UN V - lT y O 
 
 CALFORNIA 
 
 SAN DJEQO
 
 FROM THE LUKE TO THE NEVA 
 
 SIXTY YEARS AGO; 
 
 ACKWORTH AND "QUAKER' LIFE 
 
 BY THE WAY. 
 
 " The doctrine of continuity is not solely applicable to physical 
 inquiries." W. E. GROVE. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. B. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SAML. HAKKIS & Co., 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT. 
 
 1879.
 
 I
 
 1' K K K A I 1 K 
 
 The necessity for binding a second 500 copies of this little book 
 gives the writer an opportunity of complying with numerous requests 
 for the real names of some of the characters mentioned in it. Most 
 of them have been correctly guessed in one or other of the kind 
 notices of the work that have appeared in various periodicals, and 
 perhaps the object may be best accomplished by quoting from two 
 of them sufficient to reveal the originals. The Lancaster Observer 
 gives the following : 
 
 'FROM THE LUXE TO THE NEVA, &c. Dwellers by the Lune and 
 particularly those in the old castle-crowned town to which it has 
 given its name, look upon everything belonging to it with affection 
 and loyalty. It was, therefore, with both interest and curiosity that 
 we took up the unpretending volume bearing the above title. But 
 instead of a comparison between the two rivers, or a narrative of 
 travel, as might have been expected, we found it to be a simple 
 account of two Quaker families at the beginning of this century. 
 With the aid of a hint from " the pump " and other sources, we found 
 that Kilvert Street means Nicholas Street, and that the old house so 
 graphically described is the one at Stone well, now occupied as 
 business premises by Mr. Baxter, but for a long time in the possession 
 of Mr. Edmondson's family here named Skelton well-known 
 members of the Society of Friends. With this clue it is not difficult 
 to discover in the " young pickle " who was taught knitting to keep 
 him out of mischief, the future inventor of the railway ticket system, 
 and in his younger brother a noted and experienced educator, who 
 finished his career at Queenwood College, in Hampshire. The 
 companion household of Dunnings must change its name to Hodgson, 
 and will then be recognised as that of another old Lancaster family." 
 
 The Friends' Quarterly Examiner, which emanates from Southampton, 
 after connecting the name of Daniel Brady with that of the "honoured 
 servant of Christ, Daniel Wheeler," who was, more than a generation
 
 ago, at St. Petersburg, " holding a position of great trust and 
 responsibility direct from the Emperor Alexander," concludes with 
 these words: "Possibly to us a still deeper interest is awakened in 
 this history from the fact that, in the mysterious interweavings of the 
 threads of our existence here, though dying in different places, the 
 remains of Daniel Wheeler's three sons, William, Charles, and 
 Joshua, once young pupils on the banks of the Neva, now rest 
 together in the quiet and picturesque burying ground at Southampton ; 
 and more remarkable still, their honoured tutor and the fair blue- 
 eyed little maiden with her sunny curls, of whom the book tells us so 
 pleasantly, and who became a happy bride in 1821, now lie side by 
 side in the same sweet resting-place ; whilst the neat headstones 
 giving the dates of decease reveal that six months only were they 
 separated here on earth." 
 
 If we add to these extracts that William Doubleday, the Ackworth 
 reading-master, was William Singleton, who afterwards established 
 a private boarding-school at Broomhall near Sheffield (Hallam), and 
 whose daughter, Anne, was the Margaret of the following pages, the 
 reader will have the desired clue to the names of any importance 
 occurring in them. 
 
 J. B.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ClIAPTKR I. PAGE. 
 
 Introducing the Two Boys. " Lot me go too.Mother. " 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Dr. Fothergill. Meetings for Discipline. Queries. 
 
 The Boys go to Ackworth 18 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Arrival at Ackworth and a day's life there .... 30 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Further experiences at Ackworth, agreeable and other- 
 wise 41 
 
 ClIAI'TEl: V. 
 
 Still Ackworth. The I leading-master's Daughter. 
 
 John's Spelling Lesson, Im-prac-ti-ca-bil-i-ty . . 52 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The lleturn home. Perplexities of various kinds. 
 
 Ilallam. Heatherby 61 
 
 ClIAPTEB VII. 
 
 Ministers. A Convinced Friend. Troubles. John 
 
 prefers Patience to Impracticability 72 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander of llussia. Daniel Brady. 
 
 Okta .* 82 
 
 ClIAlTKR IX. 
 
 Yi.lkova. Almost desponding. Return to England . 102
 
 FROM THE LUNE TO THE NEVA, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introducing the Two Boys. "Let me go too, Mother." 
 
 We were sitting on the shore, in a quiet little nook where, 
 is of no consequence making ducks and drakes of all the 
 flat pebbles within our reach, and, between the throws, 
 discussing the best opening for a tale, so as to secure as 
 early as possible the reader's interest and attention. Cousin 
 Fanny, an inveterate novel-reader, declared she always 
 began in the middle : " That was how you generally got to 
 know fresh people. You struck in to the middle of their 
 lives and liked or disliked them, or at any rate felt so much 
 interest in them as to wish to know something of their 
 antecedents. And then you turned back to the first volume 
 to learn who they were and what they had been doing 
 before you and they first met." 
 
 A German professor, who was the one gentleman of our 
 party, much as he admired and wished to stand well with 
 Fanny, could not help expressing his horror of this style 
 of reading. Novel reading at all was to him so unsatisfying 
 as to be almost a fatigue. He had seen at the station that 
 morning, a porter approach a large box that was standing on 
 the platform, and prepare to lift it on to his truck. The man 
 settled his garments, anointed his hands in the usual way, 
 laid hold of the cord, and brought his will and strength to
 
 6 FROM THE LTTNE 
 
 bear upon the task. He raised the box, and, behold, it was 
 empty ! His powers were so much in excess of the work, 
 that, besides being ridiculous, the effect was almost painful. 
 His superfluous effort expended itself in lifting the box 
 too high; he received a blow in the face and narrowly 
 escaped a fall. This illustrated his own feeling with regard 
 to novel reading. You sat down to the perusal of a book 
 prepared to give it your best attention, and, behold, there 
 was nothing worth attending to! Its weight was almost 
 nil and you staggered as if you had received a blow. If, 
 however, there were intellects capable only of this nominal 
 exertion, and he looked mischievously across at our pretty 
 cousin, he should certainly recommend the reader to begin at 
 the beginning, and though he could not say the same to the 
 author, for the initial influence of a man's life lies too far in 
 the past for human mind to trace, he would say "let us 
 know at least as much as we can of a hero's ancestors, that 
 we may be the better able to understand his character." 
 
 "Hear! Hear!" cried Fanny; "now, Janet, what do 
 you say?" Practically, I agreed with her; I am afraid I 
 often read a tale in the same disorderly fashion, but I had 
 a pet theory, which was to remove the temptation for such 
 practices, and briefly replied " there is generally in any life 
 worth notice, some circumstance, often apparently trivial, 
 which proves the turning point in its career, and is, I think, 
 a fair point of interest to start from. And as the novelist's 
 aim is to give us life-like pictures, the remark applies equally 
 to fiction." 
 
 " Sententious, as usual, my dear," said our pleasant aunt 
 and hostess; "now I will conclude the discussion, if you 
 please, not with an opinion but a proposition. Each of you
 
 TO THE NEVA. 7 
 
 shall write a talc in the style you recommend, and we will 
 judge which is the most tempting and agreeable to read." 
 
 We all declared we could not do any such thing ; " it was 
 easy to find fault, but difficult to improve on the faulty 
 performance;" "one thing to suggest and quite another to 
 carry out the suggestion," with many other sage and novel 
 excuses which "Auntie" said had nothing to do with the 
 matter. We had not been finding fault with any particular 
 performance, and as to a suggestion, it was just that " quite 
 another thing" she wanted from us. But we shook our 
 heads, and felt hopelessly incapable. After a while, how- 
 -ever, though remaining hopelessly incapable of producing a 
 novel or even a tale, I remembered a life that had often 
 interested me, and thought I would try to give a little of its 
 simple history, especially as I had more than once heard the 
 subject of it say the turning point with him was a speech 
 made in boyhood, and it would therefore illustrate my theory 
 well. 
 
 The speech my friend alluded to was a very simple one, 
 only " Mother let me go too," but John, as we will call 
 him John Skelton used to say it was what gave the 
 direction to his future life. If he had not been a " Friend" 
 I dare say he would have called it the " key-note " of his 
 life, but being a member of that Society the expression did 
 not occur to him. He was a curly -headed boy of twelve, 
 and was at the moment finishing a basin of soup that 
 his mother had prepared for him on his return from school. 
 
 Literally she had prepared it, for they were in humble 
 circumstances, and Mary Skelton's own hands ministered 
 lovingly to the wants of her household. She was an 
 energetic, sensible, conscientious woman, a true helpmeet
 
 8 FKOM THE 
 
 to her husband, and a wise mother to his children, tending 
 them and working for them with a deep love and solicitude, 
 which, though they did not lead her to much demonstration 
 of affection, were felt by her family, from babyhood to- 
 man and womanhood, as an influence pervading the home. 
 They knew she was their good friend and one to be relied 
 on, not only in childish dilemmas, but throughout their 
 lives whenever help and counsel were felt to be needed. 
 She was fertile in resources too, and had already solved the 
 problem of what to do with a boy's surplus energy long 
 before the days of Kindergartens and School Workshops. 
 Her second son, Harry, was a "regular pickle," always 
 getting into scrapes, but always getting well out of them by 
 the help of his twinkling eye and the good-humoured 
 simplicity with which he acknowledged his fault and ex- 
 pressed himself ready to take the consequences. " I've had 
 my fun and I'll go through my punishment like a brick, as 
 a fellow ought," was the feeling of the culprit, though he 
 would, no doubt, have translated it into language more 
 befitting a young Quaker at the beginning of this century. 
 But he felt also that the fun was worth what he had to pay 
 for it, and he was willing to purchase enjoyment again at a 
 similar price. 
 
 His mother, however, did not see the matter in the same 
 light. His practical jokes were often inconvenient, and she 
 was well aware of the disadvantage of this frequent punish- 
 ment. She often said to her faithful friend and neighbour, 
 Elizabeth Dunning, commonly called Betsy, " I'm not on 
 the right plan with Henry, some how or other ; I don't like 
 punishments that seem set in a spirit of revenge ; I think 
 they should follow a fault as if you could not help it, and as
 
 TO THE NEVA. 9 
 
 if you had nothing to do with choosing what the child must 
 suffer or do ; it ought to he so clearly a consequence of his 
 misdeed that he could almost decide upon it himself." 
 
 " Thou would be hard set to find a natural consequence to 
 some of Harry's pranks that would touch him," replied 
 Betsy, "and I don't say it from unkindness either, for I'm 
 really fond of the lad, only I'd rather thou had him to bring 
 up than me." 
 
 " "Well, if I cannot find the right way to punish, I must 
 try and set him to something that will prevent its being 
 needed. He can't help his love of fun, poor child ! It was 
 born with him, and often enough he only wants something 
 to do, but he hits upon the wrong thing. I'll get some 
 worsted and teach him to knit stockings. Men folk knit in 
 Dent, where I come from, and I don't know why boys 
 shouldn't learn here." 
 
 " Thou'lt be a clever woman," said Betsy, as she turned 
 to go, " if thou manages him with four needles and a ball 
 of yarn, but we shall see. And here he comes racing down 
 Kilvert Street as hard as he can run, I wonder what he has 
 been up to." 
 
 " I'm glad my "Willie has taken up with John instead of 
 Harry, and yet they arc all fine lads," thought she as she 
 nodded to him in passing and caught sight of her own boy 
 and his "chum" with arms across each other's shoulders at 
 the top of the steep narrow street up which the Skelton's 
 house faced. 
 
 Harry was not up to mischief this time, however, he was 
 only meaning to rush up the yard to a three-feet square 
 garden they had begged soil for, and had edged with bits of 
 flag picked up in the stone quarries.
 
 10 FE03I THE LT7NE 
 
 " Henry !" called his mother, as he dashed into the 
 passage that separated the shop from the house-place or 
 parlour ; ' ' Henry ! ' ' 
 
 "Yes, Mother; does thou want me? I'm in such a 
 hurry, I sowed some mustard and cress this morning, and I 
 want to see if it has come up." 
 
 " Go thy way then, but don't scratch the seed up to look, 
 and come hack to me, I want to ask thee something." 
 
 " Whatever does Mother want me for," wondered the 
 boy, accustomed to be ' wanted ' only for misdemeanours ; 
 but mother's word was law, so he merely glanced at the 
 precious bed as yet unpierced by shoots, and was back again 
 by her side before the other two were at the bottom of the hill. 
 
 She greeted him this time with " Harry," and the name 
 at once reassured him. " I have been wishing thou could 
 help me about father's stockings ; he wants some new ones 
 badly, and I think thou could learn to knit and make him a 
 pair. Both my brothers used to knit." 
 
 " And so will I, Mother, I should like to." 
 
 "So thou shall then; I will buy some worsted this 
 afternoon, and thou can begin to learn the stitch to-night." 
 
 The point was gained thus far. One day, some months 
 later, he was sitting on a stool demurely handling his ' pins/ 
 and humming to himself the Dale knitting ditty, 
 " Rinnin on a silver edge nine mile lang, 
 Gin a let a loup down back mun a gang," 
 
 when one of the well-to-do members of their community 
 entered the shop, and, crossing the lobby, knocked at the 
 parlour door. After a kindly greeting to Mary, her 
 attention was drawn to the little fellow on the " cricket " 
 by the hearth.
 
 TO THE NKVA. 11 
 
 " He is knitting father a pair of stockings," was the 
 reply to her enquiring look. 
 
 " I am well pleased to see it," said the Friend. " When 
 they are finished, Henry, thou mayst bring them to show to 
 me." 
 
 The correct inflection of the verh seemed appropriate 
 from the lips of the stately lady. "You" had heen objected 
 to by the earliest Friends as wanting in simplicity and 
 honesty. " We," they said, was originally the royal 
 assumption of plurality of powers, while "you" was the 
 courtier's acknowledgement of the verbal fiction, and though 
 the flattery had gradually descended in the scale of society 
 until its primitive meaning was lost, those true iconoclasts 
 felt they could draw "the line of safety" only " at the 
 bottom of the whole system." 
 
 The next generation used the manner of speech without 
 thinking much of the reason for it, and slipped into a 
 style as ungrammatical as the condemned one, though still 
 keeping the singular number. "Thou mayst," however, 
 which was practically abandoned in familar conversation, did 
 not sound too stiff from the Friend in dove-coloured silk, 
 who was inviting Henry to pay her a visit. 
 
 In due time the visit was paid. Half pleased, half afraid, 
 Henry took the completed work to the house on Castle Hill, 
 and received, beside kind words and a piece of cake, a whole 
 shilling as an encouragement in the ways of wisdom. The 
 sensible director of affairs at home saw her opportunity : 
 
 " I will give thee another sixpence to that if thou will 
 spend it on a hammer and nails, Harry, and we will clear 
 out that little garret for a workshop for thee. Thou will 
 perhaps get a joiner's bench, and be properly set up some day."
 
 12 FROM THE LTTNE 
 
 I wonder if the Scientists would think it right to call this 
 an example of " Conservation of Energy." It was, at any 
 rate, the "key-note" of Harry's life, which in the fulness of 
 time left its influence on the world, but which we cannot 
 pursue further now. Everyone was three years older when 
 we first looked into the sitting-room than at the time of this 
 little episode, and Henry was apprenticed to their neighbour 
 Gilbert Dunning, who was a cabinet-maker, an arrangement 
 which, as might be expected, suited him exactly, while John 
 and his companion, Willie Dunning, had increased in stature 
 and in learning, and were still, as Willie's mother had called 
 them, three years before, "fine lads," and still fast friends. 
 
 The two mothers were companions also, sympathizing in 
 each other's troubles and sharing each other's joys. That 
 must be indeed a busy day on which they did not contrive to 
 meet and compare notes or report progress. Another ball was 
 pieced towards the " rag" carpet that was going to be woven 
 at Whitehaven ; or baby there was always a baby at one 
 house or the other had cut a second tooth ; homely matters 
 that interested housewifely and motherly hearts. But not 
 only such matters, the hearts of these two women were large 
 and capable of taking in the difficulties and sorrows of their 
 neighbours, not for the pleasure of talking about them, as 
 too many of their fellow-townspeople did, but to see what 
 they could do to help distress or mitigate suffering. The 
 consequence was, people in need came for assistance, those in 
 trouble came for advice, and both were sure of obtaining 
 what they asked from these unprofessional Sisters of 
 Charity, to the full extent of their power. In worldly goods 
 their power was not great, but they knew how to make the 
 best of what they had to bestow by a skilful use of needle
 
 TO THE NEVA. 13 
 
 and thread, or the wonderful alchemy of good cooking. 
 And they were two such comfortable looking matrons, the 
 very sight of their faces "did a body good," people said. 
 
 They had been enjoying a long chat that morning. Friar- 
 gate, where the Dunnings lived, was only ' just round the 
 corner,' and Elizabeth could easily be fetched if she were 
 needed, so she brought her bag of mending and sat down 
 beside her friend. 
 
 " I hope Gilbert has got the order for that sideboard he 
 was thinking might come to him, Betsy, it would be a good 
 thing for him, would it not ? " 
 
 " Yes, he has, Mary, and more than that, he was sent for 
 this morning to do something at the Judge's Lodgings. He 
 is quite bright about it altogether." 
 
 But, notwithstanding the brightness, a little sigh escaped 
 her which Mary Skelton echoed rather too feelingly. They 
 would not have confessed it in words, even to each other, 
 yet each knew as well as if they had spoken openly that 
 in both houses the bread-winner was not so business-like, 
 if that is the right word, as might be desired. 
 
