Bristol Bells: A Story of the Eighteenth Century

'Grandfather! I want to speak to you; please listen.'

'Well, who said I would not listen? But speak up, Biddy.'

The old man put his hand to his ear, and his granddaughter leaned over the back of his chair.

'Don't call me Biddy, grandfather. I am Bryda.'

'Bryda! Phew! Your poor mother was called Biddy, and you ain't better than she was that I know of.'

'Well, never mind; but this is what I want to say, and Betty is quite of my mind. Do let me go to Bristol. Jack Henderson heard old Mrs Lambert say she would like a bright, sharp girl to help her in the house, and I am bright and sharp, grandfather!'

'I daresay, and make you a drudge!'

'No; I shouldn't be a drudge. I should be treated well, and you know Mrs Lambert is a relation.'

'Relation! that's very pretty, when she has taken no heed of you for years. No, no; stay at home, Biddy, and put such silly stuff out of your head. Goody Lambert may find somebody else-not my granddaughter. Come! it's about supper-time. Where's Bet? She doesn't want to gad about; she knows when she is well off.'

Bryda pouted, and darted out of the large parlour of Bishop's Farm into the orchard, where the pink-and-white blossoms of the trees were all smiling in the westering sunshine of the fair May evening.

The level rays threw gleams of gold between the thickly-serried ranks of the old trees-many of them with gnarled, crooked branches, covered with white lichen-some, more recently planted, spreading out straight boughs-the old and young alike all covered with the annual miracle of the spring's unfailing gift of lovely blossoms, which promised a full guerdon of fruit in after days.

In and out amongst the trees Bryda threaded her way, sometimes brushing against one of the lower boughs, which shed its pink-and-white petals on her fair head as she passed.

'Betty!' she called. 'Bet, are you here? Bet!'

Bryda had come to a wicket-gate opening on a space of rugged down, golden with gorse, and from which could be seen an extensive view of Bristol in one direction, and of the village of Langholm and the woods of Leigh on the other.

Bishop's Farm was on the high ground of the Mendips, not a mile distant from the church of Dundry, whose tower is a landmark of this district, and is seen as a beacon to the country-side for many miles.

'Yes, here I am. Bryda, what is the matter?'

Betty was seated on a bit of rock, anxiously looking down on a lamb which the shepherd had brought from the fold, as it seemed, to die.

'It's just dying, that's what it. It's no use making a to-do Miss Betty. Lor'! the master can afford to lose one lamb, and it's no fault of mine.'

'It should have been brought in last evening, Silas. I'll carry it in myself, poor dear little thing.'

'Better not, better not; let it die in peace, miss. No mortal power can save it now. The mother is all but dying, too, and if I save her it's as much as I can do. There, I told you so. It's gone, poor dumb thing.'

For the lamb give one little feeble moan rather than a bleat, drew its thick legs together convulsively, and then lay still.

'Dead! Oh, take it away, Silas,' Bryda exclaimed; 'I cannot bear to see anything dead. Come away, Betty,' she entreated.

'There, there, Miss Biddy, don't take on. I'll carry it off, and don't trouble your heads no more about it. We've all got to die, and the lamb is no worse off than we. Can't say but I am sorry though,' Silas said, in a softer tone, as he picked up the dead lamb. 'I'd sooner see it frisking about in the meadow yonder than lying so cold and quiet.'

And then Silas, in his smock frock and wide hat, strode away over gorse and heather, and left the sisters alone.

Of these sisters Betty was the younger of the two by one year, but older in many ways-older in her careful thought for others, in her unselfish life, in her patience and tender forbearance with her somewhat irascible old grandfather.

Bryda and Betty had lived with their grandfather at Bishop's Farm ever since they could remember anything.

Their aunt, their father's sister by the farmer's first marriage, a widow, took the charge of the house after her husband's death, when she had come to her old home at her father's bidding rather than at his invitation.

He had been angry with her for marrying a sailor, had prophesied from the first that no good could come of it, and he was more triumphant than sorry that his prophecy had proved true.

There are some people who feel a keen satisfaction when they are able to say with Peter Palmer of the Bishop's Farm, 'I told you so, and I knew how it would be.' Peter certainly repeated this often in the ears of his daughter, a stolid, heavy woman, whom it was difficult to rouse to any keen emotion, either of joy or sorrow.

Mrs Burrow was one of those slow people to whom stagnation is life. She could scarcely read, and her writing was so much like hieroglyphics that on the rare occasions when she had to sign her name she used to get one of her nieces to write, 'Dorothy Burrow, her mark,' and then she would add the cross.

She did not neglect the homely duties which devolved on her as head of her father's house. She managed the dairy and the poultry, and kept the farm servants up to the mark.

Her world was a wholly different world from that of her young nieces, and the imaginative and enthusiastic Bryda especially had nothing in common with her.

