Chapter THE SECOND

That evening, three ladies went up to the chapel to see the sunset from the church-yard, which commanded an exquisite view. It was a place in which, at such an hour, it was easy to forget, even with the graves before their eyes, that there was sin or sorrow in the world. The ladies sat on the steps till the last glow had faded from the clouds, and the mountains stood up, clear and solemn, against a green sky, from which every tinge of sunset had vanished; and then they came down, with thoughts as bright and calm as the stars which were beginning to come out overhead. When they entered on a long stretch of straight road, they saw before them an odd-looking group. In the dusk it seemed as if a man and a woman were carrying something very heavy--moving toward them at a pace hopelessly slow. A woman was some way in advance of them--loitering and looking back. When they came up to her, it was a young woman, with orange flowers in her bonnet, and a smart white shawl on her shoulders. She was carrying a man's hat, new, but half covered with mud. It was now too clear that the heavy thing which the other two were trying to haul along was a man. Never did man look more like a brute. His face, when it could be seen, was odious; swollen, purple, without a trace of reason or feeling left in it; but his head hung so low, with his long black hair dipping on the ground, that it was not easy to see his face. His legs trailed behind him, and his new clothes were spattered with dirt.

"It looks like apoplexy," said, the elder lady to her companions: and she asked the young woman who was carrying the hat, whether the man was in a fit.

"No, ma'am; he has only been overcome. It is his wedding. He was married this morning."

"Married this morning! And is that his wife?"

"Yes, ma'am; and the other is bridegroom's man."

It would have touched any heart to see poor Janet, as the ladies passed--her honest, sun-burned face, all framed in orange flowers, grave and quiet, while she put forth her utmost strength (which was not small) to hold up her wretched husband from the dirt of the road. The other man was a comely youth, dressed in his best, with a new plaid fastened across his breast. The ladies looked back, and saw that it would never do. The elder lady returned, and laying her hand on the poor young woman's shoulder, said,

"This is no work for you. It is too much for you. Let him lie, while I speak to the people at this farm-house. I know them; and they will send a man to take him into the house."

Poor Janet spoke very calmly when she said they could take him a little further; but her lips quivered slightly. The lady spoke to a man who was feeding calves in a stable; and asked him to help to dip the bridegroom's head in a cistern by the road-side, and then take him into the house.

"How far is it from his home?" the lady inquired of Sally. "The High House in Wathendale! You will not get him there to-night at this rate."

The farm-house people promised a cart, if the party could wait till it came by.

"How could such a thing happen?" said the lady. "Is there no one to teach this man his duty better than this? Does he know the clergyman?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Sally, adding very simply, "but there would be no use in the clergyman speaking to him now, he would not understand."

"No, indeed," replied the lady. "But he will feel ill enough to-morrow, and then I hope somebody that he respects will speak to him in a way that he will remember."

"To think," she said to her companions, as they walked away past the cistern where the groveling bridegroom was undergoing his ducking, "that that is the creature whom the poor girl bound herself this morning to love, cherish, and obey! What a beginning of the cherishing!"

Fell and his wife had not expected the young people home early; but it was much later than the latest time they had fixed, before they heard any thing of them. When at last the party appeared, emerging from the night mist, all the three sober ones were dreadfully weary. The ascent had been terrible; for Raven had not yet begun to recover.

No fine sentiment was wasted upon the occasion; for the indifference which had rather shocked the ladies, was the real state of mind of people too much accustomed to the spectacle of intemperance. Mrs. Fell declared she was vexed with him--that she was; and then she put on her bedgown, in order to sit up with her daughter, for Raven was now so sick that he must be waited on all night. Mrs. Fell said repeatedly, as so often before, that all men were apt to take too much now and then; and it would happen less often now he had come to live up here. Yet, her husband's words would run in her head, that it was all right, and very pleasant. When, in the dawn of the morning, her daughter made her go to bed, she dropped asleep with those words in her ears; while poor Janet, chilly, sick at heart, and worn out, was at length melting into tears.

When, the next afternoon, her husband sat nursing his aching head beside the fire-place, he was struck with some compunction at the sight of her red eyes. Of course, he declared, as drunkards always do, it should never happen again. Of course, he laid the blame, as drunkards always do, on other people. Of course, he said, as drunkards always do, that it was no habit of his; and that this was an accident--for once and away. Of course, his wife believed him, as young wives always do.