 Straightforward, intelligent men they were, but lacking 
 a something just the something which makes the difference 
 between success and the want of it. Betsy Dunning had 
 seen so many bright mornings end in disappointing days, 
 that she was less sanguine than the circumstances seemed to 
 warrant. And Mary ? John Skelton senior was timid 
 and apt to be soon discouraged, but he had bursts of daring 
 independence that were more disastrous in their results than 
 his periods of greatest despondency and inertia. He was 
 one of those warm-hearted, lovable men, whom it would be 
 least costly to their friends to maintain in idleness on con-
 
 14 FBOM THE LUKE 
 
 dition that they kept entirely out of business. Just now he 
 had reasonable ground for anxiety. The shipping was 
 rapidly leaving the Lune in favour of the Mersey, and that 
 meant the departure of his means of livelihood, for he was 
 a ship chandler in a small way, and a sailors' general out- 
 fitter. Many of their neighbours were gone or going after 
 the trade to Liverpool, and the question in the minds of 
 husband and wife was, whether it was desirable to strike 
 their tents too and follow their customers. Mary thought 
 it would be wiser to change their business : the house and 
 shop were in a manner their own, and she felt she could better 
 do her share where she was known and she felt respected, 
 than amongst strangers. She was a little influenced too by 
 her attachment to the house, awkward and inconvenient as 
 it was. She had walked down to it as a bride after the 
 simple ceremony in that picturesque old "Meeting-house" 
 on the other side of the town, and she had lived in it ever 
 since. It was 200 years old, according to the date over the shop 
 door, and stood on quite a large area, but as the walls were 
 at least three feet in thickness, there was less accommodation 
 within than its size without led you to expect. Two or 
 three capacious cupboards were built between the outer and 
 inner walls, and in another place there was a long, dark, 
 narrow room that reminded one of the time when secret 
 hiding-places were valuable, and suggested the idea that 
 part' of the house, at least, had been built more than two 
 centuries back. There was no uniformity in its appearance, 
 but here a window and there a window of various shapes and 
 sizes, just as the builder fancied when he came to each 
 room. The one in the shop was decidedly unique ; a large 
 octagon pane of not very good glass in the centre was
 
 TO THE JTEVA. 15 
 
 surrounded by square and diamond-shaped pieces of the same 
 material arranged in their leaden frames as they could best 
 be fitted together. Tradition had nothing to say about its 
 origin or purpose. The children were proud to think there 
 was not a window like it in the whole town, but their 
 parents would have preferred more light, being honest people 
 and not ashamed of their goods. 
 
 The passage, or lobby, as they called it, was entered from 
 the street by a door of black oak and, like the shop and 
 parlour, had a flagged floor. Continuing between the kitchen 
 door on the left and the stairs foot on the right, the flagged 
 way ran on under a skylight first, and then open to the 
 weather, with a high wall on each side, until with an abrupt 
 turn it finished its course in the yard before mentioned. One 
 side of this spacious yard was occupied by a wooden shed, 
 just now let to a weaver. His loom had not been long set 
 up and the monotonous rhythm of his shuttle was a great 
 attraction to the children. There were no cellars, the ground 
 was too full of springs to permit of it. 
 
 The ends of six streets opened on the large space in front 
 of the shop, so that it was considered rather a choice business 
 situation, but as all the streets rose more or less from that 
 end to the heights surrounding this centre of the old town, 
 its sanitary position would now be considered objectionable. 
 And yet strong men and women were reared there and lived 
 there, with scarcely weakened powers, to a good old age. 
 We have gained much in knowledge since the days when the 
 " fittest" were left to "survive" as best they could, and the 
 knowledge has mercifully tended to the diminution of 
 suffering, but the very power of doing battle with sickness 
 and death that it has placed in the physician's hand, has led
 
 16 FROM THE LT7NE 
 
 to the survival not of the fittest only, but of a great number 
 of the weakest as well, thereby helping to account for the 
 degeneracy of the human race that it is so much the fashion to 
 deplore. Mary Skelton would have found it much easier, 
 a few months before, to support her neighbour, Nanny 
 Jackson, whilst her leg was taken off, if the poor woman 
 could have been under the influence of chloroform or ether, 
 and probably the shock would have been so modified by the 
 anaesthetic, that Nanny's system would not have succumbed 
 and she might yet have been alive, but she could never have 
 been the same strong woman as before her accident, and 
 might have lingered on, a burden instead of a help to her 
 family. The all-for-the-best was the only verdict from this 
 point of view, hardhearted as it seems, and the optimists 
 must seek their ground for continuing the same in the culture 
 of the gentler, less selfish side of our characters under the 
 new influences. 
 
 While we have been looking round and moralizing, Mary 
 and Elizabeth have, we may be sure, been stitching and 
 darning with the nimble fingers of workers who knew their 
 quiet time was short. 
 
 " But that is not all I had to tell thee, Mary," her friend 
 is saying as we return to the sitting-room ; " we had a letter 
 from Robert Whitaker this morning, and Willie can go to 
 Ackworth the beginning of fourth month ; only five weeks 
 to get him ready in, but I think I can manage it. And his 
 father is in such good spirits, he says he will take him to 
 school himself. Will not that be a piece of news for Willie 
 when he comes in ?" 
 
 A wistful look came into Mary's eyes, but she only said 
 how glad she was for them, and how ready to help in sewing
 
 TO THE NEVA. 17 
 
 or knitting if need wore. Her boy's father was not in good 
 spirits, and if even they had already put John's name on the 
 list for Ackworth and there were room for him, she did not 
 see how he could go. He must be satisfied to remain 
 at the Friends' day school in the town ; it was a very 
 good school, and had served his brothers and his sister ; it 
 was not that, it was just a pity the two boys should be 
 separated. 
 
 The old clock on the stairs struck twelve. It was only 
 half -past eleven really, but that was just time to put their 
 needles by and prepare work for knives and forks. 
 
 "Farewell, Betsy ! be sure thou lets me help if thou finds 
 thyself close pressed." 
 
 " Thank thee, Mary ; thou'rt a good neighbour, farewell !" 
 
 Here was a piece of news for John, too. Poor John! and 
 though the connection was not clear, she was glad she had 
 such a good bowl of soup for him to-day. And he seemed to 
 be appreciating it when we peeped at him first. 
 
 She waited till his spoon went more lazily on its journeys, 
 and then said " The Dunnings have got their letter from 
 Ackworth, John, and Willie is to go in about five weeks." 
 
 "Oh, mother!" 
 
 He was glad for Willie, who was anxious for the change, 
 but heartily sorry for himself. His brothers were at 
 business, and of his two sisters, one was old enough to have 
 had charge of him, while the other was too young to be 
 aught but a plaything or the spoiler of his play, as the 
 humour seized her. He saw himself going up and down 
 Kilvert-strcet alone day after day, and the vision was not a 
 pleasant one. He and Willie had been more to each other 
 than the real brothers on either side, and this heart-brother 
 was going to be sent away !
 
 18 FROM THE LUNE 
 
 "Mother, let me go too!" burst almost unconsciously 
 from his lips. 
 
 " Thou should go if I could anyhow manage it, my dear 
 boy, for I know what thou art feeling ; but I do not see my 
 way to it at all." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Dr. Fothergill. Meetings for Discipline. Queries. The boys go 
 to Ackworth. 
 
 Before proceeding further, it will be only courteous to 
 acknowledge that both my companions of the pebbly beach 
 had reason on their side, for not only did I in my very first 
 chapter, in order to make my readers acquainted with our 
 little Friend's surroundings, find myself compelled to leave 
 him at his soup as soon as he was introduced, but I am now 
 going to delight the heart of the Professor by looking back 
 more than a hundred years into the past to see how it 
 happened that so small a Society possessed an educational 
 centre so important and excellent as the school where Willie 
 Dunning was soon to be one of the 180 boys. 
 
 The building at Ackworth had been erected in 1757 and 
 the following years, as a branch of the well-known Foundling 
 Hospital in London. There was another branch at Shrews- 
 bury, but the fate of that I do not know. Rich in subscrip- 
 tions and helped by a Parliamentary grant, the governors 
 wisely thought it would be an advantage to possess these 
 country outlets. Their Yorkshire site they chose with 
 great discretion. It was situated between the two villages 
 of High and Low Ackworth, in good air and far away from
 
 TO THE If EVA. 19 
 
 smoke and dirt. They went cautiously to work too, building 
 one year the east wing of their plan, another the centre, and 
 next the west wing " to make the balance true." 
 
 But here ended their perfect control : the human elements 
 required for their undertaking were less manageable -than 
 stones and mortar. Masters and nurses were ignorant and 
 cruel ; neglect and starvation made their usual havoc, and 
 at the end of a sixteen years' trial, after spending 13,000 
 on it, the place was obliged to be closed, much to the chagrin 
 and disappointment of its founders. It is recorded that Sir 
 Roland Winn, ' ' who had been an indefatigable labourer in 
 the work," happening to visit the place at dinner-time not 
 long after it was opened as a school, exclaimed with tears 
 in his eyes, " why could not we have had our children as 
 healthy and happy as these ? " 
 
 All who have visited the London Foundling Hospital of 
 the present day, must acknowledge that the succeeding 
 governors have discovered ''why" and have acted on their 
 experience. No one need wish to see a party of more 
 healthy or better cared for children than those seated at the 
 long table eating their Sunday dinner. That there is a 
 feeling of the lack of " mothering" among them, as I have 
 heard some mothers remark, may be only fancy, but even if 
 a real want, the heads of the institution are not to blame 
 for it. The children come there because, alas ! there is no 
 mother-love for them outside, or none that can avail them, 
 and it is a love for which no institutional care can be a 
 substitute. 
 
 Yorkshire is a long way from Middlesex ; and it was a 
 longer way in 1757, than it is now. The world has shrunk 
 considerably of late years. At such a distance the central
 
 20 FBOM THE LTHTE 
 
 committee could have little cognisance of what was going- 
 on in the lonely house upon the moor. Their hired servants 
 felt no interest in the work and it was badly done. This 
 was the secret of their failure. 
 
 The nearest town, about three miles away, is Pontefract, 
 or, as it is called after the usual " clipping" process, Pomfret. 
 In this matter of clipping, it is said that children are " the 
 great diminutive-makers," and we may shrewdly guess they 
 were concerned in the reduction of Pontefract. Just imagine 
 their little mouths trying to pronounce its three syllables 
 whenever they wanted to ask for the round black lozenges 
 that now go by the name of Pomfret cakes ! !N"ot that I 
 suppose the little foundlings had much experience of Pomfret 
 cakes or even of the liquorice roots from which they are 
 made, notwithstanding whole fields of it grew so near. 
 Under the new regime, both were sometimes seen at 
 Ackworth, though even then indulgence was by no means 
 the rule as " old boys" feelingly testify. 
 
 But old boys vary. They are not all prone to looking on 
 the dark episodes of school life, and some of them gratefully 
 remember a kind hearted venerable master, who used to walk 
 through their bedrooms with thumb and finger resting in his 
 capacious waistcoat-pocket, ready to bring out a "cake" when- 
 ever he heard a cough. And they add, naively : " He heard 
 a good many coughs as he came along the corridor ! " 
 
 "We are getting on too fast though. It was four or five 
 years after the house was closed before the Prince of the 
 Fairy tales appeared to put life into it again, and make its 
 halls and corridors once more resound with children's voices. 
 
 The Prince, in this case, was a London physician, of whom 
 it has been said, that "had not his life been 'distinguished
 
 TO THE NEVA. 21 
 
 bv a scries of illustrious actions, this noble institution of 
 Ackworth was alone sufficient to endear his name to pos- 
 terity.'* The posterity to whom he is endeared by his 
 action with regard to the school at Ackworth, is, of course, 
 the small portion interested in the education there, but Dr. 
 Fothergill's life was an influence for good to a larger circle 
 than could be described within the area of his co-religionists, 
 "Friends, commonly called Quakers." 
 
 He was a native of TVensleydale in Yorkshire, and his* 
 modest ambition intended to be satisfied with the position of 
 apothecary in some country town. Fortunately for his 
 many patients, however, one of the professors at Edinburgh, 
 Dr. Munro, noted equally for his anatomical knowledge and 
 his power of discriminating character, induced his promising 
 pupil to lengthen his period of study with a view to taking 
 a higher standing in his profession. The result showed the 
 professor's discernment. To natural genius, John Fothergill 
 added habits of " industrious application," a combination that 
 never fails to lead to success. 
 
 Whether we look upon it as a special interposition of 
 Providence at the time, or as a consequence, no less 
 providential, of "all that went before," we must confess 
 that to a man so prepared naturally and by culture a special 
 sphere of usefulness is sure to be opened. He did not trouble 
 himself about the future ; he settled as a physician in the 
 metropolis, and, step by step, day by day, performed the 
 day's duties to the best of his ability, and, to quote his own 
 words, "as in the sight of the God of healing." 
 
 About 1748 a fearful epidemic, somewhat akin to the 
 diphtheria of modern times, visited London and spiead 
 alarm amongst all classes. Many of the wealthy and noble 
 
 3
 
 22 FKOM THE LUKE 
 
 were swept away by it, and there was general consternation. 
 Dr. Fothergill boldly and thoroughly changed in his own 
 practice the commonly accepted treatment of the complaint, 
 with the most beneficial results. He became famous and 
 rich in consequence, but this part of his success he valued 
 only because it extended his opportunities of doing good and 
 gave him the means of gratifying his love of nature. 
 
 His garden at Upton was known all over Europe. It was 
 one of the "places to be seen" on the list of every intelligent 
 foreigner visiting London. He had collected in it every 
 plant, shrub, and tree that he could get possession of at all 
 likely to be persuaded to live in this country. He studied 
 soil and climate throughout the known world physical 
 geography in fact in order to introduce vegetable produc- 
 tions useful in commerce or medicine, if not into England, 
 into other lands more congenial to their constitution and 
 habits. But he was not a traveller, his collecting was done 
 by deputy. He had never been accustomed to accept 
 payment from the poor ; a bachelor, he was unfettered by 
 feelings of family duty in indulging his compassionate 
 instincts. And he found abundant opportunities for their 
 exercise. It was a time of war ; so unfortunately is this ; 
 but the wars of a century ago, some of which he did his 
 utmost to prevent^ were with our relatives and neighbours, 
 and their effects were more immediately apparent in his own 
 circle. Many families whom he had attended in affluence he 
 continued to prescribe for in their poverty, and not un- 
 frequently contrived, whilst feeling a pulse at his farewell 
 visit, to slip a bank-note into the hand of his patient as a 
 parting prescription. 
 
 Another class from whom he refused payment was that
 
 TO THE 1TBVA. 23 
 
 of seafaring men. Many of this class consulted him, and to 
 them he always said, in his concise manner, " Bring me 
 plants, I prefer plants to money." So they Drought him 
 plants from all quarters of the glohe, and descrihed the 
 places where they were found, how they were growing, and 
 in what soil. Thus he received catalpas, kalmias, magnolias, 
 firs, oaks, and maples from America, transplanting, in return, 
 teas to the southern part of that continent, bamboos to 
 Jamaica, and spices of various kinds to countries suitable for 
 their growth. Mindful also of his own wants, he gave 
 much attention to the cultivation of Turkey rhubarb and of 
 the cinchona, from which we derive Peruvian bark, and our 
 modern preparation of it quinine, besides sundry other 
 medical shrubs and trees. We must not, however, linger in 
 the garden. 
 
 If the " man who makes two blades of grass grow where 
 only one grew before is a benefactor to mankind," surely we 
 may give that title to our honoured friend John Fothergill. 
 
 Lest the specimens brought to Upton should die, and the 
 remembrance of them be lost, he employed several artists to 
 copy them as they flowered or reached perfection, and his 
 portfolios contairod many thousand illustrations. I am sorry 
 to say this valuable collection of drawings is no longer in 
 England, having been purchased at the death of its owner 
 by the Empress Catherine of Russia, to whom the Doctor's 
 name was well known. She gave for it 2300. 
 
 We must not be tempted to dwell too long on the many- 
 sided character of this noble man, but proceed to speak of the 
 undertaking that turned his thoughts towards education. 
 He had a wonderful power of doing a great deal in a little 
 time, and a talent for seeing the right thing to be done and
 
 24 FKOM THE LTJNE 
 
 the right man to do it, if not able to accomplish it himself. 
 He would have been a good administrator in any department. 
 He gave the first impetus to numerous sanitary measures 
 and improvements in London, and his known eminence in 
 that line led to his being requested by Government to give 
 advice about the gaol fevers which were so terrible and 
 uncontrollable. In pursuit of this duty, accompanied by 
 John Howard, the philanthropist, he visited the prisons of 
 the metropolis, and beheld with his own eyes the evils of 
 the existing system with which we are familiar from report. 
 He saw, too, that even with the best regulations little could 
 be done for those grown up in crime ; they were hardened 
 in wickedness. But, while as the physician he was obliged 
 to confess that little could be cured, he saw at the same time 
 that much evil might be prevented by an early and better 
 training of the children. It has been the universal, ever- 
 recurring cry of the thoughtful in all ages " Give us the 
 education of the young while they are pliable and impres- 
 sionable ! " Their training not merely their instruction 
 but their education in its fullest sense. 
 
 True to the Society of which he was a respected member, 
 his first thought was of Friends. "What was the state of 
 education amongst them? Was it, as it ought to be, an 
 example to be pointed to ? In this, as in many other 
 matters, especially in those affecting the welfare of the 
 classes least able to help themselves, Friends were pioneers. 
 Beneath their peculiarities, (which became increasingly 
 peculiar as time progressed and the changes of the world at 
 large left the "Quakers" comparatively wwchanged,) there 
 was a foundation of shrewd good sense and executive power. 
 
