Part 2 (1/2)

Charlotte looked down at them as she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”How sweet this room is!” and the shadow of a frown crossed her face. ”I would not do it, Ducie, for any one,” she said. ”Poor herbs of grace! What sin have they committed to be trodden under foot? I would not do it, Ducie: I feel as if it hurt them.”

”Nay, now; flowers grow to be pulled dear, just as la.s.ses grow to be loved and married.”

”Is that what you think, Ducie? Some cherished in the jar; some thrown under the feet, and bruised to death,--the feet of wrong and sorrow,”--

”Don't you talk that way, Charlotte. It isn't lucky for girls to talk of wrong and sorrow. Talking of things bespeaks them. There's always _them_ that hear; _them_ that we don't see. And everybody pulls flowers, dearie.”

”I don't. If I pull a rose, I always believe every other rose on that tree is sad about it. They may be in families, Ducie, who can tell? And the little roses may be like the little children, and very dear to the grown roses.”

”Why, what fancies! Let us go into the yard, and see the shearing.

You've made me feel as if I'd never like to pull a posy again. You shouldn't say such things, indeed you shouldn't: you've given me quite a turn, I'm sure.”

As Ducie talked, they went through the back-door into a large yard walled in from the hillside, and having in it three grand old sycamores.

One of these was at the top of the enclosure, and a circle of green shadow like a tent was around it. In this shadow the squire and the statesman were sitting. Their heads were uncovered, their long clay pipes in their hands; and, with a placid complacency, they were watching the score of busy men before them. Many had come long distances to try their skill against each other; for the shearings at Latrigg's were a pastoral game, at which it was a local honor to be the winner. There the young statesman who could shear his six score a day found others of a like capacity, and it was Greek against Greek at Up-Hill shearing that afternoon.

”I had two thousand sheep to get over,” said Latrigg, ”but they'll be bare by sunset, squire. That isn't bad for these days. When I was young we wouldn't have thought so much of two thousand, but every dalesman then knew what good shearing was. _Now_,” and the old man shook his head slowly, ”good shearers are few and far between. Why, there's some here from beyond Kirkstone Pa.s.s and Nab Scar!”

It was customary for young people of all conditions to give men as aged as Barf Latrigg the honorable name of ”grandfather;” and Charlotte said, as she sat down in the breezy shadow beside him, ”Who is first, grandfather?”

”Why, our Stephen, to be sure! They'll have to be up before day-dawn to keep sidey with our Steve.--Steve, how many is thou ahead now?” The voice that asked the question, though full of triumph, was thin and weak; but the answer came back in full, mellow tones,--

”Fifteen ahead, grandfather.”

”Oh, I'm so glad!”

”Charlotte Sandal says 'she's so glad.' Now then, if thou loses ground, I wouldn't give a ha'penny for thee.”

Then the women who were folding the fleeces on tables under the other two sycamores lifted their eyes, and glanced at Steve; and some of the elder ones sent him a merry jibe, and some of the younger ones, smiles, that made his brown handsome face deepen in color; but he was far too earnest in his work to spare a moment for a reply. By and by, the squire put down his pipe, and sat watching with his hands upon his knees. And a stray child crept up to Charlotte, and climbed upon her lap, and went to sleep there, and the wind flecked these four representatives of four generations all over with wavering shadows; and Ducie came backwards and forwards, and finally carried the sleeping child into the house; and Stephen, busy as he was, saw every thing that went on in the group under the top sycamore.

Even before sundown, the last batch of sheep were fleeced and _smitten_,[Smitten. Marked with the cipher of the owner in a mixture mostly of tar.] and turned on to the hillside; and Charlotte, leaning over the wall, watched them wander contentedly up the fell, with their lambs trotting beside them. Grandfather and the squire had gone into the house; Ducie was calling her from the open door; she knew it was tea-time, and she was young and healthy and hungry enough to be glad of it.

