Messrs. Helstone and Sykes began to be extremely and congratulatory with Mr. Moore when he returned to them after dismissing the deputation. He was so quiet, however, under their compliments upon his firmness, etc., and wore a so like a still, dark day, equally beamless and breezeless, that the rector, after glancing shrewdly into his eyes, buttoned up his felicitations with his coat, and said to Sykes, whose senses were not acute enough to enable him to discover unassisted where his presence and conversation were a nuisance, "Come, sir; your road and mine lie partly together. Had we not better bear each other company? We'll bid Moore good-morning, and leave him to the happy fancies he seems disposed to indulge."  
"And where is Sugden?" demanded Moore, looking up.
 
"Ah, ha!" cried Helstone. "I've not been quite idle while you were busy. I've been you a little; I flatter myself not injudiciously. I thought it better not to lose time; so, while you were parleying with that down-looking gentleman—Farren I think his name is—I opened this back window, shouted to Murgatroyd, who was in the stable, to bring Mr. Sykes's gig round; then I Sugden and brother Moses—wooden leg and all—through the , and saw them mount the gig (always with our good friend Sykes's permission, of course). Sugden took the reins—he drives like Jehu—and in another quarter of an hour Barraclough will be safe in Stilbro' jail."
 
"Very good; thank you," said Moore; "and good-morning, gentlemen," he added, and so politely conducted them to the door, and saw them clear of his .
 
He was a taciturn, serious man the rest of the day. He did not even bandy a with Joe Scott, who, for his part, said to his master only just what was absolutely126 necessary to the progress of business, but looked at him a good deal out of the corners of his eyes, frequently came to the counting-house fire for him, and once, as he was locking up for the day (the mill was then working short time, owing to the slackness of trade), observed that it was a grand evening, and he "could wish Mr. Moore to take a bit of a walk up th' Hollow. It would do him good."
 
At this recommendation Mr. Moore burst into a short laugh, and after demanding of Joe what all this meant, and whether he took him for a woman or a child, seized the keys from his hand, and shoved him by the shoulders out of his presence. He called him back, however, ere he had reached the yard-gate.
 
"Joe, do you know those Farrens? They are not well off, I suppose?"
 
"They cannot be well off, sir, when they've not had work as a three month. Ye'd see yoursel' 'at William's sorely changed—fair paired. They've selled most o' t' stuff out o' th' house."
 
"He was not a bad workman?"
 
"Ye never had a better, sir, sin' ye began trade."
 
"And decent people—the whole family?"
 
"Niver dacenter. Th' wife's a raight body, and as clean—ye mught eat your porridge off th' house floor. They're sorely comed down. I wish William could get a job as gardener or summat i' that way; he understands gardening weel. He once lived wi' a Scotchman that tached him the mysteries o' that craft, as they say."
 
"Now, then, you can go, Joe. You need not stand there staring at me."
 
"Ye've no orders to give, sir?"
 
"None, but for you to take yourself off."
 
Which Joe did accordingly.
 
Spring evenings are often cold and raw, and though this had been a fine day, warm even in the morning and sunshine, the air chilled at sunset, the ground crisped, and ere dusk a hoar frost was stealing over growing grass and unfolding bud. It whitened the pavement in front of Briarmains (Mr. Yorke's residence), and made silent among the tender plants in his garden, and on the mossy level of his lawn. As to that great tree, strong-trunked and broad-armed, which guarded the gable nearest the road, it seemed to defy a spring-night frost to harm its127 still bare ; and so did the leafless of walnut-trees rising tall behind the house.
 
In the dusk of the moonless if night, lights from windows shone . This was no dark or lonely scene, nor even a silent one. Briarmains stood near the highway. It was rather an old place, and had been built ere that highway was cut, and when a lane up through fields was the only path conducting to it. Briarfield lay scarce a mile off; its hum was heard, its glare distinctly seen. Briar , a large, new, raw Wesleyan place of worship, rose but a hundred yards distant; and as there 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 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 or two from different strains; for the singers passed from hymn to hymn and from to tune, with an ease and buoyancy all their own:—
 
"Oh! who can explain
This struggle for life,
This and pain,
This trembling and ?
Plague, earthquake, and famine,
And and war,
The wonderful coming
Of Jesus declare!
"For every fight
Is dreadful and loud:
The warrior's delight
Is and blood,
His overturning,
Till all shall expire:
And this is with burning,
And fuel, and fire!"
Here followed an of prayer, accompanied by fearful . 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 !
How unspeakably happy am I!128
Gathered into the fold,
With Thy people ,
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 love
That has to approve
And the work of my hands.
With my pastoral
I went over the ,
And I am spread into bands!
"Who, I ask in amaze,
Hath 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 which followed this, after another and longer interregnum of shouts, yells, ejaculations, cries, groans, seemed to cap the of noise and .
 
"Sleeping on the of sin,
Tophet to take us in;
Mercy to our rescue flew,
Broke the , and brought us through.
"Here, as in a lion's ,
Undevoured we still remain,
Pass secure the 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 .
 
But if Briar Chapel seemed alive, so also did Briarmains, though certainly the appeared to enjoy a quieter phase of existence than the temple. Some of its windows too were ; the lower opened upon the lawn; curtains the interior, and partly obscured the ray of the candles which lit it, but they did not the sound of voice and laughter. We are privileged to enter that front door, and to 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 of an evening. Those windows would be seen by daylight to be of brilliantly-stained glass, purple and the predominant , glittering round a gravely-tinted medallion in the centre of each, representing the head of William Shakespeare, and the 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- of Vesuvius; very it glows, contrasted with the cool and of , and the dusky depths of woods.
 
