The Young Squire: or, Peter and his Friends

Front matter

" It 's me, Miss Harding'' />. 2c.9 THE YOUNG SQUIRE: OR, PETER AND HIS FRIENDS. BY MRS. EILOART, AUTHOR OF " ERNIE ELTON ; OR, THE LAZy BOY," " THE BOY WITH AN IDEA," " crib fairlie's boyhood," etc. etc. WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON : FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN. NEW YORK : SCRIBNER, WELFORD AND ARMSTRONG. LONDON : SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STRSB1, COVSNT GARDEN. TO THE BOYS WHO READ THIS BOOK jg^^gi] HAVE here told you of two boys, one of gjgi B^J whom was not particularly clever, and the other was born ailing, and seemed never likely to make a good thing of his life, and yet both, through a firm determination to " make the best of it," and improve to the utmost whatever good gifts God had granted them, became good, useful, and honourable men.

I think you will like my " Young Squire" and his friend Peter as well as any of the other boys I have before had so much pleasure in telling you about. CONTENTS. CH-7. PiGB I. A Country Village and some of the People In it i II. How Peter went up a Tree and down one — What the Squire and Ben Ridge were busy about 13 III. Robert Glynne comes to look after Will Toft, and finds he wants some one to look after him 29 IV. Of the Bargain Will Toft drove with Sergeant Clutch 39 V. Robert Glynne is bestowed in his Temporary Prison, and the " Shoulder of Mutton" settles down for the Night 45 VI. What Happened in the Night at the "Shoulder of Mutton" — Will Toft makes his Appearance in a New Character 51 VII. Further Events at the " Shoulder of Mutton"— The Squire finds he hasn't the best of his Bargain 57 VIII.

What Treasures the Rector found in his Orchard — Bob Smith thinks he should like to have a share of them CONTENTS. VI ?_OJ CHAP. IX. How Ben Ridge and Bob Smith went Building Castles in the Air, and Peter undermined them. 82 X. What Happened in the Rector's Orchard— A Ride in the Dark for Bob Smith . ... 97 Will Toft has a Snug Lodging for the Night, and the Squire and his Sister do not find him XI quite the Treasure they Expected . . . .113 The Young Squire comes down to the Hall — Peter and his Friends make his Acquaint- XII, ance — Rowland Taylor's Stone 119 XIII What sort of a Sermon Peter drew from a Stone — Lionel and he become Good Friends 134 Peter's Queen — " I'd make the Best of it". . 142 XIV. XV, Little George and his Master — Miss Priscilla's Patience tried past Endurance 150 XVI, How Ben Ridge dropped in on a Friend, and met with a Warmer Reception than he wished for 167 XVII Squire Harding's idea of a Good Master — How the Lamb was given back to the Wolf . 186 XVIII Mr. Clay is not to be Bought — His Notions of Fatherly Feeling 196 An Invitation to Supper — Some of Peter's XIX Friends resolve that Ursa Major shall Display his Accomplishments 200 XX.

Chapter I

A COUNTRY VILLAGE AND SOME OF THE PEOPLE IN IT. |^g||||]E was not a pleasant person ; indeed, I think 1 P IStl may say decidedly the reverse — close, hard, EJSU with a dry, short manner that gave every one the impression that he was counting every word he spoke to you, and was weighing every one you said to him. As to liking, that was quite out of the question as far as he was concerned — who, indeed, would ever have dreamed of taking such a liberty with Squire Harding of Harding Grange ? It would have seemed an impertinence — a thing which he himself would have been the first person to resent. He didn't want liking ; every look and tone told that, and it was perhaps just as well, for he certainly never got it. He was a tall, large-boned man, of about fifty, with a grey face, grey hair, and somehow it always seemed greyr clothes.

Perhaps it was the dust, or continual wear and tear that made them so — they never seemed new, and K they never seemed old, but were always in a state of good preservation just removed from downright shabbi ness. The horse he rode was like himself, large, strong, and of a dull tint, that for want of any better term people called grey too, and the house he lived in was grey, and every stone in it at least five hundred years old, for it had been made out of the ruins of an abbey which Henry the Eighth had pulled down about the monks' ears, and then given it with the surrounding lands to one of his favourites. This gentleman did not care to rebuild any part of the abbey himself, and so he parted with it and some of the fields adjoining to Simon Harding, a retired cloth-worker, who erected the present house from the remains of the abbey, while the new lord of the manor built himself a stately mansion, which good Queen Bess afterwards, in his son's lifetime, honoured with her gracious presence.

