from not having had presence of mind to evade Waldie’s vehement desire that the children should have a ride.—Her mistress gave her a few directions, which she hastened into the house to execute, and Letitia, after giving the servants a charge to take the children into the nursery and keep them there, repaired to her sister. She found Maria lying across the bed, groaning in heart-breaking grief.
“Sister!” said she, gently, after watching silently beside her for a few moments—“Sister, your husband wants you. He is ill, fearfully ill; and who should tend him but you?—Nay; why this despair? A brain fever...all may be well...”
“Letitia; do not deceive me. It is mockery to attempt it.”
“Maria, if I wished to deceive you, I dare not. What I have done will prove this. Thérèse is packing up, and I am going in half an hour. It grieves me to leave you; but I must go.”
“O yes, yes; you must go.”
At this moment, there was a tremendous knocking at the room door, which was luckily fastened. It was Waldie, still calling upon Letitia, who would not answer. Maria dared not. The knocking went on till there seemed some probability of the door giving way, when, perhaps from having his attention diverted by the servants, the madman quitted his object, and ran down stairs.
“Yes, yes: you must go,” repeated Maria, bitterly.
Letitia could forgive the tone in which this was spoken.
“Listen, Maria, what you must do. Command yourself, and go and tell the butler that his master has a brain-fever, and desire him not to quit your husband’s side but at your bidding. Have the children kept away, and, if possible, stay with your husband, looking and speaking like yourself, till some one comes to relieve you of your charge. I will immediately send proper advice and help from town.—Farewell, sister. I shall not come again till you send for me. As soon as I can be of any comfort, send. My husband will wish it.”
“But Waldie will insist on going with you. He will never let you drive off. He will...”
“All this is provided against. I can plead an errand near the turnpike, and shall go out with Thérèse by the little shrubbery gate. The carriage will overtake us. Do not detain me. Farewell.”
Letitia said nothing about removing the children. She thought that if, as was probable, Waldie’s state should prove such as to render Maria’s presence improper, her children would be her best comfort.—In a few minutes, Maria saw, but diverted her husband from seeing, Letitia and Thérèse hastening from the back of the house through the shrubbery, and disappearing down the road. It was with a strange mixture of bitter and yearning feelings that the unhappy wife witnessed such a conclusion as this of a visit which had been planned and endured for her sake.
There was ample time in after years for the sisters to explain, and forgive, and renew the confidence which had been unshaken till this day.
Waldie was never more an impediment to their intercourse. He was kept under close restraint from the hour after Letitia’s departure, when he insisted on searching every corner of the house for her, and was frantic at having sought in vain, up to the moment when, after years, first of madness and then of imbecility, death released himself and his friends from the burden of his existence.
More than once Maria tremblingly asked the confidential physician whether her sister’s presence was likely to be of any service; and almost rejoiced to be answered with a decided negative.
It was perfectly true that Waldie had become, as is commonly said, as rich as Crœsus. But what to Maria was all the splendour in which she might have henceforth lived, if she had so chosen? What to her was the trebling of the fortunes of her children? As a compensation for the love which had been disappointed, the domestic hopes which had been rudely overthrown, these things were nothing, though there were some in the world who called them prosperity.
-------------- CHAPTER IX.
EACH FOR ALL.
Lady F—— remained a few hours in London to learn the physician’s opinion of Waldie’s state, and to give notice at home of her approach. She had no rest, in town or on the road, from the visions which haunted her of what she had lately seen. Waldie’s countenance of fierce glee was for ever before her; his raised voice startled her imagination perpetually.
