the prettiest scenery in all england—and if i am contradicted in that assertion, i will say in all europe—is in devonshire, on the southern and south-eastern skirts of dartmoor, where the rivers dart, and avon, and teign form themselves, and where the broken moor is half cultivated, and the wild-looking upland fields are half moor. in making this assertion i am often met with much doubt, but it is by persons who do not really know the locality. men and women talk to me on the matter, who have travelled down the line of railway from exeter to plymouth, who have spent a fortnight at torquay, and perhaps made an excursion from tavistock to the convict prison on dartmoor. but who knows the glories of chagford? who has walked through the parish of manaton? who is conversant with lustleigh cleeves and withycombe in the moor? who has explored holne chase? gentle reader, believe me that you will be rash in contradicting me, unless you have done these things.
there or thereabouts—i will not say by the waters of which little river it is washed—is the parish of oxney colne. and for those who wish to see all the beauties of this lovely country, a sojourn in oxney colne would be most desirable, seeing that the sojourner would then be brought nearer to all that he would wish to visit, than at any other spot in the country. but there in an objection to any such arrangement. there are only two decent houses in the whole parish, and these are—or were when i knew the locality—small and fully occupied by their possessors. the larger and better is the parsonage, in which lived the parson and his daughter; and the smaller is a freehold residence of a certain miss le smyrger, who owned a farm of a hundred acres, which was rented by one farmer cloysey, and who also possessed some thirty acres round her own house, which she managed herself; regarding herself to be quite as great in cream as mr. cloysey, and altogether superior to him in the article of cyder. “but yeu has to pay no rent, miss,” farmer cloysey would say, when miss le smyrger expressed this opinion of her art in a manner too defiant. “yeu pays no rent, or yeu couldn’t do it.” miss le smyrger was an old maid, with a pedigree and blood of her own, a hundred and thirty acres of fee-simple land on the borders of dartmoor, fifty years of age, a constitution of iron, and an opinion of her own on every subject under the sun.
and now for the parson and his daughter. the parson’s name was woolsworthy—or woolathy, as it was pronounced by all those who lived around him—the rev. saul woolsworthy; and his daughter was patience woolsworthy, or miss patty, as she was known to the devonshire world of those parts. that name of patience had not been well chosen for her, for she was a hot-tempered damsel, warm in her convictions, and inclined to express them freely. she had but two closely intimate friends in the world, and by both of them this freedom of expression had now been fully permitted to her since she was a child. miss le smyrger and her father were well accustomed to her ways, and on the whole well satisfied with them. the former was equally free and equally warm-tempered as herself, and as mr. woolsworthy was allowed by his daughter to be quite paramount on his own subject—for he had a subject—he did not object to his daughter being paramount on all others. a pretty girl was patience woolsworthy at the time of which i am writing, and one who possessed much that was worthy of remark and admiration, had she lived where beauty meets with admiration, or where force of character is remarked. but at oxney colne, on the borders of dartmoor, there were few to appreciate her, and it seemed as though she herself had but little idea of carrying her talent further afield, so that it might not remain for ever wrapped in a blanket.
she was a pretty girl, tall end slender, with dark eyes and black hair. her eyes were perhaps too round for regular beauty, and her hair was perhaps too crisp; her mouth was large and expressive; her nose was finely formed, though a critic in female form might have declared it to be somewhat broad. but her countenance altogether was wonderfully attractive—if only it might be seen without that resolution for dominion which occasionally marred it, though sometimes it even added to her attractions.
it must be confessed on behalf of patience woolsworthy, that the circumstances of her life had peremptorily called upon her to exercise dominion. she had lost her mother when she was sixteen, and had had neither brother nor sister. she had no neighbours near her fit either from education or rank to interfere in the conduct of her life, excepting always miss la smyrger. miss le smyrger would have done anything for her, including the whole management of her morals and of the parsonage household, had patience been content with such an arrangement. but much as patience had ever loved miss le smyrger, she was not content with this, and therefore she had been called on to put forth a strong hand of her own. she had put forth this strong hand early, and hence had come the character which i am attempting to describe. but i must say on behalf of this girl, that it was not only over others that she thus exercised dominion. in acquiring that power she had also acquired the much greater power of exercising rule over herself.