The Hardings had always been a narrow-minded, grasping family. They had lived in the same place for generations without having won the good-will of any human being. They had paid their debts, no one could ever say they had wronged him in anything, but still there was an ill feeling against the whole family, which perhaps had come to its height in the time of the present squire, Reuben Harding, who, being unmarried, and without either nephews or nieces, was to all appearance the last of his house. He had one sister living with him, and she was as little liked as himself. She was a trifle her brother's senior, and still unmarried. She was nearly as tall as he was, and carried herself as stiffly upright as was the custom with ladies, both old and young, at the beginning of the present century, the time of which I am speaking.

She had been handsome in her time, but hard and un lovable. People did not like her any more than they liked her brother. The maids were all afraid of her — she ruled them with a rod of iron ; indeed, it was said Miss Priscilla was the greatest scold in the country, and, if possible, her brother'smen stood more in aweof herthan they didof him. She was a good manager, however, and a first-rate house keeper. The Hardings always liked good living, although they were not fond of sharing it with others. Everything in the Grange was in excellent order — to use a common expression, you might have eaten off the boards, that is to say, if the squire and his sister would have given you anything to eat off them, which was never very likely. The pewter platters and mugs on the dresser shone like silver ; the red tiles of the kitchen floor were never soiled with a spot ; the old-fashioned furniture, some of which was of as old a date as the house, was always kept in a state of the highest polish by sheer rubbing.

" Nothing like elbow-grease," Miss Priscilla was in the habit of telling her maids, and it was very certain that she not only believed "cleanliness to be next to godliness," but a very great deal before it. She was only clever as a housewife. None of the Hardings had ever cared much for looks or learning. Indeed, they openly despised them, and seemed to con sider that the chief offence of which the monks had been guilty was the giving their time to nothing but letters. B Reuben Harding had been sent when a boy to the Barkley Grammar School, two miles distant, but he was very little the better for anything he learnt there. He could read his Bible, which he said was enough for any man, though it was strongly suspected that he never did it himself ; could write a square, heavy hand, which some how put you in mind of the man himself the moment you looked at it ; could cast up accounts quite well enough to manage his affairs accurately.

This was enough for him, he said, and ought to be enough for any man ; no one had ever done any good by books yet, and the less they bothered their brains with them the better. Miss Priscilla was much of the same opinion — her cookery book served her for light reading, and an old volume of sermons sufficed her on Sundays. Unlike her brother, she dressed gaily ; but, as she inherited a great many dresses from different relations, her silks and satins did not cost a great deal. Of course, she did not follow the fashions very much, but then, in a country village seventy miles from town, they didn't know very much about fashions at that time of day ; so Miss Priscilla's stiff silks, with their heavy flounces, made a great impression on the minds of the good people of Helwynne. Nobody at Queen Charlotte's court, in their opinion, dressed better than Miss Priscilla.

The girls looked after her, open-eyed, when she sailed past their doors, but they liked her none the better for all her finery, and not one of them that could get a place elsewhere would take service with Miss Priscilla. Of course, a man like Reuben Harding is sure to be disliked more by boys than by any other people. Boys don't like misers— not that you could fairly call Reuben Harding one, but the boys did. Generally speaking, boys don't measure their words too particularly ; and if they do dislike a person, they are sure to credit him with worse qualities than he really possesses, so it is not to be wondered at if some of them believed Squire Harding to be a harder man even than he really was. There were three lads in particular who disliked him, but these were of a class above the village lads who worked for the Squire when they could get work from nobody else, and as, hitherto, they had had very little to do with Mr. Harding, we might suppose that their dislike to him arose from a sheer, instinctive hatred of mean, hard ways, only that perhaps their liking some one whom he had done his best to injure had something to do with it.

These three boys were all nearly of an age. The eldest by two or three months, Peter Rolles, was just turned fourteen ; and whatever it might be with Squire Harding, I don't think anybody could help liking Peter, he was so thoroughly good-natured. Sometimes Peter's good nature was imposed upon by other boys, for which I hope afterwards they were ashamed of themselves, but their behaviour never made any difference in Peter. He went on doing kind things whenever he had a chance, just the same— it was his nature perhaps, and he couldn't help it, but it was a blessed and a happy nature for any one to have. Still, Peter had a temper of his own, as people say — indeed, he was a curious boy altogether. Anything un just, or mean, or shabby, Peter hated with all his heart and soul, and he couldn't be content with hating, but he must try and redress the wrong somehow, or make up for it to those who suffered.

