The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• The Park and the Paddock.
• Chapter I.: Pride of Patrimony.
• Chapter II.: Patrimonial Appendages.
• Chapter III.: Clerical Duty.
• Chapter IV.: Clerical Recreations.
• Chapter V.: Vowed Sisterhood.
• Chapter VI.: Battles At Navarino.
• Chapter VII.: Lounging and Listening.
• Chapter VIII.: Characteristics.
• The Tenth Haycock.
• Chapter I.: Perambulation.
• Chapter II.: Interlocutory Decrees.
• Chapter III.: Intrusion.
• Chapter IV.: Heresy.
• Chapter V.: Extortion.
• Chapter VI.: Commutation.
• Chapter VII.: Dimission.
• Chapter VIII.: Benefit of Clergy.
• The Jerseymen Meeting.
• Chapter I.: A Phenomenon.
• Chapter II.: A Legacy.
• Chapter III.: Life In Lambeth.
• Chapter IV.: The Phenomenon Again.
• Chapter V.: An Economical Project.
• Chapter VI.: Lessons In Loyalty.
• Chapter VII.: Harder Lessons In Loyalty.
• The Jerseymen Parting.
• Chapter I.: A Busy Man At Leisure.
• Chapter II.: Knitting and Unravelling.
• Chapter III.: A Mate For Mother Hubbard.
• Chapter IV.: Friend Or Foe?
• Chapter V.: The Darkening Hour.
• Chapter VI.: The Land of Signals.
• Chapter VII.: Welcome to Supper.
• Chapter VIII.: A Wanderer Still.
• The Scholars of Arneside.: Preface.
• Chapter I.: The Mysteries of Wisdom.
• Chapter II.: Maternal Anticipations.
• Chapter III.: Lessons On the Hills.
• Chapter IV.: Signs In the Sky.
• Chapter V.: Owen and X.Y.Z.
• Chapter VI.: Press and Post-office.
• Chapter VII.: The Policy of Mps.
• Chapter VIII.: Family Secrets.
• Chapter IX.: The Mysteries Laid Open.

Chapter V.

VOWED SISTERHOOD.

Poor Alick Morse died in three days. The brothers did not wait for the event to show their determination to put down the practice of poaching in their neighbourhood. Several suspected persons at A— were brought up before the magistrates, the morning after the adventure; some of them being caught (before they had completely emerged from their drunken fit) with sheep’s wool or grains of corn stuck with blood to their shoe-soles, or their hands blackened with powder, or smelling of venison. George Swallow was committed, with all ceremony; and the county was pledged to prosecute him for his theft of five walnuts. His father offered to whip him to any extent their worships might think proper; but it was decided that he should be consigned to vagabond society in gaol for a couple of months, and cause the county an expense of the requisite number of pounds, in order to his being finally condemned to four days’ imprisonment. When poor Alick died, (after having been removed, by his father’s peremptory desire, to his cottage,) Morse was much cheered by seeing his natural office of avenger of blood so well filled as it was by his two younger masters, who actually dogged the heels of the reluctant constable, to see that he did his duty in taking up the suspected. The only thing that vexed the gamekeeper was Mr. James’s obstinacy in disbelieving that Swallow had anything to do in the affair. There was more reason for arresting Swallow than many another that was marched before their worships: but James quashed every hint in this man’s disfavour; and Swallow might be seen exhibiting himself about his own premises with an air of triumph equally offensive to his accomplices and to him whom some believed him to have most deeply injured.

“Come, come, my poor fellow,” said James to Morse, “let us have no more of this. I cannot listen to an information that has so little in it as yours. Tell me of anything else that I can do for you, Morse. Would it be a satisfaction to you that I should bury your son?”

Morse uncovered his grizzled locks, and a deeper red than usual burned in his jolly cheeks, as he acknowledged the young clergyman’s kindness. He did not think Alick had supposed his young master would do him this honour, though the poor lad had brought himself to ask whether his father believed that a funeral sermon would be preached for him.

“There shall be one, certainly, if it will be any satisfaction to you. I should not wonder at your desiring it; but what could make Alick wish it?”

“He liked the idea that Sarah Swallow would hear him made much of, sir. In fact, sir, he left his silver-topped gin-bottle to the parson, if he made her cry at his funeral sermon. Hope no offence, sir?”

James had an idea that he had a better chance of making Sarah cry than any other parson in the world. He was pretty sure of the gin-bottle, if he chose to try for it: but he was heartily vexed that he had promised the sermon. While he was meditating his next evasion, Morse went on,—

“And since you have been so ready about the sermon, sir, perhaps you have no objection to be accommodating about the text?”

“None in the world,” replied James, hoping that the matter would end in the necessity of making Sarah laugh. “Let me hear.”

“Perhaps you remember, sir, the text about the soul—something about the bird and the snare of the fowler. My son thought that text would tell that the manner of his death was by poachers.”