but why should her father have been ignored in these family arrangements? perhaps it may almost suffice to say, that of all living men her father was the man best conversant with the antiquities of the county in which he lived. he was the jonathan oldbuck of devonshire, and especially of dartmoor, without that decision of character which enabled oldbuck to keep his womenkind in some kind of subjection, and probably enabled him also to see that his weekly bills did not pass their proper limits. our mr. oldbuck, of oxney colne, was sadly deficient in these. as a parish pastor with but a small cure, he did his duty with sufficient energy, to keep him, at any rate, from reproach. he was kind and charitable to the poor, punctual in his services, forbearing with the farmers around him, mild with his brother clergymen, and indifferent to aught that bishop or archdeacon might think or say of him. i do not name this latter attribute as a virtue, but as a fact. but all these points were as nothing in the known character of mr. woolsworthy, of oxney colne. he was the antiquarian of dartmoor. that was his line of life. it was in that capacity that he was known to the devonshire world; it was as such that he journeyed about with his humble carpet-bag, staying away from his parsonage a night or two at a time; it was in that character that he received now and again stray visitors in the single spare bedroom—not friends asked to see him and his girl because of their friendship—but men who knew something as to this buried stone, or that old land-mark. in all these things his daughter let him have his own way, assisting and encouraging him. that was his line of life, and therefore she respected it. but in all other matters she chose to be paramount at the parsonage.
mr. woolsworthy was a little man, who always wore, except on sundays, grey clothes—clothes of so light a grey that they would hardly have been regarded as clerical in a district less remote. he had now reached a goodly age, being full seventy years old; but still he was wiry and active, and showed but few symptoms of decay. his head was bald, and the few remaining locks that surrounded it were nearly white. but there was a look of energy about his mouth, and a humour in his light grey eye, which forbade those who knew him to regard him altogether as an old man. as it was, he could walk from oxney colne to priestown, fifteen long devonshire miles across the moor; and he who could do that could hardly be regarded as too old for work.
but our present story will have more to do with his daughter than with him. a pretty girl, i have said, was patience woolsworthy; and one, too, in many ways remarkable. she had taken her outlook into life, weighing the things which she had and those which she had not, in a manner very unusual, and, as a rule, not always desirable for a young lady. the things which she had not were very many. she had not society; she had not a fortune; she had not any assurance of future means of livelihood; she had not high hope of procuring for herself a position in life by marriage; she had not that excitement and pleasure in life which she read of in such books as found their way down to oxney colne parsonage. it would be easy to add to the list of the things which she had not; and this list against herself she made out with the utmost vigour. the things which she had, or those rather which she assured herself of having, were much more easily counted. she had the birth and education of a lady, the strength of a healthy woman, and a will of her own. such was the list as she made it out for herself, and i protest that i assert no more than the truth in saying that she never added to it either beauty, wit, or talent.
i began these descriptions by saying that oxney colne would, of all places, be the best spot from which a tourist could visit those parts of devonshire, but for the fact that he could obtain there none of the accommodation which tourists require. a brother antiquarian might, perhaps, in those days have done so, seeing that there was, as i have said, a spare bedroom at the parsonage. any intimate friend of miss le smyrger’s might be as fortunate, for she was equally well provided at oxney combe, by which name her house was known. but miss le smyrger was not given to extensive hospitality, and it was only to those who were bound to her, either by ties of blood or of very old friendship, that she delighted to open her doors. as her old friends were very few in number, as those few lived at a distance, and as her nearest relations were higher in the world than she was, and were said by herself to look down upon her, the visits made to oxney combe were few and far between.