She had no repose till her husband met her some miles from Weston, suffered her to alight at the park-gates, and invited her to wander with him to the ruin, and through the autumnal woods, to her beloved seat beside the stream that fed the lake. Refreshed and composed, she joined her guests at the dinner table, and was warmly welcomed back again: not the less so for no one but the earl and lady Frances having an idea what had caused her absence. All were ready with that delicate homage which may be supposed to have been as gratifying in its way to Letitia as it is to many who relish a grosser flattery than she would ever endure. All were ready with tidings of her protegés, from pheasants to men and women. One could assure her that a very favourite plant had not suffered from the frosts of the night after she left Weston. Another had tasted the cream of her dairy; a third admired her bantams; a fourth amused himself with Nanny White; a fifth conversed with the old sexton; and lady Frances herself condescended to hope that that good girl, Thérèse, had not been left behind in London. She was such a treasure! Thereby hung a confession, afterwards given in private, that Philips was really very much spoiled, and becoming a great trouble. Her manners were anything but improved, to say nothing of her temper. Miss Falconbridge, whom she knew to be as intimate as a sister with lady Frances, had taken a fancy to lady Frances’s style of hair; and as the easiest way of gratifying her, lady Frances had ordered Philips to dress Miss Falconbridge’s hair the day before; whereupon Philips sent word through Miss Falconbridge’s maid that she must beg to decline the honour! Lady Frances had insisted, and her maid in some sort obeyed: but never was anything seen so absurd as the young lady’s head. What was lady Frances to do? To part with Philips was altogether impossible; and to bear with her now was scarcely less so. Letitia could not answer for what she should do if compelled to retain such a person as Philips: she could only appeal to her own management of Thérèse as a proof of how easy a matter it is to make a valuable friend out of a hired attendant.
“O yes! by taking the trouble of educating her, no doubt. But that is a task I could not submit to. That reminds me—how does Thérèse get on with politics? I remember her one day, so eloquent about the revolution her father remembers, and the prospect of another revolution, and the glory of having seen Lafayette.”
“She knows more than she would probably have learned in the very heart of Paris. She has left off assuring me that all the kings of France have been royalists.”
“I suppose it is for the sake of keeping her innocent of some things which lady’s maids learn soon enough that you let her read and talk politics as she does?”
“Partly; and partly with a more direct view to my own interest. It will be of very great consequence to me that she should be, not only pure in her conduct, but well educated up to as high a point as I can carry her.”
“Ah! you mean for the sake of your little heir. I see Thérèse is as busy about the preparations as if she had taken her office upon her already.
But you began your care of Thérèse from the day you knew her, she tells me.”
“I did; and so I should do still, if there were no heir in prospect.
Should I be justified, think you, in placing any one where I myself order the circumstances which are to form her character, and at the same time neglecting to order those circumstances well?—It is perfectly true that, in engaging servants, we undertake a great task. In the case of Thérèse, however, the task has been all pleasure.”
“Well, for your reward, I suppose you will keep her always. You will not let her marry, I conclude; or, if she marries, will insist on her remaining with you. It would be too hard to lose all your pains.”
“Whenever Thérèse loves,—and I think I can trust her to commit no folly with that sound heart of hers,—she shall marry; and she shall enter upon her new state as I entered upon mine, with the view of being all and doing all for society of which that state admits. This may best be done by being wholly her husband’s, and a fixture in his home. I shall surrender my part in her on her marriage day.”
“By which, I suppose, you hope to retain at least half her heart, if none of her services. But, my dear, what a prospect for you!”
“A goodly prospect indeed, either way. Either a friend at hand, and a fit guardian of my children in my absence; or a successful experiment in happiness-making, ever before my eyes. I hope ever to rejoice in Thérèse.”
Lady Frances sighed, and began to ponder whether, even if she could learn to live without Philips, she could make to herself a maid in whom she might rejoice.
