proportion the dissenters bear to the church. Observe how many are coming forth from her,—and those the zealous and the dissatisfied, while, from the very nature of the case, the lukewarm and indifferent remain in the bosom of the establishment. Mark the certainty that the worldly and careless will go over to the dissenters from the moment that dissent reaches the point of ascendancy over conformity, and then say whether there be any other alternative than this,—that the Church of England must enlarge its office, and improve its ministrations, or fall.”
“My brother will preach against you for a person as dangerous as Mr.
Mackintosh.”
“He will not make Mr. Mackintosh less dangerous, but more so, by preaching against him; and as for me, he might perhaps do more wisely in hearing me than in marking me out to be questioned by those in this parish who do not love the church as they once did.”
“And you would tell those questioners that they must not love their church any more till it is no longer a church, but a school.”
“Till the vices of the institution are exploded,—till the clergy cease to be the organs and tools of the oligarchy, for whose purposes the corrupt system of church patronage is kept up. If the clergy were paid according to their services by those whom they serve, instead of being made the pretext for keeping up an ecclesiastical fund useful for filling the pockets and disposing of the younger sons of the aristocracy, there would be an end of the overgrown wealth of some of our dignitaries, and the disgraceful poverty of too many of our working clergy. There would also be some chance of the clergy ceasing to be below every other class of men in a reputation for moral and political independence.—‘By teaching, we learn;’ and there may yet be hope that such of the clergy as shall be qualified to begin imparting the elements of the morals required by an advancing age, may be able to bear the ark of christianity through the troubled waters which they must soon encounter. Such of them as are unfit for this office will sink, and, while sinking, will cry that the ark has perished. But there will not be many to believe it.”
“God will support his own church.”
“God will support the true faith; and his support must be looked for in the usual mode of manifestation,—in the support of man,—in the recognition by man of what is just and right.”
“Your proposed method of commuting some of the property of the church is to be recognized as just and right, I suppose.”
“I believe it has a pretty good chance of being so, if one great consideration be attended to in time;—a consideration which is at present by far too little regarded. This measure can hardly be called just to the people at large, unless it be followed up by another.”
“Ah! that is the way. Every innovation brings another after it.”
“How else is the race to advance? You yourself believe that the great innovation of christianity brought many others after it; and, you may believe me, these of which we are speaking form part of the sequence.
Justice requires that there should be an alteration in our corn-laws, to meet the enlargement of demand that must follow upon the relief of land from the burden of tithe.”
“You do not mean that the clergy now eat more corn than they will eat then?”
“No; but the price of corn is now higher than it will be then. No one knows better than you, as a clergyman, that not above one half of the sums drawn out of their natural channel under the tithe system goes to the clergy. Half of it goes into the pockets of the owners of tithe-free land, in the shape of increased rent. This rent would fall; and after it, the price of produce; and the fall of price would be followed by an increased demand; and this demand would be supplied,—not only by increased importation, (the import duties having previously risen with the fall of prices at home,) but by the cultivation of inferior soils, now no longer subjected to the burden of tithe. A quantity of the capital of the nation must thus be buried in inferior soils, and tend to increase rent,—_i. e._ to enrich the landlord, and, once again, the church, at the expense of the people.”
“But the great obstacle to the repeal of the corn-laws at present is the amount of capital which is invested in inferior soils.”
“The very best reason for not tempting or compelling a further investment of the same sort. The whole benefit of the commutation depends upon this. If the import duties be so lowered as to admit of the usual supply from abroad, our people will obtain the desired relief from the change of system. If not, it will matter little to the weaver and the apple-vender, at the end of five years, whether they pay their tax to the clergy, or to the barrenness of the ground. It should not, in this conjuncture, be forgotten that the plea of landlords for maintaining the corn-laws has always been the taxes upon agricultural production,—and tithes above all the rest. If, when tithes are commuted, the landlords should change their plea, and declare that it was not they who formerly paid tithes, but the public, and that they therefore need the protection of the corn-laws as much as ever, I trust the legislature will perceive that the corn-laws ought not to have been kept up thus long, instead of fancying that they must be maintained yet longer.”
