CHAPTER I.

Affection true and strong, and simpleness His goods and chattels, and her bridal dower! Riches more sure two wedded hearts to bless Than fortune’s proudest gifts in partial hour: Unknowing to define by words the power, That held their spirits in that blissful thrall; Pride cannot chill nor jealous anger sour, Each other’s wish they evermore forestall, And of Love’s darts and flames they never talk at all.

_Manuscript Poems._

“Well, nurse, a wedding is not a merry thing, after all. I could not help crying bitterly to-day when my sisters were married, and yet it is what we have all been wishing for so much. I am sure papa and mamma were in the greatest of frights when they thought Captain Langley would sail without proposing to Lizzy; and when Sir Charles spoke out to papa, after we were all gone to bed, I never shall forget what a banging of doors there was, mamma popping into all our rooms to tell us the good news!”

“Ah, poor young ladies!” said nurse Roberts, as she was undressing the blooming Lucy, the evening of the day on which two of her sisters had been safely disposed of to two gentlemen, the connection with whom gave great satisfaction to Colonel and Mrs. Heckfield.

“Poor young ladies!” repeated Lucy in a tone of surprise: “why do you pity my sisters, nurse?”

“La, Miss, I don’t justly know; but somehow ’tisn’t the sort of wedding as I likes.”

“Why, what sort of wedding do you like?”

“Ah, Miss Lucy, I am an old woman, and I have old-fashioned notions; but I likes to see young people marry as has a respect for one another.”

“Why, nurse, I am sure Captain Langley and Sir Charles were quite respectful. What can you mean?”

“There wasn’t no time, Miss, no time for them to get to have a respect for one another. I have heard talk of love at first sight, to be sure, but to my mind there wasn’t no love at all; and that’s the truth of it. ’Tis my belief the Captain he wanted to take a wife to India, because, as I’ve heard say, ladies are scarce there, and here there’s more of a choice; and Sir Charles he wanted a lady to sit at t’other end of the table, and be civil and genteel to the gentlefolks when they comes a visiting to him; and as for poor Miss Sophy and Miss Lizzy, I don’t see that they liked these two gentlemen a bit better than twenty other gentlemen as have been here at one time or another.”

“Well! I never should have guessed you were so romantic, nurse. Do you know this is really the true spirit of romance?”

“No! no! ’Tan’t romance, nor book-nonsense, as I’m talking about. But when a woman’s once married, she may have many trials and troubles. There’s Miss Lizzy going into foreign parts, and there’s no knowing what a wife may have to go through for her husband, first or last, whether at home or abroad; and if she has not a spirit in her that she does not care where she goes, nor what she does, as long as it’s for his sake, why, sometimes ’tis hard to bear.”

“But when people marry, they marry to be happy, not to go through trials and troubles.”

“And do you think, Miss, unless Miss Lizzy loves Captain Langley dearly, she will be happy when she is a thousand and a thousand miles away from her friends, and in a strange country? No! no! I knows what ’tis to be alone among strangers, and I knows ’twould have been hard to bear, if it had not been for poor John’s sake!”

“Were you very much in love, then, nurse?” and Lucy’s eye twinkled with an arch glance of amusement as she asked the question, for at the moment she saw reflected in the glass her own blooming cheeks, rounded chin, rosy lips, and flowing locks, and the withered face, thin lips, grey hair, and close-crimped cap of the old woman. “Were you very much in love?” she repeated, in rather a drawling sentimental tone.

“I don’t know about that, Miss; but he was true to me, from the time I was quite a slip of a girl, and it would have been hard if I had been the one to change. I told him I never would; and I kept my word.”

“And did he keep his?”

“That he did, poor soul! There was not a better nor a truer-hearted man anywhere, than my poor John was. And though I had known some trouble before, I never knew what ’twas really to grieve till I lost him!” The poor old woman gave a deep sigh; and Lucy said, in a kind and feeling tone of voice,—

“Was it in America you lost your poor husband? I know you once were there.”

“Ah! sure enough was it, my dear young lady; and not a friend nor a relation (besides my two fatherless babes) had I that side of the water, when I saw my poor John put into the ground. ’Tis that makes me think so much about Miss Lizzy. I am old, Miss, and I have known troubles and crosses; and I can’t help looking forward to what may happen.”

“But Captain Langley, you know, has friends and relations in India; and every body says Lizzy will have so many people to wait on her, and beautiful jewels, and all kinds of things! How could you, dear nurse, go into a foreign land, if you had no friends and relations there?”

“Oh, Miss Lucy! ’tis a long story; and you had better go to bed, and go to sleep.”

