The Moor Cottage. A tale of home life

Chapter I

" Not too good For human nature's daily food, For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." Wordsworth. It was a cold rainy evening in October, the street lamps in the little town of Market Craven had been lighted an hour, and the gas from the principal shops, distributed at intervals down the High-street, cast ruddy gleams across the pavement, brightening pools of water and wet flagstones, and mocking the uncom fortable passers-by with glimpses of brilliant interiors, which made dripping cloaks and soaked shoes more comfortless still. There are firesides which look especially bright and snug on a rainy evening, and such an one there was in a small house which stood on the outskirts of the town. It was an old-fashioned wainscoted room; the curtains were closed, the polished copper kettle sang B on the fire, the tea-equipage was on the table, and an ineffable air of comfort and refinement pervaded everything.

Seated in an arm-chair, her feet resting on the fender, was an elderly lady of a most benign and winning aspect. The very tint of her soft grey dress, and the fashion of her cap, had a peculiar charm of their own, which no rich stiff silk, or Parisian head-dress, could have achieved. Her eyes were fixed on the fire, but her fingers were busily employed in guiding the mysterious evolu tions of four knitting pins, to which was suspended a half-finished sock. At length the clock of the neigh bouring Church chiming the quarter aroused her from her reverie, and, at the same moment, a brisk little woman, apparently all cap and apron, entered with the lamp. " Well, Ruth, is it raining still ? I hope your husband is not trying to take cold at that open door, watching for the fly. We shall hear it drive up in good time ; and I really begin to think Mr. Herbert will not come till the nine o'clock train, for it is already a quarter-past seven."

" What does master Herbert say hisself in the letter, ma'am?" inquired Ruth, who thought her long ser vices and attachment gave her a right to know what she called " the ins and outs of things." Taking it from its cover, though she knew its contents pretty well by heart, her mistress opened a letter, the caligraphy of which was highly characteristic of the writer, and consisted of an astounding series of impetuous flourishes and dashes, intermingled with very decisive up and down strokes. " I hope, my dear aunt, that old Jones will have done with me at last by Thursday morning ; if so, I shall finish everything in time for the five o'clock train, and shall enjoy of all things a cup of tea in the dear old china, which makes it taste so different to any other tea : and if Ruth can find my slippers with the Union Jack, I dare say I shall be glad enough of them.

" Your affectionate nephew, " Herbert Mansfield. " P.S. You should just see the shako ; and though I am tired to death of being tried on, I must say Jones has made the tunic fit in the most jolly way. I shall bring my sword with me, and Jones is going to send the uniform as soon as ever it is finished. How scared Ruth will be when she sees me in it !" " Ah ! " said Ruth, wiping away a furtive tear by a dexterous whisk of her apron, "it's all war, and swords, and shackles with him now, and I can't abide to think of it. However, his slippers is found, that's one com fort ; one of 'em was left swimming in the foot-bath in his room, and the other under the drawers, just where b2 he'd flung 'em the morning he went off in that hurry, as he always does, tearing about and flurrying one to a skellinton !

And I've got such a cake for him down stairs, as I expect he'll think I haven't forgotten him. Now, I'll just put the arm-chair to the fire — so ; and turn them slippers, as they're about warm inside ; and then I'll go and tell Parker that it's to no use him going out without his hat every five minutes to listen, because Master Herbert won't come a bit sooner for it, and we think he won't be here till nine o'clock." These remarks, made between intervals of much bustling about the room, so far overthrew Miss Mans field's attempts at placid equanimity, as effectually to put a stop to the knitting, which she had taken up in the vain hope of quieting her nerves ; and she began to pace up and down the room, re-arranging the folds of the chintz curtains, stirring up the blaze, and glancing over the menage of the tea-table, where the eye rested with plea sure on the exquisite polish of the little remnants of old family plate, and the delicate china, with the griffin's head in a coronet, each in its way the pride of Ruth and her husband — two old family servants, the romance of whose life it was to consider themselves in the light of butler and housekeeper.

At this moment, a rumbling of distant wheels was heard; they turned the comer, they approached, they stopped at the door, and the next instant a cheery voice was heard speaking to Ruth and Parker, a light firm step was on the stair, and a pair of strong arms nearly lifted Miss Mansfield's little figure from the head of the staircase to the fireside, and the bright handsome face, that made the sun of her existence, was smiling down upon her. " My dear Herbert ! " " My dear aunt ! How lovely you look ! younger than ever, I do think. And I declare everything looks enchanting ! I haven't seen anything like this room for comfort since I went away. But I must take off my wet coat, and put away my hat. Oh, Parker, is that you? just hang up these things, will you?" And Parker took the travelling gear as if Mr. Herbert had been a prince of the blood and he groom of the chambers.