“You are hard to please,” observed Jerom, with a grim smile. “Though a landowner, you are no more fond of corn-laws than of tithes.”
“I grant that you and I should find it difficult to settle which is the worst,—for ourselves, and for the people at large. I only wish I could make you, a clergyman, as discontented with tithes as I, a landowner, am with corn-laws.”
“Some people,” observed Jerom, “complain of tithes as being bad in a deteriorating country; but you have been murmuring at their operation on your father’s improving farm.”
“For the good reason that tithes are injurious in the extreme, in either case. In an improving country, where there is capital ready for application, tithes are bad as discouraging the application of that capital. Witness that pretty field of mine which must lie waste till I can cultivate it without having all my profit swallowed up by the church. In a deteriorating country, the tithe is bad, because it tempts to the cultivation of inferior in preference to superior soils, and raises wages, and augments, both in value and amount, with scarcity.
Witness its effects upon the Lamberts,—the poor ground they have sown this year, and the better that they have let alone, and the general air of deterioration caused by the higher price of labour. I am afraid Peterson is plaguing them again about some new claim or another. He left us long ago, and walked that way. He is fond of doing business with them, because, as Quakers, they can offer no resistance. Shall we go and see?”
As was anticipated, Peterson was found worrying the Lamberts. Wherever the axe and mattock were heard, there, as a matter of course, was Peterson; and his quick ear had caught the sound of the chopping of wood while Mr. Parker and Jerom were arguing. The Lamberts’ labourers were busy in making faggots of a good deal of wood which had been cut some time before; and of these faggots Peterson was claiming his share.
“Do look at him!” said Parker. “He is going to measure trees, I do believe, to see if they are of the required twenty years’ growth. He carries his measure about with him, as a surgeon does his lancets.”
“If thou wilt only go and ask any lawyer,” said Joseph, who was much heated, “he will tell thee that thou hast no more right to the tops and lops of our pollard oaks than thou hast to the tenth chamber of any house. With all thy boast of law, thou mightest know that, I think. The loppings are exempted as much as the bodies.”
“We shall see that, friend. Meantime, I shall take leave to measure what I call, in a legal sense, underwood, and you timber. You will please to show me the beeches from which all this wood was cut.”
“Thou mayst try and find them out. But, friend, I give thee notice that it will do thee no good, if thou shouldst chance to find the right tree, and that it is twenty-five inches in the girth. Thou hast apparently forgotten some purposes that wood may be cut for.”
“By no means; but you cannot deny that these ash-poles are for sale to Mr. Parker for his hops, and these faggots for the market.”
Mr. Parker denied that he meant to purchase any ash-poles of the Lamberts; and Joseph declared that the faggots were for use on the farm.
Peterson would not believe it, so great as the quantity was. Was he to believe that these half-dozen men, all chopping and binding, as if to supply the parish with fuel, were merely preparing wood for farm purposes?
“Yes: we have to burn bricks; and, in this rainy season, there is no time to be lost. And now, friend Peterson, art thou satisfied?”
“By no means, till I know what the bricks are for. They may be for sale.”
“They are for enlarging our house on the Abbey Farm.”
“Enlarging. Hum. Not repairing. If it had been mere needful reparation, the wood for burning the bricks would not, as you say, have been titheable. But enlarging is a different matter, as my book will show you. You must set out tithe of this billet wood, and these tops and lops.”
“I assure thee, it is not for our pleasure, or for any purpose of vanity, that we are going to enlarge our house. Indeed, the times are not suited to such an intention. We are merely preparing to receive a family of orphans who have no other home to look to.”
Peterson had nothing to do with this. Sir William Hood was not to suffer for there being orphans in the parish.
“Cannot you contrive, now,” asked Mr. Parker, “to tithe these orphans, as well as the wood that is to burn the bricks that are to build them a dwelling? If there happen to be ten of them, I dare say Mrs. Lambert will not grudge one of them to the church.”