Biddy, who undertook the plain cooking and baking of the establishment, and had a light hand for pastry and cakes, and who mended the linen with unexampled neatness, was Mrs Burrow's favourite. She was useful, and had no new-fangled ways like Biddy, and would make a good wife when her turn came, but as to that flighty Biddy, the man who married her would repent it to his last hour.

'Do ask grandfather, Bet, to let me go to Mrs Lambert's.'

'I wonder you are in such a hurry to leave me,' was the reply.

'It's not you, it's this humdrum life. Here we live, with no books and no fun, day after day, month after month, year after year. Why, I shall be twenty at midsummer, and I have only been to Bristol twice, and to Wells once by the coach. Oh, Bet, I might as well be a turnip or-'

A laugh from someone near made the girls spring up.

'So Bryda is like a turnip. That's good, I must say.'

'Jack, how you frightened me,' Betty said. 'I thought you was gone back to Bristol.'

'No, I have got another week's holiday. Uncle Antony sent word by the carrier that he would as lieve have my room as my company.'

'Oh, Jack, have you quarrelled with Mr Henderson?'

'Not exactly; but I am no favourite of his. Well, aren't you going to ask me to supper, Betty? I am hungry enough, I can tell you.'

'I must go and find out if there is enough supper for you,' Betty said, laughing. 'You and Bryda can follow when you like, but, Jack, don't fill her head with nonsense about going to Bristol. She will only be miserable if she goes to old Madam Lambert.'

And then Betty let the wicket-gate click behind her, and went singing through the orchard.

Jack Henderson was a giant in stature, with large ungainly hands and a somewhat slouching gait.

If ever a man was cut out for a country life it was Jack Henderson. But his mother was a little of the fine lady, and when her husband's brother offered to take Jack as an apprentice in his jeweller's shop in Corn Street, Bristol, she eagerly accepted the proposal, or rather, I should say, Mr Henderson at last gave a somewhat reluctant consent to receive Jack and polish him up as he polished his old silver and chased gold in his Bristol shop.

'You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,' had been Mr Henderson's remark when the bargain was finally struck, 'so don't expect it, Molly,' he said to his sister-in-law. 'But as you are a widow, and I promised poor Jim to do something for his children, I'll hold to the bargain.'

The bargain was this. Mrs Henderson was to supply vegetables, cream and butter, and cider from her farm in return for her son's board, lodging, and learning the trade in her brother-in-law's shop in Corn Street.

Jack Henderson threw his huge form on the ground at Bryda's feet, and said,-

'What are you doleful about, Bryda-eh?'

'Don't ask me,' Bryda said. 'I might as well cry for the moon as ask grandfather to let me go to Mrs Lambert. He won't give me leave.'

'Go without,' was the prompt reply. 'I'll manage it.'

Bryda shook her head.

'It would vex poor Bet if I did.'

'Well, it will vex me if you stay here. I'd give something to see you once a week, and if you stay here I sha'n't see you till next Whitsun'-p'r'aps not then.'

Bryda made no answer to this. She was leaning forward, and looking past Jack to the lovely landscape stretched before her, listening intently, her eyes full of wistful longing, her small hands clasped round her knees, and a pair of little feet, which the thick, clumsy shoes of the village shoemaker could not altogether disguise, crossed one over the other close to Jack Henderson's large hand.

'Hush.' she said, 'there are the bells, Bristol bells calling-they always seem to call me-but it's no use.'

Then, rallying, Bryda said,-

'Tell me about that boy-you know who I mean.'

'Oh! the mad fellow at Lambert's, he is as mad as ever, writing and scribbling verses. But, all the same, he is not a bad sort of chap. Old Lambert hates him, but masters always hate their apprentices, just as Uncle Tom hates me.'

'Have you brought me any more poems, Jack?'

'No. You must come for 'em. I'll lay a wager Chatterton will give you a lot of stuff like the "Friar's Bridge" when he sees you.'

'You might send me Felix Farley's Journal when you go back to business.'

'Look here, Bryda, you must come for it. I shall be off in the cart next Monday morning. I'll wait at the turn by the church till you come. Only old Tim will know, and he is as blind as a mole and deaf as a post. Now, come, there's a good girl.'

'But Mrs Lambert may not want me.'

'You are quick with your pen, write to the old lady and tell her you will come to be a grandchild to her, or what you like. Come, Bryda, say yes.'

But Bryda still hesitated.

The flight to Bristol was to the country-bred village maiden of a hundred and twenty years ago a serious matter. Just as she had seen the young swallows stretching their wings on the nests under the eaves, and fluttering and trembling before they followed their twittering parents, so did Bryda pause, before she could make up her mind to take this earnestly desired flight into the heart of the city from the heart of the hills.

Bryda had few books, for books, of which there were not many in those days, did not find their way to the Mendip villages. But the girl lived in her own world of romance, and peopled it with airy phantoms, as many a maiden has done before her. Her prosaic aunt and the two or three cronies who paid visits to Bishop's Farm were much more unreal to her than the creations of her own brain.

