Chapter II: At Paton Hall

MILES PATON had not been home for nearly two years, and during that time there had been changes which, if he heard of, he soon forgot, but which startled him now even in the midst of his pain and weariness.

They were close to the village, and Miles was looking round for some recognition from the villagers, who were generally standing about their doors at this hour, when he was struck with the quietness of the place. Even the alehouse had a deserted look, and there were no children to be seen playing about in the roadway. Most of the cottage doors were closed too; and weeds were growing in the path that was usually trodden hard.

"Roger, Roger," he called at last, forgetting even the anguish of his foot in his alarm at the condition of the neighbourhood. "Roger, have you had the plague here?" he said, in an anxious whisper, that the other servant should not hear.

"The plague?" repeated the reeve, crossing himself as he uttered the word of horror.

"Yes. How is it the houses are empty? Where is Diggory Bunce and all his family?" asked Miles.

"Gone, sir, gone," said the reeve, shaking his head sadly.

"Yes; I can see they are not here," said the young fellow, impatiently. "But where have they gone? Why, the Bunces were all born on the land, and have held the village as long as we have held the Hall, and now I don't see one of them."

"Well! there is just one, old Granf'er Bunce, but he don't often get out of his door now, for he's doubled up with the stiffness in his limbs. The master let him stay on, and the neighbours give him a bite and sup, but there was no more work for the rest of the men or their families either, when the squire took up with the new way of letting the land."

"The new way of letting the land?" repeated Miles.

"Yes; the world is full of new ways now it seems, and it all comes of the new learning you was talking about last night, I expect."

"What can the new learning have to do with the Bunces—with our village being depopulated?" said Miles, angrily, for he did not like to see the doors closed, and no merry shouts of children rolling about in the roadway. It was so unlike what he had expected to see that the sadness of the homecoming seemed to meet him even here. "You are my father's steward; tell me what you mean by the new way of letting the land," he said, after a pause.

"Well, Master Miles, I suppose everybody looks out to do the best he can for himself, and get as much as he can out of the land he owns, and this land have belonged to the Patons for hundreds of years now I have heard."

"Yes, yes, of course, go on," said the lad, "I want to hear what you can tell me before I see my father."

"It can't make no differ now," said the reeve, with something of a sigh, "but it's this way as far as I can understand the business: wool is steadily going up in price, for they Flemish folk can't get anything so good as our English wool, and, as they are always wanting more and more of it to keep their looms going, why, of course, it gets dearer and dearer. So your father, hearing of this, says he will take in a good deal of the land for himself that he has let for small farms, and buy more sheep for the sake of the money he can make by the wool. But sheep don't need the 'tendance that corn does. There is far less work to be done when there is only pasture, for a couple of shepherds and a hind or two can do the work of three or four farms; and so, of course, when the farmers had to give up their little bit of land here and there about, there was nothing left for the Bunces to do, for they had always been labourers working on the land."

Miles made no answer, for at this moment they came in sight of the Haugh,—a piece of common land large enough to give pasture to the villager's cows and few sheep,—but now, instead of being open to all corners, it was enclosed with a stout fence on three sides, and joined to the squire's land on the fourth, and sheep were grazing here as well as in the field to which it had been thrown open.

"It was the squire's land," said the reeve, in answer to the lad's look of enquiry.

"It was the people's land by right of long usage. It was common land for the use of all in the village," said Miles, "my father has told me this many times; no new learning or new ways could make such a wrong right," and as they had reached the entrance to the park now he urged forward his horse, for he had almost forgotten the sad circumstance that had brought him home just now, in his anger at the changes that had taken place since he had been away.

But, as he rode up to the porch of the house, his father came out to meet him, and one look at his grief-stricken face made him forget everything else but the pain in his foot and leg, for he moved it suddenly to reach over and greet his father, and then, overcome by the long hours of pain, the sudden anguish made him feel sick and faint, and he reeled in his saddle, and would have fallen if his father had not caught him in his strong arms.

"Ah, woe is me! for here is another son struck down in my very arms," said the old man, with a groan, as he supported Miles until the servants could come and help to carry him into the house. Miles heard the words, although to his failing senses they seemed a long way off, for he felt as though he was sinking, sinking away into nothingness; and yet this "Woe is me! woe is me!" kept ringing in his ears while he sank farther and farther away from life and hope into the depth of its woefulness.

