Shirley (21 page)

was even now a prayer-meeting being held within its walls, the illumination of its windows cast a bright reflection on the road, while a hymn of a most extraordinary description, such as a very Quaker might feel himself moved by the Spirit to dance to, roused cheerily all the echoes of the vicinage. The words were distinctly audible by snatches. Here is a quotation or two from different strains; for the singers passed jauntily from hymn to hymn and from tune to tune, with an ease and

buoyancy all their own:—

"Oh! who can explain

This struggle for life,

This travail and pain,

This trembling and strife?

Plague, earthquake, and famine,

And tumult and war,

The wonderful coming

Of Jesus declare!

"For every fight

Is dreadful and loud:

The warrior's delight

Is slaughter and blood,

His foes overturning,

Till all shall expire:

And this is with burning,

And fuel, and fire!"

Here followed an interval of clamorous prayer, accompanied by fearful groans. A shout of "I've found liberty!" "Doad o' Bill's has fun' liberty!" rang from the chapel, and out all the assembly broke again.

"What a mercy is this!

What a heaven of bliss!

How unspeakably happy am I!

Gathered into the fold,

With Thy people enrolled,

With Thy people to live and to die!

"Oh, the goodness of God

In employing a clod

His tribute of glory to raise;

His standard to bear,

And with triumph declare

His unspeakable riches of grace!

"Oh, the fathomless love

That has deigned to approve

And prosper the work of my hands.

With my pastoral crook

I went over the brook,

And behold I am spread into bands!

"Who, I ask in amaze,

Hath begotten me these?

And inquire from what quarter they came.

My full heart it replies,

They are born from the skies,

And gives glory to God and the Lamb!"

The stanza which followed this, after another and longer interregnum of shouts, yells, ejaculations,

frantic cries, agonized groans, seemed to cap the climax of noise and zeal.

"Sleeping on the brink of sin,

Tophet gaped to take us in;

Mercy to our rescue flew,

Broke the snare, and brought us through.

"Here, as in a lion's den,

Undevoured we still remain,

Pass secure the watery flood,

Hanging on the arm of God.

"Here——"

(Terrible, most distracting to the ear, was the strained shout in which the last stanza was given.)

"Here we raise our voices higher,

Shout in the refiner's fire,

Clap our hands amidst the flame,

Glory give to Jesus' name!"

The roof of the chapel did
not
fly off, which speaks volumes in praise of its solid slating.

But if Briar Chapel seemed alive, so also did Briarmains, though certainly the mansion appeared to

enjoy a quieter phase of existence than the temple. Some of its windows too were aglow; the lower

casements opened upon the lawn; curtains concealed the interior, and partly obscured the ray of the

candles which lit it, but they did not entirely muffle the sound of voice and laughter. We are privileged to enter that front door, and to penetrate to the domestic sanctum.

It is not the presence of company which makes Mr. Yorke's habitation lively, for there is none within it save his own family, and they are assembled in that farthest room to the right, the back parlour.

This is the usual sitting-room of an evening. Those windows would be seen by daylight to be of brilliantly-stained glass, purple and amber the predominant hues, glittering round a gravely-tinted medallion in the centre of each, representing the suave head of William Shakespeare, and the serene

one of John Milton. Some Canadian views hung on the walls—green forest and blue water scenery—

and in the midst of them blazes a night-eruption of Vesuvius; very ardently it glows, contrasted with

the cool foam and azure of cataracts, and the dusky depths of woods.