Joseph could have made a long and eloquent reply to this; but he was particularly anxious not to detain the tithe-gatherer, lest any accident should lead the conversation round to his precious ewes, so as to put Peterson upon missing them from their accustomed places. He briefly said that he and his brother should, as usual, decline to set out tithe of wood; and if the agent chose to seize it, the proceeding must be at his own risk. He took up a hatchet, and made noise enough to show his troublesome visitor that no more conversation was desired. There was no use in entering with the Lamberts on the subject of a sale of their tithes, as their principles forbade their admitting the right to levy a tax for the support of religion.
Mr. Mackintosh could not bend his spirit to a compromise. His tithes must be taken by seizure, if at all, so long as he remained at the rectory. Others were more ready to compromise,—particularly those who wished to free land of their own from an interference which made them feel very much as if the land was not their own; but there was so much trouble in settling the averages, in agreeing about the deductions, and determining the proportions according to the longer or shorter term of years for which the purchase was to be made, that, before it was over, all parties began to wish that some principle had been established for general guidance;—that, in a case so peculiar, the negociators could have been assisted and protected by government sanction.
There was no hope of the vicar’s becoming such a negociator, when a reduction of 20 per cent. in consideration of contingencies, had once been mentioned as one of the grounds of an agreement. He would never consent to surrender any of the dues of the church,—more especially as a letter from a lawyer this day gave high hopes that the authority of the church was about to be vindicated by the issue of his lawsuits with his parishioners being in his favour. This was an encouragement to his firmness and zeal which he could not disregard.
CHAPTER VII.
DIMISSION.
Two of the law-suits were soon decided. The vicar lost that which related to the Abbey Farm, and gained that which disputed the reality of the composition by which the defendant declared the glebe-land belonging to the vicarage to be held. The defendant firmly believed that the evidence of this composition existed; though, from its never having been disputed before, it had been taken no care of; and to lose the cause and pay the new claim of tithe would, he found, be a less expensive process than recovering the evidence on which his defence must be based. He declared that he should assert to his dying day that the vicar, like many another litigious priest, paid himself twice over, keeping the land and taking the tithe. The parishioners only waited, it was said, for the decision of the third cause, to toll the bell, and give their pastor his second warning of the consequences of making war against his flock.
There were now, however, some peace-makers in the parish,—five little peace-makers, who might be seen on a Sunday, walking hand in hand, all in a row; three of them in sleek brown coats and overshadowing drab beavers, and two in plain white frocks and close straw bonnets. The parties between whom quarrels ran highest were united in showing kindness to these orphans. The new rooms at the farm being yet scarcely begun, many friends of the widow Lambert wished to take in the children till she could comfortably accommodate them. Mrs. Byrne begged hard for one of the boys, if he would not mind sleeping in the little bed that Miss Alice had had good rest in, many a time. It would be an amusement to her husband, who had been much out of spirits of late; and the little gentleman would be a companion for Miss Alice when she came to watch the bees, and do what she liked with the garden. Mrs. Beverly thought that she and her maid could make the two girls happy, by setting them to work upon some extraordinary patchwork, and to play with the baby-house which had been Mrs. Beverly’s amusement on birth-days when she was their age; but Mrs. Beverly spoke too late; the girls were already promised to the vicarage.
Well; she and her maid would have liked the girls best; but, since they were engaged, they thought they could manage the two little ones,—the youngest now running alone very prettily. But Mrs. Lambert could not part with them all; and those she kept must be the two little ones, who could sleep in her room. With her they therefore staid; and whenever they had the rare luck of a fine morning, this rainy season, they might be seen, the one trotting at cousin Joseph’s heels, in loving company with the dog, and the other riding to the field on cousin Charles’s shoulder.
“Mother,” said Charles, on the day of their arrival, when he had succeeded in stopping Rachel’s tears,—the tears of the stranger,—by employing her to sew a button upon his gaiter,—“Mother, dost thou not think that people may be too tender-hearted sometimes?”
“Is thy mother too tender-hearted? Then I am afraid thou art too like thy mother, Charles.”