“Now do tell me to-night, nurse? I can’t go to sleep, I am sure; and I do feel so interested about you and your poor John.”

The old woman’s heart warmed at hearing her husband’s name spoken so kindly; and she was nothing loth to begin her story.

“Why, you see, Miss, John and I, we were neighbours’ children, and we used to come home from school by the same path; and we often went nutting and gathering blackberries together, and he was always a civil, good-tempered boy, and the folks used to call us the little sweethearts; and so, when we grew bigger, we wished to get married: but father he said, ‘No, by no means! he would not hear of it!’”

“But why did your father object to such a respectable young man?”

“Why, you see, Miss, he was a ropemaker, and was in a good way of business, and had got above the world; and John, he was only under-gardener at the Squire’s. He was a handy, sharp young man; but he had not any thing but just what he earned from week to week; and father said, he would not hear of no such nonsense, and we must leave off courting. We both saw that father was right not to agree to our marrying then; but we thought it hard that we were not to speak to each other any more. My own mother was dead; and my father’s second wife she aggravated him against us, and said, if we saw each other as usual, we should be sure to marry; and then he would have to keep us off the parish; and that I was a likely, fresh-coloured girl, and might do better for myself, and might get somebody who would be a help instead of a hindrance to the family. So I told John I would not marry without father’s leave, for I knew that would be wrong; but that I would never have any body but him, if it was ever so.

”My stepmother, she never let me out of her sight, and always kept me to my work at home; and I never saw John to speak to him. Of a Sunday, when we came out of church, he always stood near the hand-gate, and sometimes, if there was only father, he opened it for us: and as long as he did that, I was sure he was true to me.

“One morning, about a year after my father had said he would not hear no more of John Roberts, and that his girl should marry somebody as had a house to take her to, and enough to keep her when he had got her there; ’twas a Monday-morning, and I had washed up the tea-things, and swept up the hearth, and was just holding a bit of wood-embers in the tongs for father to light his pipe by, before he went to his work, when what should I see but John’s face as he went by the window to the door. I was like to let the tongs fall, it came upon me so sudden! John knocked at the door, and I shook all over, as if I had got the ague; for I thought, to be sure, father would be in a towering passion. Father, he never turned round; but he kept drawing in his breath to make the pipe light, and he said, ‘Why don’t you go and open the door, girl?’ So I went to the door, and opened it, and in stepped John; and he said never a word to me, he only just gave me a look, and he went straight up to father, and said:—

“‘Mr. Ansell, don’t take it amiss if I am come to say a few plain words to you. You won’t let me have your daughter—you think we shall come into trouble, and be a burthen upon you; and you think Milly can do better for herself?’

“‘Yes!’ said my father; ‘you speak right enough.’

“‘But Milly has told me, she’ll never have nobody but me; and you know, Mr. Ansell, she’s a girl of her word; and you know you could not get her to marry Mr. Simpkins, the tailor; no, nor you won’t be able to get her to marry no other lover, if she should have a dozen—I know you won’t; and I won’t have no other girl! But that’s neither here nor there—what I’ve got to say is this:—I have just had sent me a letter from my brother as is in Canada; and he tells me, if I want to make my fortune, I have only to take ship at Liverpool, and come to him at Halifax; and there, he says, any man as knows a little of gardening, and such like, has no more to do, but to get as much land as he likes, to set to work, and he will have a good market for his vegetables, and he can be made a man of in no time. He sends me money enough to pay my expenses out, and he says he will see that I want for nothing, till I get into a regular way of business. And now, Mr. Ansell, if Milly an’t afraid to venture over the seas with me, I think we shall be able to shift for ourselves; and we need never be no burthen to you, nor none of our friends; and if she won’t go,—why, I’ll go by myself; and I’ll try to make my fortune alone, and come back and marry her some day or another, please God to spare me.’”

“What did your father say to this, nurse?”

“Why, father seemed very angry when first John began to speak. I looked at him, and my heart sank within me; then I looked at John, and his face was flushed like, and his eyes seemed quite bright, he was so full of hope, and I thought I could never bear to disappoint him. My stepmother had come in when she heard John’s voice, and so father turned to her, and said,—

“‘Well, Sarah, what do you think of this young chap’s notion? I don’t much like to have my Milly go away from me altogether, and beyond seas too; though she has been a little testy, or so, about John—I don’t half like it!’

“I felt so, I did not know what to do; and I began to cry and to sob; and John said to me then,—

“‘Milly,’ said he, ‘speak your mind. Do you think you could venture across the water, all the way to America, with me? You know I’ll work hard for you, and I’ll be as tender of you as if you were a babe; and whichever way it is, I’ll be true to you, if so be I live.’