The fire illuminating this room, reader, is such as, if you be a southern, you do not often see burning on the hearth of a private apartment. It is a clear, hot coal fire, heaped high in the ample chimney. Mr. Yorke
will
have such fires even in warm summer weather. He sits beside it with a book in his hand, a little round stand at his elbow supporting a candle; but he is not reading—he is watching his children. Opposite to him sits his lady—a personage whom I might describe minutely, but I feel no

vocation to the task. I see her, though, very plainly before me—a large woman of the gravest aspect,

care on her front and on her shoulders, but not overwhelming, inevitable care, rather the sort of voluntary, exemplary cloud and burden people ever carry who deem it their duty to be gloomy. Ah,

well-a-day! Mrs. Yorke had that notion, and grave as Saturn she was, morning, noon, and, night; and

hard things she thought if any unhappy wight—especially of the female sex—who dared in her presence to show the light of a gay heart on a sunny countenance. In her estimation, to be mirthful was

to be profane, to be cheerful was to be frivolous. She drew no distinctions. Yet she was a very good

wife, a very careful mother, looked after her children unceasingly, was sincerely attached to her husband; only the worst of it was, if she could have had her will, she would not have permitted him to

have any friend in the world beside herself. All his relations were insupportable to her, and she kept

them at arm's length.

Mr. Yorke and she agreed perfectly well, yet he was naturally a social, hospitable man, an advocate

for family unity; and in his youth, as has been said, he liked none but lively, cheerful women. Why he

chose her, how they contrived to suit each other, is a problem puzzling enough, but which might soon

be solved if one had time to go into the analysis of the case. Suffice it here to say that Yorke had a

shadowy side as well as a sunny side to his character, and that his shadowy side found sympathy and

affinity in the whole of his wife's uniformly overcast nature. For the rest, she was a strong-minded woman; never said a weak or a trite thing; took stern, democratic views of society, and rather cynical

ones of human nature; considered herself perfect and safe, and the rest of the world all wrong. Her

main fault was a brooding, eternal, immitigable suspicion of all men, things, creeds, and parties; this

suspicion was a mist before her eyes, a false guide in her path, wherever she looked, wherever she

turned.

It may be supposed that the children of such a pair were not likely to turn out quite ordinary, commonplace beings; and they were not. You see six of them, reader. The youngest is a baby on the

mother's knee. It is all her own yet, and that one she has not yet begun to doubt, suspect, condemn; it

derives its sustenance from her, it hangs on her, it clings to her, it loves her above everything else in the world. She is sure of that, because, as it lives by her, it cannot be otherwise, therefore she loves it.

The two next are girls, Rose and Jessy; they are both now at their father's knee; they seldom go near their mother, except when obliged to do so. Rose, the elder, is twelve years old; she is like her

father—the most like him of the whole group—but it is a granite head copied in ivory; all is softened

in colour and line. Yorke himself has a harsh face—his daughter's is not harsh, neither is it quite pretty; it is simple, childlike in feature; the round cheeks bloom: as to the gray eyes, they are otherwise than childlike; a serious soul lights them—a young soul yet, but it will mature, if the body

lives; and neither father nor mother have a spirit to compare with it. Partaking of the essence of each, it will one day be better than either—stronger, much purer, more aspiring. Rose is a still, sometimes a

stubborn, girl now. Her mother wants to make of her such a woman as she is herself—a woman of

dark and dreary duties; and Rose has a mind full-set, thick-sown with the germs of ideas her mother

never knew. It is agony to her often to have these ideas trampled on and repressed. She has never rebelled yet; but if hard driven, she will rebel one day, and then it will be once for all. Rose loves her father: her father does not rule her with a rod of iron; he is good to her. He sometimes fears she will

not live, so bright are the sparks of intelligence which, at moments, flash from her glance and gleam

in her language. This idea makes him often sadly tender to her.

He has no idea that little Jessy will die young, she is so gay and chattering, arch, original even now;

passionate when provoked, but most affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting, yet generous; fearless—of her mother, for instance, whose irrationally hard and strict rule she has often

defied—yet reliant on any who will help her. Jessy, with her little piquant face, engaging prattle, and

winning ways, is made to be a pet, and her father's pet she accordingly is. It is odd that the doll should resemble her mother feature by feature, as Rose resembles her father, and yet the physiognomy—how

different!

