Abbeychurch; Or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit

'Besides,' said Helen, 'how could the squires see either palmer or jester when it was pitch dark?'

'I suppose there were lamps in the court,' said Rupert; 'but

"I cannot tell how the truth may be,I tell the tale as 'twas told to me."'

'But who told you, Rupert?' said Helen.

'Why, the story of Red Mantle, Helen, cannot you see?' said Elizabeth; 'it was on the table all the morning.'

'O Lizzie, was there ever anything so cruel?' cried Rupert; 'Edie Ochiltree was nothing to you. Everyone was swallowing it so quietly, and you will not even let me enjoy the credit of originality.'

'I am sure I give you credit due,' said Elizabeth; 'it is really an ingenious compound of Red Mantle, the Sleeping Beauty, Robert of Paris, and Triermain, and the cockle-shell shield and star-fish spurs form an agreeable variation.'

'I never will tell another story in your presence, Lizzie,' said Rupert, evidently vexed, but carrying it off with great good humour; 'you are worse than Quarterly, Edinburgh, and Blackwood put together.'

'I really think you deserved it, Rupert,' said Anne; 'I cannot pity you, you ought not to laugh at the pilgrims.'

'Oh! I dare not open my lips before such devotees of crusading,' said Rupert.

'And pray, Rupert,' said Elizabeth, 'what did you mean by comparing me to Edie Ochiltree? did you mean to say that you were like Monkbarns? I never heard that that gentleman fabricated either legends or curiosities, and made them pass for genuine ancient ones.'

At this moment, happily for Rupert, they came to the top of a small rising ground, and beheld a farmhouse at about a hundred yards before them. Rupert whistled long and loud and shrill, and two or three of the young ladies exclaimed, 'Is this Whistlefar Castle?'

'It is only enchanted,' said Elizabeth; 'clear away the mist of incredulity from your eyes, and behold keep, drawbridge, tower and battlement, and loop-hole grates where captives weep.'

It cannot be denied that the young party were a little disappointed by the aspect of the renowned Whistlefar, but they did ample justice to all that was to be seen; a few yards of very thick stone wall in the court, a coat of arms carved upon a stone built into the wall upside down, and the well-turned arch of the door-way. Some, putting on Don Quixote's eyes for the occasion, saw helmets in milk-pails, dungeons in cellars, battle-axes in bill-hooks, and shields in pewter-plates, called the baby in its cradle the sleeping Princess, agreed that the shield must have been reversed by order of the palmer, and that one of the cows was the mischievous knight's cream-coloured donkey; so that laughter happily supplied the place of learned lore.

On the way home the party were not quite so merry, although Helen was unusually agreeable, and enjoyed a very pleasant conversation with Rupert and Anne, who, she was pleased to find, really thought her worth talking to. Elizabeth was occupied with Dora, who was tired, and wanted to be cheered and amused. She did not however forget her bulrushes, and when they came in sight of them, she ran forwards to claim Rupert's promise of gathering some for her and her little brother and sister. This was a service of difficulty, for some of the bulrushes grew in the water, and others on deceitful ground, where a pool appeared wherever Rupert set his foot. With two or three strides and leaps, however, he reached a little dry island, covered with a tuft of sedges, in the midst of the marsh, and was reaching some of the bulrushes with the hook of Anne's parasol, when he suddenly cried out, 'Hollo, what have we here?'

'What?' said some of the girls.

'A dead dog, I believe,' said Rupert.

'Oh! let me see,' cried Harriet, advancing cautiously over the morass.

'Are you curious in such matters. Miss Hazleby?' said Rupert, laughing, as Harriet came splashing towards him through the wet, holding up her frock with one hand, and stretching out the other to him, to be helped upon the island. He pulled her upon it safely, but it quaked fearfully; and there was hardly room for them both to stand on it, while Harriet, holding fast by Rupert's hand, bent forwards, beheld the object of her curiosity, uttered a loud scream, lost her balance, and would have fallen into the river had she not been withheld by Rupert's strength of arm. They both slipped down on the opposite sides of the island, into the black mud, and Harriet precipitately retreated to the mainland.

'Well, what is the matter?' said Elizabeth.

'Oh! my poor dear little doggie!' cried Harriet.

'Is it Fido?' said Elizabeth; 'then, Harriet, there is no fear of your eating him in a sausage; you may be at rest on that score.'

'But can it really be Fido?' said Katherine, pressing forwards.

'Do you wish to see?' said Rupert, 'for if so, I advise you to make haste, the island is sinking fast.'

