”
“Stronger than such as you, Eliza. But let him only rebel against me, and he will find himself an outcast. And to prove that, I have brought you here.”
Mistress Yordas turned round, and looked in a well-known manner at her sister, whose beautiful eyes filled with tears, and fell.
“Philippa,” she said, with a breath like a sob, “sometimes you look harder than poor dear papa, in his very worst moments, used to look. I am sure that I do not at all deserve it. All that I pray for is peace and comfort; and little do I get of either.”
“And you will get less, as long as you pray for them, instead of doing something better. The only way to get such things is to make them.”
“Then I think that you might make enough for us both, if you had any regard for them, or for me, Philippa.”
Mistress Yordas smiled, as she often did, at her sister's style of reasoning. And she cared not a jot for the last word, so long as the will and the way were left to her. And in this frame of mind she turned a corner from the open moor track into a little lane, or rather the expiring delivery of a lane, which was leading a better existence further on.
Mrs. Carnaby followed dutifully, and Heartsease began to pick up his feet, which he scorned to do upon the negligence of sward. And following this good lane, they came to a gate, corded to an ancient tree, and showing up its foot, as a dog does when he has a thorn in it. This gate seemed to stand for an ornament, or perhaps a landmark; for the lane, instead of submitting to it, passed by upon either side, and plunged into a dingle, where a gray old house was sheltering. The lonely moorside farm—if such a wild and desolate spot could be a farm—was known as “Wallhead,” from the relics of some ancient wall; and the folk who lived there, or tried to live, although they possessed a surname—which is not a necessary consequence of life—very seldom used it, and more rarely still had it used for them. For the ancient fashion still held ground of attaching the idea of a man to that of things more extensive and substantial. So the head of the house was “Will o' the Wallhead;” his son was “Tommy o' Will o' the Wallhead;” and his grandson, “Willy o' Tommy o' Will o' the Wallhead.” But the one their great lady desired to see was the unmarried daughter of the house, “Sally o' Will o' the Wallhead.”
Mistress Yordas knew that the men of the house would be out upon the land at this time of day, while Sally would be full of household work, and preparing their homely supper. So she walked in bravely at the open door, while her sister waited with the pony in the yard. Sally was clumping about in clog-shoes, with a child or two sprawling after her (for Tommy's wife was away with him at work), and if the place was not as clean as could be, it seemed as clean as need be.