It was of no use telling Peter it wasn't his business, and he had better not interfere. That was just what Peter never could see ; if there was a wrong it ought to be righted ; if any one wanted helping they ought to be helped ; and if nobody else was in the way to do it, why, Peter Rolles was, and he would do his best in the matter. He lived with his father in a good old-fashioned house at the end of the village. Mr. Rolles had been engaged in business in London till his health failed, and he was obliged to retire. As he had fortunately been prudent, and laid by a good share of his in-comings, he was able to do this easily ; and Eastshire being his native county, he had decided on settling there, and bought Fairwood House, which had the recommendation in his eyes of being only ten miles from Barkley, where he was born, so that his son could go to the same school which his father had attended before him.

Fairwood House was not nearly so large as Harding Grange, and quite a small place compared to Helwynne Hall, but it was a pleasant house enough, with a famous fruit and kitchen garden in the rear, and a large old fashioned flower-garden in front with box hedges, trimly shaped beds and trees cut into the shapes of peacocks, and Adam and Eve, which all the village people thought wonders of art. Formerly it was the dower house of the family of Hehvynne Hall, but the present possessor of that place being an orphan and a minor, his guardians had thought it advisable to let Fairwood House for a term, and so it came into Mr. Rolles's possession. It suited him admirably. There were cupboards, and re cesses, and queer nooks and angles out of number ; and every one of these he filled up with some curious thing or another.

He was a naturalist and a little bit of an antiquarian ; he had not been able to indulge these tastes while in business, and had all the more pleasure in doing so now. As he had long lost his wife, and there was very little society in Helwynne, these resources prevented his feeling any dulness from his change of life, but at the same time they prevented his seeing much of his son, as he was always as fully occupied as if he had still been at his counting-house in the City. But Peter had so many resources of his own — he was a bit of a naturalist too in his way — that, though he was very fond of his father, he hardly felt this at all. Peter's two friends were Horace Ruffwood and Charley Forest. They were both better scholars than Peter. If the truth must be told, Peter was not clever at his book, but he certainly was clever at a great many things be side ; and it was hardly fair to expect him to be an universal genius.

Horace Ruffwood's father was a soldier at that time, fighting under Lord Wellesley — afterwards, you know, boys, the great Duke of Wellington — and Horace boarded with a maiden lady in the village, who was an aun* of his father's. Soon after he came there it oc curred to the old lady that two boys would not be much more trouble than one, and the clergyman of Helwynne, to whom she named her idea, soon found her another inmate in the person of Charley Forest, who was, like the present owner of Helwynne Hall, an orphan, though, un like him, he had no wide estate and grand old house to call him master. But he had what was a great deal better, stout limbs of his own and an excellent con stitution. He was tall and strong for his age, a capital cricketer, runner, and wrestler, while poor Lionel Bernays was a cripple, owing to a fall from his horse at ten years old — not at all a boy to be envied, my young friends, though he had one of the best estates in the county.

Horace Ruffwood was a quiet young person — not so tall or so strong as Charley — clever at his books, but not equal in sports to Forest. They both, I suspect, looked down just a little upon Peter, who, though a trifle their senior, was a class below them, and they both, as I have said, agreed with him in their dislike of Squire Harding, and their admiration and regard for a person whom Squire Harding was doing his best to injure. This was Robert Glynne of the Dale Farm in Helwynne, a young man, or rather youth, for at this time he was only eighteen — whom it seemed just as natural for boys, especially three such boys as these, to like, as it was for them to dislike Squire Harding. Charley Forest only hoped that some day he might compete with him in cricketing; Horace Ruffwood wondered whether he should ever, like him, win the great foundation prize, five pounds' worth of books for the best classical scholar, which Robert Glynne had gained at Barkley school but a year before ; and Peter often thought how he should like to know all about the wild creatures as well as Robert did — where the heron still built her nest in the marshes, how the water-rat provided for her young ones, and where the white owl reared her brood, or the bats lurked in the daytime.