 In the early days of the Society, when fathers and mothers
 
 TO THE NEVA. 25 
 
 were often taken from their _ families, and, because of their 
 religious opinions, thrown into prison for months together, 
 it would not have heen surprising if the children's education 
 had suffered. But instead of that, or, perhaps, because of 
 that, the care of the young was one of the first subjects 
 considered as soon as its government was organized. Under 
 the circumstances they felt the advantage of boarding schools 
 for their children, and from time to time such schools were 
 established by their various Quarterly Meetings. This word 
 Meeting has two meanings, the district and the assembly. 
 There are Preparative, Monthly, and Quarterly meetings ; the 
 first held once a month in each separate town to prepare, the 
 others at the intervals implied by their names, the members 
 in two or three towns uniting for a Monthly, and those in 
 a county or sometimes two counties for a Quarterly meeting. 
 The morning hours of the meeting day are devoted to a 
 "meeting for worship." In the "meeting for discipline" 
 which follows the first business attended to is the answering 
 of the "Queries" a set of questions respecting the state 
 of the Society, some of which are to be answered at each 
 Preparative meeting, the replies being taken by represent- 
 atives to the next Monthly meeting. 
 
 There the collected replies are condensed, and forwarded, 
 again by representatives, to the Quarterly meeting. These 
 are further condensed for transmission, as before, to the 
 Yearly meeting held in London, in May. The several com- 
 pilings are operations requiring great nicety, and unbounded 
 patience on the part of the clerk. Alterations suggested in 
 his minutes, when he thought them complete, one word in 
 place of another, conveying perhaps a shade of different 
 meaning to the proposer's mind, but imperceptible to the
 
 26 FBOM. THE 
 
 general intellect, must, to use a quaker expression, be "very 
 trying." Good discipline for the clerk possibly, but still 
 " trying." We have spoken of the clerk as "he " but one 
 peculiarity of the Society is the separate management of 
 their portion of the business by " "Women Friends," giving 
 them an independence and a self-reliance rare in former 
 times. 
 
 One of the Queries thus brought month by month to the 
 minds and consciences of this quiet people is " Are the 
 necessities of the poor among you properly inspected and 
 relieved, and is good care taken of the education of their 
 offspring?" From the earliest days the "poor" had received 
 due attention and help so delicately given, that only the few 
 overseers in a meeting and each recipient in his own case 
 have any idea who is helped by the meeting's funds. But, 
 notwithstanding many attempts to keep pace with their 
 educational wants, it was about this time the general feeling 
 that there existed a deficiency of school accommodation for 
 " those not in affluence," as the good Friends carefully put 
 it. There were no National or British Schools, no Board 
 Schools, where children could learn things necessary and 
 unnecessary; poor Friends lived in poor neighbourhoods 
 under many disadvantages and bad influences. Something 
 must be done to remove the children and give them a sound 
 training. 
 
 This was the reply to Dr. Fothergill's enquiries, and the 
 deficiency weighed upon his mind. Many plans for supplying 
 it were suggested by one person and another, but abandoned 
 as insufficient or otherwise unsuitable. Oar observant and 
 thoughtful friend still held himself ready for prompt action 
 whenever the right plan should appear. At last it came.
 
 TO THE KEVA. 27 
 
 He was visiting a gentleman in the north, and there heard 
 incidentally of the unfortunate termination to the experiment 
 at Ackworth. That, notwithstanding repeated advertise- 
 ments, a fox and her cubs were the only tenants that had 
 applied for admission, and but for the interposition of the 
 Rector the premises would have been already pulled down. 
 As usual with large empty buildings, it was said to be fit for 
 a lunatic asylum or a school. 
 
 " Why not for our school ?" exclaimed the Doctor, and in 
 spite of objections and difficulties in a very short time he 
 secured the house and 84 acres of land for the sum of 
 7,000. He did not lay down all the money himself, but he 
 headed a subscription handsomely, the remainder followed, 
 and Ackworth was handed over to the Yearly Meeting the 
 following May as a national boarding school for its members, 
 girls as well as boys. In those days they were treated 
 equally and impartially by the Society. 
 
 Friends have a way of serving their community without 
 remuneration, an economical plan of managing their concerns 
 and one ensuring disinterested help. Accepting literally the 
 command " Freely ye have received, freely give," their 
 ministers set the example, and the lower offices of the church 
 and secular appointments are, with trifling exceptions, filled 
 gratuitously. The plan has advantages and disadvantages, 
 but their discussion is not our business. Several of the 
 earliest officers of the new Institution were unpaid volunteers, 
 full of interest in the serious undertaking. They were 
 valuable assistants at first, and when the disadvantages 
 began to show themselves the plan was changed from 
 arbitrary presents to fixed salaries. 
 
 The terms for boarders were 8 8s. a year, without extras,
 
 28 FKOM THE 1TJ1TE 
 
 outdoing even Dotheboys Hall. For this the children 
 were to be clothed and fed as "well as taught the whole year 
 through from nine years old to fourteen, if so it pleased the 
 parents. The terms were afterwards raised to 10, but at 
 first were only eight guineas. It was, of course, not the full 
 cost, but the rest was made up by a general contribution 
 from all parts of the country. It will scarcely be believed, 
 but is told us as a fact, that a serious protest was sent forth 
 to the effect that to speak of the school as intended for 
 " those not in affluence " and to fix the terms at 8 8s. was 
 a clear contradiction ! 
 
 To Mary Skelton even it seemed an insurmountable 
 obstacle to her boy's wishes ; though imperceptibly he must 
 have cost her more than that at home, it was imperceptibly. 
 Then there was the coach-fare, and though clothing would 
 be supplied as needed at the Institution, he must go credit- 
 ably furnished with linen at any rate. She slept little the 
 night after Mrs. Dunning had told her news, so simple yet so 
 important to these simple people. But at last the way 
 cleared before her. In the morning she would be going into 
 the town and she would take the opportunity of consulting 
 her friend on Castle Hill. 
 
 " Mother art thou going to market in thy better shawl ? " 
 asked the careful little daughter as the mother opened the 
 side door instead of going through the shop as usual. 
 
 "Dost thou not see I am Abby ? " was the unsatisfactory 
 reply, that left Abby wondering what would come next. 
 
 Miss Lawson, Mary's appreciating friend at once entered 
 into her hopes and difficulties. She remembered one of the 
 many useful little funds for helping their members which 
 was available for such a purpose, and she would answer for
 
 TO THE NEVA. 29 
 
 her brother's writing to the Superintendent to enquire if 
 there were a second vacancy, but she advised Mary to say 
 nothing about it until they received the reply lest the 
 disappointment, if so it ended, should be greater than the 
 little man could bear. 
 
 Mother folded up her "better shawl" in silence on her 
 return home, waiting for the right time to speak, but mean- 
 while secretly working in preparation for what she hoped 
 would be the announcement to be made. 
 
 Letters were costly and slow in 1810. The next " First- 
 day " at meeting Mary looked enquiringly into Miss 
 Lawson's face, but it gave no sign. Monday passed, and 
 Tuesday. On Wednesday she was seen coming down Kil- 
 vert Street with an alacrity that promised well for what she 
 had to say. There were no customers in the shop, and John 
 Skelton, sen., was seated in his straight-backed arm-chair in 
 the parlour, knotting together the ends of " thrums," to 
 provide a cheap string for parcel-tying. 
 
 " Is Mary at liberty for a few minutes dost thou think, 
 John ? I should like to speak with her." 
 
 " My wife saw thee coming, Abigail Lawson, and will be 
 here directly. "Wilt thou please to take a seat? " said John, 
 adding with quiet humour, "I am doing my best to make 
 ends meet, thou sees." 
 
 " I hope thou wilt succeed, John," was all the visitor had 
 time to say before his wife appeared. Miss Lawson hastened 
 to relieve her suspense. 
 
 " My brother has heard from the Superintendent, and John 
 may go with Willie Dunning if you can manage it with the 
 help I told thee of, and thou canst have him ready, Mary." 
 
 "I will undertake to have him ready," the mother replied
 
 30 PEOM THE LTTNE 
 
 cheerily, " and father here thinks we can find what will be 
 wanted in addition to the sum David Lawson will get for us. 
 "We are both of us greatly obliged to thee and thy brother, 
 and I hope the boy will always be grateful to you." 
 
 " There is not much to be grateful for, Mary; I hope he 
 will make good use of his opportunities. But I will not 
 hinder thee a moment. Farewell, John, try and make those 
 ends more than meet. A little overlapping is a very com- 
 fortable thing thou wouldst find." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Arrival at Ackworth and a day's life there. 
 
 So their plans were changed. The boys were not to be 
 separated after all, and Gilbert Dunning did not accompany 
 them to school. Two or three other children, girls as well as 
 boys, were going at the same time, and it was decided that a 
 " "Woman Friend " should have charge of the " cargo," as it 
 was called. She looked quite equal to the task, the parents 
 thought, as the little company met at the coach-office in 
 Market Street. She was not personally known to them, but 
 had been visiting in the neighbourhood, and her return to 
 Pontefract fitted in opportunely with the children's departure 
 for school. The whole inside of the coach had been secured, 
 and the party were tightly packed in, along with provisions 
 for the journey to save expense. 
 
 Picture to yourselves this " going to school," you luxu- 
 rious first-class passengers, who get out at every opportunity 
 " to stretch your legs," and who talk of " black Monday " 
 or Thursday, as the case may be, that is to snatch you from
 
 TO THE NEVA. 31 
 
 home for a ten weeks' absence! Think of these cramped 
 little limbs and heavy little hearts, with no prospect of 
 return for four long years, during which they may hope to 
 be visited by some member of their family, perhaps once in 
 each twelve months, some of them, perhaps, by none at all. 
 Think of this and be thankful ! 
 
 It must have been rather a peculiar looking company that 
 assembled at the coach-office on the morning of their 
 departure, dressed in whatever was convenient to their 
 parents to provide, without regard to colour or symmetry, 
 the grey duffel cloak and poke bonnet of their caretaker 
 being the crowning emblems of use before beauty. The 
 fathers and mothers had gone up with the boys, the brothers 
 and sisters of both families were standing at the shop door or 
 looking through the octagon window, for the coach would 
 come down Kilvert Street, and if all went well, would pass 
 the Skelton's house. That was the thing if all went well. 
 
 Two mail coaches and four ordinary stages galloped out of 
 the town by that route each day, and six times a day the 
 guard's horn was the signal for heads popping up at the 
 windows to watch if they got safely past the " pump." 
 Coachmen find it difficult sometimes to pass an inn, but here 
 the lion in the way was a pump. One of the many springs 
 in that part of the town had been thus utilized at the surface, 
 and very useful it was. The only fault was its position, so 
 near the middle of the open space, yet so far from the corner 
 as to be quite out of sight of any one driving down the 
 Kilvert Street hill until he was close upon it. But a coach- 
 man with any spirit must drive out of town in good style 
 whatever the consequences ; he must gallop down the hill 
 and trust to good fortune or experience to keep him out of
 
 32 FKOM THE LTTCTE 
 
 the danger at the foot. Sometimes the chariot and horses 
 came to grief, often they " swayed over," as the people said, 
 in turning the corner, but righted themselves again. A great 
 amount of strong language was expended on it, but nothing 
 was done. The pump was there before stage-coaches were 
 thought of, when parcels and luggage were conveyed out of 
 town by a string of pack-horses through a narrow lane, and 
 being first on the ground it had a right to it. Common 
 sense prevailed at last however. It was removed to the side 
 of one of the houses, and there it has kept its place long after 
 coaches as well as pack-horses have become things of the 
 past. "With this possible danger at the outset of the journey 
 it is no wonder that the little party trembled with excite- 
 ment as they watched the prancing steeds approach. The 
 boys might not get off after all. They might be upset just 
 at the very door. No! Yes! No! they are safely past, 
 and the watchers may all turn in for a good cry in their 
 several quiet corners. 
 
 I dare not undertake to describe the journey; I only know 
 it came to an end at last. One incident has been recorded 
 which leads us to hope that a little, if even grim humour, 
 was discoverable under that drab bonnet to enliven the way 
 for the poor children. At one stage of the journey a 
 gentleman was waiting to ask for an inside place. " Quite 
 full !" growled coachee, " and a queer lot too, a regular 
 tag-rag-and-bobtail." He did not suppose the speech was 
 heard by the inside passengers, and at the end of his stage 
 came obsequiously to the door to beg to be remembered. 
 Our severe-faced friend laid three sixpences on his hand one 
 by one. " That is from Rag, and that from Tag, and that 
 from Bobtail," said she without a smile, and apparently 
 unconscious of sarcasm.
 
 TO THE NETA. 33 
 
 There must have been a deep-springing jet of fun beneath 
 the even surface that weight and pressure were unable to 
 keep entirely down. Only the all-seeing Judge could know 
 how much of sacrifice the subdued demeanour and dull 
 garments cost her. The blessing is that He did know. 
 
 It was evening when they arrived at the inn, which was a 
 a sort of appendage to the school, secured with some 
 additional land about ten years after the first purchase. 
 Leaving part of their luggage under the landlord's care, 
 they proceeded with steps tottering from cold and stiffness to 
 the Institution. They went in at a little side-gate, and 
 proceeded between two high walls to the lodge ; thence 
 through the great passage, nearly sixty yards long, at this 
 hour dimly lighted by two or three oil lamps. It looked 
 dismal and dreary. The wide empty corridor, with its bare 
 walls and stone floor, echoed their footsteps as they paced 
 along in timid wonder. It was not at all comforting or 
 assuring. But when their guide suddenly opened the door 
 of the housekeeper's room at the end, the aspect of things 
 altered. The blaze of a fire bespeaking the proximity of 
 the " pit's mouth," flashed suddenly upon their dazzled and 
 bewildered sight. The superintendent and housekeeper 
 were waiting to give them a kindly welcome, and a plain 
 but sufficient meal was ready for them, to which, however, 
 they felt scarcely able to do justice. Beds were more to be 
 desired than food in their weary condition. Bidding adieu 
 to their chaperone, who was to pursue her journey home the 
 following day, the girls disappeared into the mysterious 
 "terra incognita" of their own apartments, and the boys 
 were soon asleep in theirs. 
 
 JS"o lying in bed next morning, though, to make up for loss
 
 34 FROM THE LTJNE 
 
 of rest. Ackworth regulations were Spartan, someone has 
 said ; and he might hare added, strongly impressed with the 
 rule of the Medes and Persians as well. Fortunately for our 
 travellers, the hour for rising was still the winter one 
 quarter to seven ; next month they would be called at six. 
 After rubbing their eyes, and wondering for a moment where 
 they were, they discovered themselves to be in a long room 
 with a row of beds against the wall on each side, and rows 
 of chests, for clothes, down the centre. Blue checked 
 counterpanes, no carpets, no superfluities of any kind. 
 Standing on the concrete floor, " in their stocking feet," 
 while they shuffled on their clothes, they were forcibly 
 reminded of their absence from home. But regrets and tears 
 would have been worse than useless. The boys were called 
 to action. Following their room-companions down the stone 
 stairs, they came to the passage where their shoes had been 
 left the night before. TJncleaned (except once a week, and 
 then merely oiled) they were quickly resumed, the brass stud 
 fastening the regular Ackworth shoe being a good contrivance, 
 as the new-comers saw at once. Downstairs, again, to the 
 cellar. Here they found a twelve-feet-long trough, about 
 six inches deep and twice that width, at which a row of boys 
 were washing themselves. John and "Willie arrived just in 
 time for the clean water. It was changed when half the 
 boys had completed that portion of their toilet. The next 
 move was to the shed-court, where they joined, as well as they 
 could, in the peculiar, but no doubt beneficial, custom of 
 gargling. Thence they were marched, in military order, to 
 the schoolrooms, for an hour's study. The new boys, how- 
 ever, were taken to the "Office" instead, to have their 
 names and ages duly entered, an inventory made of all their
 
 10 THE NEVA. 35 
 
 belongings, and to undergo something of an examination, 
 with a view to fixing their places in class. A pocket-comb 
 was supplied to each, and a piece of whipcord to fasten it to 
 a button. By the time this was done it was eight o'clock, 
 and the bell rang for breakfast the best meal of the day. 
 But before they could take their seats at table their bodily 
 stature must be ascertained, to fix their places in shed and 
 dining-room. Both " our " boys were found to belong to 
 the third table, where they were soon seated, with a tin can 
 of Ack worth "sops," and a tin or horn spoon to eat them 
 with laid for each on the clothless board. 
 
 "We read amongst the old minutes of the Committee that in 
 1797, the superintendent "being of the judgment it may con- 
 tribute to the children's health, their milk has been given 
 them with less mixture." By 1810 the "mixture" must 
 have been further reduced, and the milk given pure and 
 good, for Ackworth porridge dwells very pleasantly in the 
 remembrance of all the old Ackworth scholars we have heard 
 speak of it. Nothing has tasted so good since. It has 
 sometimes occurred to me that if the old appetite could 
 return, wives and cooks might have a better chance of 
 equalling the compound, but it may be treasonable to suggest 
 the idea. After breakfast to the playground for half an 
 hour's play or to the gardens for mimic work. The gardens 
 were outside the " shed-court " divided from it by a wall. 
 They were favorite places of resort for a certain class of boys 
 and were quite models of ingenuity. Here might be seen 
 a garden-house built of clay with windows of glass, and 
 doors that would open and shut ; there a canal made lively 
 with minnows, or a lake with its banks ornamented by 
 miniature willows and water-plants. At that time it was 
 one of the most useful corners of the Institution.
 
