i went into the sunlight and stood leaning upon the garden-hedge looking out over the glittering plain of snow to the glittering blue of the sea beyond. the whole scene was set with jewels of light, and even the gray fortress in the marsh seemed to awaken for once out of its sleep; but i was in no mood to laugh with the sunbeams, for my heart was beating with angry thoughts. a bailiff, a manager for knellestone—and knellestone that had been managed by nobody but its own masters for three hundred years! it was impossible! why, the very earth would rise up and rebel! from where i stood i could see our meadows down on the marsh, our fields away on the hills towards the sunset, the pastures where our shepherds spent cold nights in huts at the lambing-time, the land where our oxen drew the plough and our laborers tilled the soil and harvested the ingatherings. would the men and the beasts work for the manager as they worked for us? would the land prosper for a stranger and a hireling, who would not care whether the cattle lived or died, whether the seasons were kind or cruel, whether the trees and the flowers flourished or pined away, who would get his salary just the same, though the frost nipped the new crops, though the wheat dried up for want of rain or rotted in the ear for lack of sun, though the cows cast their calves and the lambs died at the birth? how absurd, how ridiculous it was! did it not show that it had been suggested by one who took no interest in the land, but who let it all out to others to care for? of course this was some spendthrift younger son of a ruined gentleman's family, or some idiot who had failed at every other profession, and was to be sent here to ruin other people without having any responsibility of his own—somebody to whom the squire owed a duty or a favor. perhaps a man who had never been on a farm in his life, maybe had not even lived in the country at all. in my childish anger i became utterly unreasonable, and gave vent in my solitude to any absurd expressions that occurred to me. i smile to myself as i remember the impotent rage of that afternoon. indeed, i think i hated the squire most thoroughly that day. it was the idea, too, that i was being set at naught that added to my anger. hitherto it was i who had transmitted father's orders to the men whenever he was laid by or busy; and, as i have said before, he often trusted me to ride to the bank with money, and even to take stock of the goods before sales and fairs came on. of course i know now that i was worse than useless to him. i was a clever girl enough, and dauntless in the matter of fatigue or trouble, but i was entirely ignorant of the hundred little details that make all the difference in matters of that kind, and pluck and coolness stood me in poor stead of experience. but at that time i was confident, and as i stood there looking at the brightness that i did not see, tears came into my eyes—tears of mortification, that even the squire should have considered me so perfectly useless that i could be set aside as though i did not exist. how often i had wished to be a boy! how heartily i wished it that afternoon! if i had been a boy there would never even have been a question of getting a paid manager to help father. i should have been a man by this time, nearly of age, and no one would have doubted that i was clever enough and strong enough to see after my own.
father called from the window, and i went in. he was sitting by the table, surrounded by papers, his foot supported on a chair.
"sit down, meg," said he. "i want you to help me remember one or two things in the books that i don't quite understand—i think you can."
he spoke quite cheerfully. i had been setting down things in the book while he had been ill, and paying the wages to the men, and it was quite natural he should want to see me about it. i sat down, and we went over the books item by item. we had had a very sound education, though simple, quite as good as most girls have, and i had been considered more than usually smart at figures. but that day i think i was dazed. i could not remember things; i could not tell why the books were not square; my wits were muddled on every point. father was most patient, most kind. i think he must have seen that i was over-anxious, but his kindness only made me more disgusted with myself; for i knew that that dreadful question was in his mind the whole time, as it was in mine.
whenever i told him anything that was not satisfactory in the conduct of affairs, or anything that had failed to turn out as he expected, i knew that it was in his mind, although he did not think i saw it.
"we can't expect old heads to grow on young shoulders," said he at last, patting mine gently, a thing most rare for him to do. "it takes many a long day to learn experience, my dear. and sometimes we don't do so much better with it than we did without it." he put the books away as he spoke, and leaned back in his chair. "that'll do now, child," he added; "to-morrow i shall be able to see the men myself. i am well and hearty again now—thank the lord—and a good bit of work will do me good."