“As if everybody did not know that already!” muttered James. “Well, Morse; make yourself easy.”

“And you may depend, sir, on having the gin-bottle on the Monday morning.”

“And when is the funeral to be, Morse?”

“Why, sir, they say it must be to-morrow, sir. The undertaker says so, sir; or else—”

“To-morrow! D—n it!” muttered James. “Wallace and I had fixed to-morrow for a morning’s shooting; and it is the last day we shall have this week. Morse, did your master say he could spare you to-morrow?”

“He did, sir. I am as sorry as you can be to spoil sport in such a way. But the undertaker is positive.”

“Then there is no help for it. I am not going back from my word, Morse.”

It was a most delicious morning for sport. James came down with a countenance as black as night. Wallace was making ready to go forth. He only waited to know whether James meant to meet him in A—, some hours hence, on business relating to these poachers. Certainly. James thought he might as well get two irksome engagements fulfilled in one day. He would meet Wallace at the Turk’s Head in the afternoon.

“Bless me! I’m late, I suppose,” cried he. “Here’s poor Morse himself coming to look after me. That punch was so confoundedly strong last night, I could not wake for the life of me this morning. Coming, Morse. I’m sorry if I’m late; but I dare say you have got a methodist or two from A—, and they will entertain your company with a hymn till we get up to beat their cover. Don’t hurry yourself, my poor fellow.”

“By no means, sir. But what I came for was—I hate to spoil sport, sir, and it is a rare morning; and so, sir, if you will make me sure of the sermon, I’ll let you off this morning’s work, and secure you the gin-bottle, all the same.”

“Now I call that kind, Morse.”

“And when I have seen him earthed, sir—”

“Ah! you will hardly know what to do with yourself. Suppose you look for the text you mentioned; and by the time you have found it for me, we shall have something to amuse you with—about what is done with the poachers at A—.”

It did not appear, in the sequel, that looking out texts was precisely the occupation that best suited Morse, even on this occasion. As Fanny and Mrs. Day were walking, a little after noon, in a field at some distance from the park, they saw Morse, with his gun on his arm, and his dog snuffing about at a little distance. Fanny’s feelings for the bereft father would have led her to avoid intruding upon him to-day; but he bent his steps towards her. He evidently meant to accost her, and she therefore broke the ice.

“What brought you here, Morse? Where have you been walking?”

“I’ve been no farther than Lye Wood. I’ve been to my son’s funeral not far from there; and I thought I would try the cover as I came back. Now I’ve happened to meet you, ladies, I am glad I let off the young parson from the funeral. He would have been with me, as I’ve taken the sporting circuit instead of the straight road; and it is of him that I am going to speak. No harm, or no great harm,” said he to Mrs. Day, who had turned pale through some undefined apprehension of evil. “No greater harm, ladies, than his making love down yonder; making love, as all young men do.”

“What do you mean? Making love to whom? What sort of person is she?” hastily inquired Mrs. Day.

“You may guess it is to no unfitting person,” replied Morse; “for my poor son meant to have had her himself, if he had but lived. ’Tis Sarah Swallow that I mean; and all I tell you for is, that he may not make her his lady, as the folks have it he means to do. Her father looks boastful enough to put it into every one’s head; and I myself saw them in the gig together when, it is my belief, she had been to view his new house, where he will be taking her to live, one of these days, if you don’t look to it.”

“I was pretty sure he was in love,” said Fanny. “I have thought so this fortnight past.”

“Breast-high,” observed Morse.

“This young person must be sent away immediately,” declared Mrs. Day. “We must speak to Mr. Cranston directly, Fanny, and get it done.”

“You will hardly manage that,” said Fanny, “unless the girl has done something wrong. How can we send her away? What right have we to quarrel with her having a lover?”

“The scent will lie too strong; you’ll never break it. He will start after her,” solemnly declared Morse.

“But, Fanny, you would not send away your brother; you would not attempt it, if you consider this new living that he has to attend to. Besides, I believe he would not go.”

“Certainly not, if he is in love. Why send away either of them? Why roughen the course of true love?”

“My dear, think of the consequences! You are so strangely wild, Fanny, sometimes. Think of the consequences, if they stay in the same neighbourhood,—one of the Mr. Cranstons marrying the daughter of a country horse-dealer!”

Fanny thought the real wildness and folly was in people’s loving one person and marrying another. If James and Sarah loved each other, she, for one, should not dare to interfere between them. Once convinced of the fact of their attachment, she would offer herself as a sister to Sarah Swallow, even if Sarah were herself a horse-dealer, and rode to the fair at the end of a string of her own quadrupeds.

“I suppose, then, you will be for going to vow sisterhood with this girl, this moment,” said Mrs. Day, with much vexation in her tone. “You will do your best to assist the scandal against your family, Fanny.”