'I am splashed all over, so I do not care. Can I have one more look?' said Harriet, in a melancholy voice.

Rupert handed her back to the island, where she took her last farewell of poor Fido, all his long hair drenched with water, and the very same blue ribbon which she had herself tied round his neck the day before, floating, a funeral banner, on the surface of the stream. She contemplated him until her weight and Rupert's had sunk the island so much, that it was fast becoming a lake, while Elizabeth whispered to Anne to propose presenting her with a forget-me-not, on Fido's part.

'I hope,' said Rupert, as they proceeded with their walk, 'that you are fully sensible of poor Fido's generous self-sacrifice; he immolated himself to remove, by the manner of his death, any suspicions of Winifred's having the Fidophobia.'

'Perhaps,' said Elizabeth, 'he had some knowledge of the frightful suspicions which attached to him, and, like the Irish varmint in St. Patrick's days,

                 "went flop,Slap bang into the water,And thus committed suicideTo save himself from slaughter."'

They now began to consider how Fido could have met with his death. Harriet was sure that some naughty boy must have thrown him in. Lucy thought that in that case he would have lost his blue ribbon; Dora indignantly repelled the charge of cruelty from the youth of Abbeychurch; Elizabeth said such a puppy was very likely to fall off the bridge; and Rupert decided that he had most probably been attacked by a fit, to which, he said, half-grown puppies were often liable.

Rupert and Anne then began talking about a dog which they had lost some time ago in nearly the same manner; and during this dialogue the party divided, Harriet and Katherine walked on in close consultation, and Lucy and Helen began helping Dora to sort and carry her bulrushes, which detained them behind the others.

'What appears to me the most mysterious part of the story,' said Rupert, 'is how the beloved Fido, petted and watched and nursed and guarded as he seems to have been, should have contrived to stray from your house as far as to the river.'

'Oh! that is no mystery at all,' said Elizabeth; 'we crossed the bridge twice yesterday evening, and I dare say we left him behind us there.'

'What could you have been doing on the bridge yesterday evening?' said Rupert. 'Oh! I know; I saw the people coming away from a tee-total entertainment; you were certainly there, Anne, I hope you enjoyed it.'

'How very near the truth you do contrive to get, Rupert,' said Elizabeth.

'Then,' cried Rupert, with a start, 'I see it all. I thought you all looked very queer at breakfast. I understand it all. You have been to the Mechanics' Institute.'

'Yes, Rupert,' said Elizabeth.

'No, but you do not mean to say that you really have, Lizzie and Anne,' cried Rupert, turning round to look into their faces.

Each made a sign of assent; and Rupert, as soon as he had recovered from his astonishment, burst into a violent fit of laughter, which lasted longer than either his sister or cousin approved, and it was not till after he had been well scolded by both, that he chose to listen to their full account of all that had passed on the subject.

'The worst of it is, now,' said Elizabeth, 'that as soon as Mrs. Hazleby hears that Fido has been found in the river, she will ask how he came near it.'

'And what then?' said Anne.

'Why, she well knows that the bridge is not a place to which we are likely to resort; she will ask what took us there; I would not trust Harriet to tell the truth, and I have promised not to betray her, so what is to be done if Mrs. Hazleby asks me?' said Elizabeth.

'I hope she will not ask her youngest daughter,' said Anne.

'That she shall not do,' said Elizabeth: 'I will tell her myself that Fido was found in the river, and answer all her questions as best I can.'

'It is rather a pity,' said Anne archly, 'that Miss Hazleby did not actually fall into the river, for the sensation caused by Rupert's rescuing her would quite have absorbed all the interest in Fido's melancholy fate.'

'Thank you, Anne,' said Rupert; 'I am sure I only wonder she was not submerged. I never could have guessed any fair lady could be so heavy. I am sure I feel the claw she gave my arm at this moment.'

'How very ungallant!' said Anne.

'Still,' said Rupert, 'without appearing as the preserver of the fair Harriet from a watery grave, I think I have interest enough with Mrs. Hazleby to be able to break the fatal news to her, and calm her first agonies of grief and wrath.'

'You, Rupert?' said Anne.

'Myself, Anne,' replied Rupert; 'you have no notion what friends Mrs. Hazleby and I have become. We had a tete-a-tete of an hour and a half this morning.'

'What could you find to talk about?' said Anne.

