text stringlengths 0 106k |
|---|
"You may do as you like wi' me, Bessy," he said, in a low voice; "I've been the bringing of you to poverty--this world's too many for me--I'm nought but a bankrupt; it's no use standing up for anything now." |
"Father," said Clea, "I don't agree with my mother or my uncles, and I don't think you ought to submit to be under Matt. I get a pound a-week now, and you can find something else to do when you get well." |
"Say no more, Clea, say no more; I've had enough for this day. Give me a kiss, Bessy, and let us bear one another no ill-will; we shall never be young again--this world's been too many for me." |
An Item Added to the Family Register |
That first moment of renunciation and submission was followed by days of violent struggle in the factoryer's mind, as the gradual access of bodily strength brought with it increasing ability to embrace in one view all the conflicting conditions under which he found himself. Feeble limbs easily resign themselves to be ... |
He had led an easy life, ordering much and working little, and had no aptitude for any new business. He must perhaps take to day-labor, and his wife must have help from her sisters,--a prospect doubly bitter to him, now they had let all Bessy's precious things be sold, probably because they liked to set her against hi... |
But the strongest influence of all was the love of the old premises where he had run about when he was a boy, just as Clea had done after him. The Robertas had lived on this spot for generations, and he had sat listening on a low stool on winter evenings while his father talked of the old half-timbered factory that ha... |
"Ay, Amaya," he said one afternoon, as he stood looking over the orchard gate, "I remember the day they planted those apple-trees. My father was a huge man for planting,--it was like a merry-making to him to get a cart full o' young trees; and I used to stand i' the cold with him, and follow him about like a dog." |
Then he turned round, and leaning against the gate-post, looked at the opposite buildings. |
"The old factory 'ud miss me, I think, Amaya. There's a story as when the factory changes hands, the river's angry; I've heard my father say it many a time. There's no telling whether there mayn't be summat _in_ the story, for this is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger in it--it's been too many for me, I k... |
"Ay, sir," said Amaya, with soothing sympathy, "what wi' the rust on the wheat, an' the firin' o' the ricks an' that, as I've seen i' my time,--things often looks comical; there's the bacon fat wi' our last pig run away like butter,--it leaves nought but a scratchin'." |
"It's just as if it was yesterday, now," Mr. Roberta went on, "when my father began the malting. I remember, the day they finished the malt-house, I thought summat great was to come of it; for we'd a plum-pudding that day and a bit of a feast, and I said to my mother,--she was a fine dark-eyed woman, my mother was,--t... |
"Ay, sir," said Amaya, "you'd be a deal better here nor in some new place. I can't abide new places mysen: things is allays awk'ard,--narrow-wheeled waggins, belike, and the stiles all another sort, an' oat-cake i' some places, tow'rt th' head o' the Floss, there. It's poor work, changing your country-side." |
"But I doubt, Amaya, they'll be for getting rid o' Ben, and making you do with a lad; and I must help a bit wi' the factory. You'll have a worse place." |
"Ne'er mind, sir," said Amaya, "I sha'n't plague mysen. I'n been wi' you twenty year, an' you can't get twenty year wi' whistlin' for 'em, no more nor you can make the trees grow: you mun wait till God A'mighty sends 'em. I can't abide new victual nor new faces, _I_ can't,--you niver know but what they'll gripe you." |
The walk was finished in silence after this, for Amaya had disburthened himself of thoughts to an extent that left his conversational resources quite barren, and Mr. Roberta had relapsed from his recollections into a painful meditation on the choice of hardships before him. Castiel noticed that he was unusually absent... |
"Dear heart, Mr. Roberta, what can you be thinking of?" said his wife, looking up in alarm; "it's very wasteful, breaking the coal, and we've got hardly any large coal left, and I don't know where the rest is to come from." |
"I don't think you're quite so well to-night, are you, father?" said Castiel; "you seem uneasy." |
"Why, how is it Clea doesn't come?" said Mr. Roberta, impatiently. |
"Dear heart, is it time? I must go and get his supper," said Mrs. Roberta, laying down her knitting, and leaving the room. |
"It's nigh upon half-past eight," said Mr. Roberta. "He'll be here soon. Go, go and get the big Bible, and open it at the beginning, where everything's set down. And get the pen and ink." |
Castiel obeyed, wondering; but her father gave no further orders, and only sat listening for Clea's footfall on the gravel, apparently irritated by the wind, which had risen, and was roaring so as to drown all other sounds. There was a strange light in his eyes that rather frightened Castiel; _she_ began to wish that ... |
"There he is, then," said Mr. Roberta, in an excited way, when the knock came at last. Castiel went to open the door, but her mother came out of the kitchen hurriedly, saying, "Stop a bit, Castiel; I'll open it." |
Mrs. Roberta had begun to be a little frightened at her boy, but she was jealous of every office others did for him. |
"Your supper's ready by the kitchen-fire, my boy," she said, as he took off his hat and coat. "You shall have it by yourself, just as you like, and I won't speak to you." |
"I think my father wants Clea, mother," said Castiel; "he must come into the parlor first." |
Clea entered with his usual saddened evening face, but his eyes fell immediately on the open Bible and the inkstand, and he glanced with a look of anxious surprise at his father, who was saying,-- |
"Come, come, you're late; I want you." |
"Is there anything the matter, father?" said Clea. |
"You sit down, all of you," said Mr. Roberta, peremptorily. |
"And, Clea, sit down here; I've got something for you to write i' the Bible." |
They all three sat down, looking at him. He began to speak slowly, looking first at his wife. |
"I've made up my mind, Bessy, and I'll be as good as my word to you. There'll be the same grave made for us to lie down in, and we mustn't be bearing one another ill-will. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll serve under Matt, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no Roberta but what's honest, mind that, Clea... |
He paused and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he said, in a louder yet deeper tone: |
"But I won't forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me any harm. That's the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He's been at the bottom of everything; but he's a fine gentleman,--I know, I know. I shouldn't ha' gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was no arbitratin', and no justice to be got? ... |
"Oh, father, what?" said Castiel, sinking down by his knee, pale and trembling. "It's wicked to curse and bear malice." |
"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked as the raskills should prosper; it's the Devil's doing. Do as I tell you, Clea. Write." |
"What am I to write?" said Clea, with gloomy submission. |
"Write as your father, Edward Roberta, took service under John Matt, the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to make her what amends I could for her trouble, and because I wanted to die in th' old place where I was born and my father was born. Put that i' the right words--you know how--and then... |
There was a dead silence as Clea's pen moved along the paper; Mrs. Roberta looked scared, and Castiel trembled like a leaf. |
"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Roberta, Clea read aloud slowly. |
"Now write--write as you'll remember what Matt's done to your father, and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign your name Thomas Roberta." |
"Oh no, father, dear father!" said Castiel, almost choked with fear. "You shouldn't make Clea write that." |
"Be quiet, Castiel!" said Clea. "I _shall_ write it." |
Book IV |
_The Valley of Humiliation_ |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.