Not only from her husband did Letitia learn how welcome she was back to Weston. The days of her absence had passed like other days, when people who prefer the town, and whose lives are formed for that destination, are thrown together in the country. There were means of enjoyment in abundance; but not of a kind to be permanently relished by those before whom they lay. Letitia’s music was wanted in the evenings; Letitia’s conversation, artless and sprightly as a girl’s, rich as a matured woman’s, and entertaining enough to suit everybody, was sighed for at table, and when it rained, and especially when the ladies were called upon to amuse each other in the absence of the gentlemen. It was only on rare occasions, however, that she relinquished her privilege of reserving several hours of the morning for herself and her husband. On one desperately rainy day, she was found ready for chess or music before dinner; and at another time, when all the gentlemen were absent for the whole day at a political meeting in the neighbouring city, she did not leave her guests at all. But these occasions were rare. On the last-mentioned one, she had some view to her own interest as well as that of her guests. Lord F—— meant to speak at the meeting; his speech must, from his office, be one of the most important of the day; and he was doubtful both how he should acquit himself, and how that which he had to say would be received. Letitia was, of course, far from being at ease, and was glad to conceal, and to carry off some of her anxiety at the same time by being “on hospitable thoughts intent.” It was the last day of the last of her visiters; the gentlemen having waited only for this meeting. Their carriages were ordered for the next morning, and they did not return till late at night.
They were nearly as eloquent in describing the effect of lord F——’s speech, as, by their account, had been the speech itself.—One swore by his soul that it was the most good-natured sort of thing he had ever heard in his life: another, that the government and the government candidate ought to feel themselves much obliged to him; another, that lord F——’s constituents would be more proud of him than ever; another, an M.P., a representative of the commercial interest, that lord F—— had enlightened the people not a little on the question when low profits were harmless, and when bad things, and why; and all, with the earl among them, that this day might prove the beginning of a new era in lord F——’s public life. He would now have as potent a voice out of the house as his friends had ever hoped he would in time have in it.
“How happens all this, Henry?” asked Letitia, aside, with a glowing smile. “You gave me no expectation of anything like this.”
“Because I had none myself. The charm lay in the burden which I adopted from our neighbours down in the village;—‘for each and for all.’”
“I see; I understand. Now leave the rest till you can give it me all in order.”
It was accordingly given, all in order, when the last carriage had driven off, the next morning, and Henry and Letitia shut themselves into the library, to enjoy the uninterruptedness of the first fall of snow.
This was no day for the approach of deputations, for the visits of clergyman, lawyer, lady callers, gentleman loungers, or even petitioners from the village. The guests had been urged to stay for finer weather; but, as peremptory in their plans as people of real business, provided change of place is the object, they could on no account delay an hour; and, to be sure, the snow signified little to any but the postilions and the horses.
“Well, now, the speech, the speech!” cried Letitia.
“I told the people that nobody doubts that changes are wanted, in order to remedy the evils so large a portion of society is justly complaining of; and that the thing needed is a wider agreement as to what those changes must be, and therefore a sounder and more general knowledge of the causes of existing evils. I led them, as an instance, into the consideration of the common complaint of low profits and low wages, and showed them, I hope, that proportional wages are much higher at present than some complainers suppose; the fact being lost sight of from the enormous increase of those among whom the wages-fund is divided. However little each labourer may, from this cause, obtain for his own share, the division of produce between capitalist and labourer,—that is, the proportion of profits and wages, is more equable than is supposed by capitalists who complain of their low profits, and labourers of their low wages. Neither of them will gain by demanding a larger share of the other, which neither can afford. They must look elsewhere for a remedy; and I directed them where to look by giving them the example of Holland and its commercial vicissitudes.”
“Rich to overflowing in the fifteenth century; since, well nigh ruined.
How was this? From too much capital leaving the country?”
“From the causes which led to such transfer of capital. While Holland was accumulating its wealth, profits were first high, and then gradually lowered in proportion to wages, though still increasing in total amount.
It was not till heavy taxation reduced the rate of profits below that of other countries...”
“But does not taxation affect wages too?”
