Mark Tillotson. A novel

Front matter

MARK TILLOTSON. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY JAMES BAKER, Author of -John Westacott" "By the Western Sea," " Days Afoot," "Quiet War Scenes," " Our Foreign Competitors," etc. VOL. I. ILonSon : SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY (Limited), ST. dunstan's house, fetter lane, fleet STREET, E.C. 1892 [All rights reserved.} DRAMATIC COPYRIGHT REGISTERED. TO FRIEDRICH VON BODENSTEDT, WHOSE WORK, FOR MANY YEARS, HAD BEEN TO ME A CONSTANT PLEASURE, ERE I MET HIM IN THE FLESH, AND LEARNT TO KNOW HIM, EVEN AS "GEORGE ELIOT" KNEW HIM IN 1858, AS "A CHARMING MAN" AND "A DELIGHTFUL ACQUAINTANCE."

Preface

. THIS work is intended to be the last of my river stories. The first of these embodied the Rhine scenery, in a story called " The Three Meetings," which appeared in the Yorkshire Post, but which has not yet been reprinted. The second, " John Westacott," embraced the scenery of the Danube ; the third, " By the Western Sea," that of the little Devon river the Lyn ; and this present book has woven into it the scenery of the Elbe, the most beautiful of all European rivers. But in this work I have made the home scenes overbalance the foreign scenes, for I am told by a famous novelist, that "descriptions of foreign places are useless as an attraction to readers of fiction " ; and yet how eager are all to visit foreign places, and to read every scrap of writing upon these places after they have seen them. The welcome given to the Danube and Lyn VI

PREFACE.

. volumes has of course been most gratifying. My aim has been that my characters should be real men and women, and their lives varying in beauty and change able in emotion, even as the scenery of the rivers, on whose banks they for a while linger, changes from intense beauty to calm pastoral usefulness, from the rushing, leaping, mountain torrent to the mighty ship-bearing flood. " Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, Wave succeeding wave, they go A various journey to the deep, Like human life." May the books, like the rivers, yield pleasure and be of some use to the world ! CONTENTS.

Chapter I. At Langley Abbas

" It's no good ! a man may stick on in that old business till Domesday, and never do no good. Why, look at the pater ; he's been at it all his life, and what is he ? " " He's very well off ; and he's always hearty, and jolly, and happy." " Happy ! oh, yes ; some people would be happy at anything. The pater's a good sort, but there's no go in him ; and as to well off, ugh ! where does it come in ? " "You don't look as though he was poor;" and the speaker laughed a merry, ringing laugh, as she leant back against the gate where she was standing, and looked the young man, who was facing her, through and through with her open, fearless look , VOL. I. B until he, more like a young girl, hung his head and blushed deeply. The spot they were standing in was one of the prettiest spots in all our merry England, far down in the southern counties within sight of the Devon hills, and from the heights surrounding it the hills and uplands of Dorset gave an ever-varying scene to the eye.

But not on the hillside were they now standing, but by a rustic oaken gate, of curious geometrical pattern, that opened on to a lawn silled with roses and sweet-smelling flowers, that was sheltered from the east winds by the old grey walls and battlements and octagonal towers of a picturesque building of the fifteenth century. Now, the curtains and blinds that hung behind the glazed windows spoke of the modern dwelling-house ; but centuries ago this building had formed part of the old abbey of Langley Abbas, and cowled and tonsured monks had walked and lounged over the turf, where now stood this girl and boy of another century. For they were but girl and boy in the eyes of their elders, although veritable man and woman of full years and full knowledge and discretion, that passed far beyond the knowledge of those who had brought them into the world.

At least, so stood things in the eyes of Luke Waddington, the young man who had jeered at the slow and contented life of his " pater." He had nearly arrived at the mature age of twenty-one, and therefore, as a man, he claimed the right of judgment of a man, and one who, from his superior education and knowledge of nineteenth century life, was far more capable of judging men and things than his genial, easy-going parent, who had lived in the day when education was an ex pensive article, but when the commonalty had the comfort, if they had but known it, of thinking that dukes and other nobles knew but little more than themselves, in spite of years passed at Eton and Oxford. But Luke Waddington had spent some six or seven years of his life at the grammar school of a city that lay amid the hills not far from his own home, and as his father often remarked, " knew just everything" — ciphering, geography, grammar, and Latin.