There was great consternation in the household when Miles was carried into the hall helpless and unconscious, and although their anxiety was somewhat relieved when the reeve told them about the students' fray at the fair, still, to see their second son in such a condition just after the death of the first, was sufficiently alarming to both his parents.

A monk surgeon was sent for from a neighbouring monastery, and when he had heard the reeve's account of what had happened before they left Oxford, and how excited the lad became over the depopulation of the village, he said the fatigue and pain he had suffered, added to this excitement, was sufficient to account for his present illness.

But, although it was sufficient for the doctor, there were whispers in the household the next day that the family misfortune had been caused by witchcraft, and when it was known that Miles could not possibly attend his brother's funeral, these vague rumours became certainties in the minds of the panic-stricken servants.

Sir Thomas Paton and his wife were too fully occupied to pay much heed to the whispers that were abroad, but after the funeral of their eldest son, and when Miles began to recover, then there was time for the rumours to make themselves heard.

Three sons and four daughters had been born to Sir Thomas and Lady Jane Paton, but the bones of one son were whitening on the fields of France, and three girls had sickened and died within a month, and the fourth was a frail, delicate girl, who rarely went beyond her own rooms, which were in the sunniest and most pleasant wing of the house, looking out upon the park, and sheltered from every rough wind or disagreeable sight that could interfere with her comfort.

Margery's rooms, too, were more luxuriously furnished than any other portion of the house. The walls were hung with arras, and the floor plentifully supplied with green rushes; her casements were made to open that she might have the fresh air when she pleased, which was in itself a most unheard-of luxury in those days. Indeed, to please Mistress Margery was the business of the whole household, and little went on but the news of it reached her, either through her maid or one of the other servants who waited upon her.

And so at last Margery heard the whisper about her brothers being bewitched.

"Perhaps they think I am bewitched too, as I lie here so long, and get no stronger," laughed the girl, for her maid's long face provoked this merriment in spite of the sorrow she was suffering.

The girl stared at her with open lips and widely extended eyes. "Yes, yes," she uttered at last, with a sort of gasp, "it is! it is! I have heard before that Grannie Bunce has been known to have dealings with the Evil One."

"Now, Gillian, do not be such a foolish wench. Poor old Grannie Bunce has had trouble enough—"

"But—but—she was seen in the park looking up at these windows only—" but there the girl stopped and shuddered.

"Now, Gillian, go and see if my brother is ready to receive me this morning, and you shall help me to walk to his room," interrupted the young lady, for she did not want to encourage this notion about the old woman being a witch because she was poor and often cross.

Miles was still obliged to lie down, but he was comparatively well now, and glad enough to see his sister and have a chat with her, for there were several questions he wanted to ask her about the alterations that had been made on the estate during his absence.

But before he could say a word Margery exclaimed, as soon as her maid had closed the door, "That misguided wench thinks there is witchcraft abroad, Miles."

Her brother looked at her for a minute as though he was pondering the question, and then said slowly, "That must be it."

"Miles, you know I fell downstairs and hurt my back years ago; the only witchcraft about that was that I must have been wilful and disobedient," exclaimed his sister.

"I was not thinking about you, Margery. No one would lay their spells upon you, little sister," and he tenderly kissed the white hand that he held in his own. "No, no; it was of my father and John I was thinking. How is it there have been such changes here in the old home of late?"

"Changes? Of course there had to be changes when John married. We are not so very rich, my father says, and so he was glad when the lease was out of Farmer Rankin's holding, and he could take it for himself and put sheep upon it, for wool sells well now, and—"

"But Rankin's lease was not out, I hear, and he did not want to give up the land he and his forefathers had held under us for generations; only, when my father told him that the rent would be fifty instead of twenty pounds a year, as he had been paying, and there would no longer be free pasture for his twenty sheep, why, of course, the poor knave had to give up the farm and go in search of cheaper land. Here is the witchcraft, Margery. Who persuaded my father to do this injustice?"

"Injustice, Miles? Our father unjust? He could not be," said his sister, in a grave tone; "the land was his own to do with as he pleased."

"Ah! I thought the same at one time, little sister, but new light hath been given to the world of late upon that and many other things, and I have heard there are words in the Scriptures something like this: 'The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof.'"

"Yes, but our father is the landlord, Miles," said his sister, stoutly.

