alleviate the immediate wants of her brother’s family. And as she was leaving, he ran after the waggon. “Stop, stop!” he cried. “Hetty, if thou wilt if it wunnot be too much for thee bring back one of Jack’s wenches for company, like. We’ve enough and to spare; and a lass will make the house winsome, as a man may say.”
The waggon moved on, while Hester had such a silent swelling of gratitude in her heart, as was both thanks to her husband, and thanks-giving to God.
And that was the way that little Bessy Rose came to be an inmate of the Nab’s-end Farm.
Virtue met with its own reward in this instance, and in a clear and tangible shape, too, which need not delude people in general into thinking that such is the usual nature of virtue’s rewards. Bessy grew up a bright, affectionate, active girl; a daily comfort to her uncle and aunt. She was so much a darling in the household that they even thought her worthy of their only son Benjamin, who was perfection in their eyes. It is not often the case that two plain, homely people have a child of uncommon beauty; but it is sometimes, and Benjamin Huntroyd was one of these exceptional cases. The hard-working, labour and care-marked farmer, and the mother, who could never have been more than tolerably comely in her best days, produced a son who might have been an earl’s son for grace and beauty. Even the hunting squires of the neighbourhood reined up their horses to admire him, as he opened the gates for them. He had no shyness, he was so accustomed to admiration from strangers, and adoration from his parents from his earliest years. As for Bessy Rose, he ruled imperiously over her heart from the time she first set eyes on him. And as she grew older, she grew on in loving, persuading herself that what her uncle and aunt loved so dearly it was her duty to love dearest of all. At every unconscious symptom of the young girl’s love for her cousin, his parents smiled and winked: all was going on as they wished, no need to go far afield for Benjamin’s wife. The household could go on as it was now; Nathan and Hester sinking into the rest of years, and relinquishing care and authority to those dear ones, who, in process of time, might bring other dear ones to share their love. But Benjamin took it all very coolly. He had been sent to a day-school in the neighbouring town—a grammar-school, in the high state of neglect in which the majority of such schools were thirty years ago. Neither his father nor his mother knew much of learning. All that they knew (and that directed their choice of a school) was, that they could not, by any possibility, part with their darling to a boarding-school; that some schooling he must have, and that Squire Pollard’s son went to Highminster Grammar School. Squire Pollard’s son, and many another son destined to make his parents’ hearts ache, went to this school. If it had not been so utterly bad a place of education, the simple farmer and his wife might have found it out sooner. But not only did the pupils there learn vice, they also learnt deceit. Benjamin was naturally too clever to remain a dunce, or else, if he had chosen so to be, there was nothing in Highminster Grammar School to hinder his being a dunce of the first water. But to all appearance he grew clever and gentlemanlike. His father and mother were even proud of his airs and graces when he came home for the holidays; taking them for proofs of his refinement, although the practical effect of such refinement was to make him express his contempt for his parents’ homely ways and simple ignorance. By the time he was eighteen—an articled clerk in an attorney’s office at Highminster, for he had quite declined becoming a “mere clod-hopper,” that is to say a hard-working, honest farmer like his father—Bessy Rose was the only person who was dissatisfied with him. The little girl of fourteen instinctively felt there was something wrong about him. Alas! two years more, and the girl of sixteen worshipped his very shadow, and would not see that aught could be wrong with one so soft-spoken, so handsome, so kind as Cousin Benjamin. For Benjamin had found out that the way to cajole his parents out of money for every indulgence he fancied, was to pretend to forward their innocent scheme, and make love to his pretty cousin Bessy Rose. He cared just enough for her to make this work of necessity not disagreeable at the time he was performing it. But he found it tiresome to remember her little claims upon him when she was no longer present. The letters he had promised her during his weekly absences at Highminster, the trifling commissions she had asked him to do for her, were all considered in the light of troubles; and even when he was with her he resented the inquiries she made as to his mode of passing his time, or what female acquaintances he had in Highminster.
When his apprenticeship was ended, nothing would serve him but that he must go up to London for a year or two. Poor Farmer Huntroyd was beginning to repent of his ambition of making his son Benjamin a gentleman. But it was too late to repine now. Both father and mother felt this, and, however sorrowful they might be, they were silent, neither demurring nor assenting to Benjamin’s proposition when first he made it. But Bessy, through her tears, noticed that both her uncle and aunt seemed unusually tired that night, and sat hand-in-hand on the fireside settle, idly gazing into the firelight flames as if they saw in it pictures of what they had once hoped their lives would have been. Bessy rattled about among the supper things as she put them away after Benjamin’s departure, making more noise than usual as if noise and bustle was what she needed to keep her from bursting out crying and, having at one keen glance taken in the position and looks of Nathan and Hester, she avoided looking in that direction again, for fear the sight of their wistful faces should make her own tears overflow.
“Sit thee down lass sit thee down. Bring the creepie-stool to the fire side, and let’s have a bit of talk over the lad’s plans,” said Nathan at last, rousing himself to speak. Bessy came and sat down in front of the fire, and threw her apron over her face, as she rested her head on both hands. Nathan felt as if it was a chance which of the two women burst out crying first. So he thought he would speak, in hopes of keeping off the infection of tears.
“Didst ever hear of this mad plan afore. Bessy?”
“No, never!” Her voice came muffled, and changed from under her apron. Hester felt as if the tone, both of question and answer, implied blame, and this she could not bear.
“We should ha’ looked to it when we bound him, for of necessity it would ha’ come to this. There’s examins, and catechizes, and I dunno what all for him to be put through in London. It’s not his fault.”
“Which on us said it were?” asked Nathan, rather put out. “Tho’, for that matter, a few weeks would carry him over the mire, and make him as good a lawyer as any judge among ’em. Oud Lawson the attorney told me that, in a talk I had wi’ him a bit sin. Na, na! it’s the lad’s own hankering after London that makes him want for to stay there for a year, let alone two.”
Nathan shook his head.
“And if it be his own hankering,” said Bessy, putting down her apron, her face all aflame, and her eyes swollen up, “I dunnot see harm in it. Lads aren’t like lasses, to be tied to their own fireside like th’ crook yonder. It’s fitting for a young man to go abroad, and see the world afore he settles down.”
Hester’s hand sought Bessy’s, and the two women sat in sympathetic defiance of any blame that should be thrown on the beloved absent. Nathan only said: “Nay, wench, dunna wax up so; whatten’s done, ’s done; and worse, it’s my doing. I mun needs make my bairn a gentleman; and we mun pay for it.”
“Dear uncle! he wunna spend much, I’ll answer for it; and I’ll scrimp and save i’ th’ house to make it good.”
“Wench!” said Nathan, solemnly, “it were not paying in cash I were speaking on: it were paying in heart’s care, and heaviness of soul. Lunnon is a place where the devil keeps court as well as King George; and my poor chap has more nor once welly fallen into his clutches here. I dunno what he’ll do when he gets close within sniff of him.”
“Don’t let him go, father!” said Hester, for the first time taking this view. Hitherto she had only thought of her own grief at parting with him. “Father, if you think so, keep him here, safe under our own eye.”
“Nay!” said Nathan, “he’s past time o’ life