“Assuredly; but the labourer uses fewer commodities than the capitalist, and therefore there is a limit to the labourer’s taxation, beyond which taxes must fall on profits, and reduce them as effectually as a deterioration of the land could do. Well; this being the case in Holland, more than in the neighbouring countries, Dutch capital flowed into those countries; and the Dutch have engaged largely in the carrying trade, in foreign funds, and in loans to the merchants of other countries, because all this capital could be less advantageously employed at home. No country need or ought to come to such a pass as this; for, where there is an economical government, taxation may be a trifle compared with what it was in Holland after the wars of the Republic; and where there is a liberal commercial system,—that is, no unnecessary check upon the supply of food, accumulation may proceed to an undefinable extent without an injurious fall of wages and profits.
Thus may the cultivation of poor soils be rendered needless, the consequent rise of rent be checked, and the fall of profits and wages obviated.”
“What we want then is, a regulation of the supply of the labour-market, a lightening of taxation, and a liberal commercial system. But, Henry, where is the eloquence of all this?—that which is commonly called eloquence? It seems to me more like a lecture than a speech.”
“And so it was; but these are days when, to the people, naked truth is the best eloquence. They are sufferers; they look for a way out of their sufferings; and the plainest way is to them the fairest. However, I said to them much that there is no need to say to you,—because you know it already,—of my views of what the spirit of society ought to be, in contrast with what it is. I enlarged,—whether eloquently I know not,—but I am sure fervently,—as fervently as ever any advocate of co-operation spoke,—on the rule ‘for each and for all;’ showing that there is actual co-operation wherever individual interests are righteously pursued, since the general interest is made up of individual interests. I showed that justice requires the individual appropriation of the fruits of individual effort; that is, the maintenance of the institution of property; and that producers do as much for all, as well as for each, by carrying their produce to market themselves, as by casting it into a common stock.”
“For instance, that A. does as great a public service by bringing a hundred hats to exchange for tables and stockings, and whatever else he may happen to want, as B. by letting the exchange be conducted as an affair of partnership.”
“Yes. Let people have partnerships as large as they like, and make savings thereby, if they find they can. But let them beware of the notion that any competition but the struggle for food is the cause of hardship; and that struggle must take place under both systems, unless the same means are used by both to prevent it. As for the question of time, the struggle will take place soonest under that system which affords the least stimulus to productive industry. “And, now, love, you have the pith of my speech, except of those best parts which you have many a time rehearsed to me, and I to you. Of the ‘hear, hears,’ and clappings, you learned enough last night.”
“I wish I could have been there,” sighed the wife.
“So do I. Well as you know the aspect of an attentive crowd, you can have little idea of the stimulating excitement of political meetings just now.”
“I can imagine it. The true romance of human life lies among the poorer classes; the most rapid vicissitudes, the strongest passions, the most undiluted emotions, the most eloquent deportment, the truest experience are there. These things are marked on their countenances, and displayed by their gestures; and yet these things are almost untouched by our artists; be they dramatists, painters, or novelists. The richest know best what is meant by the monotony of existence, however little this may appear to their poor neighbours who see them driving about as if life depended on their speed, and traversing kingdoms and continents. Yet from the upper and middling classes are the fine arts mainly furnished with their subjects. This is wrong; for life in its reality cannot become known by hearsay; and by hearsay only is there any notion of it among those who feel themselves set above its struggles and its toils: that is, by the greater part of the aristocracy.”
“Thank heaven! not by you or me,” replied her husband. “An uninformed observer might think that there is monotony before us at present, sitting as we are, watching the snow-flakes fall with the few leaves which had lingered aloft till now,—with weeks of retirement in prospect, and nothing apparent to wish or work for. Yet you have had enough, love, of struggle and toil to know what real life is; and I have, of late, begun to learn the same lesson. No fear of monotony for us!”
“No fear; since there are all to live for as well as each, and each other. But, Henry, how is it that there is so little made known where it most wants to be known, of what real life is when trained by that best of educations, vicissitude?”