“I shall vow nothing till I know whether they are in love. If they are—(I put it to you, Mrs. Day)—if they are in love, which is the greater scandal—that the wedded in heart should be wedded in hand, or that he should break this poor girl’s heart, and give his hand to somebody else?”

“You do not choose to look into consequences, Fanny; you will not, or you would see what would become of society, if young men of family are to marry in such a way, on pretence of being in love.”

Fanny would not allow the word “pretence.” Pretence is not used to secure disadvantages—of alliance or anything else. She also declared that she did look very far into consequences,—into the cold married life of the lover, and the dreary lot of the deserted, and all the crimes which must be perpetrated on all hands before hearts that cling can be separated.

“But, my dear, only look at what will happen in such a case as this. The—”

“I see,—the endless troubles of a horse-dealer’s daughter in polished society; (for I suppose we Cranstons are more or less polished in London, however wild we may be here.) I grant you all these troubles; but they are better than broken or hardened hearts. Depend upon it, Mrs. Day, these are cases for prevention, not cure.”

“What else have I been saying, Fanny? I want to send her away before it is too late.”

“It is too late, in this case,—always provided that they really love. God has joined them, and I will not help to put them asunder. What I mean about prevention and cure is, that people should be prepared to love in the right place—where there is equality, not of rank, but of mind. Till then, I am for love—true love—leading on to marriage, sooner or later, as naturally as dawn leads on to perfect day.”

“But I have no doubt this is a mere fancy of your brother’s,—a mere pastime while he is in the country.”

“Ah! that is altogether another question. I agree with you that it is far too likely: but in that case, it is particularly necessary that I should make a friend of this good girl; for I am sure she is a good girl.”

“She is, Miss Cranston,” averred Morse.

“I may save her from a bitter disappointment, or prepare her, in some degree, for it,” added Fanny. “But, Mrs. Day, I rather think my brothers, and thousands more, would never dream of such cruel sport—would have no such fancies—if it was a natural and a settled thing that they should marry where they love.”

“So you are going to run down to this young person, and put it into her head that it is her duty and your brother’s that they should marry!”

“If that is not in her head already, Mrs. Day, she will spurn me for trying to put it there, you may be quite sure, if Sarah has the true woman’s heart; and she is too young to have a more sophisticated one. I am going; but I am afraid you will not be my companion.”

“Certainly not, till I have spoken to Mr. Cranston.”

“Poor Richard!” thought Fanny; “it would be rather burdensome to him to have to alter the laws of nature, to evade the talk of our London acquaintance. I don’t think Mrs. Day will persuade him to try.—Good-bye, Mrs. Day. If this news is not true, perhaps I shall be as glad as you; if it is true, I really advise you to try to be as content as I shall be, and (I think I may say) Richard too.”

Of course, Mrs. Day shook her head. She turned back in the direction of Fellbrow; while Fanny proceeded towards the Paddock—not with her usual step, but sometimes lingering under the hedges, and sometimes hastening. Her heart was in a kind of tumult,—now fluttering with pleasure—a new kind of pleasure—at the idea of a brother being in love, (an event which she had long looked for in vain in Richard’s case,) and now full of anxiety lest there should be a lowness of heart and mind, as well as of birth, in Sarah, which should injure or extinguish the love. Fanny was a somewhat partial sister; and she was not aware how essentially vulgar was the mind of him before whom heads were uncovered, as if, because he was a clergyman, he must be a wise and good man.

Fanny was herself surprised at the time she had lost when the church clock of A— gave out the hour, just as she had succeeded in dragging down a lofty hazel-bough, and in obtaining the last nut that danced in the air with it. She reproached herself duly for the divers blackberry stains she had incurred, and crossed the last stile of Whitford’s fields, into the road which led to the Paddock and to A—. Here she walked on with all sobriety, pondering the ground rather than the high hazel-boughs, till she was roused by a shout of many voices—a din which alarmed her. Looking up, she saw the twins, preceded by Fido, flying along the road towards her; while, some way behind them, just at the entrance of the town, appeared a rushing crowd, from which proceeded the clamour. The girls eagerly waved to her to turn back, and were evidently exhausting their own strength in flight. “An over-driven bullock,” thought Fanny, turning, and making for the stile she had crossed. She reached and passed it; and then, supposing herself in a perfectly safe place, she leaned over to make a signal to the girls that here their flight might end. They could not speak when they approached; but they made vehement signs that she must not stand there. It was, indeed, a dog, and not a bullock, that was being chased. She saw the creature making along the road, and could recognize the peculiar carriage which denoted its madness. She was in agony for the exhausted girls, who were actually stumbling amidst their attempts to reach the stile. The dog might take it into his head to fly at them over, or through, the stile; but it was worth any exertion to get them out of the direct path of the animal. She stood on the middle rail, and stretched out her arms to them; while Fido leaped backwards and forwards between her and them. They made another effort, when they heard from her the words—“A barn! here is a barn!” One reached and threw herself upon her, was dragged over, and fell on the grass; the other, Sarah, was somewhat stronger, and helped to lift up Anne, and pull her towards the barn, whose wide doors stood open. The thresher was wondering what all this could mean, when he stopped work, so as to hear something besides his own flail. The dog appeared, leaping through the stile, and explained everything. The girls were rudely pushed into the barn, and the doors closed upon them. Fido would not come in. “Tie him up! tie him up!” cried Sarah through the door. “Ay, ay,” answered the thresher from without. They hoped that Fido was safe at the back of the building; and were spared the sight of the dashing out of the mad creature’s brains by the flail of the thresher.