'First,' said Rupert, 'she asked about my grouse shooting; where I went, and with whom, and whether I had seen any of the Campbells of Inchlitherock. Of course we embarked in a genealogy of the whole Campbell race; then came a description of the beauties of Inchlitherock. Next I was favoured with her private history; how she, being one of thirteen, was forced, at eighteen, to leave the lovely spot, and embark with her brother for India.'

'On speculation,' said Elizabeth.

'And finally, how she came to marry the Major.'

'O Rupert, that is too much; you must have invented it!' cried Anne.

'Indeed I did not, Anne,' said Rupert; 'it is a fact that she lived somewhere in the Mofussil with her brother, and there she encountered the Major. You, young ladies, may imagine how she fascinated him, and how finally her brother seems to have bullied the Major into marrying her.'

'Poor man!' said Elizabeth, 'I always wondered how he chanced to fall into her clutches. But did you hear no more?'

'No more of her personal history,' said Rupert; 'she kindly employed the rest of her time in giving me wise counsels.'

'Oh! pray let us have the benefit of them,' said Anne, who had by this time pretty well forgotten her prudence.

'There were many regrets that I was not in the army,' said Rupert, 'and many pieces of advice which would have been very useful if I had, but which I am afraid were thrown away upon me, ending with wise reflections upon the importance of a wise choice of a wife, especially for a young man of family, exposed to danger from designing young ladies, with cautions against beauty because of its perishable nature, and learning, because literary ladies are fit for nothing.'

'Meaning to imply,' said Elizabeth, 'how fortunate was Major Hazleby in meeting with so sweet a creature as the charming Miss Barbara Campbell, possessed of neither of these dangerous qualities.'

'I do not know,' said Anne; 'I think she might have possessed some of the former when she left Inchlitherock.'

'Before twenty years of managing and scolding had fixed her eyes in one perpetual stare,' said Elizabeth. 'But here we are at home.'

They found the hall table covered with parcels, which shewed that Mrs. Woodbourne and her party had returned from their drive, and the girls hastened up-stairs.

Anne found her mamma in her room, as well as Sir Edward, who was finishing a letter.

'Well, Mamma, had you a prosperous journey?' said she.

'Yes, very much so,' said Lady Merton: 'Mrs. Hazleby was in high good-humour, she did nothing but sing Rupert's praises, and did not scold Mrs. Woodbourne as much as usual.'

'And what have you been doing, Miss Anne?' said Sir Edward; 'you are quite on the qui vive.'

'Oh! I have been laughing at the fun which Rupert and Lizzie have been making about Mrs. Hazleby,' said Anne; 'I really could not help it, Mamma, and I do not think I began it.'

'Began what?' said Sir Edward.

'Why, Mamma was afraid I should seem to set Lizzie against her step-mother's relations, if I quizzed them or abused them,' said Anne.

'I do not think what you could say would make much difference in Lizzie's opinion of them,' said Sir Edward, 'but certainly I should think they were not the best subjects of conversation here.'

'But I have not told you of the grand catastrophe,' said Anne; 'we have found poor Fido drowned among the bulrushes.'

'I hope Mrs. Woodbourne will be happy again,' said Lady Merton.

'And, Mamma, he must have fallen in while we were at the Mechanics' Institute,' said Anne; 'there is one bad consequence of our folly already.'

'I cannot see what induced you to go,' said Sir Edward; 'I thought Lizzie had more sense.'

'I believe the actual impulse was given by a dispute between Lizzie and me on the date of chivalry,' said Anne.

'And so Rupert's friends, the Turners, are great authorities in history,' said Sir Edward; 'I never should have suspected it.'

'Now I think of it,' said Anne, 'it was the most ridiculous part of the affair, considering the blunder that Lizzie told me Mrs. Turner made about St. Augustine. What could we have been dreaming of?'

'Midsummer madness,' said Sir Edward.

'But just tell me, Papa,' said Anne, 'do you not think Helen quite the heroine of the story?'

'I think Helen very much improved in appearance and manners,' said Sir Edward; 'and I am quite willing to believe all that I see you have to tell me of her.'

'Do not wait to tell it now, Anne,' said Lady Merton, 'or Mrs. Woodbourne will not think us improved in appearance or manners. It is nearly six o'clock.'

'I will keep it all for the journey home,' said Anne, 'when Papa's ears will be disengaged.'

'And his tongue too, to give you a lecture upon Radicalism, Miss,' said Sir Edward, with a fierce gesture, which drove Anne away laughing.

Elizabeth had finished dressing, a little too rapidly, and had gone to find Mrs. Woodbourne. 'Well, Mamma,' said she, as soon as she came into her room, 'Winifred has lived to say 'the dog is dead'.'