" And now, Aunt Jessie, I may bask in the warmth of this delightful fire, and see you opposite to me, and consider myself the luckiest dog in all the Queen's dominions — with my commission in my pocket, that examination well over, a month yet to stay at home, and a weight of business off my mind, in which I con template myself as having acted with a perspicacity of reasoning, and a promptness and worldly prudence worthy of my ancestor, Queen Elizabeth's privy-coun cillor ! " The aunt smiled her sweet and happy smile ; and if she doubted the worldly prudence her nephew would display in any juncture of affairs, only signified that she was longing to hear what he had been doing since he left King's College, and especially about the military outfit. All this time the two old servants, equally impatient to have a " good look " at the idol of the little house hold, refrained with innate delicacy from intruding, until Miss Mansfield rang the bell for tea, when Parker, as a great indulgence, permitted Ruth to infringe upoD his sole office, and to be the bearer of her grand cake, while he lingered to put on more coal, trimmed the lamp, and listened with imperturbable demeanour, but intense appreciation, to her pretended rebukes of master Herbert's carelessness about the long-lost slippers, and his mischievous retorts and loud commendations of the cake.

Having at length, as he expressed it, " gratified the retainers by banquetting in public," Herbert Mansfield and his aunt were left tete-a-tete once more. " Well, Aunt Jessie," he began, as he settled him self opposite to her, with a complacent air of enjoyment, "what news is there to tell me? Anything happened since I went away ? " " I have some good and some very sad tidings for you, my dear boy. To begin with the good. Your friend, Bernard Morris, has left college with a first-class — ah ! I see you have heard from him. His parents are greatly pleased. He is to go abroad almost imme diately. I met him in the town this morning, and he told me he hoped to come and see you to-morrow. And now I must tell you what I am sure you will be much shocked and grieved to hear. I wrote to you last month of poor Mr. Eversley's death.

It was univer sally believed that he was very wealthy, but it has turned out that he. had speculated so largely, that his family will be left almost without anything. It is melancholy to think of those four sweet girls, brought up as they have been. You know Grace was engaged to Mr. Ffrench, the partner in the bank ; he has be haved in the most generous and admirable manner, and wished the marriage to take place as soon as possible, that he might offer a home to her mother and sisters ; but Mrs. Eversley would never consent to that, and Grace will not marry before the full time of mourning for her father has expired." " Dear, dear, how sad ! " exclaimed Herbert, deeply interested ; " and to think of their having to leave that dear old house, where I have spent almost as much of my time as with you, Aunt Jessie!

And those gardens ! What a fairy-land the whole place was to me ! I can't bear to think of it ; and dear Mrs. Eversley, who has been a kind of second mother to me. AVhat a change for her ! " "A change indeed! The first time you go to see them we shall all feel it a good deal, but, afterwards, you will, as I do, think the little cottage on the mocr, where they now live, quite as like fairy-land in its way as Thorncliffe was. You remember it, I dare say, when old Mrs. Growler lived there ? " "Oh! don't I?" said Herbert, with a deprecating wave of his hand. "What with herself, her man servant, her dog Crabbe, and a pony, that never would take a step in any direction but the one it chose ; a more viciously-inclined establishment, and a more dreary abode to put them in, I would not wish to be acquainted with.

But go on, please ; only I must ask," he added in a lower tone, as if he could scarcely bear to put the question, " are they going to — the girls I mean — surely they will not be obliged to " " No," said Miss Mansfield. " Grace came to talk it over with me, and we found that, with care and economy, they will be able to remain together, at least, for the present. Grace is a noble girl; she faced the difficulty at once, and said that she intended to seek a situation as governess, and Mabel had the same wish — anything so that the two younger ones should be with their mother. But, as I said to her, only think of Mabel, just eighteen — and she herself so young — any sacrifice was better than that." These tidings, so sadly affecting the family with whom he had been brought up in the closest intimacy, effectually sobered Herbert's high spirits, and drove his own affairs so completely out of his mind, that he not only failed to unsheath his sword for the edification of Parker, but also forgot the pretty little scent-bottle, carefully wrapped up in his coat-pocket, until, at length, Aunt Jessie, rising, as the fire sank low in the grate, retired to bed ; and before she could shut her door, he came running upstairs with it in his hand, telling her he had brought her something to remind her of him when he was not by to tell her what a dear old darling she was.