 36 FEOM THE LTTNE 
 
 Nine o'clock to twelve were school hours. They were 
 passed by John and "Willie in the writing-room, the front 
 one looking over the playground, where "Master Joseph" 
 held sway in his own peculiar manner. He had heen there 
 from the commencement was indeed the only master at 
 first ; but two months after the opening, we read in the 
 minutes, that " J. Donbavond" (that was his proper name) 
 " has already more scholars than he can do with," and an 
 assistant is appointed at a salary of 10, Joseph himself 
 receiving at that time just double the sum. He was a 
 fine looking man who wrote like copperplate and " was as 
 good a swimmer as a penman," rhythm and regularity 
 tending to perfection in both strokes. " His favourite 
 humour was to do a kind act with an air of severity." " Get 
 away with thee," he was heard to say with an emphatic 
 elbow-jerk to a very little boy sent to him to be caned, 
 " thee be caned ! why thou art a coward ! thou art afraid to 
 go into the bath ! Get away with thee ! " So says of him 
 the late "William Howitt, who had been a pupil at Ackworth 
 some six or eight years before our little friends, and who has 
 told sundry amusing tales of the doings there. 
 
 The unwilling candidates for a birching did not often meet 
 with so welcome a rebuff, though. If he thought a boy 
 deserved correction and could bear it, Joseph Donbavond was 
 not the man to flinch from his duty. " Now then for Jee tu 
 preparee!" he used to say, taking a pinch of snuff with his 
 usual three taps on the box-lid, and his peculiar turn of the 
 elbow; " I'll give thee Jee tu preparee /" But what mean- 
 ing he connected with his formula no one ever knew. 
 Various suggestions were made by his irreverent pupils at 
 the time and since, but whether it was an order to prepare
 
 TO THE NEVA. 37 
 
 which ho sxipposed he was giving in French, or a hidden 
 allusion to the " peppering " in store for the unlucky wight, 
 no philologist amongst them has been able to discover. 
 
 Master Joseph was now the writing master. Half the 
 boys were under his care in the morning, the other half in 
 the afternoon, each day. No wonder they turned out good 
 writers! After school there was another half -hour's play 
 before dinner. Again the preparatory assembling in the 
 "shed" in double row, according to height, and again the 
 marching to the dining-room, smallest boys first, the two 
 lines separating as they reached the tables, and passing, still 
 keeping step, to their seats. - All being seated, there was a 
 sudden and complete silence for a few moments, that each 
 might, in his own heart, thank the Giver of all good things 
 " for what he was about to receive " the Quaker's silent 
 grace. A movement of the master's foot upon the sanded 
 floor announced the commencement of business, and the 
 carvers set to work in good earnest. The work was not 
 heavy to-day. The new-comers were unlucky ; it was Tues- 
 day, and a pudding day, which meant pudding instead of, 
 not in addition to, meat and vegetables. " Third day's " 
 pudding was boikd suet with treacle. The day before there 
 had been hot meat, to-morrow there would be " Lobscouse," 
 a sort of resurrection dish that had a medium character 
 amongst the boys. " Fifth day," meeting day, there would 
 be again a pudding dinner, and one universally detested. 
 "Baked batter " was its name in the cookery book; " Clatty 
 vengeance" in the children's vocabulary a suggestive nick- 
 name. On " Sixth day " they would have hot meat, roast 
 or boiled, the remains appearing the following day in the 
 shape of Lobscouse again. " First day " had advantages of 
 
 4
 
 38 FEOM THE LU1TE 
 
 its own. It was the only dinner susceptible of variation. 
 When gooseberries were in season it was gooseberry pie. 
 The pies were made in round tin dishes nearly a foot and a 
 half in diameter, with a bottom crust as well as a top, a 
 good substantial dish. When apples were ready they were 
 used for the pies, and between the gooseberry and apple 
 seasons rice cheesecakes, as they were called, had their turn 
 cold, baked rice paddings, spotted with the old-fashioned 
 Smyrna raisins. Forty-eight of these pies or puddings 
 were baked every week for the two dining-rooms, dividing 
 into goodly portiens amongst the three hundred children. 
 They had plenty to eat at dinner-time. Wooden trenchers 
 served them instead of plates, an excellent substitute when 
 the trenchers were good and whole ; but what was to be 
 done when time and hot water had cracked them, and the 
 gravy and sauce ran through on to the well-scrubbed tables,? 
 John and Willie looked round for an answer, and soon 
 learned the Ackworth plan of filling up the cracks a novel 
 use for pudding and potatoes. Cans of very small beer fur- 
 nished their beverage. 
 
 After dinner came another half-hour's play ; and at two 
 o'clock, on re-assembling, our boys were sent to the 
 reading-school at the bottom of the colonnade. Here they 
 found the reading-master, William Doubleday, 
 
 " A man of countenance serene, 
 
 " True index of his mind, 
 " Where all, whatever it had been, 
 
 " Was now to peace resigned." 
 
 Like " Master Joseph " he was a fine-looking man, erect 
 and dignified, and like him with hair combed straight back 
 and cut at the neck, like a girl's. The style suited both
 
 TO THE NEVA. 39 
 
 faces remarkably well, showing their noble foreheads to great 
 advantage. These two masters were married, and lived in 
 the village. There were two other masters and four 
 apprentices on the boys' side, and a similar number of 
 teachers and apprentices for the girls; but of their wing, I 
 am sorry to say, I have little knowledge. Afternoon school 
 lasted till five, when there was a further instalment of play, 
 followed by supper at six. Supper was unsatisfactory. It 
 generally consisted of bread and butter, occasionally of bread 
 and cheese, and water. A lump of butter was dabbed in the 
 middle of a thick slice of bread and covered by another 
 slice as thick. That was the allowance. If a boy possessed 
 a pocket-knife so much the better ; if not he had to spread 
 the butter as best he could often, I dare say, by " rule of 
 thumb." Two quart cans of water started their rounds 
 from the same end. No. 1, after drinking, passed his can 
 to No. 3, and he to No. 5. No. 2, in like manner, passed 
 the second can to No. 4, who gave it to No. 6, and so on 
 round the table. Some advantage in the plan was no doubt 
 apparent to the authorities behind the scenes, for they were 
 particularly clever in attending to details and in busying 
 themselves with minutia?, but so far it is bidden from the 
 present generation. Supper was soon despatched too soon, 
 in fact, for no further supply could be obtained, and it was 
 to satisfy the young appetites until eight o'clock next 
 morning. After supper the boys were expected to spend an 
 hour in preparing lessons. The school-rooms were warmed 
 by means of hot-air pipes ; but as these were carried round 
 the upper part of the walls, while the floors were flagged, 
 and, of course, without cover, the effect was the reverse of 
 that generally desired, and it was often with hot heads and
 
 40 FROM THE LTTNE 
 
 cold feet, that the hoys turned out at eight o'clock and 
 assembled once more in the shed, this time for their " Roll 
 Call." The long list of names having heen gone through, 
 the boys next proceeded to the dining-room for " Beading." 
 A chapter in the Bible was read to them by a master each 
 evening before they retired to rest, Sunday evening only 
 excepted, and then the programme was pleasantly enlarged. 
 It was the one time in the week when the whole family 
 were assembled together, boys and girls, masters and 
 mistresses all gathering in the boys' dining-room. After 
 the chapter read by a master as usual, one of the first-class- 
 boys read a selected portion of Scripture ; he was followed 
 by a first-class-girl, and she by one of the mistresses. It is 
 a good old custom still kept up. 
 
 Dr. Fothergill proposed that the pupils on both sides the 
 house should be taught a trade. It was one of his favourite 
 ideas that "Learning and labour, properly intermixed, 
 greatly assist the end of both a sound mind in a healthy 
 body." But it was never carried into practice. It never 
 seemed possible to meet with the knowledge of a trade and 
 suitable companionship for the children together. They 
 were all in turn called upon to take part in household duties, 
 boys as well as girls ; but that was the nearest approach to 
 realizing the good Doctor's theory. The boys cleaned the 
 knives and forks and shoes of the establishment, and the 
 girls repaired all the linen, except that, on " Fourth day 
 afternoons," a party of boys went to the Matron's room to 
 darn stockings and " run them at the heels." There was a 
 little feeling of jealousy about this : they cleaned all the girls' 
 shoes, and, moreover, cleaned them with blacking, while theirs 
 were only oiled, and they thought the girls might have
 
 TO THE XEVA. 41 
 
 darned all the stockings. "We seldom like what is good for 
 us. More than one " old boy," I fancy, has found that 
 needle-practice useful to him in after years, and their oiled 
 shoes were really blessings in disguise. What would the 
 state of their feet have been without the wet-excluding oil ? 
 The boys helped also in the bakehouse and dairy, the garden, 
 and farm ; to wait at table, and turn the mangle ; always 
 rewarded, if well-behaved, by a hot cake, a few apples or 
 gooseberries, or a well-buttered crust. 
 
 There were worse places than Ackworth even in those days. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Further experiences at Ackworth, agreeable and otherwise. 
 
 Pupils intended for teachers often remained at Ackworth 
 as apprentices from the age of fourteen to that of twenty-one, 
 afterwards rising, if there was a vacancy, to the post of 
 master. During the whole seven years the length of holiday 
 allowed to an apprentice was four weeks. A master could 
 have two weeks in each year. It was a greater strain than 
 many of the youtus could bear ; in some the physical health, 
 in others the brain, gave way, and to all it was an enervat- 
 ing life, and an inadequate preparation for their future 
 responsibilities in the school. From ignorance of the progress 
 in the great world, comparing themselves only with them- 
 selves, the authorities of the out-of-the-way little world at 
 Ackworth considered themselves perfect. They endeavoured 
 to stand still, to remain as they were ; but that being 
 impossible, they ended in slipping backwards.
 
 42 FEOM THE LTJNE 
 
 The " notions of discipline were traditional," someone has 
 said; they were often cruel, and the determination to bring 
 offenders to justice frequently led to a perversion of it. The 
 idea of our police detectives that the end justifies the means 
 took possession of those in command at Ackworth, with but 
 little exception, about this period. They seemed to think of 
 punishment not as a necessary regulation for the improve- 
 ment of the delinquent and the protection of society, but as 
 a personal matter between master and boy ; and, like 
 detectives, they did not scruple to use "dodges" which 
 would have been thought deserving of censure and contempt 
 if practised by the children. It was in fact a contest of 
 ingenuity. 
 
 And yet it is evident there was a desire to prevent the 
 administering of severe punishjnent in the heat of personal 
 feeling. A " birching " was not allowed to be given " there 
 and then and have done with it," as children prefer it when 
 inevitable. The master was checked, and, we may add, the 
 punishment increased by delay in its carrying out. One 
 plan was for the culprit to be brought down to a " Master's 
 Meeting " after the other boys were in bed, and there to 
 receive the reward of his sins. It often did not amount to 
 much, two strokes on each hand and four on the back, but 
 the mystery and solemnity made it awful. Another plan 
 was the institution of a " Caning-book." There must be at 
 least one witness present, who must sign his name to a state- 
 ment when, by whom, and why, the caning was inflicted ; 
 the book to be produced at the next master's meeting, and 
 its records commented on. What more could be done ? In 
 the absence of the preventive help of full and varied occupa- 
 tion in play-hours how could discipline be maintained except
 
 TO THE NEVA. 43 
 
 by corporal punishment ? That it was outward discipline 
 only, that within lay " smouldering discontent " and dogged 
 obstinacy, was not the less a natural consequence. 
 
 But these are bygone times. The arrangement of scholar, 
 apprentice, master in unbroken succession accounts for much 
 that needed altering at one period, and that has long been 
 altered, thanks to the influence of outside elements, which at 
 last gained admission. It is interesting, however, and pro- 
 fitable sometimes to look back and compare our advantages 
 with those of our forefathers, asking ourselves at the same 
 time, "Can we with equal satisfaction compare the results?" 
 
 The only official who in those early days raised his voice 
 against the hard treatment of the children, and particularly 
 against the caning, was Wm. Doubleday, the reading-master. 
 His feelings were strong about it. He used to ask 
 " If with Solomon I whip, 
 " Why not with Moses stone ?" 
 
 maintaining that they belonged equally to the old dispen- 
 sation. It was a belief more pleasing to his pupils than to 
 his colleagues. The kind-hearted superintendent sympa- 
 thised with him to a certain extent, but the censure implied 
 by his actions, even when he did not speak his mind, was an 
 uncomfortable feeling for his fellow-teachers. He was simply 
 in advance of the age in that particular, for we must re- 
 member that the severity spoken of at Ackworth was only in 
 accordance with the spirit of government outside that micro- 
 cosm the spirit that made a man's life the forfeit for quite 
 trifling offences. But sunshine was ever more powerful 
 than an easterly wind. "Wm. Doubleday's pupils gave him 
 little trouble ; they appreciated his justice and mild firmness, 
 and they felt relieved by the absence of that irritating spirit
 
 44 FKOM THE LT7NE 
 
 of irony so prevalent in the manner of some of the other 
 teachers. Just then it was the tone of the school. The 
 very name given to the places of solitary confinement Light 
 and Airies I had always considered to be ironical, bitterly 
 so ; but I have been corrected by an " old boy " who 
 says he ought to know, for he was once confined there 
 four weeks ! and he maintains that they were literally both 
 light and airy. The windows were not out of reach, and 
 they were a good size, but being painted outside they were 
 useless as places of amusement, and they were padlocked. 
 
 In one of the three rooms a prisoner had managed to rush up 
 before his jailer, slip his hand through the open window, and 
 scratch a tiny place on the paint outside, giving a most 
 welcome peep into the outer world, but there was no chance 
 of communicating with it. The bakehouse was underneath, 
 and pipes for the conveyance of hot air were brought from 
 behind the oven into these prison-rooms; but somehow or 
 other they did not work, and the air that entered, though 
 there was plenty of it, was most frequently cold. Light and 
 airy was really no misnomer. A boy in disgrace was turned 
 into his cell at 6 a.m. and fetched back to bed at 10 p.m. 
 His pockets were searched each morning before he went in. 
 A chair and table were provided for his use, with a Bible, 
 and sometimes an Ackworth spelling-book. The food brought 
 to him was like that of the other boys, but less in quantity. 
 Such was life in a Light and Airy, stolidly submitted to for 
 even six and seven weeks by some persistent spirits whose 
 endurance was worthy of a better cause. 
 
 The famous Ackworth Vocabulary just now alluded to 
 was compiled for the use of the school by Dr. Binns, the 
 third Superintendent. It was used in season and out of
 
 TO THE NEVA. 45 
 
 season. Besides being allowed to relieve the monotony of 
 solitary confinement, it was the only exception to the strict 
 rule of "books of a religious tendency" to be read on " First 
 day." Why, we do not know ; but we do know that Ack- 
 worth scholars were good spellers as well as good writers. 
 They were also good readers, and were well practised in the 
 common rules of arithmetic. Little else was taught at first, 
 but these subjects were thoroughly taught, the instruction 
 being greatly in advance of that obtainable by any similar 
 class outside the Society. It attracted numbers who did not 
 properly belong to the section of their body for whom the 
 school was first intended, and many gladly paid the full cost 
 of their children for the sake of so good a foundation in 
 essential knowledge which could be added to later, according 
 to their leisure and requirements. 
 
 Our boys had not exhausted their new sensations and 
 experiences at the end of the first day. There was still the 
 bath to be tried for one thing. They had heard terrible 
 accounts of " The Bath," which was, in fact, a cold 
 chalybeate spring nearly a mile distant from the school. It 
 was used three mornings of the week by the boys and three 
 by the girls. The fifty or sixty boys whose turn it was to 
 bathe next morning, John and Willie amongst them, were 
 called between five and half-past and marched off. It was a 
 sharp frosty morning, such as we often have at the end of 
 April, and the walk was just long enough to warm them. 
 The bath they found was about twelve feet square, with a 
 path on three sides, and a wall surrounding it. A second 
 square was covered in for a dressing-room, but it was only 
 used by the girls. The boys undressed just outside the 
 wall, and often had to lay their clothes upon the snow. A
 
 46 FROM THE LTJNE 
 
 flight of steps at the entrance corner led down into the hath, 
 and a large tuh was fixed hy them or hy the jumping board 
 at the other end, in which a master stood to help the 
 boys in. The help was given in a very summary manner. 
 Little boys and new boys were expected to jump from the 
 side, and be caught by the older ones already in the bath ; 
 but if a boy hesitated he was seized by a leg and an arm 
 and tossed in, whatever his terror or dread of the water. 
 So John and "Willie had been told, and they had also been 
 told that the boys in the bath did not always catch, and 
 that sometimes they caught and would not let go, holding a 
 little head under water to the verge of suffocation. It was 
 fearful they felt as they looked down into the red abyss. 
 Yet to go voluntarily was better than to be thrown in, and 
 nothing but a cold was to be gained by delaying. First 
 Willie disappeared and then John. "N"o one seemed to be 
 looking out when Willie jumped, and he floundered about a 
 little stunned by striking the water. A hand was soon 
 stretched out for his help, however, and seeing his comrade 
 safely caught, he ducked, and they scrambled out together, 
 delighted to find it not so bad as they expected. No towels, 
 but a run to dry themselves, and they dressed all in a glow. 
 They learned to enjoy it, but it was too much for the weaker 
 ones, and no doubt many were injured by it. A crust of 
 bread would have been very welcome after the early rising, 
 but none was offered. An hour's spelling, as usual, before 
 breakfast, instead ! 
 