He was popular with every one in the village but the squire and his sister at the Grange ; a kind-hearted, pleasant, merry young fellow, whom you would have thought that even those two unamiable persons would have found it difficult to dislike. And, after all, perhaps even those two did not dislike him as much as they liked something that he had, or rather that they thought he kept them out of. Part of the Dale Farm consisted of a large orchard in which were the oldest apple trees in the county — Norfolk biffins that had put forth their round red faces in the time of the old monks ; Ribstone pippins, whose very perfume was almost a dessert ; solid brown russetons, unequalled for pies and puddings ; great cats' heads, always in request for dumplings at harvest homes. There were golden codlins, each one a picture, jeannetons, and Emperor Alexanders besides, but these were modern apples, things of yesterday ; the pride of the orchard were the gnarled old trees with their twisted trunks and misshapen branches, overgrown with moss and heavy with brown and red fruit at autumn.

Trees whose growth the monks had watched, and whose limbs their hands had pruned — these made the orchard famous, and were, even yet, more fruitful than their slim com peers which, compared to them, seemed like the mush room growth of yesterday. Well, this orchard Squire Harding coveted, and indeed laid claim to. He said that at the time his an cestor Simon Harding had bought the old abbey and its adjoining lands from Edward Morton, this ground had been included in the purchase. It was some distance from the abbey and the monks cultivated its fruit for sale, and, being so far from the house which had been erected on the abbey site, Simon Harding had not looked after it very carefully, and so, in pro cess of time, it had become merged into the acres of the Dale farm, which had been purchased in the reign of Charles the Second, of one of the Bernayses, who, like his master, the merry monarch, was generally short of money, and had sold this without having any right to do so.

Squire Harding professed that he had parch ments to show that his claim was just, but he never pro duced them. When Robert Glynne's father died, a twelvemonth back, he had acquainted Mrs. Glynne with his claims to the orchard, and offered, by way, he said, of preventing a lawsuit, to give her a small sum in compensation, and it is very likely she would have taken it, had not Robert interfered. The land he said had been his father's, and his grandfather's before that, and it was not likely, if the Hardings had a good claim to it, that they would have been so long in asserting it. Mrs. Glynne would have been easily frightened — she was a weak, timid woman, gentle and yielding, and very likely, if the matter had rested with her, Squire Harding would have had the old orchard an easy bargain ; but she let herself be guided by her son, and the squire, finding that it was Robert who had withstood him in the matter, owed him a grudge henceforth, which he was just the man to pay.

It was not a large farm, this one of Mrs. Glynne's ; but the Glynnes had owned it since the time their ancestor purchased it in the days of Charles the Second. They had never been of so much importance as the Hardings — indeed, no one would have thought of calling a Glynne, Squire — but they were better thought of in every way. They had been kind, pleasant, open-handed people ; the daughters had always made good wives and tender mothers, and the sons, wherever they had gone — and some of them had gone very far, and founded other homes in the New World — had made the name and character of the Glynnes respected. Robert was to have gone to the Church if his father had lived — that was the wish of his mother herself, who was the daughter of a former curate of Helwynne — and Robert would have liked the doing so very much, but at his father's death it was found that it would be impossible to manage the farm unless Robert himself took to it, and therefore he gave up all thoughts of the profession he would so much have liked, and, for his mother's sake, did his best to become a farmer.

Squire Harding laughed at the notion ; he said young Glynne had too much book learning by half to be good for anything like hard work ; but Robert proved to the contrary. He showed that a scholar may work quite as well as a man who has never opened a book ; indeed, more so, for he can work with his head as well as his hands ; and the farm prospered better even than Squire Harding's. He had his sister, too, a girl, at this time, of fourteen, who had been brought up in a style that Miss Priscilla Harding disapproved of altogether ; that is to say, her mother had taught her to play on the harpsichord, and she read books of travel and history, whose very names Miss Priscilla had never heard of. She was not accomplished, as young ladies now a days count accomplishments, but, for that time, her attainments were thought considerable.

But she was as sweet and gentle — perhaps a great deal more so — as if she had been brought up after Miss Harding's fashion, and thoroughly helpful and useful, both with the house and her needle. A bright, pretty girl, too, health ful, rosy, and happy, of whom her brother was very proud and fond, and all the three boys, his young friends, almost equally so. There was not one of them who had a sister, so, after a fashion, they looked upon Nelly Glynne as one, and considered they had all a right to feel themselves aggrieved when they heard how Squire Harding had attempted to defraud her mother of her rights. As to the squire, he thought himself more ill-used than anybody. He had wanted to do an unjust thing and had been prevented. He said little, but he looked away whenever he met Robert, and those who knew him felt that he would lose no chance of doing the youth an ill turn.