He could write like copperplate, and keep all the books of his father's business " first rate." This pride of the father added considerably to the egotism of the son, and firmly fixed within him the idea that he indeed knew everything, and that he was just fooling his life away hanging on to a dusty old business that had stuck in the same groove for no less than four hundred years, and had never made any one particularly rich. The business was truly a dusty one, for it was that of a flour mill; and the books required to be kept were of a very limited number. But the fact that these books were written up in a decent hand and without blots, and that bills were sent out fairly correct and in presentable condition by young Mr. Luke, made his father feel satisfied that the great sum of money he had spent for education had not been lost ; but his continuous praise increased his son's ambition for higher flights than flour bills.

"You wouldn't have a fellow look like a cad, would you, and go about in clothes as didn't fits'" was the response that came to the young girl's sally, after a somewhat lengthy pause. "Why should a man that's in a dirty business carry his trade always about with him ? I don't see it, Edith," he continued, his courage increasing as his colour subsided. " Because you are born a miller, that's no reason why youshould die one." " But who will carry on the business if you don't look to it, Luke ? " "Oh well, that's the pater's look-out. Not that I'm going to cut it yet ; but still, if anything turns up and I see a chance, I don't intend stopping in that hole all my life, I can tell you." "Mind you don't jump out of the frying-pan into the fire, Luke ; " and with a solemnity and sedate calm that hardly became her young years, she added : " A good old business like yours is too good to throw away upon chances, isn't it ?

" Her last inquiring words brought Luke's eyes up from the ground, where they had rested for some time ; and as he saw her full eyes searching him with her questioning glance, he could not resist linking his arm in hers and drawing her away from the gate against which she was leaning, saying, "Come, Edith, let's drop the subject. You and I are too old friends to quarrel about what a fellow's to do. I tell you what, though : I'll let you know what I do, before I do it. Let's go for a stroll now. Your old place here always makes me think of our old place. You can see nowhere — nothing but hills and trees, and no outlook anywhere ; let's 'go on the hill ; " and with a gentle pressure he induced her to stroll onward with him past the giant sycamore that waved in full luxuriant foliage over the remnant of the abbey fish pond, where now ducks and geese swam and dived in lazy enjoyment.

On past the barn buildings they went, a greyhound suddenly leaping a gate at their side, and gambolling around them. On up the gravel road between soft green pasture and hedgerow, up the sloping hill side, until they reached a gateway which shut off this private road from the public way ; and then turning to the right they went on between rocks of yellow sandstone, from which trickled down here and there tiny streamlets, forming little ponds all fringed with moss and ferns ; and high overhead, above the ruddy and yellow tints of the sandstone, hung the leafy trees, forming a secluded and romantic avenue that led up to the higher lands from whence a view out over the wide-stretching world could be gained. They formed a charming figure subject, in this hollow way, did this young couple, as they silently ascended the steep incline, he with his hand leaning lightly upon her arm in the freedom of ancient friendship.

She was of slight figure, just betraying symptoms of developing womanhood, — at that age when the form is so lithe and graceful, so swaying and sympathetic with every thought and motion. Her dress might have been of white but that a pale pink suffused it with a delicate glow that was sub ordinate to the ruddy hues of her sunburnt cheeks, around which hung in rich profusion jet-black wave lets of glossy hair that rippled onward until they fell over her rounded shoulders. A black, plain narrow band of velvet appeared around her neck, just above the liliputian ruff that allowed the contour of the neck to be seen, when the hair fell aside in neglect of the work nature had assigned it ; and from this black band hung, resting on the soft throat, a little trinket of mosaic, — for the rufflet wandered down a little below the neck before closing across the chest.

From early childhood Edith Treverton had been a playmate of Luke Waddington ; and as in earlier years many a stray passer-by had been attracted by the beauty of the two children in their play, so now a foot-passenger who was descending the hill with lengthy strides, stayed his steps and looked back at the pair as they went onwards, and inwardly muttered, "A fine young couple that ! brother and sister, perhaps." For there was a great likeness between them, and yet a great dissimilarity. Tall and straight as an arrow was young Luke, with light, fair wavy hair and light blue eyes and pink cheeks, and a complexion the possession of which any young lady might have envied him. His companion, from her long and strangely black wavy hair, seemed of a totally different race. Her cheeks were round, and full, and ruddy, and had that dark tinge beneath the roses that seemed to speak of southern blood ; her long dark eyelashes veiled thickly her eyes, and it was only when she lifted them up and looked one full in the face that a stranger noticed they were of a deep, soft, and tender blue.