“Because our painters of life do not take into the account,—in fact know little of,—some of the most important circumstances which constitute life, in the best sense of the word. They lay hold of the great circumstances which happen to all, the landmarks of universal human existence, and overlook those which are not less interesting, though not universal. They take Love; and think it more becoming to describe a Letitia going to the altar with a lord F——, than a weaver and his thoughtful bride taking possession of their two rooms, after long waiting and anxiety. They take Bereavement; and think it the same thing whether they describe the manly grief of an Ormond for his gallant Ossory, or the silent woe of a poverty-stricken widow for her laborious and dutiful son. They take Birth; and would rather have a lady F—— bending over the infant heir of a lordly house, with a Thérèse in waiting...(My dear, why not describe that which shall be as well as that which has been?)—a lady F—— and her infant, I say, than some rustic Mary holding up her boy to smile in father’s face when he comes home from the plough. There is no harm in all this, provided the mighty remainder is not overlooked, which is at the bottom of the most portentous heavings of society,—which explains all that is to many unaccountable in the doings of the world they live in. If the aristocracy cannot, by their own experience, get to know all that life is,—though they are born, love, marry, suffer, enjoy, and die, let some idea be given them of it by true images held up in the mirror of their studies.”
“Yes; let humble life be shown to them in all its strong and strange varieties; not only in faithful butlers and housekeepers,—in pretty dairy-maids and gossiping barbers. Let us have in books, in pictures, and on the stage, working men and women, in the various periods of their struggles through life. In the meanwhile, these people should in fairness know that the aristocracy are less aware than is supposed,—less than they will be,—of what is being done and suffered on each side of their smooth and dull path.”
“Let the artists be compassionately considered too, I pray,” said lord F——, smiling. “Granting all that can be urged about their limiting their choice of objects, let us be considerate till they have placed themselves at large. What, for instance, could a weaver of fiction make of our present life?”
“Nothing of a story; only a picture; there being, as you said just now, apparent monotony without, and deep stirrings within. Such a writer, if wishing to make a narrative, must take either my former life,—its perplexities, its poverty, its struggles under its first publicity, its labours, its love, and migration into a new state;—or your future one,—the statesman’s honourable toils, joined with the patriot’s conflicts and consolations.”
“But if there was good reason for taking up precisely the interval,—from our marriage till this hour;—what then?”
“Then writer and readers must be contented with little narrative; contented to know what passes within us, since so little happens to us.
Would there be nothing to instruct and gratify in pictures of our position, in revelations of our hearts, and records of our conversations?”
“Let us comfort ourselves, Letitia, with deciding that it must be the fault of the recorder if there were not.”
-------------- _Summary of Principles illustrated in this volume._ The produce of labour and capital, after rent has been paid, is divided between the labourer and the capitalist, under the names of Wages and Profits.
Where there are two shares, each determines the other, provided they press equally upon one another.
The increase of the supply of labour, claiming reward, makes the pressure in the present case unequal, and renders wages the regulator of profits.
The restriction of the supply of food causes the fall of both profits and wages.
The increased expense of raising food enhances its price: labour, both agricultural and manufacturing, becomes dearer, (without advantage to the labourer:) this rise of wages causes profits to fall; and this fall brings after it a reduction of the labourer’s share, or a fall of wages.
The fall of profits and wages is thus referrible to the same cause which raises rent;—to an inequality in the fertility of soils.
It is supposed by some that these tendencies to the fall of wages and profits may be counteracted by abolishing the distinctions of shares, and casting the whole produce of land, capital, and labour, into a common stock. But this is a fallacy.
For, whatever may be the saving effected by an extensive partnership, such partnership does not affect the natural laws by which population increases faster than capital. The diminution of the returns to capital must occasion poverty to a multiplying society, whether those returns are appropriated by individuals under the competitive system, or equally distributed among the members of a co-operative community.