For some time it appeared all true, and every thing went on very cheerfully. On the fine days there was as much field-work as both men could do; and so many repairs were needed of gates and posts, cart and cow-house, dwelling-house and utensils, that all the rainy days for six months were too little for the carpentering Raven had upon his hands. He had not been tipsy above twice in all that time: once on a stormy day, when he had sat lazily scorching himself before the fire, with the laborer and cow-boy, who were driven in by stress of weather, and who yawned till they made the whole party weary. Raven disappeared for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and came out of the barn to supper in a state far from sober. The other time was when he had gone to market in October, to sell oats. At all other times he worked well, was kind to the old people, and very fond of Janet, and justified Fell's frequent declaration, that it was all right now, and very pleasant.

The winter was the trying season. Sometimes the dwellers in the high house were snowed up, and many days were too stormy for work. The men grew tired of sitting round the fire all day, hearing the wind blow, and the rain pelt; and the women were yet more tired of having them there. There were no books; and nobody seemed to think of reading. There were some caricatures of the Pope and of Bonaparte, and a portrait of King George the Third, on the walls; and these were all the intellectual entertainment in the house, unless we except four lines of a hymn which Janet had marked on her sampler, when she was a child. Raven went more and more to the barn, sometimes on pretense of working; but his hammer and saw were less and less heard; and instead of coming in cheerfully to supper, he was apt to loiter in, in a slouching way, to hide the unsteadiness of his gait, and was quarrelsome with Fell, and cross to Janet. He never conducted himself better, however; never was more active, affectionate, helpful, and considerate, than at the time when old Fell sank and died--during that month of early spring when Janet was confined. He was like son and daughter at once, Mrs. Fell declared--and doctor and nurse, too, for that matter: and his father-in-law died, blessing him, and desiring him to take care of the farm, and prosper on it, as it had been in the family for five hundred years.

When the old man was buried, and the seed all in the ground, and Janet about again, Raven not only relaxed his industry, but seemed to think some compensation due to him for his late good behavior. Certain repairs having been left too long untouched, and Mrs. Fell being rather urgent that they should not be further neglected, it came out that Raven had sold his tools. Sold his tools!--Yes; how could he help it? It was necessary, as they had all agreed, to change away the old cow for a spring calver; and what could he do but sell his tools to pay the difference? Janet knew, and so did her mother, though neither of them said so, that more money had gone down his throat, all alone in the barn, than would have paid for the exchange of cows.

The decline of their property began with this. When decline has begun with the "statesmen" of the Lake District, it is seldom or never known to stop; and there was nothing to stop it in this case. On a small farm, where the health and industry of the owner are necessary to enable him to contend with the new fashions and improvements of the low country, and where there is no money capital behind to fall back upon, any decline of activity is fatal; and in two or three years Raven's health had evidently given way. His industry had relaxed before. He lost his appetite; could not relish the unvaried and homely fare which his land supplied; craved for dainties which could not be had, except by purchase; lost his regular sleep, and was either feverish and restless, or slept for fifteen hours together, in a sort of stupor. His limbs lost their strength, and he became subject to rheumatism. Then he could not go out in all weathers to look after his stock. One of his best sheep was missing after a flood; and it was found jammed in between two rocks in the beck, feet uppermost--drowned, of course. Another time, four more sheep were lost in a snowdrift, from not being looked after in time. Then came the borrowing a plow. It was true, many people borrowed a plow; nobody thought much of that--nobody but Mrs. Fell. She thought much of it; for her husband, and his father before him, had always used their own plows. Then came borrowing money upon the land, to buy seed and stock. It was true, many "statesmen" mortgaged their land; but then, sooner or later, it was always found too difficult to pay the interest, and the land went into the hands of strangers; and Mrs. Fell sighed when she said she hoped Raven would remember that the farm had been in the Family for five hundred years. Raven answered that he was not likely to forget it for want of being told; and from that moment the fact was not mentioned again Mrs. Fell kept it in her heart, and died in the hope that no new-fangled farmer, with a south country name would ever drive his plow through the old fields.