“I should not have been like thee to-day. If it is really right that Rachel and Margaret should go to the vicarage, I am glad that the vicar did not fall in with me on his way here. I should have refused his offer; and, I really think, so wouldst thou, but for the thought how the children would enjoy one another’s company.”
“I do not see what harm can befal them at the vicarage. It is a very sober place. At least, I never heard of any dissipation that was going on there; and the vicar reads the Bible in the family every day. They will not have any gaiety beyond gardening with Alice, and playing with her old doll. Will they?”
Charles was thinking of something quite different from this. He could not have brought himself to accept a favour for these children from one who had conducted himself as the vicar had done.
“Well, now, son, I do not see much reason in that speech of thine. If the vicar has done ill by us, why should we hinder his doing better by somebody else? I am afraid there is a little pride in thy objection.
What dost thou think?”
“Perhaps there is some pride; but I do not much value the kindness of one who can be so hard as he has shown himself in many instances. I should be apt to think it flattery.”
“Not in this man. He cannot flatter; and where he has been most wrong, he thinks himself right. Ay; it is a strange delusion; but I think him as sincere as he thinks me,—and thou knowest what reason he has to think that. Dost thou know, I felt glad of the opportunity of letting his people see how well he means, and what kind things he does when he is a Christian; that is, when nothing puts him in mind that he is also a churchman.”
Charles was once again surprised at the deceitfulness of the human heart. He was actually wishing to return evil for evil when he thought he was consulting the dignity, (or other welfare,) of the children. He would take them down himself to the vicarage, and go in to make his acknowledgments on their behalf to the vicar.
No children could be happier than Rachel and Margaret during their stay;—patronised by Alice, stroked on the head by the vicar, kept in no more than due order by Susan, visited by aunt Martha, invited by Mrs.
Beverly to make patchwork and play with the babyhouse; smiled at by Miss Fox and all her school when they passed in the lanes; and allowed to gather peas for Mrs. Byrne, when they went to her cottage to see Jonathan. A long-expected day was, however, approaching, which was to throw into shade all other days of delight.
Alice had not yet been permitted by Mr. Mackintosh to make hay on his lawn. Last year, indeed, she had felt herself too old and too proud to ask the favour. Finding herself, from her parentage, shunned by other people in her neighbourhood who were liable for tithes, she had not yet attained her wish of once more handling a rake, and tedding the sweet-smelling grass. This year, however, there was a prospect,—if the sun would but shine so as to give the grass a chance of being dried. Mr.
Pratt, whom her father had conquered at law, was to pay his dues to the vicar direct, and not through Peterson; and Alice persuaded her father to prefer the tenth haycock, to be prepared and carried at his own cost, to the twelfth, delivered at the loft. She and her five little friends could almost make the hay: and O! the anticipations of the day! Rachel and Margaret could never be sufficiently instructed and enlightened as to what they were to do and to expect; and Susan had no rest till she had promised buns and a bottle of cider, to be eaten and drunk upon a haycock. The farmer took them by surprise with his notice at last, and no buns were ready: but Susan promised that the young folks should not die of famine in the hay-field, but that something eatable should follow them at noon. She shrewdly perceived that this would be the more necessary, as the children could eat but a small breakfast. They sat still, and looked calm, as little quakers should: but they had not much appetite.
“How hot the sun is here!” cried Alice, laying her hand on the window-shutter, which had been but too little noticed by the sun this year. “Come and feel, Rachel! That sun will do for hay-making, if any will.” And she stood on tip-toe, peeping over her papa’s shoulder, to see how much tea he had forgotten to drink while absorbed in his book.
She whispered to her companions that they might go and get ready, and that they should not have to wait for her long. Because she whispered, her papa heard her. He looked round him, and particularly at the room door, as if wondering whether that slam was its own: then gulped down his tea, and desired the dear child to go and make herself happy.
“But, papa, you are going with us.”
Impossible! What could the dear child be thinking of? There was an absolute necessity for his clearing up a doubtful point which he had promised uncle Jerom to solve; and he expected letters—— “Ah! about that law-suit that makes everybody so rude to you! I wish you would not have any more of those law-suits. People would like you much better if you would go and make hay. Let this be the very last law-suit, papa.”