"you mustn't begin too soon, father," said i, timidly; "you know the weather is very cold and treacherous yet."
"oh, you women would keep a man in-doors forever for fear the wind should blow in his face," cried he, testily. "but there's an end to everything. when i'm ill you shall all do what you like with me, but when i'm well i mean to be my own master."
"but i shall still be able to help you, father, as i have done before, sha'n't i?" added i, still, singularly, without my accustomed self-confidence.
"why, yes, child, of course," he replied. "and you and i will be able to get on yet awhile without a stranger's help, i'll warrant." it was the only allusion he had made to the horrible subject during the whole of our interview. it was the only allusion he made to it in my presence for many a long day. he rose from his chair as he spoke the last words, and walked across to the window.
the afternoon was beginning to sink, and the sun had paled in its splendor. the lights were gray now over the whiteness of the marsh, and the snow looked cold and cruel. something made my heart sink, too, as i noticed how gray was father's face in the scrutinizing light of the afternoon. i had not noticed before that he had really been ill. i left the room quickly, and went out again. the stinging march air struck a chill into my bones, and yet it was scarcely more than four o'clock. two hours of daylight yet! how was it possible that any man but the strongest should work as a man must work whose farm should prosper? and was father really a strong man? i was sick with misgivings. what if, after all, the squire were right? but i would not believe it. father had had the gout; it was always the strongest men who had the gout.
i turned to go in-doors. a laugh greeted my ears from the library. i passed before the window. yes; it was father who was laughing as he shook hands with a man who had just entered the room. i looked. the man was a tall, blond, spare fellow, with a sanguine complexion, very marked features, small gray eyes, and a bald head. i knew him to be a mr. hoad, father's solicitor in town. he was well dressed in a black suit and gray trousers. he was a very successful man for his time of life, people said. i knew that father liked him, and i was glad that father should have a visitor who cheered him to-day. but for my own part, i knew no one who filled me with such a peculiar antipathy. i could not bear the sight of the man. yet he was a harmless kind of fellow, and very polite to ladies. joyce often used to take me to task for my excessive dislike to him. if it was because i did not consider him on equal terms with us, from a social point of view—for i must confess i was ridiculously prejudiced on this score, and where i had learned such nonsense i do not know—then the ship-owners and other people of that class to whom i could give "good-day" in town were much less so. but i could not have told why i disliked him so particularly; i could not have told why i wondered that father could have any dealings with him—why i was always on the watch for something that should prove that i was in the right in my instinct. and somehow his appearance on this particular evening affected me even more uncomfortably than usual, and i felt that i could not go in and see him—perhaps even have to discuss the very subject that was weighing on my mind, when i wanted to be alone to nurse my own mortification, and lull my fears to rest by myself. i crept into the hall quietly and fetched a cloak and hood, and then, running round to the yard, i called the st. bernard. he came, leaping and jumping upon me, this friend with whom i was always in tune. i opened the gate gently, and together we went out upon the road.
i think taff and i must have walked three miles. the roads were stiff and slippery, the air was like a knife; but i did not care. the quick movement and the solitude and the quiet of the coming night soothed me. we got up upon the downs where lonely homesteads stud the country here and there, and came back again along the cliffs that crown the marsh-land. there i stood a long while face to face with the quiet world upon which the moon had now risen in the deep blue of a twilight sky. it looked down upon the wide, white marsh upon whose frozen bosom gray vapors floated lightly; it looked down upon the dark town that rose yonder so sombre and distinct out of the mystery of the landscape; the channel that flows to the sea lay cold and blue and motionless at the foot of the hill like a sheet of steel. it made me shudder. there was not a ripple upon its deathly breast. the snow around was far more tender. for the first time in my life i felt the sadness of the world; i realized that there was something in it which i could not understand; i remembered that there was such a thing as death.