 There were not two opinions about their next experience 
 of Ackworth doings. Everyone, whether he could do much 
 or little, liked skipping, and the Ackworth skipping was 
 something wonderful quite an institution. The rope used
 
 IO THE NEVA. 47 
 
 was peculiar to the place, but when invented or by whom I 
 never heard. A centre piece of whip-cord was fastened to 
 two lengths of tarred rope and these again to two lengths of 
 whip-cord which were threaded through the handles, thus 
 making a rope of five pieces. This was the short rope, the 
 long rope was an ordinary one about thirty feet long and 
 would allow of twenty boys skipping in it together. Follow 
 my leader, of course, they played in it, and the leader set 
 them some difficult tasks. Sometimes he jumped on his 
 knees, at others he would lie down between the jumps, 
 again, he would take quite a run round and return to the 
 rope at the exact moment of its touching the ground, or he 
 would take his short rope and make it keep time with the 
 long one jumping over both at once. The figure of eight 
 was thought very easy and only worthy of beginners. 
 About the short rope skippers there are equally marvellous 
 tales. Single skipping, that is the rope passed once under 
 the feet at each spring, became difficult from its slowness 
 to some of the more advanced ; double, and crossing, and 
 thribble, were the ordinary steps. A few could manage four 
 turns of the rope in one spring and one boy accomplished it 
 twice in succession, which was a great feat. Sixty-four turns 
 of thribble skipping are the greatest number on record, I 
 believe. 
 
 An " old scholar " who, as a man, was remarkable for the 
 number of languages he knew and could teach, and, while 
 still a boy, for his command of English, wrote, at the 
 age of twelve, a few lines about this thribble skipping, 
 which, though probably well known to all Ackworth 
 girls and boys, are worth copying as a specimen of juvenile 
 talent:
 
 48 FROM THE LTJNE 
 
 " Aloof from these the dexterous skipper bounds, 
 And lifts hia slender form, and thrice revolves 
 The cord, ere on his feet again he lights : 
 As if a friendly cloud sustained his frame, 
 Or grosser atmosphere kindly upheld him : 
 And then he sinks, and rising gracefully, 
 The self same round keeps on, until his blood 
 Kevolves a brisker current in his veins ; 
 With emulation now his visage glows ; 
 And as again he rises, and again, 
 He feels the pride of conscious excellence 
 Thrill in his heart, and on his fellows looks 
 With smiles of skill superior." 
 
 Neither of our boys obtained any great proficiency in the art, 
 though they became good average skippers, but were never 
 so enthusiastic, for instance, as to deny themselves sufficient 
 dinner for the sake of excelling in skipping afterwards, 
 which a few heads, of the profession have been known to do. 
 Spring came quickly on, the little gardens were sources of 
 increasing interest, days were longer and brighter, and the 
 children began to talk about the General Meeting, and to 
 prepare for the examination which annually takes place then. 
 Some of them expected to see their friends, others hoped for 
 it, but the greater number only wished it were possible. 
 Many of them came from the South of England, and travelling 
 was difficult and expensive. John and Willie had been at 
 school so short a time they were sure no one would come to 
 see them. But they looked forward to the gala time along 
 with the others, for if nothing else fell to their share there 
 would be a good dinner of lamb and green peas, they were 
 told, on both days ; and what boy is indifferent to the pro- 
 spect of an unusually good dinner ?
 
 TO THE 1TKTA.. 49 
 
 The only difficulty would be the eating of it, and this they 
 found to be true when the time arrived. The boys' dining- 
 room was given up to the landlord of the inn for the accom- 
 modation of his guests, and the boys dined in the girls' 
 apartment after its rightful occupants had finished. But 
 there was not room for them to sit down, and they stood 
 tightly packed round the table, eyeing their trenchers full of 
 unwonted dainties, and speculating how much they could 
 secure. 
 
 I suppose we have all seen or heard of the forks of that 
 period; forks of two prongs, fine and wide spread. "What 
 chance had the poor pinioned boys of landing their peas safely 
 where they were so much desired ? They could only " spear" 
 two at once however well they aimed. A more tantalizing 
 dinner could scarcely have been devised. There was not 
 elbow-room for lifting the trencher to a level with the mouth, 
 so the reverse was the only course. One after another, in 
 different parts of the room, according to the position of the 
 master's back, you might see a boy suddenly kneel on the 
 floor and hastily sweep a handful of peas into his mouth, 
 then up again, hoping for another chance of finishing them. 
 Unless they had been far-seeing enough to pocket a breakfast- 
 spoon, what else could they do ? 
 
 Good dinners are apt to remind us of the " Apothecary's 
 Shop." That was the name of the apartment at Ackworth 
 where the nurse was to be found at a certain hour each 
 evening waiting to attend to patients. It was situated in a 
 small passage leading from the long one to a back entrance, 
 and the door of the master's study was exactly opposite. 
 This was a great resource for nurse. If a boy disputed her 
 authority, "I'll have thee flogged" was sufficient to subdue
 
 50 FROM THE LTJNE 
 
 Mm at once, for he knew she had only to walk across the 
 passage and the preliminary steps would literally be taken 
 for carrying her threat into effect. Her practice was very 
 simple. " For every evil under the sun " except chilblains 
 she had two remedies. Horehound tea for coughs and 
 colds, and solution (Glauber's salts) for the rest. For chil- 
 blains there were turpentine if unbroken, and blue lint (lint 
 dipped in blue vitriol) for the very bad broken ones. Poor 
 fellows ! There was to be no nonsense about chilblains ; 
 John found that out the first winter he was there. Nurse 
 seemed to think boys could help having them, and that they 
 deserved punishment rather than sympathy. John's were 
 broken, but had only needed a plaister, which he came to 
 have renewed, and was very carefully removing the old one, 
 when, catching sight of him she reached forward her hand to 
 expedite matters. 
 
 " Oh ! please I can do it myself," whimpered John, not 
 accustomed to such rough treatment. 
 
 "Do it thyself, can thou ? Very well, if thou can do 
 without me, thou had better go !" and, suiting her actions 
 to her words, she gathered up his shoes and stockings, threw 
 them into the passage, and bundled John after them head 
 first. We may be sure he did not trouble her again, 
 however lame he was. 
 
 Willie's experience was of a different kind. There was 
 often great difliculty about the water supply. Just outside 
 the boys' colonnade, by the middle column, was a semi- 
 circular stone trough with a tap over it, which ought always 
 to have been available for the boys' use. Sometimes the 
 supply of water was really deficient, but more frequently it 
 was John Pilmore's patience in pumping that ran short and 
 caused so much discomfort to the children.
 
 TO THE NEVA. 51 
 
 Half-way down the flags stood a pump, but it was kept 
 locked, and only in very dry weather the boys were allowed 
 to water their gardens from it. The water was not 
 considered suitable for drinking. The day had been very 
 hot, pnd poor Willie was in a state of distress. No water 
 was to be had, and he was so thirsty he thought Horehound 
 tea would be better than nothing ; he had never tasted it, 
 but he would try. 
 
 At the proper time he went to the Apothecary's shop for 
 some " medicine for a cold." Nurse looked at him rather 
 suspiciously, but handed him his dose in the usual old- 
 fashioned china cup. Willie took it and drank it he 
 could do no other under that stern eye, but he never asked 
 for Horehound tea again, even when he had a cold. 
 
 Fortunately there were more agreeable associations with 
 winter than these. The first fall of snow was loudly wel- 
 comed by the boys. "Now we shall have treading down !" 
 they exclaimed ; and great fun it was. Half-a-dozen rows 
 of thirty boys each, closely packed together, slowly moved 
 across the playground, stamping and treading the snow under 
 their feet into a hard, level skating ground. This was 
 delightful, and so was the skating afterwards, which, how- 
 ever, they called " clogging," and the skates " clogs." 
 They were pieces of wood like a common old-fashioned skate, 
 but with the metal three or four times the usual breadth, 
 and not so deep. Altogether it was a very safe amusement. 
 Then there was sliding. They prepared the "flags" by 
 pouring water down them some frosty night, and next morn- 
 ing had a magnificent slide. 
 
 The "flags " was that six-feet broad path, laid down in 
 1793, from the committee-room door to the garden gate,
 
 52 FROM THE LTJNE 
 
 where brothers and sisters, and cousins, and cousins' cousins, 
 to far-reaching generations, still walk and talk together. 
 It was the only place where boys and girls might associate. 
 The privilege of meeting was lost during sliding time, for the 
 girls had their slide somewhere out of sight. It was a pity, 
 but a necessity, I suppose. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Still Ackworth. The Reading-master's Daughter. John's Spelling 
 Lesson, Im-prac-ti-ca-bil-i-ty. 
 
 " I want thee to take a message for me to my wife, John," 
 said Wm. Doubleday to our old acquaintance, one afternoon 
 when he had been at Ackworth about six months ; and John 
 was nothing loth. Everyone can imagine, I was going to say, 
 the joy of going beyond bounds ; but only those can fully 
 realize it who have spent six months in a uniform round of 
 duties almost unbroken by any event, and uncheered by 
 loving words. And it was pleasant to go as a trusted 
 messenger. John felt quite important. If his master could 
 have foreseen all the trouble that was to come of that send- 
 ing, I wonder if he would have chosen another messenger? 
 I do not know. 
 
 John had seen Sarah Doubleday at meeting, and wondered, 
 in his simplicity, as he went along, whether she would open 
 the door herself or whether she kept a servant ; and he 
 repeated the message aloud to be sure he remembered it. 
 His knock was answered neither by servant nor mistress, 
 but by a fair, blue-eyed little maiden, a year or two younger 
 than himself, whose
 
 TO THE NEVA. 53 
 
 " hair was thick with many a curl 
 " That clustered round her head." 
 
 She smiled when she saw John, but did not speak. He 
 delivered his message : it was merely concerning the hour of 
 the father's return home in the evening. The sunny little 
 damsel went to the foot of the stairs and called, " Mother!" 
 It was the first word she had spoken, the only word John heard 
 her speak while he remained at Ackworth, hut it was suffi- 
 cient. Her voice was so sweet, her manner so modest, her 
 in fact, he made up his precocious mind that if ever he had 
 a wife that was to be the one. Of course he did not confess 
 this until long afterwards; but "Mother!" sounded in his 
 ears all the way back to school, and he thought if he could 
 listen to those tones when he came to be a man, life would be 
 full of charm and beaxity. Whatever hard work, whatever 
 struggles were before him and he had seen much of both at 
 home, and looked forward to them as his natural heritage 
 if that face might be the reward everything would be easy. 
 She (he did not know that her name was Margaret) was not to 
 share the work and the struggles, only the success they were 
 to bring. But he found, alas! on turning in at the gate, that 
 he was still just a schoolboy, with a long column of spelling 
 to learn, and no time for romance. Columns of spelling, 
 even of six and seven syllabled words, with their meanings, 
 were not at all the sort of difficulty he had been dreaming of 
 surmounting on his road to eminence. It was decidedly a 
 coming down, and rather distasteful. He remembered, how- 
 ever, one of his mother's lessons, to do first the work nearest 
 to you, and it would prove the stepping-stone to something 
 beyond ; and he wisely decided to grapple with the difficulties 
 of his lesson, leaving the future to " take care of itself." 
 
 5
 
 54 FBOM THE LUKE 
 
 Im-prac-ti-ca-bil-i-ty was the first word of his column. 
 He learned to spell it, but refused to accept it as a suggestion 
 or an omen ; in fact, he would have liked to cross it out of 
 the spelling-book altogether. It was a word that never 
 found favour with him to the end of his life. 
 
 He was not sent again to the cottage. He wished " she " 
 were in the school; he could at least have seen her in the 
 distance on the girls' green, or he might have discovered 
 some relationship that would give them a right to go on 
 "the flags." But she could not be spared to attend the 
 school. 
 
 In their occasional walks to the common the boys passed 
 the cottage door, and he never failed to look for his " ray of 
 sunshine" as they went by, seldom being disappointed of a 
 bright little gleam. Margaret had the charge of a little 
 brother about a year and a half old, and in that quiet place 
 the procession was too important an amusement to be missed. 
 The "hum of 180 voices" announced its approach, and the 
 young nurse and nursling were almost sure to be at the 
 window; indeed, I am inclined to think she, too, sought 
 a certain face, for one day she pointed out to her mother 
 " the little boy father sent down with a message." 
 
 What a comical row of figures they must have looked as 
 they filed past, with their long-tailed coats and leather 
 breeches, coloured stockings and studded shoes, and their 
 hair close-cropped, except a fringe in front hanging straight 
 over their foreheads ! 
 
 A pair or two of the leather garments were kept to be worn 
 as a punishment for inked or damaged trousers long after 
 they were abandoned for general use. This peculiar dress 
 was no doubt retained longer than it otherwise would have
 
 TO THK NEVA. 55 
 
 been with an idea, shared by the authorities of some other 
 large schools, that the boys could be known to everybody in 
 the neighbourhood, and brought back if, in desperation at 
 their monotonous lives, some of the more adventurous got 
 into mischief or tried to run away. They did make the 
 experiment not unfrequently, but seldom got further than 
 "\Vakefield, their appearance betraying them. The dress of 
 the girls also became a sort of uniform, not intentionally in 
 either case ; but as both boys and girls were provided with 
 clothes by the institution, it was more convenient and 
 economical to buy large quantities of material and make up 
 the garments of various kinds by an unvarying pattern. 
 They were uniform in another matter, too winter and 
 summer they wore the same thick dresses. What would 
 keep out the cold would keep out the heat ! 
 
 The boys were even more grotesque in their walking 
 costume than when out of doors at play. As soon as the 
 inventory of their possessions was taken when they first 
 entered the school they lost sight of the hats or caps in 
 which they had travelled, such coverings not being required 
 for daily use; but when the bell rang " to collect for a walk" 
 they re-appeared in what manner our friend, Wm. Howitt, 
 will describe better than I. " They (the boys) drew up in 
 two long lines facing each other, perhaps two yards apart. 
 Large wicker baskets were brought forth from a store-room, 
 piled with hats of all imaginable shapes and species, for they 
 were such as had been left by the boys from the commence- 
 ment of the institution. They wear none except on these 
 excursions ; and here they were, broad brims, narrow brims, 
 brown, black, and white, pudding crowns, square crowns, 
 und even sugar-loaf crowns, such as Guy Fawkes wore."
 
 56 FEOM THE LUNE 
 
 Boys and monitors were agreed in choosing the most unlikely 
 and unsuitable in size possible. 
 
 "That's the one for thee," a monitor would say as he 
 bonnetted a little fellow or perched a small sized sugar-loaf 
 OD the head of one of the tallest boys. And for once, as our 
 friend says, boys and monitors pulled together. Thus 
 arrayed they proceeded, two and two, with teachers inter- 
 spersed, to the common, where the command to "spread" 
 was the signal for one of the most enjoyable times in the 
 year. 
 
 On their way to the common one memorable afternoon, 
 John was puzzled. Something had happened to "his face." 
 He saw, as he passed the cottage, that the baby boy was 
 there, clapping his little hands as usual, and at first John 
 disappointedly thought some other sister or care-taker was 
 with the child, but a second look convinced him there was 
 no change except in the face itself. But what was the 
 change ? What was the matter ? Something must have 
 happened, certainly something was gone. He pondered over 
 it in silence, for he had kept his secret even from Willie, but 
 could not solve the riddle ; and not until years afterwards did 
 he learn the facts. 
 
 What had really happened was this. 
 
 A Friend from Pontefract called upon Mrs. Doubleday 
 one morning, and without apology or preamble proceeded to 
 fulfil her mission. 
 
 " Sarah, I am very much surprised that thou allowest thy 
 eldest daughter to curl her hair !" 
 
 Friends were accustomed to the interference of elders and 
 overseers in their private affairs. A young small community 
 almost always drifts into this practice. The leaders are
 
 TO THE NEVA. 57 
 
 strongly impressed with the importance of their views, and 
 jealously watch any act that implies a departure from them 
 or an unsettlement of opinion about them. It was not, 
 therefore, so unusual a speech as it would be now, but it 
 touched Mrs. Doubleday in a tender point. She knew that 
 she did not " allow" her daughter to curl her hair, she had 
 always believed that it curled naturally, but this direct 
 attack opened the door to a suspicion. Could it be possible 
 that the girl so ventured to think and act for herself as to 
 curl it without leave ? 
 
 Nothing in the house was supposed to be done without the 
 mistress's knowledge and permission ; but if this had 
 escaped her vigilance ? She was not going to confess the 
 thought, however, but replied somewhat coolly, 
 
 "My daughter does not curl her hair, Hannah Fletcher ; 
 she would not think of such a thing. She would be certain 
 I should not allow it and she could not do it without my 
 knowledge." 
 
 " I would not have thee too sure that thou knowest 
 everything that goes on, Sarah," said Hannah Fletcher, and 
 the tone, more than the words, implied that she believed in 
 the curl-papers. 
 
 " We will have her in," replied the mother in her sharp 
 decided way and going to the door she called " Margaret, I 
 want thee here." 
 
 Margaret came. 
 
 "Ask her thyself, Hannah Fletcher, I will have nothing 
 to do with it." 
 
 " My dear," said the visitor to the astonished girl, " some 
 of thy friends are concerned at the appearance of thy hair. 
 They are afraid thou art tempted to put it in paper."
 
 58 FEOM TUB LTJNE 
 
 "I do nothing of the kind, Hannah Fletcher." 
 
 There were a few moments of silence The Friend could 
 
 scarcely repeat the accusation after these denials, but it was 
 
 evident she was not convinced. Her 
 
 " thoughts congealed into lines on her face, as the vapours 
 " Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the winter." 
 
 Margaret quietly undid the scissors that hung along with 
 a pincushion by her side, and handed them to Mrs. Fletcher, 
 with the words, " If thou does not believe me thou may cut 
 them off," meaning the obnoxious curls. Her mother had 
 said she would "have nothing to do with it," but surely she 
 could not allow that to pass unopposed. She remained 
 perfectly inactive, however, though secretly wondering "if 
 Hannah would have the conscience to do it." 
 
 Hannah took the scissors, laid her hand on the intractable 
 hair, selected a curl that fell over Margaret's forehead, 
 arid cut. The girl did not move. Another curl went, 
 another, and yet another, from about the face that still 
 looked fair, though shorn. 
 
