Part 13

No sooner was he gone than Nancy, pressing her sister’s arm to her side, said: “There’s the right man at last, dear Jane.”

“What!” said Jane, yet blushing deeply at the same time, and her heart beating quicker against her side. “Whatever are you talking of, Nancy? That young farmer fall in love with a mill-girl?”

“He’s done it,” said Nancy; “I see it in him. I feel it in him. And I feel, too, that he is true and staunch as steel.”

Jane was silent. They walked on in silence. Jane’s own heart responded to what Nancy had said; she thought again and again on what he said. “I have seen you sometimes;” “I noticed you because you seemed so sisterly.” “He must have a good heart,” thought Jane; “but then he can never think of a poor mill-girl like me.”

The next morning they had to undergo plenty of raillery from their companions. We will pass that over. For several days, as they passed to and fro, they saw nothing of the young farmer. But one evening, as they were again alone, having staid at the same acquaintance’s as before, the young farmer popped his head over a stone wall, and said, “Good evening to you, young women,” He was soon over the wall, and walked on with them to the end of the town. On the Sunday at the chapel Jane saw Nancy’s grave face fixed on some object steadily, and, looking in the same direction, was startled to see James Cheshire. Again her heart beat pit-a-pat, and she thought “Can he really be thinking of me?”

The moment chapel was over, James Cheshire was gone, stopping to speak to no one. Nancy again pressed the arm of Jane to her side as they walked home, and said--“I was not wrong.” Jane only replied by returning her affectionate pressure.

Some days after, as Nancy Dunster was coming out of a shop in the evening after their return home from the mill, James Cheshire suddenly put his hand on her shoulder, and, on her turning, shook her hand cordially, and said, “Come along with me a bit. I must have a little talk with you.”

Nancy consented without remark or hesitation. James Cheshire walked on quickly till they came near the fine old church which strikes travellers as so superior to the place in which it is located; when he slackened his pace, and taking Nancy’s hand, began in a most friendly manner to tell her how much he liked her and her sister. That, to make a short matter of it, as was his way, he had made up his mind that the woman of all others in the world that would suit him for a wife was her sister. “But, before I said so to her, I thought I would say so to you, Nancy, for you are so sensible, I’m sure you will say what is best for us all.”

Nancy manifested no surprise, but said, calmly: “You are a well-to-do farmer, Mr. Cheshire. You have friends of property; my sister, and--”

“Ay, and a mill-girl; I know all that. I’ve thought it all over, and so far you are right again, my little one. But just hear what I’ve got to say. I’m no fool, though I say it. I’ve an eye in my head and a head on my shoulders, eh?”

Nancy smiled.

“Well now, it’s not _any_ mill-girl; mind you, it’s not _any_ mill-girl; no, nor perhaps another in the kingdom, that would do for me. I don’t think mill-girls are in the main cut out for farmers’ wives, any more than farmers’ wives are fit for mill-girls; but you see, I’ve got a notion that your sister is not only a very farrantly lass, but that she’s one that has particular good sense, though not so deep as you, Nancy, neither. Well, I’ve a notion she can turn her hand to anything, and that she’s a heart to do it, when it’s a duty. Isn’t that so, eh? And if it is so, then Jane Dunster’s the lass for me; that is, if it’s quite agreeable.”

Nancy pressed James Cheshire’s hand, and said, “You are very kind.”

“Not a bit of it,” said James.

“Well,” continued Nancy; “but I would have you to consider what your friends will say; and whether you will not be made unhappy by them.”

“Why, as to that,” said James Cheshire, interrupting her, “mark me, Miss Dunster. I don’t ask my friends for anything. I can farm my own farm; buy my own cattle; drive my spring-cart, without any advice or assistance of theirs; and therefore I don’t think I shall ask their advice in the matter of a wife, eh? No, no, on that score I’m made up. My name’s Independent, and, at a word, the only living thing I mean to ask advice of is yourself. If you, Miss Dunster, approve of the match, it’s settled, as far I’m concerned.”

“Then so far,” said Nancy, “as you and my sister are concerned, without reference to worldly circumstances--I approve it with all my heart. I believe you to be as good and honest as I know my sister to be. Oh! Mr. Cheshire! she is one of ten thousand.”