Her beauty was a rare beauty : a mingling of the fiery, passionate, early British race with the colder but determined Saxon blood. Her hair, that in its silky waviness was very lovely, spoke of her Cornish descent, that her name also betrayed ; whilst her eyes told of the northern people who had driven her an cestors into remote corners of our island, but who had mingled their blood with the fugitive remnants of a once mighty race. On up through the covered way this couple passed, past the great barn and rickyard where Edith's father's crops made picturesque the hillside. But they turned not aside to visit this rickyard, but hold ing <5n their way passed along the onen upland until they reached a spot where the road wound in be tween grassy mounds and turfy levels, all cut up and broken into by deep quarries that slid far down amid the rich yellow sandstone.

But they strolled silently onward until they came to a great embankment that surrounded the western slope of the hill, and from whence they could look far away over the flat rich tracts of cultivated land, — away down to the misty, looming hills of Devon, or to the hill land that hid from view the waters of the Bristol Channel. " There," said Luke, as they reached the top of the mound, " you can see something up here ; it's freer like, I think." " It's a lovely view," answered Edith. " I always love it, and it is always so quiet and peaceful." " Yes, not much go about it ; a few chimneys would look more like work. There is a mill or two, though, away in the trees there." " But I thought you didn't like mills, Luke ? " " Oh, that's our mill ; there are mills and mills, you know. Why, I know mills even in our trade where they keep on hundreds of hands.

That's something like. Can make some money then." "Well, I like to see people busy, but I don't think I should like to see a lot of chimneys sticking up over that lovely view, especially with a lot of black smoke coming out of them. I like those quiet, peaceful old churches best, just peeping up between the old trees, with the rooks cawing and flitting all round them. They mean peace, and the other means turmoil." "Peace!" ejaculated Luke. "Well, they ought to, perhaps ; but how about the parsons ? " " Because you happen to have a clergyman you don't like, that is no reason why you should think that they all cause strife." "That's true, Edie," answered Luke; "but don't you mention Gridthorp's name before father, it's worse than waving a red handkerchief before that bull of yours up to barn.

Come along ; let's stroll round to the oval and go back over the hill, or we shall have the old people waiting tea for us." Edie, as Luke had called her, did not answer, but he linked his arm in hers and turned northward, and the pair strolled on round the mighty encampment, leaping now and then in playful glee the breaks in the vallum that had been made by quarrymen or shepherds. Edie was the pet name that her father had given Edith, and by right of boy and girl friend ship Luke often used it when alone with his girl companion. His own name, and perhaps his own manner, did not admit of a pet name ; and so she was unable to retaliate by shortening or lengthening his name. Luke was the name his godfathers and god mothers had given him, and, without alteration or abbreviation, Luke he was always called.

Chapter II. Fretting Ambition

Onward the pair went until they came round to the north-east corner of the great encampment, and here Edie paused to look from their height far down on to a little cruciform church, whose square solid tower lay just beneath them. The deep cutting of the rich tracery of the west window showed it was no flimsy, thin stone contract job of nineteenth-century work ; neither labour or material had been spared, or living art, to make the building stand the wear of centuries. " Shall we go down to the old church, Luke," asked Edie, "and round the road home?" "What's the good, and we haven't time ?" answered Luke. " Oh, but I like looking round the old building ; it always seems so calm and quiet." " Oh, hang the quiet ! it's all quiet here." " I don't expect it was as quiet when that place was filled with Roman soldiers fighting and wrest ling."

She had turned round from the church as she spoke, and was pointing to a round-sloped circle in the turf before them that at once told the practised eye that here had been an assembly place in bygone days, when the mighty hill had been a great camp filled with Britain's conquerors. " Oh, bother the Romans ! " said Luke pettishly ; " we had enough of that rot at school. What's the good of knowing all that stuff? A jolly sight better worth knowing where wheat's to come from next, and send the prices down. Now if a fellow knew that, and could buy there just a bit ahead, there'd be something in it." " But don't you like to know who lived here long, long ago, and all that they did ? I do," said Edie, as she looked down on the little amphitheatre and then round from the high bank down into the rich plain and upon the little church.

" I do." She re echoed her own words. " Oh, well," answered Luke, " you women folk have got time, perhaps, for that sort of thing; we men haven't — leastways, not me. But come, I say ; the old folks will be waiting for us. Come along, a straight cut across the fields and down the orchard." And away they went, running hand in hand down the turfy slope and across the fields, he opening gates for her, or half lifting her over stiles. Away until they quickly came to an upland orchard that climbed up to a dark wooded hill and swept down to the farm outbuildings. Through these they went, out through a gate, over which the greyhound had leaped to join them, and they were once more out by the fishpond and sycamore tree, and in another minute they were in the low dining-room, to find the old people just sitting down to tea.