Ruth and Parker, downstairs, lingered a little longer by the fire, in what Ruth called the housekeeper's room. "Grown," said Parker, at length ; " decidedly grown; and will be every bit as tall as his uncle Graham — the finest officer, and the grandest gentleman / ever see ; and the very moral image of his picture, as I think every time I look at it over the chimney-piece." "Ah, dear!" sighed Ruth, "you're just as bad as Master Herbert, every bit, you are, and as proud of his going to be an officer ; and I'll tell you what it is, Parker, you'll be as miserable as any one when he goes, though you pretend now it's good for him to follow the ways of the family. I know you." " Ruth, you speak like a woman, and know nothing of glory or battles. It's all as it should be, depend upon it, or it wouldn't be ; and it does my heart good to see his eyes sparkle and his head draw up at the very mention of soldiering ; and I'm prouder and prouder of him every day of his life."

"Very well," said Ruth, taking up her candle and knocking down the fire-irons as she went by ; " all I say is, that the family's on his shoulders ; and I believe you'll wish some day he hadn't ever heard of a sword and a red coat 'ticing him into foreign lands. How ever, it's done now. Come, put out the fire ; it's get ting on to midnight."

Chapter II

" Absence strengthened friendship where the last recollections were kindly." — Proverbial Philosophy. " Herbert," said Miss Mansfield, the next morning, at breakfast, " I have been thinking over your list of things, and I don't believe you have got a gridiron." " A what ? " cried Herbert. " A gridiron, you know, such as mutton chops are cooked upon. Ah ! you may laugh, sir ; but I assure you there is nothing more useful. Your uncle Graham had one ; and I remember quite well, your grandmamma had him regularly taught to cook before he joined his regiment. He used to be very cross about it, and only consented to learn to please his mother ; but afterwards he became quite expert, and often, in his letters during the Peninsular campaign, he said how useful it had been to him. So, my dear Herbert, a gridiron you shall have, and, what is more, Ruth shall teach you how to use it."

Herbert made a face, and said he only hoped he might be allowed to choose his own time for the lesson. The truth was, that the one topic which ruffled his composure and made him impatient, was the experi ences of the said Uncle Graham ; and nothing but his unwillingness to wound his aunt by so much as the wavering of an eye-lash, kept him quiet under the infliction. Colonel Graham Mansfield was the eldest of two brothers, and had entered the army very young ; served under Wellington, in India, and, after a few months snatched at home, during which his family beheld fully confirmed all the bright promise of his boyhood, he joined the army in Spain, and fell gloriously, at the head of his regiment, before Badajoz. It was not wonderful, therefore, that his memory, endeared by recollections of his handsome and gallant bearing, his affection towards his family during his short sojourn amongst them, his letters, read aloud and treasured up, and his brilliant but untimely end, should have been surrounded with a halo whose lustre did not fade with time.

The second brother, Herbert's father, the more tranquil tenor of whose life could boast no such prestige, was only five-and-twenty when he suc ceeded, at Colonel Mansfield's death, to the family estate, which he found so encumbered by his father's mania for building, that he was obliged to sell the whole of it. His wife died about the same time, and one sorrow after another pressing upon a naturally melancholy and feeble mind, caused his death before Herbert was two years old, who was thus left an orphan to the care of his aunts, the elder of whom, being married and in India, gladly resigned all responsibility to her sister ; and he was brought up by Aunt Jessie with such affectionate care, as the mother, whose loss he had never been allowed to feel, might have bestowed had she lived. Presently, Miss Mansfield, said — " Do you know, Herbert, I have knit you eight out of the ten pairs of socks ; and I am rejoiced to think how comfortable they will be for you this winter.

Your Uncle Graham had sixteen pairs knit by your grandmamma's own hands, and he prized them beyond every thing, and took such care of them, that when his things were sent home to us from Spain, through the kindness of General Pynkem, they were found almost as good as new in his valise." "Were they really?" said Herbert, very much in clined to smile at Aunt Jessie's simplicity, and thinking it no marvel the sixteen pairs of knitted socks were in such preservation, considering the climates under which his uncle had chiefly served. As they still lingered at table, the door bell rang, and Parker entered to announce, with his usual cere monious dignity, " Mr. Bernard Morris." A favourite with Miss Mansfield, and one of Herbert's greatest friends, he was warmly welcomed. " So you are going abroad, Morris, with nothing to do but to amuse yourself, and learn German ; whilst I " pretending to sigh.