“Well, I was sure of it;” said the young farmer; “and so now you must tell your sister all about it; and if all’s right, chalk me a white chalk inside of my gate as you go past i’ th’ morning, and to-morrow evening I’ll come up and see you.”

Here the two parted with a cordial shake of the hand. The novel signal of an accepted love was duly discovered by James Cheshire on his gate-post, when he issued forth at daybreak, and that evening he was sitting at tea with Jane and Nancy in the little cottage, having brought in his cart a basket of eggs, apples, fresh butter, and a pile of the richest pikelets (crumpets), country pikelets, very different to town-made ones, for tea.

We need not follow out the courtship of James Cheshire and Jane Dunster. It was cordial and happy. James insisted that both the sisters should give immediate notice to quit the mill-work, to spare themselves the cold and severe walks which the winter now occasioned them. The sisters had improved their education in their evenings. They were far better read and informed than most farmers’ daughters. They had been, since they came to Tideswell, teachers in the Sunday-school. There was comparatively little to be learned in a farm-house for the wife in winter, and James Cheshire therefore proposed to the sisters to go for three months to Manchester into a wholesale house, to learn as much as they could of the plain sewing and cutting out of household linen. The person in question made up all sorts of household linen, sheets, pillow-cases, shirts, and other things; in fact, a great variety of articles. Through an old acquaintance he got them introduced there, avowedly to prepare them for house-keeping. It was a sensible step, and answered well. At spring, to cut short opposition from his own relatives, which began to show itself, for these things did not fail to be talked of, James Cheshire got a license, and proceeding to Manchester, was then and there married, and came home with his wife and sister.

The talk and gossip which this wedding made all round the country, was no little; but the parties themselves were well satisfied with their mutual choice, and were happy. As the spring advanced, the duties of the household grew upon Mrs. Cheshire. She had to learn the art of cheese-making, butter-making, of all that relates to poultry, calves, and household management. But in these matters she had the aid of an old servant who had done all this for Mr. Cheshire, since he began farming. She took a great liking to her mistress, and showed her with hearty good-will how everything was done; and as Jane took a deep interest in it, she rapidly made herself mistress of the management of the house, as well as of the house itself. She did not disdain, herself, to take a hand at the churn, that she might be familiar with the whole process of butter-making, and all the signs by which the process is conducted to a successful issue. It was soon seen that no farmer’s wife could produce a firmer, fresher, sweeter pound of butter. It was neither _swelted_ by too hasty churning, nor spoiled, as is too often the case, by the buttermilk or by water being left in it, for want of well kneading and pressing. It was deliciously sweet, because the cream was carefully put up in the cleanest vessels and well attended to. Mrs. Cheshire, too, might daily be seen kneeling by the side of the cheese-pan, separating the curd, taking off the whey, filling the cheese-vat with the curd, and putting the cheese herself into press. Her cheese-chamber displayed as fine a set of well-salted, well-colored, well-turned and regular cheeses as ever issued from that or any other farm-house.

James Cheshire was proud of his wife; and Jane herself found a most excellent helper in Nancy. Nancy took particularly to housekeeping; saw that all the rooms were exquisitely clean; that everything was in nice repair; that not only the master and mistress, but the servants had their food prepared in a wholesome and attractive manner. The eggs she stored up; and as fruit came into season, had it collected for market, and for a judicious household use. She made the tea and coffee morning and evening, and did everything but preside at the table. There was not a farm-house for twenty miles round, that wore an air of so much brightness and evident good management as that of James Cheshire. For Nancy, from the first moment of their acquaintance, he had conceived a most profound respect. In all cases that required counsel, though he consulted freely with his wife, he would never decide till they had had Nancy’s opinion and sanction.

And James Cheshire prospered. But, spite of this, he did not escape the persecution from his relations that Nancy had foreseen. On all hands he found coldness. None of them called on him. They felt scandalized at his _evening_ himself, as they called it, to a mill-girl. He was taunted when they met at market, with having been caught with a pretty face; and told that they thought he had had more sense than to marry a dressed doll with a witch by her side.