“Do give us air,” cried Fanny, when he put his head in to tell them all was safe. “These girls seem suffocating. May we have the doors open?”

Each pretty creature lay panting on the great heap of straw, while their friend fanned them with her hat; they looking as if they would intreat her not to trouble herself, if they could but find voice. How fresh came in the cool air,—how bright did the pale sunshine look,—when the doors were once more thrown wide! When the crowd were convinced that nothing more was to be expected from the dog, and that the best chance of amusement lay in finding out how many people he might have bitten in the town, the field was presently cleared, and the thresher returned to the barn.

While wiping his flail, preparatory to using it again, he growled and grumbled about the danger from mad dogs, and its increase of late. In his young days, nobody thought of dogs being mad later in the year than September. We should soon be subject to them all the year round, he supposed.

Fanny supposed this individual dog had been driven mad by some particular accident or ill-usage. As for the rest, how was it to be helped? Did the thresher mean to say that it was any body’s fault that there were more mad dogs than formerly?

“Ay, ay,” replied the thresher. “If dogs were taxed as they should be, they would not swarm as they do in the dog-days.”

“But I thought there was abundance of taxation of dogs: I am sure my brothers pay as much for theirs as would maintain a poor man’s family. There is a duty of six-and-thirty pounds on their pack of hounds, in the first place; and then fourteen shillings a-head on all their other dogs, which are not a few.”

“Very well—very right,” observed the thresher. “Your brothers are not the gentlemen to grumble at paying for luxuries, I dare say, any more than these young ladies have hitherto grudged their pound a year for the pretty creature behind there,” nodding towards the back of the barn. The girls looked at one another, not having been aware that the possession of Fido would bring upon Sarah or her father the expense of a pound a year duty.

Fanny thought nothing could be more proper than that her brothers should pay duty for their luxuries, whether of dogs, horses, or any thing else. If they grew displeased with the expense, they had only to give up the indulgence, which was more than the poor man could do in regard to the taxed articles used by him. She only mentioned what her brothers paid because the thresher seemed to think dogs were not sufficiently taxed.

The thresher thought so still. He did not want that dogs used for such real and useful service as his boy’s dog on the sheep-walk above should be taxed. When Mr. Taplin had tried to make out, last appeal day, that that dog belonged to Mr. Whitford, and ought to pay duty, the thresher had successfully opposed him, and the Commissioners had decided that a shepherd’s dog used in the shepherd’s business, should be exempt. But it was a very different thing, allowing dogs to go free of duty because they belong to the poor; and letting a vast number go unaccounted for in compounding for taxes. If poor men keep dogs for a luxury, let them pay more or less for this luxury, since it is one that brings mischief after it if too extensively used; and it is not difficult to draw the line between these dogs and those which help the poor man in his occupation,—such as butchers’ and drovers’ dogs.

“I am sure,” said Fanny, “I have seen hundreds of dogs in London, whose masters can pay no tax, to judge by the plight of the poor animals.”

“Just so, ma’am. Half-starved and neglected as they are, they roam the streets just in a condition to turn mad as soon as hot weather comes; and as this is a sort of luxury that cannot be left to the poor man with safety to his neighbours, it is only fair, in my opinion, to put some restraint upon it. I would let the charge of eight shillings a year lie on all the inferior kinds of dogs but those used in business; and to make sure, every dog should by law have a collar with his master’s name upon it, and the place where the duty is paid. If this was done, and the constables had power to destroy all dogs that have no collars, and that are not owned after due notice, we should hear little more of deaths from mad dogs, and the government would find its profit,—and a fair profit,—from such a plan.”

“There would be more to pay the duty, you think, as well as fewer to keep dogs?”

“No doubt of it, ma’am. Mr. Taplin says the number of dogs accounted for to the assessors in this country is between three and four hundred thousand, besides packs of hounds,—which are about seventy. Now it is pretty sure that, of the many thousands more that the assessors cannot touch, some good number would pay duty, instead of all being put out of the way.”