The same checks to the deterioration of the resources of society are necessary under each system.
These are, (in addition to the agricultural improvements continually taking place,)— 1. The due limitation of the number of consumers.
2. The lightening of the public burdens, which at present abstract a large proportion of profits and wages.
3. A liberal commercial system which shall obviate the necessity of bringing poor soils into cultivation.
London: Printed by W. CLOWES, Stamford-street.
FRENCH WINES AND POLITICS.
=A Tale.= BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.
-------------- LONDON: CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
--- 833.
CONTENTS.
--- FRENCH WINES AND POLITICS.
1. Vine Growing 1 2. Signs of the Time 9 3. The Temper of the Time 29 4. Deeds of the Time 50 5. The Philosophy of Bargaining 72 6. New Devices 82 7. Mob Sovereignty 99 8. Upshot of Feudalism 122 9. Adjustment 134 FRENCH WINES AND POLITICS.
CHAPTER I.
VINE-GROWING.
It was on a glorious afternoon in July, 1788, that an Englishman, named Steele, landed on the banks of the Garonne, a few miles south of Bordeaux, whence he had come up in a boat on an excursion of part business, part pleasure. Steele was settled as a factor at Bordeaux, and his business was to purchase wines from the growers, and ship them to his employers in England. His occupation had brought him acquainted with almost every vine-grower within fifty leagues of Bordeaux; and in the case of one of these, Antoine Luyon, the acquaintance had ripened into a friendship. Antoine was part owner of some vineyards on the western bank of the Garonne, one of which produced claret of a singularly fine quality,—too good to command an advantageous sale at Paris, where second and third-rate wines are in nearly equal esteem with the first. The produce of this small and rich vineyard was therefore set apart for English sale, and had been bargained for by the house which Steele represented, and the terms agreed upon for the vintage of the five next seasons. Other vineyards belonging to the same parties touched upon this peculiarly favoured one; but not all the care and pains that could be taken availed to make their produce better than second or third-rate.
Their aspect was a little more to the east and less to the south; they were not so perfectly sheltered behind; and no art could temper their soil to the exact point of perfection enjoyed by La Haute Favorite, as this distinguished vineyard was called. Their produce was, however, as valuable as that of most of the estates around, and was in good esteem at Paris, where Antoine’s partner, his brother Charles, was settled as a wine-merchant; and where he bestowed as much pains on the maturing of the stock in his cellars as Antoine did on its first ripening in the form of grapes, or their friend Steele on the processes of fining, racking, and mixing, which were carried on at his employers’ depôt at Bordeaux. Much care and skill were required in all these departments of business; and the young men were exemplary in both, pursuing their occupation as a matter of taste as well as of necessity. Steele watched the thermometer in his cellars as carefully as Antoine observed winds and clouds; and their common interest in the welfare of Favorite quickened their friendship, in one way among many, by occasioning more frequent meetings than they would otherwise have thought practicable.
Many a trip to Bordeaux did Antoine contrive to ascertain the effects of heat or cold on the wines in their third or fourth season; or to give the alarm if he heard rumours of buildings being pulled down or erected so near the premises as to have any influence over the temperature within: and during the summer, Steele was wont to go up the river on Saturdays, and spend the Sunday with his friend Antoine for the avowed purpose of paying his devoirs to La Favorite.—There was much to tempt him to these excursions, if wine had made no part of his interest, for a fairer territory than that through which the Garonne held its course was seldom seen. There were harvests of a more picturesque growth than even those which embellished the vineyards. Interspersed with the meadows which sloped down to the river, were groves of olives and forests of chestnuts, and in due season, the almond trees put forth their pink blossoms amidst the dark shadows of the evergreen woods. Boats heavily laden with the merchandise of the Levant, brought hither by means of the grand Languedoc canal, passed down the blue and brimming river, or returned, borne rapidly on the tide, and empty of all but the boatmen in their red jackets, whose snatches of song reached the shore on the fragrant breeze. The cottages of the peasantry were indeed few, and comfortless in appearance; but the chateaux of the gentry arose here and there, not half buried in woods, like English mansions, but conspicuous on terraces, and rendered in some degree imposing by the appliances of art, which did not, however, in the eye of the Englishman, compensate for the natural attractions which a fine taste would have gathered round them. Even stone balustrades and fountains, and artificial terraces, however, as long as they were intermixed with corn-fields and olive groves, had charms for one whose residence was commonly in the city; and in process of time, he began to contemplate the chateau of the marquis de Thou, which commanded the vicinity of Antoine’s residence, with something of the admiration, though with nothing of the awe, with which it was regarded by the peasantry round.