 " There, my dear, that is better," said the operator, as she 
 returned the scissors. 
 
 " I am glad thou art satisfied, Hannah Fletcher. The 
 same Hand that curled it before will curl it again, thou wilt 
 see." 
 
 It was not like her to act in such a manner ; I do not 
 know where she found the courage to do it, nor what she 
 thought of it all when she looked at herself in the glass. I 
 have heard her spoken of as "meek, unmoved," and it was 
 a good description. She had been meek hitherto because she 
 had not been tried, and was not herself conscious of the 
 latent fire beneath the surface. Her mother had never
 
 TO THE NEVA. 59 
 
 * 
 
 appreciated her so much as on that morning, when she 
 showed unmistakably " whose daughter she was." How she 
 might admire the same spirit opposed to her own wishes was 
 another matter. At present her feelings were complacent. 
 She and her husband were " convinced Friends," and, as is 
 often the case, she, at least, went somewhat to an extreme in 
 carrying out her new views. She placed no value on a 
 pleasing exterior ; indeed, she rather distrusted it as a waste 
 of time somewhere ; therefore, her daughter's altered appear- 
 ance was no trouble to her, and did not interfere with her 
 self-congratulation that she had not " been caught napping." 
 
 The girl's words came true : as the hair grew again it 
 curled better than ever. It was an ornament that she had 
 until then accepted as a matter of course, but this incident 
 had given an undue value to it. As a check upon vanity 
 Hannah Fletcher's mission proved a failure; not that 
 Margaret was ever vain, but she certainly thought more 
 about her hair after it was cut than ever before. But Hannah 
 Fletcher herself was very well satisfied, as Margaret suggested. 
 She had done her duty ; she had protested emphatically 
 against the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and she 
 hoped there was evidence in the dear girl of the meek and 
 quiet spirit that, we are told, is so much more to be desired. 
 We cannot but respect her for doing what she believed to be 
 right, even to the point of risking the displeasure of 
 persons she really liked and esteemed, but she was grievously 
 mistaken as to the true effect of her interference. 
 
 This had happened not long before the walk in question, 
 and accounted for the unusual appearance of the face that 
 John so much admired. 
 
 A remarkable event occurred in the neighbourhood of
 
 60 FROM THE LTJNE 
 
 Ackworth this year. A splendid Aloe flowered in the 
 conservatory at Nostell Priory, a fine old place belonging to 
 the Winn family, three or four miles from the school, on the 
 Wakefield road. The Aloe was of the kind popularly 
 supposed to flower only once in a hundred years, and the 
 children were invited to go over and see it. The Sir Roland 
 Winn, whom we hear of being so much interested in 
 watching the Ackworth children at dinner, was the third of 
 his name; he was High Sheriff of the county of York in 
 1799, and died unmarried in 180-5. The estates and the 
 title then unfortunately parted company ; the title went to his 
 cousin Edmund Mark Winn, Esq., of Acton, and the family 
 estates to his nephew, John Williamson, Esq., who after- 
 wards obtained a licence to bear the name and arms of 
 Winn. This was the gentleman who kindly invited the 
 children from Ackworth to pay a visit to his conservatory. 
 It was a wonderful treat. The girls went one day and the 
 boys the next. Their first object, of course, was to look at 
 the flower, which they found had grown so tremendously 
 that part of the conservatory roof had been removed, and a 
 square glass tower added to accommodate it. And there it 
 was, towering above them with its magnificent spike of 
 cream-coloured flowers, the beautiful bells so overflowing 
 with honey that the floor of the conservatory all round the 
 plant was covered with the luscious drops. There is no rose 
 without a thorn, and no such store of honey without wasps 
 and bees, as many of the young visitors found that afternoon 
 to their sorrow. 
 
 When they had sufficiently admired the Aloe, they were 
 summoned to the lawn ; and, as they stood there in a wide 
 semi-circle in front of the house, each of them was regaled
 
 TO TIIE XEVA. 61 
 
 with a bun and a horn of ale, besides an apple to put in 
 his pocket. I hope they were allowed to relieve their minds 
 by a good cheer, but it is doubtful. The apples were of 
 such a size that few of the pockets would hold them, and 
 most of them were stowed away elsewhere long before 
 the boys reached home. It was a delightful excursion, 
 notwithstanding the stings. 
 
 There was still another gala-day this year, to com- 
 memorate an event almost as rare as the flowering of the 
 Aloe itself the marriage of the superintendent. He was a 
 kindly man and a general favourite. The master who could 
 receive the contents of a plate of oatmeal porridge on his 
 head, as he stood under the nursery window, with the simple 
 remark, as he looked up to see who sent it, " Thou had 
 better be more careful next time thou does that, and look 
 out first," was sure to be a favourite, and I have no doubt 
 the congratulations and rejoicings were hearty and sincere. 
 
 Two apple trees were planted on the occasion, one on each 
 side of the garden gate at the end of " the flags." The 
 trees being placed and everything ready, each boy threw a 
 spadeful of earth on the roots of one, and each girl on the 
 roots of the other. 
 
 The apple tree& are flourishing yet, but how many of the 
 young gardeners could now be found, and where ? 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Return Home. Perplexities of various kinds. Hallam. 
 Heatherby. 
 
 Two years of this school life brought our boys to the age 
 of fourteen, the period for leaving Ackworth. Children of
 
 62 FEOM THE LTJITE 
 
 their class were generally apprenticed at that age ; a longer 
 time spent in "learning," their friends thought, only unfitted 
 them for manual labour. And indeed they ought then to 
 have acquired all that was ordinarily within their reach in 
 the way of learning. Those who were fortunate enough to 
 be sent to Ackworth I think we may fairly place it before 
 the other schools of the kind had been thoroughly drilled 
 in the "three Us," and in spelling. What more could they 
 want? Men and women who could read, write and spell 
 well, who could keep accounts correctly and check promptly 
 their tradesmen's bills, possessed powers greatly in advance 
 of those to be gained generally by people " not in affluence." 
 They were supplied with a good set of tools to begin life 
 with and many of them carved their way to fortune. "What 
 would our two do with them, what was their future to be ? 
 John had a desire to be a teacher, and he would have felt 
 no objection to remain at Ackworth as apprentice. Knowing 
 his secret we shall not be at a loss to account for the wish, 
 but it was over-ruled by his parents as they thought it best 
 for him to return with Willie who was to go into a land- 
 surveyor's office in Hallam. So they received a little parting 
 advice, shook hands with their particular friends and once 
 more set out on a journey together. The coach they travelled 
 by stopped to set them down at the Skelton's shop door. 
 Gilbert Dunning was waiting for "Willie and taking up his 
 small trunk hurried him off to Friargate where his mother 
 was anxiously looking out for him. Joyful meetings in both 
 houses we may be sure ensued, yet they were not unmixed 
 with surprise and somewhat of dismay. Of course the boys 
 had grown out of the clothes they had taken with them and 
 having been supplied with garments of the institution
 
 TO THE SETA. 63 
 
 pattern, their appearance was so altered they were scarcely 
 recognisable. Indeed little Alice Skelton for a long time 
 refused to own the figures in cut-away long-tailed coats and 
 leather shorts as her brother and old playfellow. 
 
 Cases are on record of parents and children really not 
 knowing each other after the long unbroken absence at Ack- 
 worth. Children had forgotten what father and mother 
 looked like, and parents failed to see in the strong youth of 
 fourteen the little fellow of nine that had left their care. 
 That breaking so entirely the thread of home life was one of 
 the greatest evils of the place. At first it was unavoidable, 
 a necessary evil. Xow, happily, it is a past evil and we 
 need say no more about it. 
 
 ' "What Guys they have made of our bids, Mary ! " said 
 Mrs. Dunning later in the day. 
 
 Xcver heed that if they have not made Guys of their 
 minds, Betsy " replied her philosophical friend, '* and I do 
 not think they have. The lads can look us frankly in the 
 face which is a great comfort after missing the sight of 
 their faces for two years. They are in good health too, and 
 are growing ever so tall. We can change their coats." 
 
 The surprise was not all on the side of the stay-at-home 
 people, however; when John turned from the coach he scarcely 
 knew where he was. The old black door was gone, and so 
 was the octagon window. There were two windows of good 
 white glass instead, and the shop door was between them 
 with " Skelton, Grocer and licensed Tea-dealer" abov"e it in 
 bold black letters. He understood the change then. His 
 mother's plan had been followed, and he was very glad. 
 He did not want to leave the dear old town, though his 
 interest was beginning to wander away from it. The shop
 
 64 FBOM THE LTJNE 
 
 looked beautiful he thought, with a nice mahogany counter 
 on each side, and a door in one corner opening into the 
 parlour, for the passage had been laid to the shop. It was 
 go snug and comfortable after the immense rooms and long 
 corridors. 
 
 Willie was to have a few weeks holiday before entering 
 on his apprenticeship at Hallam. John should have the 
 same, but what was to be done with him afterwards ? It did 
 not seem easy to please him. His old master at the school 
 in the town, hearing he had been a monitor at Ackworth, 
 came down to ask if he would help him for a time, and his 
 father said that was " the very thing." " For the present," 
 mentally added John, " till the right thing turns up." 
 
 "Willie's holiday soon slipped away, and the friends were 
 to be parted at last. They promised each other always to 
 have a letter on hand ready for a private opportunity, and 
 if opportunities were too scarce to save up their odd pennies 
 for postage, which was a serious item then we must 
 remember. People paid more for their letters, but they 
 were certainly better worth having than the " short 
 communications " that arrive three or four times a day now. 
 They were more like magazine articles or small newspapers, 
 and required some reading and thinking about. 
 
 A few months after Willie's departure, John found on his 
 return from school one day at noon, a little commotion in the 
 shop. And yet not exactly a commotion, for his mother and 
 elder sister were standing by with perfect outward composure 
 while a rough-looking man was helping himself to tea out 
 of a canister that stood on the counter. The father was not at 
 home. John could not understand it, but they signed to him 
 to ask no questions. The man had taken possession of some of
 
 TO THE NEVA.. 65 
 
 their paper bags, and was putting into one of them great 
 handfuls of tea. He had two bags already filled with black 
 tea in his basket, and now he was adding the green. " Oi 
 dunnot loike th' job," he was saying with each handful, 
 "Oi dunnot loike th' job," but he seemed determined to do 
 " th' job " thoroughly, all the same, whatever it was. 
 "When he was satisfied, he put the lid on the canister, took 
 his basket on his arm, gave the women a nod and walked 
 out. 
 
 " What does it all mean, Mother ?" 
 
 " It is a distraint for church rates, John. Friends don't 
 think it right to pay them, and the vicar sends to take some- 
 thing he can sell, and get the money that way. He says he 
 must do it because of those who come after him, but, I 
 believe, many of thorn would rejoice if the law were altered. 
 If we go against it for conscience sake, thou knows, we must 
 take the consequences and make no opposition. It would 
 have cost us much less to pay the demand at first, it was 
 only about two and fourpence but by this time the expenses 
 for a warrant, and so on, have mounted it up to more than a 
 pound. But there would be no blessing on the money saved 
 by doing wrong." 
 
 " He was taking plenty of tea," said John. 
 
 " They are not allowed by law to pay a second visit for 
 the same demand, so they generally err on that side. I dare 
 say he had five or six pounds of tea in his basket, but there 
 will be the cost of selling it to add to the warrant. Perhaps he 
 has not taken too much after all." 
 
 "It is very strange," said John, " I do not remember 
 their coming before." 
 
 " No, for one thing, thou hast been away, and for several
 
 66 FKOM THE LTJNE 
 
 years before that a gentleman paid the church rates and 
 Easter-dues for all the Friends in the town. "We could not 
 imagine how it was we escaped distraints so long; but 
 our well-intentioned friend died last year, and then it was 
 explained. "We could not have accepted it had we known 
 it was being paid, yet it was a relief. Now the robbery, 
 as some people call it, is beginning again." 
 
 " I call it robbery," broke in Abby. " "What right have 
 they to our tea ? " 
 
 "It is a good plan, Abby, to try to look at things from 
 our neighbours' point of view as well as our own, especially 
 if the neighbours are not neighbourly in their behaviour. 
 They have sometimes more reasons for it than we see from 
 our side. These church rates and Easter-dues are part of a 
 system the church people have grown up in and been taught 
 to think right. They were settled when there were, no 
 dissenters and everyone was supposed to belong to the 
 " State church," and as their ministers must live by their 
 church work, it was only right that everyone should con- 
 tribute. Now, things are different, and we hope the law 
 will be changed bye and bye, but meanwhile we cannot pay 
 the money because we think the true spirit of ministry 
 being a free gift ought not to be made a merchandise of." 
 
 Mrs. Skelton had told her son that the vicar sent to take 
 something he could sell and thus obtain his money, but this 
 time the vicar, or the law in his name, found that his 
 messenger had taken something he could not turn into 
 money. The man had forgotten that a license was required 
 for selling tea and he vainly tried to get rid of it. Driven 
 to despair, in the course of a few days, he returned to the shop 
 and asked if the Skeltons would allow him to sell his plunder
 
 TO THE NEVA. 67 
 
 at their own door, under the protection of their own license ! 
 This was rather too much, the strictest disciplinarian could 
 not require that they should voluntarily assist in their own 
 despoiling. 
 
 " Even looking at it from the vicar's point of view," Abby 
 said, " so far as she conld guess where that point was 
 situated, the request was an impertinence." 
 
 " Or the last resource of a man in a difficulty ?" suggested 
 the much- enduring mother. 
 
 Abby shook her head, and John said that was "like 
 mother." 
 
 But it was not the man's last resource ; he improved on 
 his plan the next day. While the family were seated at 
 dinner they heard the shop door open and close again. Abby 
 was quickly in attendance, but could see no one. On look- 
 ing further, however, she spied by the door the now well- 
 known basket and the three parcels of tea. She seized the 
 treasure, and bore it in triumph to the parlour. 
 
 "He has been obliged to bring it back; see, mother! 
 and he has left us the basket too. We are gainers at last." 
 
 " Not at last, only for this year, I'm afraid, little woman," 
 said her father, sadly. " Thou may depend upon it they will 
 straighten it up next time." 
 
 Abby sighed. It was a very unsatisfactory state of things, 
 she felt ; but she would have bemoaned it more strongly 
 than by sighing could she have foreseen that next year the 
 table they were sitting round would be the spoil selected. 
 The father was right ; they " straightened it up " in their 
 own fashion, and there was no redress. John wrote an 
 account of the whole transaction to his good friend at Hallani, 
 who was as deeply indignant at " the attempted theft " as if
 
 68 FEOM THE LTJNE 
 
 it were not a common occurrence. Both of them lived not 
 only to experience such losses themselves many times re- 
 peated, but to see the law altered in the name of Justice 
 towards the increasing number of individuals who were not 
 ministered to by the " Established Church." 
 
 "Willie was a capital correspondent, lively and humourous; 
 and his letters were an immense treat to his more sedate 
 friend, who was still plodding on at the school, waiting for 
 he knew not what. Unconsciously as so many of our acts 
 are performed, or, rather, in happy unconsciousness of what 
 their effects will be at the end of this indignant letter 
 Willie laid a match to the train so long prepared. "What 
 does thou think I heard to-day?" he wrote, in a lady-like 
 postscript. " William Doubleday, our old master, has left 
 Ackworth, and is going to open a boarding-school here. He 
 has taken a large old house called Heatherby Hall, about a 
 mile from Hallam, and he will open school in it after the 
 midsummer holidays. I shall be quite pleased to see him 
 again." John responded to the sentiment warmly, but he 
 substituted "them" for "him" in his own mind. He now 
 began to see his way. William Doubleday would of course 
 need help, and, according to the custom of the day, he would 
 take apprentices. What better master could he himself have 
 than one with such advanced views on education ? And 
 how fortunate it was that he was free from indentures else- 
 where ! 
 
 Willie was at Hallam, too. 
 
 He lost no time in giving form to his ideas. He repre- 
 sented to his father and mother how much more it would be 
 to his advantage to pass the years of his apprenticeship in a 
 high-class private boarding-school than at a small day-school,
 
 TO THE NEVA. 69 
 
 however good and respectable. His parents thought him 
 ambitious and were timid. " "We cannot tell that William 
 Doubleday wants an apprentice." 
 
 " "We can find out by asking the question, father ; there 
 can be no harm in that." 
 
 " Who is to write? I do not know him, and should not 
 like to take the liberty." 
 
 " But I know him, father ; and if thou will only give me 
 leave I will write to him myself. I think he will remember 
 me ; but even if not, he will not be offended at my asking." 
 
 Once more Mary had recourse to their kind friends, the 
 Lawsons, who were unhesitatingly on John's side. " Let 
 the boy write." they said. 
 
 So the " boy " was allowed to write. Could we see the 
 letter now we should most likely find traced on its old 
 yellow paper long sentences well rounded with expressions 
 of profound respect. That was considered the proper style 
 of letter-writing, and we may be sure John did his best. 
 But copied correspondence is apt to be dry and tedious, as is 
 proved in t<>o many of the biographies we try to read. We will 
 therefore skip this altogether, and briefly say that, when 
 "William Doubleday opened school at Heatherby in the 
 following summer, John Skelton was one of his apprentices. 
 The latter used to lament when he had growing-up children of 
 his own that he had been " very naughty" about this going 
 to Hallam, too persistent and too secret as to his n.otive for 
 wishing it. 
 
 Who shall judge him? or shall we leave the verdict an 
 open one ? 
 