She loved Betty with the love that is born of dependence, for Betty exercised a half maternal care over the sister of whose beauty she was so proud, and who seemed to her simple soul so far superior to herself and to any of her neighbours.

That Bryda should have the best of everything was a recognised fact with Betty-the best clothes, the brightest ribbons, the choicest food.

Many a time had Betty stood as a shield between their Aunt Dorothy and the spoiled child, her sister, and skilfully covered any of Bryda's delinquencies by the garment which loving hands know so well how to throw over those who are dearest to them.

Betty was very pretty, but she had no acknowledged admirers, while there was not a young man in the district who did not show signs of adoration for Bryda-mute signs, perhaps, but not the less sincere-a flower presented as she passed under the porch of the village church, or a fairing brought from Bristol, left with no words on the stone seat under the porch.

But none had dared to make a formal declaration of love, except Jack Henderson, perhaps, who, on his not frequent visits to his old home at the Mendips, found Bryda more and more irresistible, and gave her reason to know, as at this time, that the sight of her was indispensable to his happiness. Poor Jack, he was to find out that the very temptation he put in Bryda's way-to take flight to the busy, toiling city, now lying at the distance of some miles below them, wrapt in the gathering blue haze of the May evening-was to widen and not lessen the distance between them.

'Well,' he said, drawing his huge ungainly form from the soft cushion of moss, where the daisies and golden cistus flowers had shut their eyes for the night, 'well, take my word for it, you'll find a lot of things you care for in Bristol, and I tell you, if I were you, I should write to Madam Lambert at once. You can send it by the carrier, tied up in brown paper. He baits his horse in Corn Street, close to Lambert's office, and he'll take it direct to Dowry Square. You'll get heaps of things you want. Books-why, bless you, Bristol is a mighty learned place. The folks there do nothing else than write histories, and read till they are blind. You'll get a lot of things there, and so you'll say when you are once there.'

'Bryda, Bryda,' it was Betty's voice calling in the orchard, 'Bryda, pray come; Aunt Dorothy is as cross as two sticks.'

'Is that anything new?' Bryda said, with a little laugh, as she sprang to her feet, waved her hand to Jack Henderson, and disappeared under the blossoming apple trees. He longed to follow her, but as she did not ask him to do so, he turned towards his home two miles away.

That night, when Betty was quietly sleeping in the white-curtained tent-bed which the sisters shared, Bryda went to the lattice and opened it gently, and looked out into the calm of the summer night. The old-fashioned garden below sent up from its bushes of lavender and rosemary, and sweet-scented thyme and wallflower, a dewy fragrance. A honeysuckle just coming into full flower clasped the mullion of the old stone framework by the lattice with clinging tendrils. Above, the stars looked down, giving the sense of the infinite and eternal, which will strike at times the dullest heart with awe and reverence. The sounds were subtle and scarcely defined. The rustle of a bird in the nest, where she was guarding her newly-fledged young ones, a whisper of the breeze faintly stirring the leaves of a silver birch, whose white trunk shone out in the dim twilight, for the days were nearing midsummer and May was just melting into June.

'Yes,' Bryda said, 'I might gain much, but should I not lose more? And yet there is life, life in the city, and here it is sameness, and life, real life, is scarce felt. I wonder how it will be.'

Bryda was about to close the lattice when her ear caught sounds more audible than the faint whisper of the breeze and the rustle of the leaves. Voices low and angry came from the kitchen, which was below her window.

The voices grew louder, then a door was sharply shut, and Flick, the big watch-dog, gave a low growl and the gate of the farmyard clicked again and again as it swung violently backwards and forwards before it finally closed.

The dwellers in farmhouses a hundred and twenty years ago on the height of the Mendips were early to bed and early to rise. It was therefore unusual to hear anyone coming or going between nine and ten o'clock.

'I wonder who it was?' Bryda thought. 'And there is grandfather coming up to bed. How slowly he comes, and-what can be the matter?'

For, as the heavy footsteps reached the landing by the girl's bedroom, there was a pause, and then a prolonged sigh, which was more like a groan.

Bryda stood transfixed, her hand on the latch of the door, which she had not courage to lift.

Another heavy sigh, and then the slow footsteps were heard getting fainter and fainter as the old man passed along the passage to his room.

Then all was quiet, and Bryda, still haunted with the fear of something unusual and strange, lay down by Betty's side and was soon asleep.

How often some cherished wish when fulfilled comes to us, not as the phantom of delight, as we pictured it, but with a grave and sober mien which makes us scarcely recognise that the desire which is granted is 'the tree of life,' for the fruit too often has a bitter taste, or ere we can grasp it is turned to dust and ashes. Bryda's longings were to be satisfied, but not as she had imagined. The way was to be made plain for her departure from Bishop's Farm; the home of her childhood and early girlhood was to be hers no longer.

Her grandfather went up to his bed that night a ruined man.

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