Whether this admiration was increased or lessened by the glimpses he occasionally obtained of its inhabitants, he could himself have hardly determined. The first time he saw the marquis he was moved to laughter; but then the marquis was alone (except the laquais in his rear) sitting bolt upright on his horse, with his enormous queue reaching down to the little skirts of his coat, and his large light blue eyes and pursed-up mouth giving a ludicrous mixture of vacancy and solemnity to his countenance. But when the marquis de Thou was seen parading the terrace with his beautiful daughter, the lady Alice, by his side, or following the sports of the field with a train of the noblesse, assembled in all the grandeur of feudal array, he who looked insignificant in his individuality gathered some advantage from the grace or splendour around him. He was regarded as the father and protector of the fair creature who seemed to tread on air within the vast circumference of her hoop, and whose eyes shone forth from beneath her enormous head-dress like glow-worms in a thicket; and again, the marquis was the host of the wealthy and the gay who held sway in the land which was for ever boasting its own likeness to Paradise: so that, in time, the marquis became mixed up with his connexions even in the mind of the Englishman; and instead of laughing, Steele learned to uncover and bow low at the approach of the great man, in the same manner as Antoine. If he had known as much as the natives of the territory of certain deeds which were done, and certain customs which were prevalent there, his English heart might have forbidden his raising his hand to his head in token of respect; but though he disliked the French peasantry, he was not fully aware how many of their bad qualities were directly attributable to the influence of the order of which the marquis de Thou was one of the representatives.
On the present occasion, Antoine awaited on the bank the landing of his friend.
“Ah ha!” cried the Frenchman, as soon as he could make himself heard; “you look up into our blue sky with the same admiration as when you first saw it, four seasons ago. Well; even Bordeaux has its smoke, and now and then a sea haze.”
“So thick an one this morning,” replied Steele, “that I could have fancied myself in an English port.”
“Do the captains foretell a change of wind?” inquired Antoine. “I rather apprehend one; and it is a pity that Favorite should risk losing a particle of her beauty. Come and see her,—as bright as a May morning; as rich and mellow as an autumn noon. It would grieve my soul if an unkind wind should hurt her; but there are signs of a change.”
The young men turned their steps towards the vineyards, instead of to Antoine’s dwelling, as Steele needed no refreshment but that of seeing how his dearly-beloved vines flourished, and enjoying the beautiful walk which led to the enclosures. On this occasion, he looked about him more than usual as he passed, as the peasantry were abroad, and evidently in a state of excitement and uneasiness. One and another stopped the young men to ask if they knew what direction the hunt had taken, and whether it could be conjectured how long a chase the boar might cause the gentry. Steele now learned for the first time, how eminently a boar hunt was an occasion of terror and hardship to the country people. He saw them mount the highest trees to look out, and lay their ears to the ground to detect the distant tread of horses. He heard them mutter prayers that their fences might remain unbroken, and their crops untrodden.
“I should not have thought your peasants could be so anxious about their little harvests,” he observed to Antoine. “Judging from the state of their plots of land, I should suppose them careless about their tillage.
How weedy this field is! And the hay in that meadow was, as I remember, not cut for weeks after the proper time.”