 When the time arrived for entering on his new duties he 
 was, unexpectedly, sorry to go, for his family were in 
 
 6
 
 70 FEOM THE LUNE 
 
 trouble, and he did not like to leave them. But he must be 
 " punctual in fulfilling his engagements," that is one of the 
 " Queries," and a "clear answer" could not be sent to the 
 Monthly Meeting, if even insignificant he were to fail in 
 his duty. Besides he could do no good at home, so there 
 was no excuse for staying. The fact was he had had a 
 second lesson in the experiences of pioneers. This time it 
 was not money that Friends thought it right to withhold it 
 was service. They really were very troublesome to the 
 authorities with their whims and scruples ! There had been a 
 balloting for the militia, and Leonard, John's eldest brother, 
 had unfortunately been " drawn." He must serve himself, 
 find a substitute, or go to prison. His conscience would not 
 allow him to fight or to join in any preparation for fighting, 
 and it would be no better to send a substitute to do wrong 
 than to do wrong himself. The man who rented the shed in 
 the yard would gladly have taken Leonard's place for a 
 " consideration," or even if Leonard would do his work 
 when he was absent. He would like the change, and he 
 had taught Leonard to weave there would be no difficulty 
 about that. But there were no crooked turns in Leonard's 
 conscience, and the idea could not be entertained for a 
 moment ; he must take the remaining alternative and go to 
 prison for a month. He had been in prison a fortnight 
 when John left home, and had another fortnight to remain. 
 The juvenile membors of the family looked upon him as quite 
 a martyr, making a great demonstration when he returned ; 
 and even he seemed inclined to be "a bit set up," the neigh- 
 lours said, because he had "suffered for conscience sake." It 
 was perhaps on this account that his mother strongly advised 
 him to read " Sewell's History of the Quakers," and learn
 
 TO THE NEVA. 71 
 
 something of real suffering for conscience sake. Friends 
 can scarcely desire the return of such treatment, but nothing 
 would be more calculated to increase both the numbers and 
 strength of the Society, terms which are by no means 
 synonymous, though they seem to be often considered so. 
 
 John took up rather more room than on his last journey 
 out of town, and, as he mounted to his seat behind the driver, 
 felt altogether a different individual from the small member 
 of the " cargo" which had travelled in a similar direction 
 under female care. He was again going to new scenes and 
 an untried life, but this time not entirely amongst strangers, 
 and he felt no fear. His firm intention was to do his duty 
 to his master's and mistress's satisfaction (such names were 
 recognized then), and so to win their regard that who could 
 say what might happen ? The future looked beautifully 
 bright and simple, for he no longer remembered that long 
 word, impracticability, standing at the head of his old spelling 
 lesson. His dreams had so shortened the distance that he 
 was astonished to find the coach pulling up at the Angel Inn, 
 in Hallam, and rejoiced to see his friend Willie's cheery face 
 waiting by the inn door to welcome him. 
 
 It was a long walk to Heatherby, but they had a great deal 
 to say and would be glad of the time, so, leaving one box to 
 follow, they took the smaller parcels and set off. The Hall, 
 "Willie said, as they tramped along, was partly built in Henry 
 Eighth';; time, and had been latterly inhabited by an old 
 Judge. It was a curious, rambling place, but the Justice's 
 room made a capital schoolroom, and the rest of the house 
 proved equally serviceable. He had seen all the Doubledays ; 
 there were four sisters and three brothers ; the baby, who 
 used to watch them pass the cottage at Ackworth, was the
 
 72 FKOM THE LTJNE 
 
 youngest. Mr. Doubleday was as kind as ever, but his 
 wife looked rather stern. He said nothing specially about 
 Margaret, and John was not sorry. 
 
 "We need not take up time with further introductions. 
 Willie remarked on leaving, that he hoped to see John at 
 meeting on " First-day," but he must be sure to be early if 
 he wanted a seat. " It is not like our little lot of Friends 
 at home." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Ministers. A Convinced Friend. Troubles. John prefers Patience 
 to Impracticability. 
 
 On arriving at the Meeting-house in good time, as was the 
 habit of the family, John perceived the full force of "Willie's 
 parting remark. There was not a seat to spare, and a party 
 of young people who came in ten minutes late could only be 
 accommodated on a form placed in the middle aisle. There 
 was a goodly array of " Friends in the gallery," too, which 
 means Friends who, by the general consent of their monthly 
 meeting, had been "recorded as ministers;" whose com- 
 munications, whether of prayer or counsel, have been felt by 
 the meeting to spring from the right source. 
 
 Friends believe that a heart in a state of silent, expectant 
 waiting is often touched by Divine inspiration as directly 
 and unmistakably as were the prophets of old. In our 
 hurrying nineteenth-century lives it is more difficult, per- 
 haps, to keep the quiet, concentrated frame of mind in which 
 alone the still, small voice can be heard; but even yet 
 amongst their ministers are many, women as well as men,
 
 TO THE NEVA. 73 
 
 who speak with a power that their hearers feel is far beyond 
 their natural one. No special instruction is thought neces- 
 sary to prepare them a message may be sent by the mouth 
 of an unlettered minister as clearly as by the most learned, 
 faith and obedience being equally possible to them both ; but 
 the mind that has been trained, whilst acquiring knowledge, 
 to clear and orderly thought, certainly possesses an advantage 
 over an untrained one ; and the more cultured the individual 
 these essential elements of faith and obedience being 
 equal the better can he or she appreciate and help the 
 difficulties of those whose deeper insight into the laws and 
 mysteries of the universe has brought them into much 
 searching of heart. 
 
 The truth of Tennyson's words " as the instrument, so 
 comes the sound " can scarcely be denied. 
 
 Hallam was particularly "favoured" in the way of 
 ministers at that time, and amongst them was one who 
 attracted John's notice at once from his open and benevolent 
 countenance. Little but his countenance could be seen as he 
 sat amongst his peers in the gallery; but after "meeting" 
 John had the pleasure of being introduced to Daniel Brady, 
 and found him to be of middle height, rather stout, but 
 remarkably erect and square-shouldered, his hat, of much 
 wider brim than any we see now, adding to his general 
 appearance of breadth. He was then, and seemed always to 
 be, dressed in a suit of dark coffee-coloured cloth. 
 
 He was what is called a " Convinced Friend," that is, he 
 held his membership in the Society not by the plan peculiar 
 to it, of "birthright membership," but by voluntarily apply- 
 ing for admission because the Quaker views and principles 
 were the nearest he could find to his ideal of truth. Con-
 
 74 FEOM THE 1TTNE 
 
 vinced Friends are, as a rule, stricter and more earnest than 
 the horn members, who too often have accepted their position 
 and opinions without examining them. Daniel Brady was 
 one of the most earnest and gifted. His life had heen a 
 rugged one until the age of twenty -five. Part of the time 
 engaged in the navy, the last four years in the army, he had 
 experienced, to the full extent, the hardships inseparable 
 from both situations, and he had not escaped their temp- 
 tations, nor passed scatheless through them.. When nearly 
 twenty- five years old his regiment was ordered to the 
 "West Indies, under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, and it was 
 during the voyage out, in the midst of a severe storm, that 
 his conscience was finally awakened to the consequences of 
 his unsteady life. 
 
 He took counsel of no one. He afterwards said of himself, 
 ' ' No human means were made use of it was altogether the 
 immediate work of the Holy Spirit oti my heart." Sub- 
 mitting to the guidance and discipline of that Spirit, he soon 
 felt his profession to be out of keeping with the commands, 
 "Love your enemies," and " Do good to them that hate 
 you," which are the burden of the New Testament. On his 
 return to England he gave up his commission in the army, 
 and betook himself to Hallam, where his eldest sister had 
 married a "Quaker." Finding, as we said before, that their 
 views were nearer to his ideal than any he had met with, he 
 sought admission to the Society, and followed his sister's 
 example by marrying one of its members. He became a 
 partner in an ale and porter business in Hallam, and also 
 opened a shop in the seed trade. But remarkable as his life 
 was, it only claims a corner in our simple annals because of 
 its intimate connection in after years with that of one of our
 
 TO THE NEVA. 75 
 
 young friends. His eldest son was already under Wm. 
 Doubleday's care, Daniel Brady told John, and the other 
 three would follow, he hoped, as they grew old enough. 
 Two or three friends had guaranteed Wm. Doubleday 200 
 a-year if he would open this school at Hallam, but it 
 increased so rapidly they were not called upon for the 
 money. As usual, his pupils idolized him, one of them says. 
 "We will not go into the details of school life again, but 
 will content ourselves with the general announcement that 
 it was like life everywhere, made up of small things, some 
 sweet, some bitter. The pleasant things predominated in 
 John's lot at first. He made the personal acquaintance of 
 Margaret and her brothers and sisters, and found them, on 
 the whole, pleasant young people. They were strikingly 
 various, both in appearance and character. Elizabeth, the 
 next to Margaret, was the literary lady of the family, and 
 contrived to leave her share of household duties to the 
 others to do for her if they were willing, or to be left 
 undone if they were not, while she slipped away to her 
 books. Sarah, her younger sister, was full of kindness and 
 comicality, but she was decidedly of the opinion that people 
 ought to attend to their own business, and occasionally 
 refused to screen her sister; and then, for a time, there 
 was trouble amongst them, but not for long. Mary, the 
 youngest, was at school at Ackworth, and so was the second 
 brother. Wm. Doubleday's eldest son assisted him in the 
 school, and the youngest, the baby of Ackworth memory, 
 was now an independent young man of five years old. They 
 were all thrown constantly together, for it was a busy 
 household. Mrs. Doubleday was an active woman, and she 
 took care that everyone was well employed about her. Her
 
 76 FBOM THE LUNE 
 
 daughters and servants were kept fully occupied and even 
 the two apprentices were asked for help sometimes, a request 
 that would excite neither surprise nor displeasure in those 
 days. 
 
 John certainly had no objection to sit under the large 
 sycamores at the edge of the back lawn helping to shell 
 peas, or to bring his copy-book stitching into the dining- 
 room when the girls were engaged in folding clothes or 
 repairing the linen before they laid it by. Willie often 
 joined them in the evening, the second apprentice was full 
 of fun, and they were a lively company. Repeating poetry 
 was a great resource ; they either took turns in reciting long 
 pieces and extracts, or they cut them up into disjointed 
 fragments by the game of " Capping Verses." Willie 
 used to repeat canto after canto from Byron with all the 
 greater gusto because it was only half approved ; John 
 preferred Cowper's Fireside; Elizabeth gave them extempore 
 morsels if she was at a loss for a verse beginning with the 
 right letter ; and Alfred, John's comrade, made puns upon 
 everything, .and looked all the while as sober as the old 
 judge himself used to look when he sat in the opposite 
 room. 
 
 The renewal of his old companionship with Willie was 
 another of John's pleasant things ; they spent as much 
 time together as possible. As the older established man of 
 business, Willie was full of importance and good advice, 
 and often instruction too, for it was one of John's sage rules 
 for self-discipline to lose no opportunity of adding to his 
 knowledge. Whether in his own line or not did not signify, 
 knowledge of any kind was sure to be useful some time ; 
 therefore, by permission of the two masters, Willie passed
 
 TO THE NEVA. 77 
 
 on to him the lessons in map and plan-drawing he received 
 in the office, or in the practical work of surveying, whenever 
 there was an afternoon to spare, receiving, in return, 
 literary instruction of one kind or another. It was good 
 for them both. 
 
 John learned book-binding for the benefit of the school. 
 A small square barn or granary stood on one side of the 
 house, and its upper story was used for a workshop ; the 
 book-binder's press was there, and most of the stationery 
 used by the boys was prepared in that little room. 
 Gardening was a favourite occupation with all of them. 
 In the large grounds, that had become picturesque in their 
 wildness during the Justice's lifetime, there was abundant 
 scope for talent of various kinds. One part was allotted 
 to the pupils, and each of the family had a separate 
 garden of his or her own. It was a peaceful and happy life, 
 full of work and full of interest. 
 
 The first little break in the harmony of it was the intro- 
 duction amongst them of two young Africans, known as 
 Sandanee and Mahmadee. African affairs were receiving a 
 large share of attention just then, the great anti-slavery 
 movement had begun, and many plans for helping and 
 improving the negroes were proposed and tried by the 
 "Friends of African Civilization," as they were called at 
 first. Sierra Leone they hoped to make a centre from which 
 instruction would spread for the enlightenment of the whole 
 continent. To prepare native teachers for schools there, was 
 of course one of the first steps, and amongst the captured 
 slaves who were brought to London, any who seemed parti- 
 cularly intelligent, were detained, if possible, to be educated 
 for that purpose. By some means, Wm. Doubleday had
 
 78 FEOM THE LTJNB 
 
 been prevailed upon to undertake these two. Mahmadee 
 was a Jaloof prince, but what Sandanee's former life had 
 been was very uncertain. The Doubledays imagined it 
 must have been something wild, judging by the strange 
 impulses that seized him at times and the impossibility of 
 teaching him "manners." Mahmadee was a gentle, thought- 
 ful boy, and returned to useful life in his own country ; so 
 far as is known, Sandanee never went back, but he was 
 unfortunately lost sight of when he grew up. They were 
 not always an agreeable addition to the family. 
 
 The second interruption to the home life at Heatherby was 
 the illness of Mrs. Doubleday. She was for a long time 
 unable to take her place in the household, and her duties fell 
 upon Margaret, which was a heavy charge for a girl of 
 sixteen. The young housekeeper had grown to her full 
 height by that time, and with her hair smoothened under a 
 cap, as custom then demanded, she looked considerably older 
 than she really was, which she found a great advantage. 
 John had never wavered in his secret determination, and now 
 more than ever he admired the clever dignified girl, but he 
 wisely restricted himself for a long time to expressing his 
 feelings by quietly watching for opportunities to help her ; 
 attending to the little brother, and taking care amongst 
 other things that her garden did not suffer for her close con- 
 finement in the house. It is not to be supposed that 
 Margaret was blind to these attentions ; certainly those around 
 her were not, excepting perhaps the two individuals whose 
 favour was most important. The young people were out of 
 the range of the mother's observant sight, and the father's 
 vision w,as not keen ; but he would not have disapproved if 
 he had been conscious of their feelings.
 
 TO THE NEVA. T9 
 
 As was incidentally mentioned in a former chapter, "Wil- 
 liam Doubleday, like Daniel Brady, was a " convinced 
 Friend;" but he was one of quite a different type from 
 the ex-soldier. He lacked the training and discipline that 
 the latter had undergone, and his naturally impressionable 
 and sympathetic disposition would have been strengthened 
 by such an influence ; so it seems to us, at least, with our 
 limited horizon. Yet who shall say that the extreme views 
 of direct inspiration which took possession of him in later 
 years were wrong for him, or that, because they led him 
 away from the outwardly successful life that seemed now 
 opening before him, he was entirely mistaken in following 
 them. " Success in life" may have a different meaning for 
 us a century hence. Soon after his marriage he had been 
 disinherited by his father for leaving the Established Church, 
 of which all his family were members, and joining the 
 Methodists; that the greater quietness of the Friends after- 
 wards induced him to make another change was, if anything, 
 a further offence. Whatever seemed to him right, he would 
 do without considering consequences ; he would have walked 
 to the stake, if duty pointed to it, with a firm step and 
 a beaming face. Such was Margaret's father. One little 
 plan of his for managing his own young children may, 
 perhaps, be alluded to here. We said, only a few lines further 
 back, that his vision was not keen, which was quite true in 
 reference to such matters as we were then speaking of ; but 
 for selfishness, unkindness, or anything approaching to a 
 quarrel, his eyes and ears were painfully open. He did not, 
 however, always deem it wise to speak at the moment ; 
 it might even be a day or two afterwards that the little 
 offender would find in drawer or desk, a single verse or
 
 80 FROM THE LUNE 
 
 a simple narrative in rhyme that would recall to mind some 
 exhibition of temper or act of selfishness that deserved 
 reproof. 
 
 " Said the flint to the steel, if you'd not so much fire, 
 You'd be just such a steel as a flint might desire ; 
 Said the steel to the flint, when you let me alone 
 I'm as cool as yourself, so the fault is your own," 
 was quite understood by the little tease who had roused a 
 sister's anger. 
 
 " Alick, 1 have to finish some ciphering-books this evening ; 
 if thou would like to fetch thy rocking-chair I will carry it up 
 to the workshop for thee, and thou can watch me 'plough,' 
 as thou calls it," said John to his little favourite one evening 
 after tea, and the invitation was gladly accepted. Alick 
 liked the workshop, there was always something interesting 
 going on in it, and from its two windows he could keep 
 a lookout upon the movements about the house, for one 
 window commanded the front door, and the other the gardens 
 and far-stretching fields. He was necessarily very much left 
 to himself, and his chief enjoyment was to sit in his little 
 rocking-chair swinging backwards and forwards in the 
 " Apple-f or-a-King and Pear-for-a-Queen " style, shouting 
 his favourite verses or chanting them melodiously to a 
 "tune of his own composing." So the rocking-chair was 
 invited as well as Alick. 
 
 "Her firefly lamp I soon shall see, 
 
 Her paddle I soon shall hear," 
 
 the little fellow was beginning as usual for the Dismal 
 Swamp was his special piece, and that verse of it a particular 
 favourite when he suddenly started up with the exclama- 
 tion, " Why ! there's mother ! she is coming out for a walk. 
 Father is bringing her!"
 
 TO THE NEVA. 81 
 
 John went to the window ; it really was Mrs. Doubleday. 
 He had heard from day to day lately that she was improving, 
 hut he was taken by surprise to see her out. She was 
 leaning upon her husband's arm ; he and the bright warm 
 evening had lured her to make the attempt. She looked up 
 at the workshop window, and gave the apprentice a smile, 
 the last she gave him for a long time. Alick had already 
 deserted him, and rushed downstairs to join them in their 
 walk. They wandered slowly on towards the gardens ; how 
 beautiful everything appeared to the invalid after being so 
 long a prisoner ! 
 