Mr. Yorke, if a magic mirror were now held before you, and if therein were shown you your two

daughters as they will be twenty years from this night, what would you think? The magic mirror is

here: you shall learn their destinies—and first that of your little life, Jessy.

Do you know this place? No, you never saw it; but you recognize the nature of these trees, this foliage—the cypress, the willow, the yew. Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are

these dim garlands of everlasting flowers. Here is the place—green sod and a gray marble headstone.

Jessy sleeps below. She lived through an April day; much loved was she, much loving. She often, in

her brief life, shed tears, she had frequent sorrows; she smiled between, gladdening whatever saw her.

Her death was tranquil and happy in Rose's guardian arms, for Rose had been her stay and defence through many trials. The dying and the watching English girls were at that hour alone in a foreign country, and the soil of that country gave Jessy a grave.

Now, behold Rose two years later. The crosses and garlands looked strange, but the hills and woods of this landscape look still stranger. This, indeed, is far from England; remote must be the shores which wear that wild, luxuriant aspect. This is some virgin solitude. Unknown birds flutter round the skirts of that forest; no European river this, on whose banks Rose sits thinking. The little

quiet Yorkshire girl is a lonely emigrant in some region of the southern hemisphere. Will she ever

come back?

The three eldest of the family are all boys—Matthew, Mark, and Martin. They are seated together in

that corner, engaged in some game. Observe their three heads: much alike at a first glance; at a second, different; at a third, contrasted. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, red-cheeked are the whole trio; small English features they all possess; all own a blended resemblance to sire and mother; and yet a distinctive physiognomy, mark of a separate character, belongs to each.

I shall not say much about Matthew, the first-born of the house, though it is impossible to avoid gazing at him long, and conjecturing what qualities that visage hides or indicates. He is no plain-looking boy: that jet-black hair, white brow, high-coloured cheek, those quick, dark eyes, are good points in their way. How is it that, look as long as you will, there is but one object in the room, and

that the most sinister, to which Matthew's face seems to bear an affinity, and of which, ever and anon,

it reminds you strangely—the eruption of Vesuvius? Flame and shadow seem the component parts of

that lad's soul—no daylight in it, and no sunshine, and no pure, cool moonbeam ever shone there. He

has an English frame, but, apparently, not an English mind—you would say, an Italian stiletto in a sheath of British workmanship. He is crossed in the game—look at his scowl. Mr. Yorke sees it, and

what does he say? In a low voice he pleads, "Mark and Martin, don't anger your brother." And this is ever the tone adopted by both parents. Theoretically, they decry partiality—no rights of

primogeniture are to be allowed in that house; but Matthew is never to be vexed, never to be opposed;

they avert provocation from him as assiduously as they would avert fire from a barrel of gunpowder.

"Concede, conciliate," is their motto wherever he is concerned. The republicans are fast making a tyrant of their own flesh and blood. This the younger scions know and feel, and at heart they all rebel

against the injustice. They cannot read their parents' motives; they only see the difference of treatment. The dragon's teeth are already sown amongst Mr. Yorke's young olive-branches; discord will one day be the harvest.

Mark is a bonny-looking boy, the most regular-featured of the family. He is exceedingly calm; his

smile is shrewd; he can say the driest, most cutting things in the quietest of tones. Despite his tranquillity, a somewhat heavy brow speaks temper, and reminds you that the smoothest waters are not

always the safest. Besides, he is too still, unmoved, phlegmatic, to be happy. Life will never have much joy in it for Mark. By the time he is five-and-twenty he will wonder why people ever laugh, and

think all fools who seem merry. Poetry will not exist for Mark, either in literature or in life; its best effusions will sound to him mere rant and jargon. Enthusiasm will be his aversion and contempt.

Mark will have no youth; while he looks juvenile and blooming, he will be already middle-aged in

mind. His body is now fourteen years of age, but his soul is already thirty.

Martin, the youngest of the three, owns another nature. Life may, or may not, be brief for him, but