At the table she met Stephen. The strong, bare-armed Hercules, whom she had watched tossing the sheep around for his shears as easily as if they had been kittens under his hands, was now dressed in a handsome tweed suit, and looking quite as much of a gentleman as the most fastidious maiden could desire. He came in after the meal had begun, flushed somewhat with his hard labor, and perhaps, also, with the hurry of his toilet; but there was no embarra.s.sment in his manner. It had never yet entered Stephen's mind that there was any occasion for embarra.s.sment, for the friends.h.i.+p between the squire's family and his own had been devoid of all sense of inequality. The squire was ”the squire,” and was perhaps richer than Latrigg, but even that fact was uncertain; and the Sandals had been to court, and married into county families; but then the Latriggs had been for exactly seven hundred years the neighbors of Sandal,--good neighbors, shoulder to shoulder with them in every trial or emergency.

The long friends.h.i.+p had never known but one temporary shadow, and this had been during the time that the present squire's mother ruled in Sandal; the Mistress Charlotte whose influence was still felt in the old seat. She had entirely disapproved the familiar affection with which Latrigg met her husband, and it was said the disputes which drove one of her sons from his home were caused by her determination to break up the companions.h.i.+p existing between the young people of the two houses at that time.

The squire remembered it. He had also, in some degree, regarded his mother's prejudices while she lived; but, after her death, Sophia and Charlotte, as well as their brother, began to go very often to Up-Hill Farm. Naturally Stephen, who was Ducie's son, became the companion of Harry Sandal; and the girls grew up in his sight like two beautiful sisters. It was only within the past year that he had begun to understand that one was dearer to him than the other; but though none of the three was now ignorant of the fact, it was as yet tacitly ignored.

The knowledge had not been pleasant to Sophia; and to Charlotte and Stephen it was such a delicious uncertainty, that they hardly desired to make it sure; and they imagined their secret was all their own, and were so happy in it, that they feared to look too curiously into their happiness.

There was to be a great feast and dance that night: and, as they sat at the tea-table, they heard the mirth and stir of its preparation; but it came into the room only like a pleasant echo, mingling with the barking of the sheep-dogs, and the bleating of the shorn sheep upon the fells, and the murmur of their quiet conversation about ”the walks” Latrigg owned, and the scrambling, black-faced breed whose endurance made them so profitable. Something was also said of other shearings to which Stephen must go, if he would a.s.sure his claim to be ”top-shearer,” and of the wool-factories which the most astute statesmen were beginning to build.

”If I were a younger man, I'd be in with them,” said Latrigg. ”I'd spin and weave my own fleeces, and send them to Leeds market, with no go-between to share my profits.” And Steve put in a sensible word now and then, and pa.s.sed the berry-cake and honey and cream; and withal met Charlotte's eyes, and caught her smiles, and was as happy as love and hope could make him.

After tea the squire wished to go; but Latrigg said, ”Smoke one pipe with me Sandal,” and they went into the porch together. Then Steve and Charlotte sauntered about the garden, or, leaning on the stone wall, looked down into the valley, or away off to the hills. Many things they said to each other which seemed to mean so little, but which meant so much when love was the interpreter. For Charlotte was eighteen and Stephen twenty-two; and when mortals still so young are in love, they are quite able to create worlds out of nothing.

After a while the squire lifted his eyes, and took in the bit of landscape which included them. The droop of the young heads towards each other, and their air of happy confidence, awakened a vague suspicion in his heart. Perhaps Latrigg was conscious of it; for he said, as if in answer to the squire's thought, ”Steve will have all that is mine. It's a deal easier to die, Sandal, when you have a fine lad like Steve to leave the old place to.”

”Steve is in the female line. That's a deal different to having sons.

La.s.ses are cold comfort for sons. Eh? What?”

”To be sure; but I've given Steve my name. Any one not called Latrigg at Up-Hill would seem like a stranger.”