Wenderholme Part 39

A holiday had been given at the mill, and all the mill hands were to accompany the Shayton procession for two miles upon the road, after which they were to return to Shayton, and there make merry at Mr.

Ogden's expense. Most of the hands belonged to benefit clubs such as the Odd Fellows, the Druids, the Robin Hood, and so on; and they borrowed for the occasion the banners used in the solemnities of these societies, and their picturesque and fanciful costumes. These added immensely to the effect, and gave the procession a richness and a variety which it would otherwise have lacked.

The departure of the _cortege_ had been timed at the dinner-hour, when all the mills were loosed, so that the whole Shayton population might witness it. As it moved slowly along the streets, the crowd was as dense as if Royalty itself had made a progress through the town. Mrs.

Ogden repeatedly recognized acquaintances in the crowd, and bowed and smiled most graciously from her carriage-window--indeed a queen could hardly have looked more radiant or more gracious. Seeing her good-humor, Jacob ventured to inform her that she was "sitting in her own carriage."

"Sitting in my own cayridge! Well, then, stop th' horses, for I s'll get out."

"Nay, nay, mother, you munnut do so--you munnut do so. You'll stop o'

th' procession. There's no stoppin' now. It's too latt for stoppin'."

"Well, if I'd known I'd never a coom! What is th' folk sayin', thinken ye? Why, they're o' sayin,' one to another, 'There's Mistress Ogden in her new cayridge, an' who's as fain[25] as fain.'"

"Well, mother, and what if they do say so? What means it?"

"Draw them there blinds down."

"Nay, but I willn't. We aren't goin' to a funeral."

After a while Mrs. Ogden began to look at the nice blue lining of her carriage somewhat more approvingly. At last she said, "Jacob, I'n never thanked thee. Thank ye, Jacob--thank ye. I shalln't live to use it for long, but it'll do for little Jacob wife at afther."

When Mrs. Ogden had made this little speech, her son knew that the carriage difficulty was at an end, and indeed she never afterwards evinced any repugnance to entering that very handsome and comfortable vehicle.

The procession moved at a walking pace for the first two miles, on account of the people on foot. When these, however, had returned in the direction of Shayton, the speed was somewhat increased, though, as the road steadily ascended till it reached the Yorks.h.i.+re border, the horses could not go very fast. The road, too, being quite new, the macadam was rather rough, though Jacob Ogden had sent a heavy iron roller, drawn by fourteen powerful horses, from one end to the other.

The weather could not possibly have been more favorable, and it would be difficult to imagine a more cheerful and exhilarating route. There had been a slight frost during the night, and the air of the high moorland was deliciously fresh and pure. The startled grouse frequently whirred over the heads of the hors.e.m.e.n, and made not a few of them regret the absence of their fowling-pieces, and the present necessity for marching in military order. The view became gradually more and more extensive, till at length, on approaching the border, a splendid prospect was visible on both sides, stretching in Lancas.h.i.+re far beyond Shayton to the level land near Manchester--and in Yorks.h.i.+re, beyond Wenderholme and Rigton to the hills near Stanithburn Peel. A landmark had been erected on the border, and as the Shayton procession approached it, the body of hors.e.m.e.n from Wenderholme were seen approaching it from the other side.

It had been arranged that they should meet at the stone.

When both processions had stopped, the Wenderholme agent came and presented an address to Mrs. Ogden, which he read in a loud voice, and then handed to her in the carriage. She was graciously pleased to say a few words in reply, which were not audible to the people about. This ceremony being over, the combined procession formed itself in order of march, and began to descend the long slope towards Wenderholme.

The road entered the village, and therefore did not go quite directly to the Hall. As it had been Jacob Ogden's intention from the first to play the part of Public Benefactor in this matter, he guarded the privacy of his mansion.

At the entrance of the village there was a triumphal arch made of heather and evergreens, and decorated with festoons of colored calico.

Here the procession paused a second time, whilst the villagers came to make their little offering to Mrs. Ogden.

The lord of Wenderholme was both surprised and offended by the absence of Mr. Prigley. "I'll make him pay for't," he thought, "if he wants out[26] doin' at his church, or any subscriptions, or the like o' that"

Indeed, the absence of Mr. Prigley was the more surprising that it was contrary to the traditions of his caste, usually sufficiently ready to do honor to the powers that be.

Also, Jacob Ogden thought that the church bells might have rung for him.

But they didn't ring. A hostile Prigley or Stanburne influence was apparent there also. It was irritating to have the great triumph marred by this pitiful ecclesiastical opposition. "He shall rue it," said Jacob, inwardly--"he shall rue it!"

