oakford once more—the satin chairs—the housekeeper—the little ladies again—family monuments

the expedition was very successful, and we all returned in safety to dacrefield; rather, i think, to the astonishment of some of the good-wives of the village, who looked upon any one who passed the parish bounds as a traveller, and thought our jaunt to oakford "venturesome" almost to a "tempting of providence."

it is a curious study to observe what things strike different people on occasions of this kind.

it was not the house itself, though the building was remarkably fine (a modern erection on the site of the old "grange"), nor the natural features of the place, though they were especially beautiful, that roused the admiration of our teachers and their scholars. somebody said that the house was "a deal bigger than the hall" (at dacrefield), and one or two criticisms were passed upon the timber; but the noble park, the grand slopes, the lovely peeps of distance, the exquisite taste displayed in the grounds and gardens about the house, drew little attention from our party. within, the succession of big rooms became confusing. one or two bits in certain pictures were pronounced by the farmers "as natteral as life;" the "stattys" rather[156] scandalized them, and the historical legends attached by the housekeeper to various pieces of furniture fell upon ears too little educated to be interested. but when we got to the big drawing-room the yellow satin chairs gave general and complete satisfaction. when old giles said, "here they be!" we felt that all he had told us before was justified, and that we had not come to oakford in vain. we stroked them, some of the more adventurous sat upon them, and we echoed the churchwarden's remark, "yaller satin, sure enough, and the backs gilded like a picter-frame."

"all together, if you please!"

"all together, if you please!"

i cannot but think that the housekeeper must have had friends visiting her that day, which made our arrival inconvenient and tried her temper—she was so very cross. she ran through a hasty account of each room in injured tones, but she resented questions, refused explanations, and was particularly irritable if anybody strayed from the exact order in which she chose to marshal us through the house. a vein of sarcasm in her remarks quite overpowered our farmers.

"please to stand off the walls. there ain't no need to crowd up against them in spacyous rooms like these, and the paper ain't one of your cheap ones with a spotty pattern as can be patched or matched anywhere. it come direct from the indies, and the butterflies and the dragons is as natteral as life. 'whose picter's that in the last room?' you should have kept with the party, young woman, and then you'd 'ave knowed. parties who don't keep with the party, and then wants the information repeated, will be considered as another party, and must pay accordingly. next room, through the white door to the left. now, sir, we're a-waiting for you! all together, if you please!"

[157]

but in spite of the good lady, i generally managed to linger behind, or run before, and so to look at things in my own way. once, as she was rehearsing the history of a certain picture, i made my way out of the room, and catching sight of some pretty things through an open door at the end of the passage, i went in to see what i could see. some others were following me when the housekeeper spied them, and bustled up, angrily recalling us, for the room, as we found, was a private boudoir, and not one of those shown to the public. in my brief glance, however, i had seen something which made me try to get some information out of the housekeeper, in spite of her displeasure.

"who are those little girls in the picture by the sofa?" i asked. "please tell me."

"i gives all information in reference to the public rooms," replied the housekeeper, loftily, "as in duty bound; but the private rooms is not in my instructions."

and nothing more could i get out of her to explain the picture which had so seized upon my fancy.

it was a very pretty painting—a modern one. just the heads and shoulders of two little girls, one of them having her face just below that of the other, whose little arms were round her sister's neck. i knew them in an instant. there was no mistaking that look of decision in the face of the protecting little damsel, nor the wistful appealing glance in the eyes of the other. the artist had caught both most happily; and though the fair locks i had admired were uncovered, i knew my little ladies of the beaver bonnets again.

having failed to learn anything about them from[158] the housekeeper, i went to old giles and asked him the name of the gentleman to whom the place belonged.

"st. john," he replied.

"i suppose he has got children?" i continued.

"only one living," said old giles. "they do say he've buried six, most on 'em in galloping consumptions. it do stand to reason they've had all done for 'em that gold could buy, but afflictions, sir, they be as heavy on the rich man as the poor; and when a body's time be come it ain't outlandish oils nor furrin parts can cure 'em."

i wondered which of the quaint little ladies had died, and whether they had taken her to "furrin parts" before her death; and i thought if it were the grey-eyed little maid, how sad and helpless her little sister must be.

"only one left?" i said mechanically.

"ay, ay," said old giles; "and he be pretty bad, i fancy. they've got him in furrin parts where the sun shines all along; but they do say he be wild to get back home, but that'll not be, but in his coffin, to be laid with the rest in the big vault. ay, ay, affliction spares none, sir, nor yet death."

so this last of the st. john family was a boy. if the little ladies were his sisters, both must be dead; if not, i did not know who they were. i felt very angry with the housekeeper for her sulky reticence. i was also not highly pleased by her manner of treating me, for she evidently took me for one of the sunday-school boys. i fear it was partly a shabby pride on this point which led me to "tip" her with half-a-crown on my own account when we were taking leave. in a moment she became civil to slavishness, hoped i had enjoyed myself, and[159] professed her willingness to show me anything about the place any day when there were not so "many of them school children crowging and putting a body out, sir. there's such a many common people comes, sir," she added, "i'm quite wored out, and having no need to be in service, and all my friends a-begging of me to leave. i only stays to oblige mr. st. john."

it was, i think, chiefly in the way i had of thinking aloud that i said, more to myself than to her, "i'm sure i don't know what makes him keep you, you do it so very badly. but perhaps you're respectable."

the half-crown had been unexpected, and this blow fairly took away her breath. before her rage found words, we were gone.

i did not fail to call on mr. and mrs. buckle. the shop looked just the same as when i was there with mrs. bundle. one would have said those were the very rolls of leather that used to stand near the door. the good people were delighted to see me, and proud to be introduced to mr. andrewes and my tutor. i had brought some little presents with me, both from myself and nurse bundle, which gave great satisfaction.