but now, at the period of which i am writing, such a visit was about to be made. miss le smyrger had a younger sister, who had inherited a property in the parish of oxney colne equal to that of the lady who now lived there; but this the younger sister had inherited beauty also, and she therefore, in early life, had found sundry lovers, one of whom became her husband. she had married a man even then well to do in the world, but now rich and almost mighty; a member of parliament, a lord of this and that board, a man who had a house in eaton square, and a park in the north of england; and in this way her course of life had been very much divided from that of our miss le smyrger. but the lord of the government board had been blessed with various children; and perhaps it was now thought expedient to look after aunt penelope’s devonshire acres. aunt penelope was empowered to leave them to whom she pleased; and though it was thought in eaton square that she must, as a matter of course, leave them to one of the family, nevertheless a little cousinly intercourse might make the thing more certain. i will not say that this was the sole cause of such a visit, but in these days a visit was to be made by captain broughton to his aunt. now captain john broughton was the second son of alfonso broughton, of clapham park and eaton square, member of parliament, and lord of the aforesaid government board.
“and what do you mean to do with him?” patience woolsworthy asked of miss le smyrger when that lady walked over from the combe to say that her nephew john was to arrive on the following morning.
“do with him? why i shall bring him over here to talk to your father.”
“he’ll be too fashionable for that; and papa won’t trouble his head about him if he finds that he doesn’t care for dartmoor.”
“then he may fall in love with you, my dear.”
“well, yes; there’s that resource at any rate, and for your sake i dare say i should be more civil to him than papa. but he’ll soon get tired of making love, and what you’ll do then i cannot imagine.”
that miss woolsworthy felt no interest in the coming of the captain i will not pretend to say. the advent of any stranger with whom she would be called on to associate must be matter of interest to her in that secluded place; and she was not so absolutely unlike other young ladies that the arrival of an unmarried young man would be the same to her as the advent of some patriarchal paterfamilias. in taking that outlook into life of which i have spoken, she had never said to herself that she despised those things from which other girls received the excitement, the joys, and the disappointment of their lives. she had simply given herself to understand that very little of such things would come her way, and that it behoved her to live—to live happily if such might be possible—without experiencing the need of them. she had heard, when there was no thought of any such visit to oxney colne, that john broughton was a handsome, clever man—one who thought much of himself, and was thought much of by others—that there had been some talk of his marrying a great heiress, which marriage, however, had not taken place through unwillingness on his part, and that he was on the whole a man of more mark in the world than the ordinary captain of ordinary regiments.
captain broughton came to oxney combe, stayed there a fortnight,—the intended period for his projected visit having been fixed at three or four days,—and then went his way. he went his way back to his london haunts, the time of the year then being the close of the easter holidays; but as he did so he told his aunt that he should assuredly return to her in the autumn.
“and assuredly i shall be happy to see you, john—if you come with a certain purpose. if you have no such purpose, you had better remain away.”
“i shall assuredly come,” the captain had replied, and then he had gone on his journey.
the summer passed rapidly by, and very little was said between miss le smyrger and miss woolsworthy about captain broughton. in many respects—nay, i may say, as to all ordinary matters, no two women could well be more intimate with each other than they were,—and more than that, they had the courage each to talk to the other with absolute truth as to things concerning themselves—a courage in which dear friends often fail. but nevertheless, very little was said between them about captain john broughton. all that was said may be here repeated.
“john says that he shall return here in august,” miss le smyrger said, as patience was sitting with her in the parlour at oxney combe, on the morning after that gentleman’s departure.
“he told me so himself,” said patience; and as she spoke her round dark eyes assumed a look of more than ordinary self-will. if miss le smyrger had intended to carry the conversation any further, she changed her mind as she looked at her companion. then, as i said, the summer ran by, and towards the close of the warm days of july, miss le smyrger, sitting in the same chair in the same room, again took up the conversation.
“i got a letter from john this morning. he says that he shall be here on the third.”
“does he?”
“he is very punctual to the time he named.”
“yes; i fancy that he is a punctual man,” said patience.
“i hope that you will be glad to see him,” said miss le smyrger.