“There would be a prodigious slaughter of lurchers, I fancy,” said Fanny, “to the great displeasure of poachers, and of some who make their dogs do business, though the business may not be accounted for to the assessor. One cannot go ten yards in this neighbourhood without seeing a lurcher. I suppose it is that dog’s cunning that makes it so common near gentlemen’s seats, and in poor men’s service.”

The thresher turned suddenly to his work again; and the girls arose. They were all the sooner ready to go for poaching having been mentioned.

“If you will just tell me where you tied up my dog,” said Sarah, after duly thanking the thresher.

“O, just behind there; you can’t miss him. I dare say he is dead and half-cold by this time.”

“Dead!” murmured both the girls. The thresher turned round quickly.

“Why, you bade me tie him up, did not you? What would you have?”

“He has hanged the dog!” cried Fanny. “O, how could you do so?”

The thresher was all amazement. He had supposed that the young ladies were afraid of their own dog after it had been in company with the mad one, and he had saved them the trouble of hanging it; that was all.—A kind of trouble he seemed disposed to save the constable, Fanny thought. Had he drowned any pups, this day?—He could not say but he had,—before he came to work in the morning.—If the thresher went on at this rate, drowning pups in the morning, and slaying two dogs at noon, this district was likely to be pretty safe during his life. Fanny would take good care, however, to keep her spaniel out of reach of his cruel hands.

“O, his cruel hands!” repeated Sarah, catching the last words as she reappeared from behind the barn, whither she and her sister had run to see if poor Fido had any life left in him. The first glance at the suspended animal, in an attitude of convulsion, was too much for Sarah. Anne ran on to cut him down with a sickle she had seized in the barn. Sarah returned, and threw herself at length on the straw, hiding her face, and sobbing till even the thresher’s soul was moved.

Lord love her! how her fright about the mad dog must have shaken her! There is no mischief that may not be mended, more or less, wise folks say; and he would get her another greyhound, if she would not take on so. Nothing easier than to get a pretty pup of a greyhound for her; and he would christen it Fido, like the last. He would christen it himself: for all he was known not to be overfond of encouraging dogs.

“You!” cried Sarah, with flashing eyes. “You bring me a dog! It shall go straight into the pond if you do.—But it was all my own fault,—for letting you touch him.—I wish—I wish he had been bitten, and that he had bitten me again, before I asked you to touch him.—I will never have another dog as long as I live!”

“O, yes, you will,” whispered Fanny; “you will take another from the same hand that gave you this.”

“O, Miss Cranston,” wept poor Sarah, “he will never give me another; and I shall have no heart to take it, after having used this in such a way.—How shall I tell him?—I’m sure I hope he will not come to the Paddock to-day.”

“Yes, he will. Let us go and be ready for him.”

“Did he say he should come? Did he tell you—”—Sarah’s blushing face now looked infinitely less miserable.

“You must tell me,—yes, everything,” said Fanny, smiling. “There is nobody in the field now. Come and take a walk with me.”

The thresher was furiously at work as they left the barn without remembering to say another word to him. He swore to himself that the young gentlemen were welcome to try to please pretty girls, if they chose. He had had enough of it. There was nothing to be got but abuse for doing just what they desired.

Anne was the next person to be discontented. When she had completely tired herself with attempts to resuscitate Fido, with a vague idea in her mind that she was doing something generous, she came back to her companions, with a heavy heart and a faltering tongue, to tell that poor Fido was irrecoverable. She found Sarah smiling consciously, and looking the picture of happiness, while Miss Cranston’s arm was round her waist, and it was plain that neither of them was in any want of her, or in any distress about Fido. She was about to turn in and scold the thresher, as the most natural way of letting off her wrath, when Miss Cranston called her.

“Come, Anne, we want you. You are Sarah’s only sister. We want your leave that she may have another.”

“O, Anne!” said her sister, in sorrowful reproach, when Anne silently turned her head away to disperse her tears.

“Indeed, I don’t mean—,”—Anne declared,—“I was only taken by surprise. We did not know, Miss Cranston, what it was right to expect,—what you might think—”

Miss Cranston did not answer for any one but herself. How matters were to stand with her she did not leave doubtful. If James had taken Sarah to see the new house, and learn her wishes about its arrangements, she could not be wrong in taking Sarah thither once more, to hear what had been planned, and how she might help to advance everybody’s wishes.

How rapid are the changes of feeling that all are subject to; and how the most interesting communion of friends may be instantly transformed into a mere contagion of mirth! An exclamation escaped from all the three girls, as a hare burst from the dry ditch beside which they were walking, and made across the field. On passing the barn, she seemed to be taken possession of by a sudden thought. She turned and sprang in upon the very heap of straw on which Sarah and her sister had reposed from their terrors of the chase.—At that moment, two pointers sprang through the hedge, and followed precisely on her track, while Wallace appeared in a gap, and James’s voice was heard behind the fence.