"Then hath he taken the place of God the Provider, and before he sent forth Rankin and the rest, he should have assured himself that other land could be had upon which they could live, and not become beggars and thieves roaming about the woods as they are now."

"But—but they went to other farms," said Margery, with a gasp.

But her brother shook his head. "There are no other farms to be had, and my father has only followed the example of other landlords and turned the corn lands into pasture, because it costs less for labour, and the price of wool is high. But what is to become of the labourers? Is it strange they turn thieves, and that the King's highway is not safe to travel even by daylight?" Miles spoke very passionately, for he had heard that morning that his father had served notice upon another farmer to give up his land in a few months, and he wanted his sister to join with him to prevent any further eviction of tenants who had tilled the soil for generations, giving employment to the poor, and bringing up their families in comfort. Why, one of his own dearest friends at Oxford was the son of a farmer like Rankin, and his mother had sent a message to him by a pedlar, urging him to get a licence to beg before he left the university, as the law allowed a university student to beg his bread, but was very hard upon farmers and labourers who had been expelled from their homes. The pedlar told him that his father and mother were living in the woods, sleeping in a cave or wherever they could find a chance shelter, but they were glad they had sent their son as a poor scholar to Oxford, for the law would allow him to beg anywhere.

"Oh, Miles, it can't be true," said his sister.

"I said the same when I heard it," replied her brother. "I laughed at the pedlar for a clever story-teller, but I have learned since I have been home that it is true enough. Men are whipped at the cart-tail, and women too, for begging for a morsel of bread to save their children from starving, when landlords like my father have taken their farms and turned them adrift upon the world. Have you heard how Jack met with his death, Margery? Forgive me, little sister, if I hurt you, but we must do what we can to prevent further wrong, though we must learn first that it is wrong," he added.

Margery dried her eyes, and looked at her brother. "You know I will do what I can," she said, "but what can a poor witless girl like me do?"

"Only a little, perhaps, but the world is made up of little things. Now tell me about Jack," he said.

"His horse threw him while he was out hunting," said Margery. "Poor Jack! he and Lady Audrey were here only the day before, and they seemed so happy together."

"Poor Jack! he has paid with his life for the new way of managing the land," exclaimed Miles.

"What do you mean?—he was out hunting," said Margery.

"Yes, but what was he hunting?—the poor creatures who had been driven out of their homes in the village, and had taken refuge in the woods close at hand. Two or three sheep had been stolen, and Jack said they should not stay in the woods any longer—he would hunt them down—and it was while he was doing this that his horse stumbled and threw him over its head, and broke his neck. That is the story I have heard, and when I asked Father Francis about it yesterday he said he believed it was true, and that our father knew it, but did not wish us to hear of it. Now, Margery, I want to know who has bewitched my father like this. I have honoured him as a kind and just man, merciful and tender to man and beast—and—"

But poor Margery was too much overcome to hear more just now. She had loved her elder brother, and his young wife too, and she did not like to blame them, or her father either. Another thing, she could scarcely believe all that Miles told her now, for she knew nothing of the labourers being turned out of their homes and the village almost depopulated, for the servants had been warned not to tell their young mistress of all this, and so she simply knew that Rankin and one or two other farmers had given up their land and gone away, and that her father expected to make a good deal more money by keeping sheep and selling wool than he could by the renting of the land to the farmers. She had been glad of it for Jack's sake, for he could not have married the Lady Audrey unless he could provide her with a separate home, for her mother objected to her making her home with them at Paton Hall, although the house was quite large enough for two or three families, and her mother would have been glad to welcome the young bride, and would have given her her due place in the household. But if Lady Audrey herself would have been agreeable to such an arrangement her parents were not, and Jack pressed his father to follow the example of other landlords and turn off the old tenants unless they agreed to pay a much higher rent; and this had been done, and Jack had married and died; but wool was increasing in value, and brought a better price every year, and Sir Thomas Paton did not think he could do better than increase his wealth, even though he had to turn other tenants adrift to do it, and depopulate the village on the other side of the estate as well as that near the Haugh.

Miles might well ask whether something like witchcraft had not been at work to bring about such a change as this, but it was the witchcraft of greed, the desire to heap up riches, that could but bring the rust and moth of discontent and misery, rendering all such gains worthless. But how he was to prevent a further extension of this wrong was the problem the lad had set himself to solve, and the solution was nearer than he thought when he had his talk with Margery.