'What do you mean, my dear?' said Mrs. Woodbourne.

'The enemy is dead, Mamma,' said Elizabeth; 'we found him drowned by the green meadow.'

'Poor little fellow! your aunt will be very sorry,' was kind Mrs. Woodbourne's remark.

'But now, Mamma,' said Elizabeth, 'you may be quite easy about Winifred; he could not possibly have been mad.'

'How could he have fallen in, poor little dog?' said Mrs. Woodbourne.

'He must have strayed about upon the bridge while we were at the Mechanics' Institute,' said Elizabeth; 'it was all my fault, and I am afraid it is a very great distress to Lucy. Helen might well say mischief would come of our going.'

'I wish the loss of Fido was all the mischief likely to come of it, my dear,' said Mrs. Woodbourne, with a sigh; 'I am afraid your papa will be very much annoyed by it, with so much as he has on his mind too.'

'Ah! Mamma, that is the worst of it, indeed,' said Elizabeth, covering her face with her hands; 'if I could do anything—'

'My dearest child,' said Mrs. Woodbourne, 'do not go on making yourself unhappy, I am very sorry I said anything about your Papa; you know he cannot be angry with one who grieves so sincerely for what she has done amiss. I am sure you have learnt a useful lesson, and will be wiser in future. Now do put your scarf even, and let me pin this piece of lace straight for you, it is higher on one side than the other, and your band is twisted.'

On her side, Lucy, trembling as she entered her mother's room, but firm in her purpose of preserving her sister from the temptation to prevaricate, by taking all the blame which Mrs. Hazleby chose to ascribe to her, quietly communicated the fatal intelligence to Mrs. Hazleby. Her information was received with a short angry 'H—m,' and no more was said upon the matter, as Mrs. Hazleby was eager to shew Harriet some wonderful bargains which she had met with at Baysmouth.

CHAPTER XI

As soon as Mrs. Hazleby made her appearance in the drawing-room before dinner, Rupert began repeating,

'The wound it seemed both sore and sad     To every Christian eye,And while they swore the dog was mad,     They swore the child would die,But soon a wonder came to light,     That shewed the rogues they lied,The child recovered of the bite,     It was the dog that died.'

'I beg to offer my congratulations,' continued he, setting a chair for her.

Mrs. Hazleby looked surprised.

'On the demonstration we have this day received of your superior judgement, Ma'am,' said Rupert, 'though indeed we could hardly have doubted it before.'

'Pray let me understand you, Mr. Merton,' said Mrs. Hazleby.

'Have you not heard of the circumstance to which I allude?' said Rupert; 'for if you are not already aware of it, I must beg to be excused from relating it; I could not bear to give so great a shock to a lady's feelings.'

'Oh! you mean about Fido,' said Mrs. Hazleby, almost smiling; 'yes, Lucy told me that you had found him. Really, my girls are so careless, I can trust nothing to them.'

'Indeed, Madam,' said Rupert, 'I assure you that nothing could have been more heart-rending than the scene presented to our eyes when the Miss Hazlebys first became aware of the untimely fate of their favourite. Who could behold it with dry eye—or dry foot?' added he, in an under-tone, with a side glance at Anne.

Rupert contrived to talk so much nonsense to Mrs. Hazleby, that he charmed her with his attention, gave her no time to say anything about Fido, and left Anne much surprised that she had never found out that he was laughing at her. At dinner, the grouse he had brought came to their aid; Mrs. Hazleby was delighted to taste a blackcock once more, and was full of reminiscences of Inchlitherock; and by means of these recollections, and Rupert's newly imported histories, Sir Edward and Mr. Woodbourne contrived to make the conversation more entertaining than Elizabeth thought it ever could be in any party in which Mrs. Hazleby was present.

Afterwards in the drawing-room, Dora's bulrushes and the other children's purchases were duly admired, and the little people, being rather fatigued, were early sent to bed, although Edward vehemently insisted, with his eyes half shut, that he was not in the least sleepy. The elder girls then arranged themselves round the table. Helen was working a bunch of roses of different colours; Anne admired it very much, but critics were not wanting to this, as to every other performance of Helen's.

'It is all very pretty except that rose,' said Katherine, 'but I am sure that is an unnatural colour.—Is it not, Anne?'

'I do not think that I ever saw one like it,' said Anne; 'but that is no proof that there is no such flower.'

'What do you think, Lizzie?' said Katherine; 'ought not Helen to alter it?'