Although not very late in the evening, it was by no means a case of afternoon tea. The table did not groan beneath the weight of the viands upon it, as tables so frequently do in works of fiction, for good solid mahogany rarely does groan, but leaves that office to the little gimcrack tables that scarcely can bear the weight of some thin bread and butter ; they certainly would not have borne what the Trevertons considered a tea good enough for every-day sort of life. A solid ham of full rounded form stood at one side of the table, whilst at the end was a goodly dish of stewed pears, flanked by a companion dish of yellow and white clotted cream. The centre of the table was filled by a solid cake of home make, but decidedly rich in appearance, and another dish of bright tiny cakes that had a more digestible look for any visitors who might perchance think of such a matter as digestion.

The quartette of old people were just taking their seats as Luke and Edith entered, and they were saluted by Luke's father in a jovial, half fault-finding tone, saying, — " Come, come now, Luke ; keeping Mrs. Treverton here awaiting for her tea ; regular against the rules, you know. Why, there's Edith there looks quite flushed like with hurrying." " It's Edith you must blame, I think. Why, she wanted to go back to the Romans up on the hill yonder." "You'd bin quite far enough, Edith, I can see," joined in Mrs. Waddington. " Don't you let him take you so far." " Well, the Romans is a good way off, mater," said Luke, not allowing Edith's response to be uttered. He always called his father and mother " mater " MARK TILLOTSON. and " pater." They did not know what it meant ; but as Luke did it " as had had such a schooling," why, they could say nothing; and Luke thought it sounded swell, as he termed it.

Mr. Waddington was a man whose face was "sunshine in a room," full, and round, and ruddy : dark bright eyes that gleamed and sparkled, and looked as though their owner loved life. A thick white beard, hiding half his chest, added to the pleasant gleam of his face ; and his short, rotund form seemed to say he had enjoyed his life, and meant yet to enjoy the days that God should vouchsafe unto him. Mrs. Waddington was of a totally different type. Her hair had been fair in her youth, and showed yet no symptoms of grey. Her eyes were light brown, and her cheeks thin and worn looking. From her it would seem young Luke had gained his restlessness and his fair complexion. There was but one thing in the world she was satisfied with, and that was that whatever her Luke said was right, and the rest of the world was wrong, his father especially so.

Edith's father and mother were of a curiously opposite type to Luke's parents : Mr. Treverton being a thin, high cheek-boned, short, wiry little man, with a narrow smooth poll, but tanned face, and short dark hair cut closely : a sharp, quick-spoken man, of decisive nature, who uttered a sentence as an axiom not to be gainsayed. A good sportsman and a good farmer, but one who some business training in earlier life had quickened and sharpened out of the usual solid slowness of an agricultural manner. His wife was his counterpart ; of full matronly figure, with robust features, and rich dark hair and eyes ; her cheeks ruddy and round, and with an air of easy comfort about her that contrasted strangely with the sad dissatisfaction of her friend Mrs. Wad dington. With her, life seemed to be a good thing, and one to be thankful for.

Her friend had a vague idea that, some day or other, something might make life a pleasant matter ; but that something had not yet made it so, and all was wrong in the universe ; but, " there, there," she inwardly muttered, " Luke will change things a bit by-and-by. His father never would ; not he, he was much too easy-going ; and she might as well be a lamb for all the notice he took of what she said." She always said " as her friend Mrs. Treverton had just everything as she could wish for ; " VOL. I. C MARK TILLOTSON and now, as she sat looking at the table before her she thought she had no one to make cakes and cream for her table, as she knew they were Edith's handi work. All were soon doing full justice to the spread table : the young people braced by their scamper on the hill-land ; and the older folks seemed not to fear but that digestion would wait on appetite.

Even Mrs. Waddington, when pressed by her friend to take some more, took it ; although now and then plain tively regretting " she couldn't get on." As she at last came to the resource of one of the little light cakes, she turned to Edith, saying, " There, my dear, now if I only had you to make nice things for me, I do believe I should be better." " Why, mother," joined in jovially her husband, " you're right enough ; why, I never knew you better, even when Luke there was born ; and you could eat then, and no mistake. You wouldn't want him to be a girl, would you ?" "Ah, if the Lord had only sent a sister for him but there, we must submit." Luke looked at Edith, who was sitting opposite him, at this sudden allusion to the time of his birth and slightly raised his eyebrows in a manner that brought the blushes to her cheeks ; and her mother changed the subject by lighting upon a matter that she knew would quickly absorb the thoughts of at least the men seated round her table, for she said, " I see on the paper to-day that the Tillotsons have bought up a mill in Austria, and mean to grind their corn over there."