With quivering lips, Sarah entreated that nothing might be said of Fido; and she was assured in return that James would be too eager about this hare to remember the greyhound, so that she might keep the topic for some occasion when she could privately explain the whole to James, and when she would be better able to bear the subject than at present. James had no attention to spare for the ladies till he had ascertained why his dogs fidgetted about the barn in so strange a manner. He seemed to be peremptory with the thresher as to which way the hare was gone, while the man looked more sulky than ever. Instead of wasting words upon him, Wallace made bold to search; and in a minute, the poor animal was exhibited,—its skull having been fractured with his very handy and diligent flail, and the carcase pushed in beneath the straw. The poor thresher seemed likely to have no rest from animadversion this day. One brother now threatened him with an information for killing the animal sacred to the qualified, while the other heaped curses upon him for spoiling the sport. No wonder the thresher pronounced his neighbours hard to please. He was not even allowed to keep the hare,—“to roast the game that he had killed.” James wanted it,—of course for Sarah’; and then came a race about the field, he trying to throw the carcase, as if it had been a tippet, over her shoulders, and she naturally wishing to escape such an adornment. She was happily looking away in a struggle to escape, when he said—

“You had better have brought Fido with you. He would have carried your game home. As it is, you see I shall be obliged to go with you myself. Now, don’t you think that is very hard?”

Fanny explained that she was going to carry off Sarah from Fellbrow for a long ride, instead of letting her go home with her game. James must now be satisfied why he found the three girls together like sisters; and it was not long before he was walking between Fanny and Sarah, talking of his new house.

“Do you know, Fanny,” said he,—“(hold your tongue Sarah, I told you I would make them laugh at you;) do you know, Fanny, she would have my house built after the fashion of a shopkeeper’s house in the city. She thought of nothing but a room or two on the ground-floor, and others built over them,—and more piled up till we had got as many as we wanted; with a window stuck here and there wherever we could not possibly do without one. That is Sarah’s notion of a house.”

Sarah declared that she did not wish the house to be anything but what Mr. Cranston liked. She was only looking for the house being something like the new ones on the new road.

“Not knowing the why and because of the case, my dear. Houses run up like maypoles where ground rents are high: (which is reason enough, Fanny, why the house-tax should not proceed upon a measurement of square feet, as some would have it;) and, as for windows, what can be the reason, do you suppose, that there are not as many in our new houses as at Fellbrow, where the walls are chequered with lattices? Is it because Fellbrow is particularly ugly, do you think?”

Sarah had little to say in praise of the beauty of either the many-windowed Fellbrow mansion, or the new houses where a window appeared here and there amidst an expanse of red brick.

We might all think there was most beauty in a proportion between the two, Fanny conjectured, if all were at liberty to consult their taste. But Richard had told her that it was owing to the window-tax that those architects were the most popular who put the smallest possible number of windows into their plans for building. Thus, we might arrive in time at a national preference for dead wall. But Fanny could not bear the idea of English streets looking like those of Damascus and other eastern cities, where you may walk for a mile in an avenue of blank edifices.

James laughed at the notion of such an evasion of taxes as this. The people of England must become poor indeed, if they denied themselves light and air to avoid a duty of sixteen shillings and sixpence upon the lowest,—viz., a house of eight windows,—and of no more than thirty pounds upon the palace of a hundred windows. The people must, before this, become as poor as Sarah must suppose him to be, judging from her anxiety to have his house as dark as she could persuade him to make it.

Sarah had had no such thought as of his being poor. She only judged from the way that houses were often built now. It must be very bad for the poor, (who are seldom disposed to be too cleanly,) to be stinted in air and light. She wished the days would return when houses might be half made of glass, like that at Fellbrow.

“I do not,” said James: “for there was a worse tax then. The window-tax indeed was laid on to relieve us from that. There was a tax of two shillings on every hearth, Sarah. Only think of the bore of having a tax-gatherer come round, insisting upon going into every room, to see how many hearths there were! It struck somebody that if windows were made to pay, instead of hearths, the tax-gatherer might walk round the outside to count them; which was infinitely less disagreeable than his presence within. At that time, the poor were not very heavily burdened by it, and now they are not so burdened at all. Houses with no more than seven windows then paid twopence a window; and now they pay nothing. So, for once, you may spare your pity for the poor on account of a tax. This does not touch them.”

“Then I call it a good tax,” declared Fanny. “Richard shall pay his share without any murmurs, as he does for his hounds and his horses, if he means to begin his housekeeping with a good grace. It makes me quite uncomfortable to think that we pay no more tax upon every pound of soap or sugar than the poorest of Whitford’s labourers. There is some comfort in paying for something,—even if it be light and air,—which may come to them free. I like this window-tax. It seems, too, as if it must be fair towards those on whom it does fall, if it rises with the number of windows.”