A table had been set in the middle of Wenderholme green, and on this table was a large and ma.s.sive silver inkstand, and in the inkstand a gold pen with a jewelled penholder. Here Jacob Ogden descended from his carriage, and, surrounded by all the chief personages in the procession, sat down under a spreading oak, and signed the deed of gift by which the road from Shayton to Wenderholme was transferred in trust to the Shayton magistrates and their successors for ever and ever.

The inkstand bore an inscription, and was formally presented to Mr.

Ogden. And a great shout rose--all John Stanburne's former tenants distinguis.h.i.+ng themselves in the "hip, hip," &c.

After that the procession entered Wenderholme Park, and Mrs. Ogden descended at the grand entrance, and moved across the hall, and up the tapestried staircase.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE "BLOW-OUT."

The reader is not to suppose, from the parsimony which marked the habitual life of Jacob Ogden and his mother, that when they had made up their minds to what they called a "blow-out," there would be any meanness or littleness in their proceedings. Under all circ.u.mstances they acted with clear minds, knowing what they were doing; and when they resolved to be extravagant, they _were_ extravagant. The fine principle of that grand and really moral motto, "_Pecca fort.i.ter_," was thoroughly understood and consistently acted upon by the man who had won Wenderholme by his industry and thrift. When he sinned, there was no weak compromise with conscience--he did it manfully and boldly, and no mistake. He never "muddled away" a sovereign, but his triumph cost him many a hundred sovereigns, and he knew beforehand precisely what he was going to spend. When it was all over he would pay the piper, and lock up his cash-box again, and return to his old careful ways.

The Ogdens did not receive many visitors at Milend, and yet they had rather an extensive acquaintance amongst people of their own cla.s.s--rich people belonging to trade, and living in the great manufacturing towns.

And to this festivity they had invited everybody they knew. The house of Wenderholme, large as it was, was filled with Jacob Ogden's guests, and his mother did the honors with a homely but genuine hospitality, which made everybody feel kindly disposed to her; and though they could not help laughing a little at her now and then, they did it without malice.

The reader will remember that, from a sort of pride which distinguished her, she had refrained from visiting Wenderholme until the completion of the new road; and as the chariot of the Olympic victor entered his city by a breach in the wall, so Mrs. Ogden's carriage came to Wenderholme by a route which no carriage had ever before traversed. It would have been better, however, in some respects, if the good lady had familiarized herself a little with the splendors of Wenderholme before she undertook to receive so many guests therein, for it was quite foreign to the frankness of her nature to act the _nil admirari_. Thus, on entering the magnificent drawing-room, where many guests were already a.s.sembled, she behaved exactly as she had done when, during a visit to Buxton, some friends had taken her to see Chatsworth.

"Well!" she exclaimed, lifting up both her hands, "this _is_ a grand room!" Nor was she contented with this simple exclamation, but she went on examining and exclaiming, and walked all round, and lifted up the curtains, and the heavy ta.s.sels of their cords, and touched the tapestry on the chairs, and, in a word, quite forgot her dignity of hostess in the novelty of the things about her.

"Those curtains must have cost thirty s.h.i.+llings a-yard!" she said, appealing to the judgment of the elder ladies present, "and the stuff's narrow beside."

Impressions of splendor depend very much upon contrast, so that Wenderholme seemed very astonis.h.i.+ng to a person coming directly from Milend. But such impressions are soon obliterated by habit, and in a week Mrs. Ogden will have lost the "fresh eye," to which she owes her present sense of enchantment. How long would it take to get accustomed to Blenheim, or Castle Howard, or Compiegne? Would it take a fortnight?

However, Mrs. Ogden had the advantage of a far fresher eye than _nous autres_, who are so accustomed to gilding and glitter in public _cafes_ and picture-galleries, that we are all, as it were, princes, insensible to impressions of splendor.

All that Mrs. Ogden said upon that memorable day it would be tedious to relate. She thought aloud, and the burden of her thoughts, their ever-recurring refrain, was her sense of the grandeur that surrounded her. Jacob Ogden had bought a good deal of Colonel Stanburne's fine old silver plate, and this formed the main subject of Mrs. Ogden's conversation during dinner. "I think our Jacob's gone fair mad with pride," she said to all the company, and in the hearing of the attentive servants, "for we'd plenty of silver at Milend--quite plenty for any one; we've all my uncle Adam's silver spoons, and my aunt Alice's, and plenty of silver candlesticks, and a tea-service--and I cannot tell what our Jacob would be at." Then she added, with serene complacency, "However, it's all paid for."