She could not wish this more than he did. If his people would only not fail in their duty to the church, he should be the last person in the world to resort to law.
“Well, but do make hay, at any rate, papa.” And before her long string of good reasons was fully drawn out, Rachel and Margaret were standing, side by side, before the vicar, ready to say— “We wish thou wouldst go.”
The vicar had seldom known Alice so eager and urgent; and if it would really spoil the dear child’s pleasure that he should be absent, he would put off his gown, and put on his coat, and go. It was particularly inconvenient. He thought he must carry his book in his pocket, and read in the shade “But thou wilt let us topple thee,” remonstrated Margaret.
This might be determined in the field. He supposed this was Alice’s inducement to press him so earnestly to go. Here his opposition ceased.
He remembered how perpetually he was thwarting his daughter’s desire that he should stay at home after dark, and resolved to gratify her much more reasonable wish that he should walk abroad in the morning sunshine.
He was ready nearly as soon as she, and only stipulated for being allowed to go whither he pleased, when he had been “toppled” to their full satisfaction.
It was indeed a glorious day,—a day of more genial sunshine than had been seen during the season,—the first day which a kindly shepherd would acknowledge to be warm enough for the washing and shearing of his flock.
“Look, look!” cried Rachel, who had run on before the rest of the party.
“What are those cruel people doing to the sheep? I do believe they are going to drown the sheep in the pond! Canst thou not make haste and prevent them?”
Alice looked rather contemptuously on the town-bred child, and was anxious to lead her companions round by another way;—not that any one could enjoy a sheep-washing more than she; but she dreaded that further disputes about tithe, and more hatred to her father might arise out of his being present at the shearing. She need not have hoped to prevail, however. Her father stalked on, unconsciously resuming his official air; and the little girls were too anxious to know what became of the sheep to think of staying behind.
It was a great relief to discover that the sheep came out safe at the other side of the pool; and that the dogs, however much noise they might make, did not eat the poor animals. The men and boys, too, looked merry; and presently Charles was seen giving his baby cousin a ride on a sheep’s back into the water; which feat would hardly have taken place amidst any desperate intentions towards the flock. Margaret next concluded that all this was pure play.
“I am sure cousin Joseph told me that old Sam had no time to play with me, and that nobody had time to play at the farm till afternoon; and there they are,—cousin Joseph, and old Sam, and plenty more, playing with brothers, though they will not with us, Rachel.”
“I don’t think it is any fun to the sheep,” observed Rachel. “They bleat as loud as the dogs bark. But I never saw such large sheep in my life.
Look at that big thing, standing dripping on the grass! Didst thou ever see such a fat creature, Margaret?”
“It will be thin enough presently,” said Alice, “when the shearers have cut off all that load of wet wool. Come, now, you have seen all you can see. Let us go over this slope, where we can get as many cowslips as we please, instead of passing all those people.”
The little girls had not, however, seen half as much as they wanted.
They wished to make out whether there was any soap in the pool to wash the wool so white; and they were willing to take the chance of a ride into the water; and desired to persuade their brothers to go on to the hay-field with them. Alice perplexed them with signs that she wished to pass on.
“Thou squintest thy eye,” observed Margaret. “What dost thou mean?”
“Never mind now,” replied Alice, somewhat sharply. “It is too late now.
If you had minded me a little more than the sheep, papa would not have thought of anything but going straight on.”
“Art thou afraid of that man? He is not gaylooking,” remarked Rachel.
“He would see much better if he would come on this side the hedge, instead of prying.”
Alice now saw the man whom Mrs. Byrne disliked as a companion for her husband, peeping through the hedge, and evidently watching the vicar, while he handled the fleece of one and another of the flock, and looked on more like a proprietor than a spectator. She ran down to tell her father,—she scarcely knew why: but he was then too busy to attend to her.
“Halloo, parson, what are you about?” cried one of the many who had long ago put away all pretence of respect in addressing their clergyman.
“There is nothing about them sheep belonging to you.”