The fire this room, reader, is such as, if you be a southern, you do not often see burning on the 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 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, 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 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 , to be cheerful was to be .130 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 well, yet he was naturally a social, man, an advocate for family ; and in his youth, as has been said, he liked none but lively, cheerful women. Why he chose her, how they 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 in the whole of his wife's uniformly nature. For the rest, she was a strong-minded woman; never said a weak or a thing; took stern, democratic views of society, and rather 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, , 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, ; it its 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 head copied in ivory; all is 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 soul131 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 . 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 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 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 , arch, original even now; when provoked, but most affectionate if ; by turns gentle and ; , yet generous; fearless—of her mother, for instance, whose hard and strict rule she has often defied—yet reliant on any who will help her. Jessy, with her little face, engaging , 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 , the , the . Stone crosses like these are not to you, nor are these dim garlands of 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 and happy in Rose's arms, for Rose had been her stay and defence through many trials. The dying and the watching English girls were at132 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 . 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 in some region of the southern hemisphere. Will she ever come back?
 
The three 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 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 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 , 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 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, , 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 . 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 partiality—no rights of primogeniture are to be allowed in that house; but Matthew is never to be , never to be opposed; they from him as assiduously as they would avert fire from a barrel of . "Concede, conciliate," is their motto wherever he is concerned. The republicans are fast making a of their own flesh and blood. This the younger know and feel, and at heart they all rebel against the . They cannot read their parents' ; they only see the difference of treatment. The dragon's teeth are already sown amongst Mr. Yorke's young olive-branches; 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 , a somewhat heavy brow speaks temper, and reminds you that the smoothest waters are not always the safest. Besides, he is too still, unmoved, , 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 and . Enthusiasm will be his aversion and contempt. Mark will have no youth; while he looks and blooming, he will be already 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 it will certainly be brilliant. He will pass through all its illusions, half believe in them, wholly enjoy them, then outlive them. That boy is not handsome—not so handsome as either of his brothers. He is plain; there is a husk upon him, a dry shell, and he will wear it till he is near twenty, then he will put it off. About that period he will make himself handsome. He will wear manners till that age, perhaps garments; but the chrysalis will retain the power of transfiguring itself into the butterfly, and such transfiguration will, in due season, take place. For a space he will be vain, probably a downright puppy, eager for pleasure and desirous of , athirst, too, for knowledge. He will want all that the world can give him, both of and ; he will, perhaps, take deep at each fount. That thirst satisfied, what next? I know not. Martin might be a man. Whether he will or not, the seer is powerless to predict: on that subject there has been no open vision.
 
Take Mr. Yorke's family in the : there is as134 much mental power in those six young heads, as much , as much activity and of brain, as—divided amongst half a dozen commonplace broods—would give to each rather more than an average amount of sense and capacity. Mr. Yorke knows this, and is proud of his race. Yorkshire has such families here and there amongst her hills and wolds—, racy, vigorous; of good blood and strong brain; turbulent somewhat in the pride of their strength, and intractable in the force of their native powers; wanting polish, wanting consideration, wanting , but sound, spirited, and true-bred as the eagle on the cliff or the steed in the steppe.
 
A low tap is heard at the parlour door; the boys have been making such a noise over their game, and little Jessy, besides, has been singing so sweet a song to her father—who delights in Scotch and Italian songs, and has taught his musical little daughter some of the best—that the ring at the outer door was not observed.
 
"Come in," says Mrs. Yorke, in that and solemnized voice of hers, which ever itself to a of tone, though the subject it is exercised upon be but to give orders for the making of a pudding in the kitchen, to bid the boys hang up their caps in the hall, or to call the girls to their sewing—"come in!" And in came Robert Moore.
 
Moore's gravity, as well as his (for the case of spirit decanters is never ordered up when he pays an evening visit), has so far recommended him to Mrs. Yorke that she has not yet made him the subject of private animadversions with her husband; she has not yet found out that he is by a secret which prevents him from marrying, or that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing—discoveries which she made at an early date after marriage concerning most of her husband's bachelor friends, and excluded them from her board accordingly; which part of her conduct, indeed, might be said to have its just and sensible as well as its harsh side.
 
"Well, is it you?" she says to Mr. Moore, as he comes up to her and gives his hand. "What are you roving about at this time of night for? You should be at home."
 
"Can a single man be said to have a home, madam?" he asks.
 
"Pooh!" says Mrs. Yorke, who despises conventional smoothness quite as much as her husband does, and practises135 it as little, and whose plain speaking on all occasions is carried to a point calculated, sometimes, to admiration, but oftener alarm—"pooh! you need not talk nonsense to me; a single man can have a home if he likes. Pray, does not your sister make a home for you?"
 
"Not she," joined in Mr. Yorke. "Hortense is an honest lass. But when I was Robert's age I had five or six sisters, all as decent and proper as she is; but you see, Hesther, for all that it did not hinder me from looking out for a wife."
 
"And sorely he has marrying me," added Mrs. Yorke, who liked occasionally to crack a dry jest against matrimony, even though it should be at her own expense. "He has repented it in sackcloth and ashes, Robert Moore, as you may well believe when you see his punishment" (here she to her children). "Who would burden themselves with such a set of great, rough lads as those, if they could help it? It is not only bringing them into the world, though that is bad enough, but they are all to feed, to clothe, to rear, to settle in life. Young sir, when you feel to marry, think of our four sons and two daughters, and look twice before you leap."
 
"I am not tempted now, at any rate. I think these are not times for marrying or giving in marriage."
 
A sentiment of this sort was sure to obtain Mrs. Yorke's . She nodded and ; but in a minute she said, "I make little............