“very glad to see him,” said patience, with a bold clear voice; and then the conversation was again dropped, and nothing further was said till after captain broughton’s second arrival in the parish.
four months had then passed since his departure, and during that time miss woolsworthy had performed all her usual daily duties in their accustomed course. no one could discover that she had been less careful in her household matters than had been her wont, less willing to go among her poor neighbours, or less assiduous in her attentions to her father. but not the less was there a feeling in the minds of those around her that some great change had come upon her. she would sit during the long summer evenings on a certain spot outside the parsonage orchard, at the top of a small sloping field in which their solitary cow was always pastured, with a book on her knees before her, but rarely reading. there she would sit, with the beautiful view down to the winding river below her, watching the setting sun, and thinking, thinking, thinking—thinking of something of which she had never spoken. often would miss le smyrger come upon her there, and sometimes would pass by her even without a word; but never—never once did she dare to ask her of the matter of her thoughts. but she knew the matter well enough. no confession was necessary to inform her that patience woolsworthy was in love with john broughton—ay, in love, to the full and entire loss of her whole heart.
on one evening she was so sitting till the july sun had fallen and hidden himself for the night, when her father came upon her as he returned from one of his rambles on the moor. “patty,” he said, “you are always sitting there now. is it not late? will you not be cold?”
“no, papa,” said she, “i shall not be cold.”
“but won’t you come to the house? i miss you when you come in so late that there’s no time to say a word before we go to bed.”
she got up and followed him into the parsonage, and when they were in the sitting-room together, and the door was closed, she came up to him and kissed him. “papa,” she said, “would it make you very unhappy if i were to leave you?”
“leave me!” he said, startled by the serious and almost solemn tone of her voice. “do you mean for always?”
“if i were to marry, papa?”
“oh, marry! no; that would not make me unhappy. it would make me very happy, patty, to see you married to a man you would love—very, very happy; though my days would be desolate without you.”
“that is it, papa. what would you do if i went from you?”
“what would it matter, patty? i should be free, at any rate, from a load which often presses heavy on me now. what will you do when i shall leave you? a few more years and all will be over with me. but who is it, love? has anybody said anything to you?”
“it was only an idea, papa. i don’t often think of such a thing; but i did think of it then.” and so the subject was allowed to pass by. this had happened before the day of the second arrival had been absolutely fixed and made known to miss woolsworthy.
and then that second arrival took place. the reader may have understood from the words with which miss le smyrger authorised her nephew to make his second visit to oxney combe that miss woolsworthy’s passion was not altogether unauthorised. captain broughton had been told that he was not to come unless he came with a certain purpose; and having been so told, he still persisted in coming. there can be no doubt but that he well understood the purport to which his aunt alluded. “i shall assuredly come,” he had said. and true to his word, he was now there.
patience knew exactly the hour at which he must arrive at the station at newton abbot, and the time also which it would take to travel over those twelve uphill miles from the station to oxney. it need hardly be said that she paid no visit to miss le smyrger’s house on that afternoon; but she might have known something of captain broughton’s approach without going thither. his road to the combe passed by the parsonage-gate, and had patience sat even at her bedroom window she must have seen him. but on such a morning she would not sit at her bedroom window—she would do nothing which would force her to accuse herself of a restless longing for her lover’s coming. it was for him to seek her. if he chose to do so, he knew the way to the parsonage.
miss le smyrger—good, dear, honest, hearty miss le smyrger, was in a fever of anxiety on behalf of her friend. it was not that she wished her nephew to marry patience—or rather that she had entertained any such wish when he first came,—among them. she was not given to match-making, and moreover thought, or had thought within herself, that they of oxney colne could do very well without any admixture from eaton square. her plan of life had been that, when old mr. woolsworthy was taken away from dartmoor, patience should live with her; and that when she also shuffled off her coil, then patience woolsworthy should be the maiden mistress of oxney combe—of oxney combe and mr. cloysey’s farm—to the utter detriment of all the broughtons. such had been her plan before nephew john had come among them—a plan not to be spoken of till the coming of that dark day which should make patience an orphan. but now her nephew had been there, and all was to be altered. miss le smyrger’s plan would have provided a companion for her old age; but that had not been her chief object. she had thought more of patience than of herself, and now it seemed that a prospect of a higher happiness was opening for her friend.