“How so, friend? You are going to shear the flock, I see.”
“Ay: but this flock belongs to another parish. They are only brought here to be washed. You will find, for once, that some things are out of your reach.”
The vicar argued the point for some time; could not understand the case; must send Peterson to see into it; had been struck with the non-appearance of his tithe of lambs this season; and should expect the Lamberts to reconsider the matter, and employ somebody to set out the tithe of wool before he should pass that way again in the evening, if they would not do it themselves. He should be firm, as they had found, on other occasions, he could be.
Alice persuaded him to leave the rest of his argument to be finished in the evening, and ventured to tell him, as soon as he began to walk away with her, that she thought, and so did Mrs. Byrne, that the Lamberts had taken that bit of land in the next parish for the very purpose of putting titheable produce out of his reach. If he would ask no more than was asked in the next parish, he would not be altogether cheated of his lambs and his wool in this way. As usual, she was told that she knew nothing about the matter. She was sorry for it. She wished she could do some good. It was much wanted. When she now looked behind her, she saw that many were laughing at the Lamberts’ victory, and some sneering at her father; and the renewed shouts and barkings and bleatings seemed to have something of mockery in them.
No one was to be found behind the hedge when Alice would have pointed out the peeper: but the grass of the dry ditch was laid in a way which showed that some one had been stretched at length there. The vicar was not surprised. Bread was so dear, this year, and wages in consequence so high, that a great many people were out of employment. He had never before seen so many idle people lying about in the fields on dry days, and under sheds in wet weather: and Alice was aware that in no former season had the vicar’s alms been so liberally distributed.
“O dear! they have half made the hay, I do believe. See how busy they are!” cried Alice, when her party came in sight of the gay scene where a long row of men and women were tedding the grass; the women with their gowns tucked up, and their arms made bare, and the men uncoated, and frequently resting their rakes against their shoulders to wipe their brows. The usual pastimes of the hayfield were going on. Children were shouting with delight, and rolling one another in the grass, or pretending to make hay with rakes far too unwieldy for their strength; while the bigger girls who were sitting under the shade of the hedge with babies on their knees, looked on enviously, and began to wonder whether their charge would not be very safe sprawling on the ground.
Baskets and cans helped to make a show in the corner with the discarded coats, and the dog that sat as guard, perking its head at every noise, and looking fully satisfied with its own importance.
This dog alone seemed to undergo no alteration when the vicar entered the field. The first hay-maker who saw him sent the news along the line, and laughter gave place to instant silence. It came full into every one’s recollection that this gentleman would claim a tenth of the fruits of this day’s toil. Byrne was only one of many whose wages were tithed.
The children got up from among the hay, and stared at him,—each with thumb or finger in its mouth. They had seen a pretty little chicken, or a yellow gosling taken from the rest of the brood, in the vicar’s name.
The boys stood in greater awe of him than the girls; for some wag had told them that they had better take care how they played when the vicar was abroad, lest he should tithe their marbles. The deputy nurses under the hedge elbowed each other, and laid their heads together to whisper.
They were telling how grandfather taught them where to put the eggs they found among the nettles, and never, on any pretence, to count them; and how uncle forbade them ever to tell how many pigs the sow farrowed of; and how it was a shocking thing for a gentleman to pretend to give charity, when all he had to give came, mammy said, out of the labour of people quite as poor as some he gave to.—The party from the vicarage soon saw that there was no fear of the vicar’s hay being made for him.
There lay the grass, untouched. Moreover, it might be observed that no hay was allowed to remain where the vicar walked. As soon as he approached, the labourers turned a shoulder or back towards him, and whisked away the hay, so as to leave him standing alone. He could not help feeling this, and, as usual, he tried to conciliate by kind words: as usual, he received impertinent answers, and, as usual, comforted himself with the thought that he was suffering for conscience’ sake.
In these circumstances, it would not do to let himself be “toppled.”
Rachel and Margaret were told that they must not expect it. They, therefore, began to look about for rakes, in order to obtain the second best amusement in their power.