Peter Rolles, especially, was sure of that ; so sure that he made up his mind to keep a watch on the squire, and prevent him if possible. Nobody else would do it, thought Peter, and it seemed to him that what was nobody's work must be his.

Chapter II. How Peter Went Up

A TREE AND DOWN ONE— WHAT THE SQUIRE AND BEN RIDGE WERE BUSY ABOUT. |g^™|3Jj F you could only have seen the stir Helwynne %&& Hal vUlage was in on a certain evening in June you g^"ra£^i would have wondered whatever couldhave been the matter. The women were gathered together at their doors, with grave or excited faces, some talking vehemently and passionately, others whispering in undertones as if afraid they should be heard. From the public-house, the Shoulder of Mutton, a noise of voices was heard, and laughter ; and while every man in the place seemed to have a greater hankering than usual to go there, every woman was more averse than ever to his going. Helwynne village consisted of one short street, if, indeed, the few straggling houses with their gardens in front and rear deserved to be called by that name.

There was the blacksmith — always a busy man and a great crony of Peter's — but no butcher — there was no opening for one in Helwynne. At the Grange and Fairwood House, and Miss Trivet's — the old lady with whom Horace and Charley lived — they were supplied from Barkley, few of the labourers in the village tasting beef or mutton from one year's end to another, unless at Christmas or harvest time. The Grange was at a little distance from the village, but Fairwood House was at the end, not far from the blacksmith's, and just opposite Miss Trivet's trim little cottage, so that Peter, who was of a sociable turn, was quite handy to all his friends. The church was at the opposite end of the village, and the rectory, a low, com fortable red-brick dwelling, was near the church. The rectory had a famous orchard, of which I shall have something to tell you by-and-by ; it adjoined the one belonging to the Dale Farm, and Squire Harding had more than hinted very often that he had quite as good a claim to the rectory orchard as to that of the Dale Farm, and I think there is no doubt whatever but that he had.

The flower garden of the rectory opened in front to the churchyard — just the still grass-grown place that one sees in so many villages — and at the side a little wicket led into Helwynne Park, so that whenever the rector wanted to extend his walk he could have one as quiet as in his own domain. Helwynne Park covered five hundred acres, and to this day the red deer still flourish there. But I am not going to tell you any more about Helwynne Hall just now, for when I do begin to speak about that grand old place I shall hardly know how to leave off ; but we must come back to the village, and to the Shoulder of Mutton, which was in its very centre. It was an old house, as old, they said, as the Hall, with a white plastered front across which there were o-reat beams, and three gables ; and over the doorway swun«- PETER GOES UP A TREE. 15 the sign, a painting in glaring red and yellow, of the joint which gave it its name.

The lattice windows were open above, and so was the large one below belonging to the tap-room, and from this place came the songs and the laughter which seemed so to distress the village dames. There was a whole cluster of them at a door just opposite, and if a man went near the place they called out to him, scolding and persuading him to stop away ; sometimes he would be advised and turn back, when he was told he had some sense in him, and commended for his conduct ; sometimes the man warned would go in boldly and defiantly, sometimes asking if he wasn't to be trusted and couldn't take a mug of ale without making a fool of himself. And there were two or three mean spirits who behaved in a dastardly manner ; they affected to be guided by the advice ad dressed to them, and received, as if they deserved, those commendations for their sense in going away from the open door of the Shoulder of Mutton, turned back as if they had not the slightest idea of drinking any beer in there that evening, and then walking a little way down the street, went down a narrow turning between the gardens of two houses, and so reaching the back of the inn, were soon in its tap-room, where even they were wise enough to keep at a safe distance from the open window, while they smoked their pipes and drank their beer, and listened to all the good things that were said by Ser geant Clutch, who had come to Helwynne on a recruiting errand.

No wonder all the wives and mothers of the village •were as scared as so many hens might be if they saw a kite hovering over their broods. When once a recruiting sergeant came into a town or village he was sure to take the best and most promising young men, no matter whom they might leave behind, or who were dependent on them — young waves, little children, or old parents, that was nothing to the sergeant, who told his stories of the fortune and the glory that was to be won in war, and led the poor silly fellows who listened to him to think that before long they were to be generals, or captains at the least. Sergeant Clutch was busy now, telling the most wonderful stories of the great things that were to happen to all who would come with him. Nothing like a soldier's life, according to the sergeant.