" They've been using nothing but foreign wheat for years past, — leastways, with precious little English," said Luke's father quickly ; " but good English holds it's own yet against all the foreign stuff." " Yes, but it won't long, pater," joined in Luke. " You will have to go in for the foreign, and sell cheaper and grind cheaper, or we shall be nowhere soon. What do you say, Mr. Treverton ?" " Every man knows his own trade, Luke, and I don't know the flour trade ; but for the last forty years we've been going to be all ruined, but somehow or other the man that looked after his business hasn't been ruined, and what's more has got on ; and I think it'll last our time." Mr. Treverton was a man who suited his words to his audience. He had formerly spoken to his miners in their own vernacular, and now he adopted the local form of speech ; but his manner and tone changed according to the society with which he was surrounded.

" But you must go with the times, sir. " Ay, ay, to be sure ; go with the times. I said a man that looked after his business ; and a man that uses old machines when new ones save a sight o' money, don't go with the times." " Go with the times, and not grumble at them, you mean," said Mrs. Treverton. " Just so. We've no cause to grumble, have we, friend ?" answered her husband, turning to Luke's father. But the wife took the answer from her husband's lips, saying, " No, that's what I always say. If so be as there was but a little better price for things, and money was a little brisker ; there, the time some people do wait before they even thinks about paying, let alone doin' of it ; and if so be as the house was a bit newer, and brighter like, and not so old-fashioned, and Luke here had more time to himself.

I always say, though, there's a many better off, and none o' their deserts neither, yet we ought to be thankful." " Ay, wife ; and thankful we are, too. There's many a one as you've envied have come to grief in our time. You don't see as much of that as we do Down here things go on pretty easy and regular, but up our way people come and go quicker. Years agone the old houses round about used to be held by quiet people that had land, or money in the funds ; and you knew what was what. Now out comes some young swell from the city, cuts a dash, high-dog cart, lasts a year or two, and then he's gone : find out his business is smashed, he's gone to start the same dodge somewhere else ; and missis there envies these young people." " Never, Matthew ; never ! I'd sooner die than envy any of 'em ; but to see how civil all the folks are, though not knowing who they are neither."

" There's some new people come to the Grange now," continued Mr. Waddington, unheeding his wife's interruption and turning to his friend Treverton. " Not but a year or so ago, nobodies ; lived in a small house in the city, doing business in a very small way in the coal trade. We used to have our coal of 'em. Now all at once come out and took the Grange ; set up a waggonette and keep three or four servants. That's coal." " But do you think they are going to last ? " asked Mrs. Treverton ; and then looking round her table added, "but you are eating nothing ; let me give you some more tea ; and you too have none," she con tinued, turning to his wife. " Thank you, no more ; really I don't know when I have had such a tea. Somehow I think our house by the river doesn't give me an appetite." Why, mater," cried Luke, "you are always grumbling at home at all our appetites."

Not mine. Yours, Luke, perhaps," dogmatically replied his mother ; adding, " and your father's." " The baker's bills aren't so big as the doctor's, mother." " No, thank you, Mrs. Treverton ; I've done well. Your teas are always good, thanks to missie there, eh?" and old Waddington looked jovially over towards Edith, who had been very silent during the meal. At her father's nod she now said the grace, that as a child she had repeated after every meal, in a low tone ; and then all rose from the table. The three men started out to take a look round at the stock and yards, and the three women sauntered on to the lawn, and sitting down upon a seat, watched an old hen clucking, and picking up odds and ends for a young brood of chicken that were rushing hither and thither near the doorway. After some little time Edith rose from this seat, and leaving her mother and her friend, went and leant over the broad wooden palings, and looked out towards the pond that was now reflecting the glories of a ruddy sunset.

She had not been there long ere the three men emerged from a barn door, and came down towards the house. " Enjoying the sunset, eh, missie ? " said old Wad dington. " Yes, but what a pity it is we can't see it ; that's the worst of our house." "Ha, but we can see the sun rise," said her father, "and that pays best, Edith. More money made by seeing the sun rise than seeing it set, eh, Luke ? " " Well, I don't know," answered Luke ; " the men I see go into business at ten o'clock make more money than the man that gets up at six." "That's true, Luke; eh, friend? Luke's right there." " Ah, that's town people ; but that won't do for us, will it, Edie ? " " I wasn't thinking of that, father," answered Edith ; " only what a pity we can't see the sunset from our house. See how lovely it has been !