" Don't abuse your destiny, Herbert ; and above 'all don't make believe that you envy me. You know you have attained your first wish, while I, as a dutiful only son, have had to put away my mania for the red coat, and subside into a tame civilian — looked down upon by the young ladies, and an object of pity to all my military friends. I came to see if you would take a walk with me, if Miss Mansfield will be so self-denying as to spare you." " Yes, go, Herbert, by all means, said his aunt ; " and as we must go to the moor cottage sometime to-day, you had better come round and meet me there. I have some sable brushes to take to Grace, who is busy with her illuminations." The air was mild and balmy, and the " brief autumnal day" in its full beauty, when Ruth having adjusted her grey mantle, and given her the little silk umbrella, which was the usual companion of her solitary rambles, Miss Mansfield set out on her walk to the moor.

Many a kind greeting was hers as she passed through the little country town, so universal were the esteem and love with which she was regarded by all who knew her. Her life was spent in doing good ; not in the sense of large charities, for they were beyond her slender income, taxed as it already was by her endea vours that Herbert should lack nothing she could do for him ; but she always seemed to know who was in distress, whether of body or mind, in whatever station of life ; and to alleviate either, none were so efficient, because so filled with genuine sympathy, as she. At length, finding she had lingered later than she thought, and resolutely determining to tarry no more, she walked on to the outskirts of the town, and began the gentle ascent that led to the moor. Herbert, of course, was the chief subject of her thoughts.

In a few weeks she must lose him. What he had been to her since she first took him to her care, few could tell. His generous and affectionate nature had made it easy for her to guide him — school absences had been lightened by the pleasures of the holidays ; and as he grew older she had insensibly learned to rely on him so much, that it seemed as if all the trials of her life were as nothing compared to the blank it would be to lose him. Yet, not for worlds would she have damped his delighted anticipations of the future by saying so ; indeed, so entire and perfect were her sympathy and self-forsretfulness, that she entered with his own ardour into all that pertained to his chosen profession, and it was only when he was not by that she felt it was a mournful thing, this long separation. " If he had been a clergyman," she mused, " I should have been so happy to go and live with him, and to help him with his poor people in some nice little country village.

But after all, it would have come to the same thing in the end, for he would have married, and I would not have spoiled them by going to live with them. It is a bad beginning for a young wife. Still, I might have lived close by, and gone to see them every day. How nice it would have been ! Well, it is doubtless for the best ; the choice is his own, and I confess to inheriting a good deal of the military spirit myself." Here she planted her dainty little foot more firmly on the ground, and drew herself up with so sprightly an air, that Herbert, could he have seen her, would have embraced her on the spot. "Ah!" she continued, thinking half-aloud, " how well I remember Graham's home-coming — his upright figure, so like my dear father's, his short black curls, and the spirited expression that grew so sweet, as he smiled my mother's own smile !

What a hero he was ! and what festivities were held at home, and, indeed, it seemed all through the county ! My Herbert will come home to me sometimes, I trust ; and though I cannot receive him in the old halls that ought to have been his, as they were Graham's, I don't think he will miss the grandeur, and I will not grieve because I cannot give him all I would. We have been very happy without it. By-the-bye, I found his uncle's journal in the oak chest ; I must give it him to read. But surely I must have walked very quickly ; here is the garden gate, and Herbert coming to meet me, with Grace and Millicent." " Aunt Jessie ! " exclaimed Herbert, as he held back the gate, " do look at Mabel's dog ! did you ever behold such an animal? I am convinced that it is a bequest of old Mrs. Growler's since she retired into Shropshire ; I declare it makes me quite ill to look at it.

Its head is unlike the head of any dog that ever was born ; and as to its colour, I mistook it for the door-mat when I came in, only it quickly undeceived me by flying at my legs." " Now, dear Miss Mansfield," said Mabel, in an en treating voice, and putting her head out of the window, " I know you won't join in the outcry, or believe any thing against Thistle ; he may not be lovely, but he has the disposition of " "A wild Turk ! " called out a small voice from the interior of the room. " Very good, Miss Florence," said Herbert ; " I respond to the sentiment, and applaud it. A Turk is proverbially terrific, but a wild Turk is something which the imagination fails to grasp." "Grace, dear, how is your mother?" asked Miss Mansfield. " Well enough to see you, I am sure," replied Grace ; " she comes down to breakfast now, and she has seen Herbert ; but Mr. Morris is more of a stranger, and there are so many of us, that I persuaded her to remain quietly here."