“Papa, what shall we do for rakes?” asked Alice. “The last time I made hay, Byrne lent me a rake, and I thought we should certainly find rakes with the hay.”
“Dear child, we should have thought of that. It is a negligence of ours; for the fair construction of the law is that the parson, or endowed vicar, should, in making his own hay, provide the instruments necessary for making it. But these people have doubtless rakes to spare, and will lend them.”
He tried whether it was so. He was sure the labourers must have rakes to spare.—They looked at one another, and nobody made answer.—He was sure they would not let Alice be disappointed;—Alice came to make hay.—No one looked up.—That little boy appeared very tired with trailing his long rake; perhaps he would lend it to Alice till he had rested himself.—The child began, at his mother’s bidding, to make hay more diligently than ever.
“See, dear child——” the vicar was beginning to say, when Alice came up to entreat him to ask no more favours. She had far rather not make hay to-day: indeed, she did not wish it.—This was more than Rachel and Margaret could, for their part, aver. There is no saying what aunt Lambert would have thought, if she had seen how nearly they were crying.
The vicar perceived it, and, advising them to sit down and rest themselves during his absence, said he was going in search of rakes, and would bring some from the shop, if not from a nearer place, within an hour.
They did not rest themselves so much as a minute and a half. They began showering grass upon one another: but, the very instant that the vicar disappeared from the field, more rakes were offered than they could use.
“Papa! Papa!” cried Alice, in hopes of bringing her father back: but one of the women held up her finger in a very forbidding way; and Alice saw that if she was to hope for hay-making, she must leave papa uncalled for. She almost wished now that he would not return.
He did return, however, when the work was far advanced. Upon his own shoulder he brought three rakes, which he offered,—not to the Quaker boys, who had arrived and were eager for them,—but to the labourers or their children who had accommodated Alice and her friends. But they lay disregarded till the Quaker boys were allowed to take them up, because it was clear that no one else would.
The little folks had been offered some of the contents of the baskets and cans; but had declined eating and drinking till they should have made something like a haycock on which to sit and refresh themselves.
Just in the right point of time, appeared a messenger from Susan, with a savoury-smelling basket, and two cool-looking green bottles.
“I am sure we may make our cock now,” said Alice. “These people have made some of theirs, you see, before they sat down to dinner.”
“And we can spread it out again afterwards, if it is not dry,” Margaret observed.
“Dost thou find thyself hungry with seeing those people eating in the corner?” Rachel inquired.
So the basket was unpacked by some, while others drew the grass together near the hedge, and piled it up till it appeared the largest in the field.
“One, two, three,—seven,—nine,—yes, papa, ours is the tenth haycock. Do not you think there will be another for us to make? Do not you think there will be ten more at the other end of the field?”
The vicar feared that the remaining grass would be made into seven, eight, or nine cocks, to avoid paying the church its due.—Alice was immediately anxious to change the subject; and she made a prodigious bustle,—calling one to sit here, and pushing down another there, and raising the youngest little fellow, in the nankeen frock, to sit on the top of the haycock, as on a throne. While she was carving the pie, the child called out “Man! man!”
“Yes, dear; a great many men, and a great many women too,” said Alice, over her task, supposing the child was amused with the circle of labourers.
Her father had not sat down. He was contemplating, perhaps calculating, the size of the field. His back was therefore turned to the party of merry children. The next moment came something which stunned them like a thunder-bolt,—the report of fire-arms as if among them,—as if out of the haycock. They sat immoveable, for a second or two, till the vicar, who seemed to be balancing himself on his feet, staggered, fell sideways, and rolled over on his face. None who heard Alice’s shriek ever forgot it. She alone started up; her companions sat mute; the haymakers were all looking, but they did not come. How the poor thing pulled her father’s arm, in the attempt to raise him! How the complaining sound “I can’t! I can’t!” went to his heart,—which had not ceased to beat. He tried to turn himself, and did so.
“Turn me, dear child; do not raise me,” he said.
“Come, come! O, why don’t you come?” cried Alice, waving her arms towards the haymakers. Her companions joined her in shouting for help;