“It is not so, however. A tenant who takes a 10l. house in A—, an old-fashioned house in one of those half-deserted streets, may have to pay for sixteen windows, while a London shopkeeper, in a 70l. house, in a first-rate situation, may have to pay only for ten windows. This is not fair. I like the tax in so far as it is direct,—a prime virtue in a tax,—and because it falls on none below the middling classes; but I cannot call it equal.”

“Why, no: the London shopkeeper ought to pay more instead of less (whether his house be modern or old-fashioned) for living in a good situation. But, to be sure, he does this in his rent, and, I suppose, in his house-tax. And yet it seems as if the landlord must at last pay both the house-tax and the window-tax. How is it? It is a great puzzle.”

“Not at all. When a man is choosing a house, he takes the expense of the whole into consideration,—the rent, and the house-tax, and the window-tax. The tenant of the house with many windows in A— would have taken a house with fewer windows, if he had not been tempted by the lowness of the rent; and the London shopkeeper finds himself able to pay a higher rent for his house than he could have done if it had been more abundant in windows. Thus, though the tenants may pay the tax into the collector’s hand, it falls upon the landlords. The one landlord obtains a lower rent because his windows are many; and the other a higher rent because his windows are few.”

“Then, if this tax were to be taken off, it would relieve the landlords, not the tenants?”

“When the tenant’s leases had expired. Till then, the tenant would pocket the amount of the tax; but, the lease expired, the rent would rise. If the tenant could before afford to pay so much to live in this particular house, he will pay it again rather than quit a situation which suits him. But there is one way in which the tenant will gain. He can have more air and light.”

“And families who live in their own old houses in the country,—families who are not rich enough to afford themselves many luxuries,—would find the relief great. If Fellbrow had been left to fall into ruins because we were poor, and not because we were wild,—if we had come back to live cheap,—we should have found the window-tax a great burden, and should be glad to be rid of it.”

“Yes: it is not nearly so good a tax as its companion, the house-tax.”

“I hope, however,” said Sarah, “some other tax that falls upon the poor will be taken off first. It is a pity that landlords should pay unequally for their windows; but I think it is far worse that the poor should pay as much for some things as any landlord. But I suppose these taxes will make your house worth more than it would be worth without them.”

“In general, the value of houses must be raised by these taxes, because it will not be worth while to build till the ground-rent is high enough to pay the taxes as well as remunerate the landlord. But much depends upon situation, you see. The ground-rent of my new house is very low, because it stands in a situation that nobody cares about but myself; and the ground-rent of a house in the Strand is very high, because people bid against one another for the advantage of living in the Strand. If the taxes were taken off to-morrow, the value of the houses in the Strand would not be lowered till the Strand began to be deserted for some other great thoroughfare.”

“But if the taxes were to be taken off to-morrow, the value of your house would be lowered.”

“If I had not secured my bargain with the ground-landlord. If we were only beginning our negotiation, he would say, ‘You will be at so much less expense for your house than you calculated upon and can afford; and you must therefore pay me more for your ground.’ But Sarah knows that my house is too far advanced for any such speech to be made to me.”

“Besides that the taxes remain.”

“For how long? You know what an outcry there is about them in London?”

“From landlords or tenants?”

“From tenants chiefly;—from shopkeepers who will pocket the amount of tax for the time their leases have to run, and will then be just where they are now.”

“But they ought not to be indulged, while so many worse burdens are pressing on a larger and more suffering class. They surely ought not to be indulged.”

“Not as to the repeal of the house-tax, which is, if people would but examine and judge, perhaps the very best tax we have. But then, it wants to be equalized. The London shopkeepers are right enough in saying that. But its being unequally laid on is no reason for its being taken off altogether.”

“How does it want to be made equal? between houses of a different rank in London? or between houses of the same rank in London and in the country?”

“Chiefly between houses of a different rank, in London and in the country. It seems to me ridiculous to make such prodigious complaints as we hear about the enormous amount levied on London in comparison with the country. London may measure no more miles than there may be seen lying below my new house; but the property of London is more than our whole county; and the property on which the tax is levied is the question; not the space within which it is levied. The number of houses assessed in London and Middlesex is above 116,000; and in the county of Rutland 240.”

“People must pay for the privilege of living in London,—for the thousands of comforts and conveniences which are to be had there only. Here, if people want to send letters a few miles, two or three times a-day, they must dispatch two or three messengers, for want of a twopenny post. If they want to buy meat, they must go a good way to a butcher, and take the chance of getting what they want, if it be not market-day, instead of having an universally-stocked market at hand every day of the week. If they want to ride any distance, they must hire horses, for want of omnibuses and stages; and they have none of the luxuries of fine buildings, inexhaustible libraries, and the best of pictures, and of music, and of theatrical and other exhibitions at hand. O, people ought to pay for living in London.”