At first James Cheshire replied with a careless waggery, “The pretty face makes capital butter, though, eh? The dressed doll turns out a tolerable dairy, eh? Better,” added James, “than a good many can, that I know, who have neither pretty faces, nor have much taste in dressing to crack of.”

The allusion to Nancy’s dwarfish plainness was what peculiarly provoked James Cheshire. He might have laughed at the criticisms on his wife, though the envious neighbors’ wives did say that it was the old servant and not Mrs. Cheshire who produced such fine butter and cheese; for where-ever she appeared, spite of envy and detraction, her lovely person and quiet good sense, and the growing rumor of her good management, did not fail to produce a due impression. And James had prepared to laugh it off; but it would not do. He found himself getting every now and then angry and unsettled by it. A coarse jest on Nancy at any time threw him into a desperate fit of indignation. The more the superior merit of his wife was known, the more seemed to increase the envy and venom of some of his relatives. He saw, too, that it had an effect on his wife. She was often sad, and sometimes in tears.

One day when this occurred, James Cheshire said, as they sat at tea, “I’ve made up my mind. Peace in this life is a jewel. Better is a dinner of herbs with peace, than a stalled ox with strife. Well, now, I’m determined to have peace. Peace and luv,” said he, looking affectionately at his wife and Nancy, “peace and luv, by God’s blessing, have settled down on this house; but there are stings here and stings there, when we go out of doors. We must not only have peace and luv in the house, but peace all round it. So I’ve made up my mind. I’m for America!”

“For America!” exclaimed Jane. “Surely you cannot be in earnest.”

“I never was more in earnest in my life,” said James Cheshire. “It is true I do very well on this farm here, though it’s a cowdish situation; but from all I can learn, I can do much better in America. I can there farm a much better farm of my own. We can have a much finer climate than this Peak country, and our countrymen still about us. Now, I want to know what makes a man’s native land pleasant to him?--the kindness of his relations and friends. But then, if a man’s relations are not kind?--if they get a conceit into them, that because they are relations they are to choose a man’s wife for him, and sting him and snort at him because he has a will of his own?--why, then I say, God send a good big herring-pool between me and such relations! My relations, by way of showing their natural affection, spit spite and bitterness. You, dear wife and sister, have none of yourn to spite you. In the house we have peace and luv. Let us take the peace and luv, and leave the bitterness behind.”

There was a deep silence.

“It is a serious proposal,” at length said Jane, with tears in her eyes.

“What says Nancy?” asked James.

“It is a serious proposal,” said Nancy, “but it is good. I feel it so.”

There was another deep silence; and James Cheshire said, “Then it is decided.”

“Think of it,” said Jane earnestly,--“think well of it.”

“I have thought of it long and well, my dear. There are some of these chaps that call me relation that I shall not keep my hands off, if I stay amongst them,--and I fain would. But for the present I will say no more; but,” added he, rising and bringing a book from his desk, “here is a book by one Morris Birkbeck,--read it, both of you, and then let me know your minds.”

The sisters read. On the following Lady-day, James Cheshire had turned over his farm advantageously to another, and he, his wife, Nancy, and the old servant, Mary Spendlove, all embarked at Liverpool, and transferred themselves to the United States, and then to the State of Illinois. Five-and-twenty years have rolled over since that day. We could tell a long and curious story of the fortunes of James Cheshire and his family: from the days when, half-repenting of his emigration and his purchase, he found himself in a rough country, amid rough and spiteful squatters, and lay for months with a brace of pistols under his pillow, and a great sword by his bedside for fear of robbery and murder. But enough, that at this moment, James Cheshire, in a fine cultivated country, sees his ample estate cultivated by his sons, while as Colonel and magistrate he dispenses the law and receives the respectful homage of the neighborhood. Nancy Dunster, now styled Mrs. Dunster, the Mother in Israel--the promoter of schools and the councillor of old and young--still lives. Years have improved rather than deteriorated her short and stout exterior. The long exercise of wise thoughts and the play of benevolent feelings, have given even a sacred beauty to her homely features. The dwarf has disappeared, and there remains instead, a grave but venerable matron,--honored like a queen.

IX.

The Ghost of the late Mr. James Barber.

A YARN ASHORE.