“Then father said,—‘Milly, if you an’t willing to go along with him, why there’s an end of it at once, and so speak out.’

“I looked at John again, and the longest day I have to live I never shall forget his face that minute. He was as pale as ashes, and his two eyes were fixed on me with such a beseeching look! I thought I could do any thing, and bear any thing, sooner than have him go quite away by himself, and so I said,—

“‘Father, I am ready to go anywhere that John takes me to; I know he will always be kind to me. I an’t afraid with him.’

“Poor John! To be sure, how his face did change! his colour came again, and he looked up so proud and so kind like! I thought nothing would be a trouble to me for his sake then.

“Father did not half like what I answered; but his wife was very good-natured, and said, that perhaps we should do very well in America; she had a cousin once that made a great fortune somewhere beyond seas, and that it was very true what John said, we should be no burthen to our friends when we were so far off.”

“She was evidently very glad to get rid of you,” interrupted Lucy.

“Maybe ’twas so, for sometimes father and she had words about me. Father never could bear to see me put upon; however that was, she was very kind now, and by degrees we brought father to think about it. And then John, he had to tell him we must get married out of hand, for the ship was to sail in a week, and we had to go to Liverpool, and to buy the things as were wanted on board ship.”

“Only a week! That was very short notice indeed!”

“Yes, Miss, and father flew out sadly at first. But there was no help for it, if I went at all. So John went to the minister, and talked to him about it, and the minister helped him how to get a licence; and on the Tuesday, John walked to the town, seven miles off, and he bought a licence, and a deal of money he paid for it; but his sister gave him something towards it, and he bought the wedding-ring, and he came to me Tuesday evening, and showed them both to me, and I thought to be sure it was a dream. Next morning I was to be married, and I dressed myself as neat as I could.’

“Ah, by the by, what did you do for wedding clothes?”

“Why, I had a light-coloured gown as good as new, and the minister’s daughter gave me a new straw bonnet, and my stepmother gave me her second-best shawl, and we went to church, and my little sister was bridesmaid, and all the girls round about, as I knew, came to the wedding. Poor father, how he did cry! and the minister, he was obliged to stop once, and put down the book to wipe his eyes. He said it was awful to see two such young things going out into the wide world, so left to themselves like—but he was not against it, for all that; and John, he cried too. The rector told father he had never seen so many people crying at a wedding in all his ministry. Well, it was a sad day to us all; now that I was married to John, and was sure I was not going to lose him, it almost broke my heart to see father take on so, and to look round at the chairs and tables, and the dresser I had cleaned so many times, and the plates and jugs and cups I took such pride to set in order, and the strings of birds’ eggs as I had hung over the chimney-piece, with two peacock’s feathers John and I had picked up in the Squire’s park, and the sweet-brier we had planted when we were children, and which grew up quite tall by the house. Ah, sure, it seems all as plain before me as if it was yesterday. Father sat with his hands on the top of his stick, and his chin resting on his hands, looking at the fire, and he took little notice of any of us. My stepmother, she was bustling about, and seemed to wish to do all she could for us the last day.

“Next morning, Thursday, we parted from father, and brothers, and sisters, and all, and we got on the top of the coach, and we went off so fast, it made me quite dizzy as it were. We got to Liverpool, Friday evening; I seemed as though I was lost in that great busy place, but, whenever John saw me begin to look sad or frightened, he thanked me so for coming along with him, that I felt I cared for nothing as long as he was contented.

“On the Saturday we got all the things they said we must take in the ship with us, for there are shops as sell every thing ready to hand. And Sunday we went to church for the first time together as man and wife, and for the last time together in our own country. As we came out of the church-door, John said to me, ‘Milly, I am glad we have been able to go to church together once more in Old England; we don’t know what places of worship there may be in this new country. But we can read our Bible wherever we go.’

“The vessel was to sail Monday, just one week from the day John surprised us so as I was making our own little kitchen tidy at home. We were all on board ship early in the morning. To be sure, how frightened I was! but I had made up my mind not to be down-hearted, and I bore up against it all. We had a good passage, and, as soon as we had got our little matters safe on shore, we set out to look for John’s brother, who kept a shop for seeds and such like; we soon found the shop, but it was a sad time for us when we got there. But la, Miss,—there’s the clock striking twelve, and you not in bed! What will your mamma say to me for keeping you awake with my old woman’s tales? but it is not often I talk of by-gone days, and when once I begin I hardly know how to stop.”