Anne was rather alarmed by this appeal; but Elizabeth answered carelessly, without looking up, 'Oh! you know I know nothing about that kind of work.'

'But you can tell what colour a rose is,' persisted Katherine; 'now do not you think Helen will spoil her work with that orange-coloured rose? who ever heard of such a thing?'

Helen was on the point of saying that one of the gable-ends of the house at Dykelands was covered with a single rose of that colour, but she remembered that Dykelands was not a safe subject, and refrained.

'Come, do not have a York and Lancaster war about an orange-coloured rose, Kate,' said Elizabeth, coming up to Helen; 'why, Anne, where are your eyes? did you never see an Austrian briar, just the the colour of Helen's lambs-wools?'

Though this was a mere trifle, Helen was pleased to find that Elizabeth could sometimes be on her side of the question, and worked on in a more cheerful spirit.

'Why, Anne,' said Elizabeth, presently after, 'you are doing that old wreath over again, that you were about last year, when I was at Merton Hall.'

'Yes,' said Anne; 'it is a pattern which I like very much.'

'Do you like working the same thing over again?' said Katherine; 'I always get tired of it.'

'I like it very much,' said Anne; 'going over the same stitches puts me in mind of things that were going on when I was working them before.—Now, Lizzie, the edge of that poppy seems to have written in it all that delightful talk we had together, at home, about growing up, that day when Papa and Mamma dined out, and we had it all to ourselves. And the iris has the whole of Don Quixote folded up in it, because Papa was reading it to us, when I was at work upon it.'

'There certainly seems to be a use and pleasure in never sitting down three minutes without that carpet-work, which I should never have suspected,' said Elizabeth.

'Anne thinks as I do,' said Mrs. Woodbourne; 'I find carpet-work quite a companion to me, but I cannot persuade Lizzie to take any pleasure in it.'

'I have not time for it,' said Elizabeth, 'nor patience if I had time. It is all I can persuade myself to do to keep my clothes from being absolute rags.'

'Yes,' said Katherine; 'you always read with Meg in your lap, when you have no mending to do; you have been six months braiding that frock.'

'Oh! that is company work,' said Elizabeth; 'I began it at Merton Hall for Dora, but I believe Winifred must have it now. But now it is so nearly done, that I shall finish while you are here.'

Elizabeth did not however long continue working, for as soon as tea was over she proposed to play at the game of Conglomeration, as she had talked of doing in the course of the walk. 'I give notice, however,' said she, 'that we are likely to laugh more than will suit the gravity of the elders, therefore I recommend adjourning to the inner drawing-room.—Mamma, may we have candles there?'

Consent was given, and while the candles were being brought, and Elizabeth was looking out some paper, Anne whispered to her brother, 'Rupert, pray say nothing about Fido, or the Mechanics' Institute, or something unpleasant will surely come of it.'

'Oh! Anne,' was the answer, 'you have robbed me of my best couplet—

Weeping like forsaken Dido,When she found the slaughtered Fido.

Where is the use of playing if there is to be no fun?'

''Where is the use of fun?' said the cockchafer to the boy who was spinning it,' said Anne.

'Impertinence, impertinence, impertinence,' said Rupert, shaking his head at her.

By this time all was ready, and Elizabeth called the brother and sister to take their places at the table in the inner drawing-room. She then wrote a substantive at the upper end of a long strip of paper, and folding it down, handed it on to Lucy, who also wrote a noun, turned it down, and gave the paper to Helen, who, after writing hers and hiding it, passed it on to Rupert. Thus the paper was handed round till it was filled. It was then unrolled, and each player was required to write a copy of verses in which these words were to be introduced as rhymes in the order in which they stood in the list. Rupert was rather put out by his sister's not allowing him to turn the poem in the way he wished, and he thought proper to find fault with half the words in the list.

'HARROGATE,' said he, 'what is to be done with such a word?'

'You can manage it very well if you choose,' said Elizabeth.

'But who could have thought of such a word?' said he, holding up the list to the candle, and scrutinizing the writing. 'Some one with a watery taste, doubtless.'

'You know those things are never divulged,' said Anne.

'FRANCES, too,' continued Rupert, 'there is another impossible case; I will answer for it, Helen wrote that, a reminiscence of dear Dykelands.'

'No, indeed I did not,' said Helen; 'it is FRANCIS, too, I believe.'

'Oh yes,' said Harriet, 'it is FRANCIS, I wrote it, because—do not you remember, Lucy?—Frank Hollis—'