She had not the art of avoiding a topic likely to be disagreeable either to herself or anybody else, but would make other folks uncomfortable, and torture her own mind by dwelling upon their sores and her own. I don't think that in this she was altogether wrong, or that the most delicate people are altogether right in doing exactly the contrary, for it is as well to grasp nettles with a certain hardihood; but she carried a respectable sort of courage to a very unnecessary excess. Thus, when she had done about the silver and the general extravagance of "our Jacob," the next topic she found to talk about was the absence of Mr.

and Mrs. Prigley. She launched forth into a catalogue of all the benefits wherewith she had overwhelmed Mrs. Prigley in the days of her poverty at Shayton, and represented that lady as a monster of ingrat.i.tude. "Why, they were so poor," Mrs. Ogden said, "that they couldn't even afford carpets to their floors; but now that they're better off in the world, they turn their backs on those that helped them. We were always helping them, and making them presents." Every one saw that the Ogdens were dreadfully sore about the absence of the vicar and his wife, and it was not very good policy on Mrs. Ogden's part to draw attention to it in that way; for a parson, though ornamental, is not absolutely indispensable to a good dinner, and they might have got on very well without one.

The dinner was served in the great hall at five o'clock, and few of the guests, as they sat at the feast, could help lifting their eyes to the wainscot, and the frescoes, and the great armorial ceiling--few could help thinking of the Colonel. No one present, however, was in such a conflicting and contradictory state of mind as young Jacob, nor was any one so thoroughly miserable. The whole triumph had disgusted him from beginning to end, and he was not in a humor to be either charitable or indulgent, or to see things on their amusing side. Ever since that last interview with Edith, he had been moody and misanthropical, accepting the position his uncle had made for him, but accepting it without one ray of pleasure. Such a condition of mind, if prolonged for several years, would end by making a man horribly cynical and sour, and probably drive him to take refuge in the lowest pleasures and the lowest aims.

When the bark of love is wrecked, and the n.o.ble ambition of work and independence lies feeble and half dead, and we allow others to arrange all our life for us, what is the use of being young? what is the use of having health and riches, and all sorts of fine prospects and advantages?

When the banquet was over, the company returned to the drawing-room, and young Jacob began to think that Sally Smethurst was the nicest-looking young person there. His uncle was pleased to observe his polite attentions to the young lady, and, taking him aside, said, "That's reet, lad--that's reet; ax 'er to dance, and when you've been dancin' a good bit, ax her summat elz. You'll never have such another chance. She's quite fresh to this place, and she never saw out like Wendrum 'All; she's just been tellin' my mother what a rare fine place it is."

"Well," thought young Jacob to himself, "as I cannot have Edith, why not please my uncle and my grandmother? Sally Smethurst is a nice honest-looking young woman, and I daresay she'd make a very good sort of wife." The male nature is so const.i.tuted that, when not firmly anch.o.r.ed in some strong attachment, it easily drifts away on the _fleuve du tendre_, and this poor youth had been cut away from his moorings. What wonder, then, if he drifted?

Sally thought him very nice, and handsome, and kind, and she promised to dance with him most willingly. The dining-room had been prepared for dancing, and it answered the purpose all the better as there was a dais at one end of the room which afforded at once a safe retreat and a convenient position for spectators, whilst at the other was a gallery for musicians, now occupied by an excellent band of stringed instruments from Manchester. In short, the dining-room at Wenderholme had been arranged strictly on the principle of the old baronial hall. The gallery was supported by fantastic pillars of carved oak, and decorated with gigantic antlers which had been given to Colonel Stanburne by a friend of his, a mighty hunter in South Africa.

The ball went on with great spirit till after midnight, when supper was served in the long gallery. Even Mrs. Ogden, old as she was, had danced, and danced well too, to the astonishment of the spectators. The host himself had performed, though his proficiency might be questioned.

What with the dancing, and the negus, and the champagne, and the splendors of the n.o.ble house, and the flattery of so many guests, and the obsequious service of so many attendants, and the sense of their own greatness and success, not only Jacob Ogden, senior, but all the Ogdens, were a little elevated that night. Young Jacob did not escape this infection--at his age, how could he?--and having taken Miss Smethurst up the grand staircase to supper, rapidly approached that point which his uncle desired him to attain.

Amidst the noise of the talk around him, the lad went further and further. He talked about Wenderholme already almost as if it were his own, and forgot, for the time, his old friend the Colonel and his misfortunes in an exulting sense of his own highly promising position.

"He intended to live at Wenderholme a good deal," he said, and then asked Miss Smethurst whether _she_ would like to live at Wenderholme.

But he did not hear her answer. A figure like a ghost, with pale, sad, resolute face, approached silently, moving from the darker end of the long gallery into the blaze of light about the supper-table.

It was Mr. Prigley.

The master of the house saw him, too, and as he approached said aloud, and not very politely,--

"Better late than never, parson; come and sit down next to my mother and get your supper."

But Mr. Prigley still remained standing. However, he approached the table. Still he would not sit down.