"and where is jemima?" i asked, as i sat nursing an imposing-looking parcel addressed to her, which was a large toilette pincushion made and ready furnished with pins for her by mrs. bundle herself.

"now, did you ever!" cried mrs. buckle in her old style; "to think of the young gentleman's remembering our jemima, and she married to jim espin the tinsmith this six months past."

so to the tinsmith's i went, and jemima was, as she expressed it, "that pleased she didn't know[160] where to put herself," by my visit. she presented me with a small tin lantern on which i had made some remark, and which pleased me well. i saw the drawer of farthing wares also, and might have had a flat iron had i been so minded; but i was too old now to want it for a plaything, and too young yet to take it as a remembrance of the past.

i asked mrs. buckle about the two little beaver-bonneted ladies, but she did not help me much. she did not remember them. they might be mr. st. john's little girls; he had buried four. a many ladies wore beaver bonnets then. this was all she could say, so i gave up my inquiries. it was as we were on our way from the buckles to join the rest of the party that mr. clerke caught sight of the quaint little village church, and as churches and church services were matters of great interest to us just then, the two parsons, the churchwarden, five elder scholars and myself got the key from the sexton and went to examine the interior.

it was an old and rather dilapidated building. the glass in the east window was in squares of the tint and consistency of "bottle glass," except where one fragment of what is technically known as "ruby" bore witness that there had once been a stained window there. there were dirty calico blinds to do duty for stained glass in moderating the light; dirt, long gathered, had blunted the sharpness of the tracery on the old carved stalls in the chancel, where the wood-worms of several generations had eaten fresh patterns of their own, and the squat, solemn little carved figures seemed to moulder under one's eyes. in the body of the church were high pews painted white, and four or five old tombs with life-size recumbent figures fitted in oddly with these, and a skimpy looking prayer-[161]desk, pulpit, and font, which were squeezed together between the half-rotten screen and a stone knight in armour.

"pretty tidy," said our churchwarden, tapping of the pews with a patronising finger; "but bless and save us, mr. andrewes, sir, the walls be disgraceful dirty, and ten shillings' worth of lime and labour would make 'em as white as the driven snow. the sexton says there be a rate, and if so, why don't they whitewash and paint a bit, and get rid of them rotten old seats, and make things a bit decent? you don't find a many places to beat dacrefield, sir, go as far as you will," he added complacently, and with an air of having exhausted experience in the matter of country churches.

"them old figures," he went on, "they puts me in mind of one my father used to tell us about, that was in dacrefield church. a man with a kind of cap on his face, and his feet crossed, and very pointed toes, and a sword by his side."

"at dacrefield?" cried mr. andrewes; "surely there isn't a templar at dacrefield?"

"it were in the old church that came down," continued the churchwarden, "in the old squire's time. there was a deal of ancient rubbish cleared out then, sir, i've heard, and laid in the stackyard at the hall. it were when my father were employed as mason under 'brick and mortar benson,' as they called him, for repairs of a wall, and they were short of stones, and they chipped up the figure i be telling you of. my father allus said he knowed the head was put in whole, and many's the time i've looked for it when a boy."

i think mr. andrewes could endure the churchwarden's tale of former destructiveness no longer, and he abruptly called us to come away. i was[162] just running to join the rest at the door, when my eye fell upon a modern tablet of marble above a large cushioned pew. like the other monuments in the church, it was sacred to the memory of members of the st. john family, and, as i found recorded the names of the wife and six children of the present owner of the estate. very pathetic, after the record of such desolation, were the words of job (cut below the bas-relief at the bottom, which, not very gracefully, represented a broken flower): "the lord gave, and the lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the lord."

mr. clerke was hurrying back up the church to fetch me as i read the text. i had just time to see that the last two names were the names of girls, before i had to join him.

amy and lucy. were those indeed the dainty little children who such a short time ago were living, and busy like myself, happy with the tinsmith's toys, and sad for a drenched doll? wild speculations floated through my head as i followed the tutor, without hearing one word of what he was saying about tea and teachers, and reaching dacrefield before dark.

i had wished to be their brother. supposing it had been so, and that i were now withering under the family doom, homesick and sick unto death "in furrin parts!" my last supposition i thought aloud:

"i suppose they know all the old knights, and those people in ruffs, with their sons and daughters kneeling behind them, now. that is, if they were good, and went to heaven."

"who do you suppose know the people in the ruffs?" asked the bewildered tutor.[163]

"amy and lucy st. john," said i; "the children who died last."

"well, regie, you certainly do say the most singular things," said mr. clerke.

but that was a speech he often made, with the emphasis as it is given here.