"Love,"her husband began again,after a long look in her face--ah,John,thine was altered too,but himself was the last thing he thought of--"say what you like--I know what we'll do:for the children's sake.Ah,that's her weak point;--see,Phineas,she is yielding now.We'll go for three months to Longfield."Now Longfield was the Utopia of our family,old and young.A very simple family we must have been--for this Longfield was only a small farm-house,about six miles off,where once we had been to tea,and where ever since we had longed to live.For,pretty as our domain had grown,it was still in the middle of a town,and the children,like all naturally-reared children,craved after the freedom of the country--after corn-fields,hay-fields,nuttings,blackberryings--delights hitherto known only at rare intervals,when their father could spare a whole long day,and be at once the sun and the shield of the happy little band.
"Hearken,children!father says we shall go for three whole months to live at Longfield."The three boys set up a shout of ecstacy.
"I'll swim boats down the stream,and catch and ride every one of the horses.Hurrah!"shouted Guy.
"And I'll see after the ducks and chickens,and watch all the threshing and winnowing,"said Edwin,the practical and grave.
"And I'll get a 'ittle 'amb to p'ay wid me,"lisped Walter--still "the baby"--or considered such,and petted accordingly.
"But what does my little daughter say?"said the father,turning--as he always turned,at the lightest touch of those soft,blind fingers,creeping along his coat sleeve."What will Muriel do at Longfield?""Muriel will sit all day and hear the birds sing.""So she shall,my blessing!"He often called her his "blessing,"which in truth she was.To see her now leaning her cheek against his--the small soft face,almost a miniature of his own,the hair,a paler shade of the same bright colour,curling in the same elastic rings--they looked less like ordinary father and daughter,than like a man and his good angel;the visible embodiment of the best half of his soul.So she was ever to him,this child of his youth--his first-born and his dearest.
The Longfield plan being once started,father and mother and I began to consult together as to ways and means;what should be given up,and what increased,of our absolute luxuries,in order that the children might this summer--possibly every summer--have the glory of "living in the country."Of these domestic consultations there was never any dread,for they were always held in public.There were no secrets in our house.Father and mother,though sometimes holding different opinions,had but one thought,one aim--the family good.
Thus,even in our lowest estate there had been no bitterness in our poverty;we met it,looked it in the face,often even laughed at it.
For it bound us all together,hand in hand;it taught us endurance,self-dependence,and,best of all lessons,self-renunciation.Ithink,one's whole after-life is made easier and more blessed by having known what it was to be very poor when one was young.
Our fortunes were rising now,and any little pleasure did not take near so much contrivance.We found we could manage the Longfield visit--ay,and a horse for John to ride to and fro--without any worse sacrifice than that of leaving Jenny--now Mrs.Jem Watkins,but our cook still--in the house at Norton Bury,and doing with one servant instead of two.Also,though this was not publicly known till afterwards,by the mother's renouncing a long-promised silk dress--the only one since her marriage,in which she had determined to astonish John by choosing the same colour as that identical grey gown he had seen hanging up in the kitchen at Enderley.
"But one would give up anything,"she said,"that the children might have such a treat,and that father might have rides backwards and forwards through green lanes all summer.Oh,how I wish we could always live in the country!""Do you?"And John looked--much as he had looked at long-tailed grey ponies in his bridegroom days--longing to give her every thing she desired."Well,perhaps,we may manage it some time.""When our ship comes in--namely,that money which Richard Brithwood will not pay,and John Halifax will not go to law to make him.Nay,father dear,I am not going to quarrel with any one of your crotchets."She spoke with a fond pride,as she did always,even when arguing against the too Quixotic carrying out of the said crotchets."Perhaps,as the reward of forbearance,the money will come some day when we least expect it;then John shall have his heart's desire,and start the cloth-mills at Enderley."John smiled,half-sadly.Every man has a hobby--this was his,and had been for fifteen years.Not merely the making a fortune,as he still firmly believed it could be made,but the position of useful power,the wide range of influence,the infinite opportunities of doing good.
"No,love;I shall never be 'patriarch of the valley,'as Phineas used to call it.The yew-hedge is too thick for me,eh,Phineas?""No!"cried Ursula--we had told her this little incident of our boyhood--"you have got half through it already.Everybody in Norton Bury knows and respects you.I am sure,Phineas,you might have heard a pin fall at the meeting last night when he spoke against hanging the Luddites.And such a shout as rose when he ended--oh,how proud I was!""Of the shout,love?"
"Nonsense!--but of the cause of it.Proud to see my husband defending the poor and the oppressed--proud to see him honoured and looked up to,more and more every year,till--""Till it may come at last to the prophecy in your birthday verse--'Her husband is known in the gates;he sitteth among the elders of the land.'"Mrs.Halifax laughed at me for reminding her of this,but allowed that she would not dislike its being fulfilled.