“And the most natural way is to pay in rent, and therefore in house-tax also. In as far as the country improves,—as provincial towns approach more nearly to the glory of London,—rents and house-tax will rise much more certainly than by any law that shall attempt to equalize them with the metropolis. I would not interfere between the shop-owner of Charing-Cross and the shop-owner of A—. The real grievance lies between the noblemen of Charing-Cross and of Yorkshire, and the landlord of a shop in the Strand. While the shop-owner pays a house-duty of 80l. a-year, and the peer in the park no more, and another peer in his country palace less than half, there is certainly ample room for complaint.”

“Without proving that the tax itself is bad. I should think some test of value, other than the rent they would bring, might be found out for those country palaces which, with all their splendour and convenience, might be difficult to let. Very rich men would not mind having the value of one article of their property ascertained, in order to be taxed, however disagreeable the inquisition may be to a less wealthy man, whose credit depends on the amount of his property. The house-tax would become a property-tax in this way.”

“It is a property-tax already; and therefore a tax of the best kind; and therefore to be parted with only when swallowed up in a general property-tax. Yet I am afraid it will be parted with, on account of the clamour of people who live near enough to the Treasury to make their clamour seem very terrible. If the sum which will then be taken off—”

“How much?”

“The house and window taxes together are between two and three millions.”

“That would go a great way towards relieving the poor of some really bad taxes, and particularly if great houses were taxed as they should be, so as to allow of more reduction in a right place.”

“Besides that the excise,—the really bad taxes, some of which press so heavily on the poor,—cost such an amazing deal to collect, that the saving in taking them off would be much more than the amount that comes into the Treasury.”

“If the house-tax is taken off,” said Fanny, “I shall persuade Richard to rebel at not being asked for it, as vehemently as some people in London threaten to rebel for a contrary reason. I should like to see a higher tax laid upon Fell-brow. I think we do not pay our share.”

“You have nothing to do but to give Mr. Taplin a hint to that effect. He will be very thankful for it.”

“Why?”

“He will gain a per centage upon the increase. These surveyors of the assessed taxes have so much per cent. upon all that they can lay hold of, which would not have been paid but for their exertions.”

“That is what makes Mr. Taplin so disliked,” Sarah observed. “He squeezes every shilling he can get from people who do not know how to answer him, or resist him.”

“Let them come to Richard,” cried Fanny. “He knows the law. He will help them, I am sure.”

“He cannot,” said James. “There is nothing for it but applying in person to the Commissioners; and many people do not think the matter is mended by going to the Commissioners at all.”

“But Richard might keep Mr. Taplin in awe.”

“That depends on whether Taplin has most reason to wish to stand well with Richard or to have his per centage on increases. He will soon be taxing you for Fido, Sarah. I will answer for it he has Fido down in his memorandum-book already.”

Fanny dreaded a burst of grief from Sarah; but she did not know Sarah’s power of self-command, or appreciate the strength of the motive to keep back the sad tale till the lovers should be alone. Wallace had sauntered near them, so as to hear the last sentence, and be struck with a bright idea in consequence.

“What do you think I have a good mind to do?” said he to Anne. “It would be capital fun to send an anonymous letter,—very solemn,—to Taplin, to bid him look to your sister’s dog, and tell him of half a hundred more taxable articles that she never had or will have.”

“O, don’t do it, Mr. Wallace! You will make him so angry, and my father, too!”

“And then,” pursued Wallace, “she will have to come before the Commissioners to tell her story, and—”

“O, Mr. Wallace, pray do not!” entreated Anne.

The more alarmed she looked, the more Wallace was amused with the idea of bringing up, not only Sarah, but half the neighbourhood, before the Commissioners. He suspected that Taplin’s avarice about his per centages would carry him a great way in demanding what he had no right to. In answer to her “Pray do not,” Anne obtained a “Well, well,” which satisfied her. In all innocence, she allowed him to extract from her everything she knew about the little concerns of her acquaintance among the small housekeepers of A—, and the cottages on Whitford’s lands. She was charmed by Mr. Wallace’s close interest in such trifles, and so engrossed by it that her father’s voice startled her when he called to her over the hedge. He was mounted, leading a string of horses which he was conducting to a fair at some distance. As George was otherwise engaged, it was necessary for the girls to be at home to keep the books, he said, and they had been out a very long time. Where was Sarah?

When Anne looked round, Sarah and her companions were not to be seen. Till lately, nothing so wonderful had ever happened as that the one sister should not know where the other was, or should have to go home alone. Wallace’s gallantry was exhausted. After explaining the improbability of Anne’s meeting another mad dog this day, he loaded his piece, and declared he must have a turn through yonder cover before he showed himself in A—, though the hour for business appointed by himself was already past. He supposed James was there; and he would serve the purpose at present. If James was gone elsewhere after his amusement, why the people at A— must wait a little.