As she spoke, Grace opened the door of the little room where her mother was writing, and left her and her old friend together, while she returned to soften, by her staid presence, the voices which had not yet c learnt to modulate their pitch to the small rooms, and which, accustomed to ring unheard and undis turbing through the corridors and galleries at Thorn cliffe, sounded to Grace's ear rather harsh than musical. Mabel was the next in age to Grace, and shared all her plans and cares, looking up to her with the feeling that she was nearly perfect, and that she must learn to follow in her steps ; for when Grace married it would be hers to fill the vacant place, to be her mother's coun sellor, and the guardian of her younger sisters. She was more talented than Grace, but she had not yet learnt that quiet composure with which her sister looked on the little daily incidents of life.

Mabel felt more keenly the great change in their circumstances ; she was more easily depressed by little common troubles; but then, a sunny morning, a gleam of her mother's old smile — once so bright, now rare and often overclouded — or a few kind words, would touch a chord which vibrated to her inmost heart. She was a sweet and gracious creature ; and if Aunt Jessie had a favourite among the sisters, it was Mabel. Grace was so good, so ready for emergencies, so calm and quiet, that anxiety for her had been misplaced ; but Mabel, with her finely-wrought mind, so subject to exterior influ ences, yet so capable of soaring to high and noble things — so tender in her sympathy with others, yet so in need of it herself — and withal of so clinainaand affectionate a nature, was an endless source of interest and anxiety.

When Grace re-entered the room, Herbert Mansfield was giving a description of a dreadful old gentleman who came down with him in the railway-carriage, who would have only one window open, and blocked that up most of the time, believing, whenever the carriage swayed, that an accident would ensue ; while Mr. Morris, out of the depths of his experience, was follow ing the example by telling some very droll stories of a similar kind. They were all laughing and talking fast, when, perceiving from Grace's countenance that the merriment of the younger girls was rather overpower ing, Mabel rose quietly, and beckoned Florence away. At first, their absence was not remarked ; when Milli cent's exclamation, " Where are Mabel and Florence ? " caused Grace to explain that they had gone out to see old Betty Hodges.

Mr. Bernard Morris soon after wards took leave; and when Aunt Jessie came in to find Herbert, he and the rest of the party were walking in the garden talking over his future plans. As they were saying " Good bye," Herbert offered to come to the cottage the following morning and take them for a long walk, such as they used to have together in bygone days — a proposal very gladly received. Then Miss Mansfield, wrapping closely her grey cloak, and veiling herself from the chill afternoon mist that was creeping over the moor, walked on beside her c2 nephew, listening to his comments, half-amusing, half regretful. "Do you think Mrs. Eversley much altered, Her bert?" " Very much. She used to have such a bright colour in her face, and was so much handsomer than any of the girls; and so young looking, too.

Now she is pale, and looks, to my fancy, years older, moving about so languidly, and with those silver streaks in her hair. As to you, Aunt Jessie," he said, turning, with a merry laugh, and peeping under her veil, " you are a young lady in your teens beside her — as brisk as any of Dr. What's-his-name's bees, who used to gather honey all the day, and not unlike them either." " Ah ! you don't know what I may have become by the time you return home, tiresome boy, with troubling myself about you." " ' She pined in secret for her absent knight,' " sang Herbert. " But only think of the letters I shall send you, dear little grey lady, combining the facetious with the practical, and expecting in return a complete code of morals for young men entering the army, with all the news of the neighbourhood, a journal about the Eversleys, and a postscript on cookery dictated by Ruth."

" But now," said Miss Mansfield, " tell me what you think of the girls. Is not Grace interesting ? She always had that quiet, self-possessed manner, which seems so very appropriate now, and is so helpful in giving a tone to the others ; but somehow, at Thorn cliffe, I never saw her to such advantage. Mr. Ffrench will have a treasure of a wife in her. He is a good deal there : the affairs are not yet finally settled, and he is so very kind and considerate that it is a great com fort to Mrs. Eversley having him to consult." " Yes, of course," said Herbert, swinging his walking-stick in the air, " he is a very nice fellow ; but so grave and particular, I never feel as if I dare laugh when he is there. He is a capital parson spoiled, I must say : now Morris is so different ; one never feels that with him.