“‘Luck!’ nonsense. There is no such thing. Life is not a game of chance any more than chess is. If you lose, you have no one but yourself to blame.”

This was said by a young lieutenant in the Royal Navy, to a middle-aged midshipman, his elder brother.

“Do you mean to say that luck had nothing to do with Fine Gentleman Bobbin passing for lieutenant, and my being turned back?” was the rejoinder.

“Bobbin, though a dandy, is a good seaman, and--and----.” The speaker looked another way, and hesitated.

“I am _not_, you would add--if you had courage. But I say I am, and a better seaman than Bobbin.”

“Practically, perhaps, for you are ten years older in the service. But it was in the theoretical part of seamanship--which is equally important--that you broke down before the examiners,” continued the younger officer, in tones of earnest but sorrowful reproach, “You never _would_ study.”

“I’ll tell you what it is, master Ferdinand,” said the elder middy, not without a show of displeasure. “I don’t think this is the correct sort of conversation to be going on between two brothers after a five years’ separation.”

The young lieutenant laid his hand soothingly on his brother’s arm, and entreated him to take what he said in good part.

“Well, well!” rejoined the middy, with a laugh half-forced. “Take care what you are about, or, by Jove, I’ll inform against you.”

“What for?”

“Why, for preaching without a license. Besides, you were once as bad as you pretend I am.”

“I own it with sorrow; but I was warned in time by the wretched end of poor James Barber----”

“Of whom?” asked the elder brother, starting back as he pushed his glass along the table. “You don’t mean Jovial Jemmy, as we used to call him; once my messmate in the brig ‘Rollock.’”

“Yes, I do.”

“What! dead?”

“Yes.”

“Why, it was one of our great delights, when in harbor and on shore, to ‘go the rounds’--as he called it--with Jovial Jemmy. He understood life from stem to stern--from truck to keel. He knew everybody, from the First Lord downwards. I have seen him recognized by _the_ Duke one minute, and the next pick up with a strolling player, and familiarly treat him at a tavern. He once took me to a quadrille party at the Duchess of Durrington’s, where he seemed to know and be known to everybody present, and then adjourned to the Cider Cellars, where he was equally intimate with all sorts of queer characters. Though a favorite among the aristocracy, he was equally welcome in less exclusive societies. He was ‘Brother,’ ‘Past Master,’ ‘Warden,’ ‘Noble Grand,’ or ‘President’ of all sorts of Lodges and Fraternities. Uncommonly knowing was Jemmy in all sorts of club and fashionable gossip. He knew who gave the best dinners, and was always invited to the best balls. He was a capital judge of champagne, and when he betted upon a horse-race everybody backed him. He could hum all the fashionable songs, and was the fourth man who could dance the polka when it was first imported. Then he was as profound in bottled stout, Welsh rabbits, Burton ale, devilled kidneys, and bowls of Bishop, as he was in Roman punch, French cookery, and Italian singers. Afloat, he was the soul of fun:--he got up all our private theatricals, told all the best stories, and sung comic songs that made even the Purser laugh.”

“An extent and variety of knowledge and accomplishments,” said Lieutenant Fid, “which had the precise effect of blasting his prospects in life. He was, as you remember, at last dismissed the service for intemperance and incompetence.”

“When did you see him last?”

“What, _alive_?” inquired Ferdinand Fid, changing countenance.

“Of course! Surely you do not mean to insinuate that you have seen his ghost!”

The lieutenant was silent; and the midshipman took a deep draught of his favorite mixture--equal portions of rum and water--and hinted to his younger brother, the lieutenant, the expediency of immediately confiding the story to the Marines; for he declined to credit it. He then ventured another recommendation, which was that Ferdinand should throw the impotent temperance tipple he was then imbibing “over the side of the Ship”--which meant the tavern of that name in Greenwich, at the open bow-window of which they were then sitting--and clear his intellects by something stronger.

“I can afford to be laughed at,” said the younger Fid, “because I have gained immeasurably by the delusion, if it be one; but if ever there was a ghost, I have seen the ghost of James Barber. I, like yourself and he, was nearly ruined by love of amusement and intemperance, when he--or whatever else it might have been--came to my aid.”

“Let us hear. I see I am ‘in’ for a ghost story.”

