Part 11 (1/2)
He gave father a lile, cheerful bit of a laugh, and said he didn't want to hinder work; but he would give anybody that knew the fells well a matter of five s.h.i.+llings to go with him, and carry his two little bags. And father says to our Joe, ”Away with thee! It's a crown more than ever thou was worth at home.” So the strange man gave Joe two little leather bags to carry; and Joe thought he was going to make his five s.h.i.+llings middling easy, for he never expected he would find any thing on the fells to put into the bags.
But Joe was mistaken. The old gentleman, he said, went louping over wet spots and great stones, and scraffling over crags and screes, till you would have thought he was some kin to a Herdwick sheep.
Charlotte laughed heartily at this point. ”It is just the way Sedgwick goes on. He led father and me exactly such a chase one day last June.”
”I dare say he did. I remember you looked like it. Go on.”
After a while he began looking hard at all the stones and crags he came to; and then he took to breaking lumps off them with a queer little hammer he had with him, and stuffing the bits into the bags that Joe was carrying. He fairly capped Joe then. He couldn't tell what to make of such a customer. At last Joe asked him why ever he came so far up the fell for little bits of stone, when he might get so many down in the dales? He laughed, and went on knapping away with his little hammer, and said he was a jolly-jist.
”Geologist she means, Charlotte.”
”Of course; but Agnes spells it 'jolly-jist.'”
”Agnes ought to know better. She waited table frequently, and must have heard the word p.r.o.nounced. Go on, Charlotte.”
He kept on at this f.e.c.kless work till late in the afternoon, and by that time he had filled both bags full with odd bits of stone. Joe said he hadn't often had a harder darrack after sheep at clipping-time than he had after that old man, carrying his leather bags. But, however, they got back to our house, and mother gave the stranger some bread and milk; and after he had taken it, and talked with father about sheep-farming and such like, he paid Joe his five s.h.i.+llings like a man, and told him he would give him another five s.h.i.+llings if he would bring his bags full of stones down to Skeal-Hill by nine o'clock in the morning.
”Are you sleepy Sophy?”
”Oh, dear, no! Go on.”
Next morning Joe took the bags, and started for Skeal-Hill. It was another hot morning; and he hadn't gone far till he began to think that he was as great a fool as the jolly-jist to carry broken stones to Skeal-Hill, when he could find plenty on any road-side close to the place he was going to. So he shook them out of the bags, and stepped on a gay bit lighter without them. When he got near to Skeal-Hill he found old Abraham Atchisson sitting on a stool, breaking stones to mend roads with; and Joe asked him if he could fill his leather bags from his heap. Abraham told Joe to take them that wasn't broken if he wanted stones; so Joe told him how it was, and all about it. The old man was like to tottle off his stool with laughing, and he said, ”Joe take good care of thysen'; thou art over sharp to live very long in this world; fill thy bags, and make on with thee.”
”Don't you remember old Abraham, Sophy? He built the stone d.y.k.e at the lower fold.”
”No, I do not remember, I think.”
”You are getting sleepy. Shall I stop?”
”No, no; finish the letter.”
When Joe got to Skeal-Hill, the jolly-jist had just got his breakfast, and they took Joe into the parlor to him. He laughed all over when Joe went in with the bags, and told him to set them down in a corner, and asked him if he would have some breakfast. Joe had had his porridge, but he said he didn't mind; so he told them to bring in some more coffee and eggs, and ham and toasted bread; and Joe got such a breakfast as isn't common with him, while the old gentleman was getting himself ready to go off in a carriage that was waiting at the door for him. When he came down-stairs he gave Joe another five s.h.i.+llings, and paid for Joe's breakfast, and for what he had eaten himself. Then he told him to put the leather bags beside the driver's feet, and into the carriage he got, and laughed, and nodded, and away he went; and then Joe heard them say he was Professor Sedgwick, a great jolly-jist. And Joe thinks it would be a famous job if father could sell all of the stones on our fell at five s.h.i.+llings a bagful, and a breakfast at odd times. And would it not be so, Miss Sandal? But I'm not easy in my mind about Joe changing the stones; though, as Joe says, one make of stone is about the same as another.
”Sophia, you are sleepy now.”
”Yes, a little. You can finish to-morrow.”
Then she laid down the simple letter, and sat very still for a little while. Her heart was busy. There is a solitary place that girdles our life into which it is good to enter at the close of every day. There we may sit still with our own soul, and commune with it; and out of its peace pa.s.s easily into the shadowy kingdom of sleep, and find a little s.p.a.ce of rest prepared. So Charlotte sat in quiet meditation until Sophia was fathoms deep below the tide of life. Sight, speech, feeling, where were they gone? Ah! when the door is closed, and the windows darkened, who can tell what pa.s.ses in the solemn temple of mortality?
Are we unvisited then? Unfriended? Uncounselled?
”Behold!
The solemn s.p.a.ces of the night are thronged By bands of tender dreams, that come and go Over the land and sea; they glide at will Through all the dim, strange realms of men asleep, And visit every soul.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
”Still to ourselves in every place consigned.
Our own felicity we make or find.”