“Well; it was eighteen forty-one when I came home in the ‘Arrow’ with despatches from the coast of Africa: you were lying in the Tagus in the ‘Bobstay.’ Ours, you know, was rather a thirsty station; a man inclined for it comes home from the Slaving Coasts with a determination to make up his lee way. I did mine with a vengeance. As usual, I looked up ‘Jovial Jemmy.’”

“’Twas easy to find him if you knew where to go.”

“I _did_ know, and went. He had by that time got tired of his more aristocratic friends. Respectability was too ‘slow’ for him, so I found him presiding over the ‘Philanthropic Raspers,’ at the ‘Union Jack.’ He received me with open arms, and took me, as you say, the ‘rounds.’ I can’t recall that week’s dissipation without a shudder. We rushed about from ball to tavern, from theatre to supper-room, from club to gin-palace, as if our lives depended on losing not a moment. We had not time to walk, so we galloped about in cabs. On the fourth night, when I was beginning to feel knocked up, and tired of the same songs, the same quadrilles, the bad whiskey, the suffocating tobacco smoke, and the morning’s certain and desperate penalties, I remarked to Jemmy that it was a miracle how he had managed to weather it for so many years. ‘What a hardship you would deem it,’ I added, ‘if you were _obliged_ to go the same weary round from one year’s end to another.’”

“What did he say to that?” asked Philip.

“Why, I never saw him so taken aback. He looked quite fiercely at me, and replied, ‘I _am_ obliged!’”

“How did he make that out?”

“Why, he had tippled and dissipated his constitution into such a state that use had become second nature. Excitement was his natural condition, and he dared not become quite sober for fear of a total collapse--or dropping down like a shot in the water.”

The midshipman had his glass in his hand, but forebore to taste it.--“Well, what then?”

“The ‘rounds’ lasted two nights longer. I was fairly beaten. Cast-iron could not have stood it. I was prostrated in bed with fever--and worse.” Ferdinand was agitated, and took a large draught of his lemonade.

“Well, well, you need not enlarge upon that,” replied Phil Phid, raising his glass towards his lips, but again thinking better of it; “I heard how bad you were from Seton, who shaved your head.”

“I had scarcely recovered when the ‘Arrow’ was ordered back, and I made a vow.”

“Took the pledge, perhaps!” interjected the mid, with a slight curl of his lip.

“No! I determined to work more and play less. We had a capital naval instructor aboard, and our commander was as good an officer as ever trod the deck. I studied--a little too hard perhaps, for I was laid up again. The ‘Arrow’ was, as usual, as good as her name, and we shot across to Jamaica in five weeks. One evening as we were lying in Kingston harbor, Seton, who had come over to join the Commodore as full surgeon, told me what he had never ventured to divulge before.”

“What was that?”

“Why, that, on the very day I left London, James Barber died of a frightful attack of _delirium tremens_!”

“Poor Jemmy!” said the elder Fid, sorrowfully, taking a long pull of consolation from his rummer. “Little did I think, while singing some of your best songs off Belem Castle, that I had seen you for the last time!”

“_I_ hadn’t seen him for the last time,” returned the lieutenant, with awful significance.

Philip assumed a careless air, and said, “Go on.”

“We were ordered home in eighteen forty-five, and paid off in January. I went to Portsmouth; was examined, and passed as lieutenant.”

This allusion to his brother’s better condition made poor Philip look rather blank.

“On being confirmed at the Admiralty,” continued Ferdinand, “I had to give a dinner to the ‘Arrows;’ which I did at the Salopian, Charing Cross. In the excess of my joy at promotion, my determination of temperance and avoidance of what is called ‘society’ was swamped. I kept it up once more; I went the ‘rounds,’ and accepted all the dinner, supper, and ball invitations I could get, invariably ending each morning in one of the old haunts of dissipation. Old associations with James Barber returned, and like causes produced similar effects. One morning while maundering home, I began to feel the same wild confusion as had previously commenced my dreadful malady.”

“Ah! a little touched in the top-hamper.”

“It was just day-light. Thinking to cool my self, I jumped into a wherry to get pulled down here to Greenwich.”

“Of course you were not quite sober.”