 "Look, Mother! this is my garden; is not my pond 
 pretty? Sister let me have the bowl," said the happy 
 little boy. 
 
 " Very pretty, dear ; but this is the prettiest and best 
 kept of the whole. Which of you does that belong to ?" 
 
 " Oh ! that is Margaret's ; isn't it beautiful ?" 
 
 " Margaret's ! but Margaret has no time for gardening, I 
 am sure ! How is that?" 
 
 " Oh ! John Skelton does it for her ; he is so kind." 
 
 Mrs. Doubleday gave an involuntary glance, not this time 
 a smiling one, at the old granary window, which John 
 happened to see, and a strange foreboding came over him. His 
 old spelling lesson returned to his mind, and the seven-syllabled 
 word that he so strongly objected to seemed determined 
 to find a place for itself in his dictionary. Im-prac-ti- 
 ca-bil-i-ty he spelled once again, with his hands mentally 
 behind his back. But there was another word that he liked 
 much better, a shorter one, and that was Patience, and he 
 finally determined to have faith in it still. 
 
 "I am afraid, my dear," said Mrs. Doubleday to her
 
 82 FROM THE LUNE 
 
 husband on their return to the house, "that I have been, 
 needed downstairs more than thou imagines. What does 
 this mean about the gardens?" 
 
 " Is there any hidden meaning in it, my dear Sarah ? I 
 do not understand." 
 
 She quickly made him understand her view of it ; but 
 met with little sympathy in her objections. What did the 
 different social positions of their families signify if the young 
 man's character was satisfactory ? He must make a position 
 for himself ; and that, if his master was not mistaken, he 
 was very likely to do : his only objection, supposing his 
 wife's suspicions to be correct, was their youth they did 
 not know their own minds. 
 
 She could find nothing to say against John's character, 
 and neither he nor Margaret could be sent away t they were 
 too useful at home, besides there was no real ground for 
 speaking ; it might be only Mrs. Doubleday's idea, which it 
 would be foolish to suggest needlessly. 
 
 And so it rested ; there was no immediate explanation, 
 but an indefinably uncomfortable feeling crept amongst 
 them, as if they were walking at the edge of a precipice. 
 
 Just as peace was settling over Europe, discord was 
 finding its way to secluded Heatherby. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander of Eussia. Daniel Brady. Okta. 
 
 The temporary peace, as it proved, of 1814 brought the 
 Allied Powers, with Alexander I. of Russia at their head, to 
 sojourn for a time in Paris. At the invitation of our Prince
 
 TO THE If ETA. 83 
 
 Hegent, Alexander crossed the Channel to England, accom- 
 panied by his sister, the Duchess of Oldenburg. His ante- 
 cedents, so far as we know them, would not be of much 
 advantage even to our friend the professor in the study of his 
 character, I am afraid; for, to use the professor' sown words, 
 "the initial influence of his life seems to lie too far in the 
 past for human mind to trace." We can scarcely imagine 
 him to be indebted to his immediate ancestors for his just, 
 humane, and unselfish character. His inclinations and his 
 circumstances seemed constantly at variance. Theoretically 
 his sympathies had always been with France, the France of 
 the republic, notwithstanding his own position as despotic 
 ruler of between sixty and seventy millions of people ; and 
 his feeling towards England was not especially cordial when 
 he first set foot on English soil. But he found a great deal 
 going on here that interested and delighted him, though much 
 also that he did not approve. For one thing, he very strongly 
 objected to the long sitting after dinner, which was then 
 carried to an extreme ; he would rather have been learning 
 something about the objects that were constantly in his mind 
 whenever he could free it from the affairs of the camp. The 
 younger and less important members of the Royal family 
 were more congenial companions to him than the "first 
 gentleman of Europe " their tastes were more alike. 
 Education and agriculture possessed the greatest interest for 
 him, and in the former of these the Dukes of Kent and 
 Sussex were thoroughly interested too. A variety of philan- 
 thropic work was going on slavery and capital punishment 
 were being valiantly fought, and men of various religious 
 opinions and stations in life worked in harmony for these 
 ends who would else, probably, never have known of each
 
 84 FKOM THE LTTNE 
 
 I 
 
 other's existence. As might be expected, many of 
 the Society of Fi'iends came well to the front, and their 
 judicious and intelligent labours brought them prominently 
 into notice. In this way the Emperor became acquainted 
 with several of them, and they seemed to him a people 
 eminently to possess the qualities that he would gladly 
 cultivate in his own dominions, to the displacing, if possible, 
 the insincerity, love of display, and many undesirable habits 
 that he was painfully conscious were the characteristics of 
 his own subjects; and he took every opportunity of inform- 
 ing himself as to Quaker opinions and practice. 
 
 He attended one of their meetings at Westminster, and by 
 special desire had private conversations with some of them 
 afterwards, making minute inquiries as to their lives and the 
 manner in which they carried out the principles that had SD 
 pleased him in theory. He was surprised to find that oaths 
 and tests still kept them from a share in the government and 
 in the advantages of university education, and he could per- 
 haps scarcely realise the different spirit of the two countries 
 in dealing with obstructions. If he saw that a thing wanted 
 altering he had only to publish a ukase, and the change was 
 made at once, on the surface at least ; and the slower, if 
 safer, manner of legislating in England was a new experience 
 to him. 
 
 Alexander expressed a wish to see a Friend's house, and an 
 arrangement was made for him to call at one in Brighton, on 
 his way back to town from Portsmouth ; but the crowd was so 
 great he could not stop, and no further opportunity seemed 
 to present itself. He made one for himself, however. As he 
 and his party were on their journey to Dover when they re- 
 turned to the Continent, they noticed two Friends standing
 
 TO THE NEVA. 85 
 
 at the door of a house at a little distance from the road. 
 The Emperor stopped his carriage, got out, and courteously 
 inquired of them if they belonged to the people commonly 
 called Quakers. On receiving a reply in the affirmative he 
 next asked leave for himself and sister to enter the house, 
 which of course was granted. They stayed some time, look- 
 ing over it, taking refreshment, and telling their host and 
 hostess, to whom it was news, of their attending a meeting, 
 and their interviews with members of the Society, in London. 
 Here his favourable opinion of Friends was confirmed the 
 farm and the house were well cared for and orderly; and he 
 did not forget his impressions when the time came for making 
 use of them. 
 
 Three years afterwards, when, having a little leisure for 
 attending to the affairs most pleasing to him, he decided on 
 draining and cultivating the marsh lands round St. Petersburg, 
 he remembered his visit to England and his favourable ideas 
 of English agriculture, and he directed that enquiry should 
 be made for an Englishman to come out and superintend the 
 work, particularly requesting that he should be a member 
 of the Society of Friends. 
 
 Where was such a man to be found ? He would need 
 much more than a knowledge of agriculture ; he must have 
 the power to control others as well as to arrange their work ; 
 he must be able to stand before princes with propriety and 
 dignity, and withal he must be one who would uphold the 
 credit and honour not only of the Society which had so attracted 
 the Emperor but of their and his great Master. Information of 
 his wish was spread amongst their different meetings, and 
 it seemed especially to find rest in Hallani. Our friend 
 Daniel Brady might have been no doubt had been pre- 
 
 7
 
 86 FEOM THE LTTNE 
 
 paring for this post. His mind for the last two years had 
 been turned in the direction of foreign service of some kind, 
 and when this invitation was made known he felt it was sent 
 to Tn'm. As if to complete his fitness for the work, he had 
 taken a farm a short distance from the town, and for two or 
 three years had heen practising agriculture with the greatest 
 success, developing a latent -talent for it that surprised every- 
 body. Therefore when the enquiry reached Hallam the 
 manager was ready. To his surprise and unbounded relief, 
 his wife was also ready ; Euth's language to Naomi rose to 
 her lips, and she encouraged him to make any sacrifice for 
 the sake of duty. 
 
 He offered himself and was gladly accepted, the Emperor 
 showing his implicit confidence by sending to him an agree- 
 ment or bond, already bearing the Imperial signature, but 
 with the amount of salary a blank for Daniel Brady to fill up 
 according to his own choice. We are sure the confidence 
 was not misplaced. He went over to St. Petersburg the same 
 year to have an interview with Alexander, and to make 
 arrangements for going out with his family the following 
 summer. From the oldest to the youngest, all were to 
 accompany him. The Emperor had asked his intentions as 
 to that, and rejoiced when he heard what they were : it was 
 not only farming he wanted, he said it was their good 
 influence quite as much. 
 
 John wrote to his brother Harry at this time, " We took 
 tea at Daniel Brady's last evening ; that is the Friend who 
 is going out to Russia next summer with all his family. He 
 is there now to see the ground and plans." John's own 
 future had not yet shown itself. Many details wanted con- 
 sidering on Daniel Brady's return. Two of his sons were
 
 TO THE NEVA. 87 
 
 now at "Win. Doubleday's school; the oldest had left and 
 would be able to help his father ; but besides these there 
 were a fourth son and two daughters whose education must 
 be continued by some means. He felt he could not 
 do better than consult his friend at Heatherby, so he 
 walked up there one fine evening and laid his wants 
 before him. Win. Doubleday was of all others the man 
 to enter into his feelings, and as it proved, to help him out 
 of his difficulties. 
 
 " Thou must take a teacher with thee, Daniel ; there is no 
 question as to that." 
 
 " Just so ; that seems the only plan for securing that the 
 children shall not suffer ; but where shall I find him ? We 
 shall have difficulties to contend with, and we shall be like a 
 city set on a hill ; and, besides these considerations, the man 
 I want should be able to do something more than give book 
 lessons he must know how to use his hands, and such a 
 man is not met with every day. However, I cannot lose 
 faith that I shall be helped in all things, the path has been 
 made so clear before me thus far." 
 
 " The man is waiting for thee, I think, Daniel, as thou 
 wast waiting for the Emperor, and the move will be a 
 mutual advantage ; indeed, I may say an advantage to all of 
 us. Thou hast frequently met with my apprentice, John 
 Skelton?" 
 
 " Yes ; but he is very young." 
 
 "He is very steady, and, I think, combines all the 
 qualities thou art looking for. As to himself, it will be of 
 untold good to him to be under thy care. If the idea com- 
 mends itself to thy mind, I will give him the remainder of 
 his apprenticeship, partly for his and thy advantage, and 
 partly to get him out of my house ! "
 
 88 PBOM THE LTJNE 
 
 The last few words of this speech, if uttered by some 
 people, would have thrown a doubt on the purity of motive 
 in recommending John, but not when they came from Win. 
 Doubleday. They only required an explanation, which was 
 given to his visitor's entire satisfaction. My readers will 
 need no help in supplying it for themselves. The details of 
 arrangement may also be left to the same intelligence, as 
 well as John Skelton's mixed feelings of gratitude and 
 pleasure, and of regret at leaving the place which had been 
 to him so happy a home. 
 
 Something of an understanding was allowed about, but 
 not with, Margaret. Neither engagement nor correspondence 
 was permitted, and the mother's objections were unshaken ; 
 but John felt that Wm. Doubleday was his ally, and again 
 he said to himself Patience ! 
 
 There was busy work at the Skelton's. The honour it 
 was to their "boy" to be thus chosen, his wonderful 
 ambition and perseverance, his mother and sister were never 
 tired of talking about, as they prepared to "set him off" 
 for the third time in his life. They understood now his 
 preference for the boarding-school, yet were very doubtful 
 as to the fulfilling of his wishes. But, in any case, " John 
 would do his duty ; " and to " go abroad," under the care of 
 such a man as Daniel Brady, was in itself a privilege. To 
 " go abroad " at all was a privilege out of the reach of many 
 people in 1818. 
 
 The party we know, with the addition of two labourers 
 and their families, set sail from Hull in the Arethusa, on the 
 22nd of June in that year, under the command of pleasant 
 and genial Captain "Wharton, and on July 8th, John says, in 
 his first letter home, " the guard-ship's boat boarded us, and
 
 TO THE NTCVA. 89 
 
 we had our first near view of the Russians." The evening 
 before they had been close enough to Cronstadt to hear the 
 Admiral's sunset gun. It had been a quick passage of only 
 sixteen days. The Arethusa could go no further than Cron- 
 stadt ; the depth of water in the Neva was variable, and 
 often insufficient, and the transit of goods from this port to 
 the city frequently took as long as the rest of the voyage. 
 However, our travellers had good accommodation on board, 
 and remained in their own quarters. There was no need for 
 haste. 
 
 The King of Prussia was visiting the Emperor, and the 
 capital was given up to military display and festivity ; the 
 English farmers must wait. But in the midst of his regal 
 hospitality Alexander had not forgotten his proteges. A 
 house belonging to Count Bezborodka, near the village of 
 Okta, a mile and a half outside the city gates, was placed at 
 their disposal, with orders that everything Daniel Brady 
 required from the vessel was to be landed duty-free, and 
 what was deficient in the house was to be supplied according 
 to his wishes. The kind consideration of their Imperial 
 master never failed them during their stay in his empire. 
 At length our party were ready to leave the vessel, and were 
 transferred to a large boat with twelve oars, for the passage 
 to the city. They hoped to reach Okta the same evening, 
 but the current of the Neva was against them, they were 
 nine hours on the water, and did not land until eleven 
 o'clock, too late to continue their journey that night. They 
 therefore sent on the two men, with their families and goods, 
 by the lighter to Okta, and themselves stayed at an inn. 
 The next morning John and Daniel Brady's eldest son 
 wandered into the city to look about them, and were wonder-
 
 90 FEOM THE LT7NE 
 
 ing if they liked the uniform rows of delicately-tinted stuc- 
 coed houses, when they were suddenly apprised by two officers 
 riding rapidly down the street that the Emperor was coming, 
 and everyone uncovered. Here was a trial for them at once ; 
 but they did what they believed to be right, and kept on 
 their hats. He was shortsighted, but the fact of theirs being 
 the only two heads covered as he passed led him to observe 
 them attentively, and he probably came to the right con- 
 1 elusion as to their identity, for he had noticed in England 
 this departure from the usual custom, and had been informed 
 of Friends' reason for it that they considered it a mark of 
 homage which ought to be paid only to the Almighty. As 
 the Emperor did not object, no notice was taken of it. 
 
 In the afternoon they drove to their new home, and found 
 it an excellent house containing twenty-four rooms. The 
 two men and their families were accommodated in the lower 
 part, and the kitchens were also on the ground floor ; a room 
 was set aside there for " meeting," and Daniel Brady and 
 his family, according to the custom of the country, occupied 
 the upper twelve. There was a high wall round the yard to 
 keep out the wolves at night. The Neva at this point was 
 about half a mile broad, and the house was pleasantly situated 
 on its bank. They were kept lively, John says, in that same 
 letter, "by the incredible number of barks or rafts which 
 float past to the city every day, laden with hemp, tallow, 
 and provisions from noblemen's estates in the interior, and 
 brought down by the current of the river. They are con- 
 structed of deal, and on disposing of the cargo the men who 
 bring them sell the barks for firewood or other purposes, and 
 return with the proceeds on foot to their owners, of whom 
 men as well as barks are the absolute property."
 
 TO THE NEVA. 91 
 
 Beds and necessary furniture of that kind had been 
 provided for the family, which was fortunate, as they 
 arrived before the lighter, and when the boat came the next 
 day all hands were ready to unload and put in order the 
 household goods they had brought from England. Amongst 
 them was a fine old-fashioned eight-day clock, which was set 
 up in a corner of the common sitting-room. They thought 
 it would be particularly useful to have a trustworthy 
 timepiece for general reference, but a use was made of it 
 that never entered into their calculations. 
 
 In every Russian dwelling, the poorest as well as the 
 most sumptuous, there may be seen in a corner of the 
 entrance, or of the "living-room," generally facing you as 
 you go in, a sort of square metal picture representing a 
 saint or some occurrence in the life of one, often by figures 
 that seem to us very grotesque. These images vary in size, 
 material, and finish ; the cheapest are not more than an inch 
 or two square, the more costly reaching the size of one or 
 two feet. All orthodox members of the Greek church on 
 entering the room bow towards the image and cross them- 
 selves before speaking to the master or mistress of the 
 house. On looking round for the usual object of momentary 
 worship in Daniel Brady's room, his visitors could find 
 nothing so nearly resembling it as the eight-day clock, and 
 without noticing the protest of its owner they continued so 
 to regard it. 
 
 Two or three weeks elapsed, and each day household 
 affairs became more settled ; Russian stoves and other con- 
 veniences were better understood and more highly appre- 
 ciated, and our friends felt themselves at liberty to begin 
 their special work out of doors. They were indeed very
 
 92 FROM THE LUNB 
 
 anxious to begin it, for the summer was rapidly running 
 its course ; they were near the end of July, and in October 
 possibly, though not certainly, they might be suddenly 
 driven from the land by the hardening frost. They had, 
 of course, examined the piece they were to commence upon 
 on this side of the city ; it was a plot of about a thousand 
 acres, as far from their residence as that was from the 
 city gates. It proved not so boggy as John expected ; it 
 was rather spongey than boggy, being covered with white 
 moss, on an average sixteen inches deep, with cowberry and 
 other pretty bog plants, and young fir trees, not tall, but 
 seriously interfering with their lines in surveying. 
 
 An interpreter had been sent to reside with them, as they 
 decided to leave the study of the language for the short dark 
 days of winter. Lessons of all kinds, indeed, were deferred 
 until then, for out-door work pressed upon them, and the 
 tutor was promptly called upon for some of the hand- 
 work that Daniel Brady had foreseen might be, wanted from 
 him. A Russian surveyor had been promised for their 
 assistance, and he came, but when he was directed to take a 
 level, he was obliged to confess his ignorance he had never 
 done such a thing ! So John's Hallam lessons proved useful, 
 and confirmed him in his appreciation of that sage rule of 
 which we have already spoken, " Lose no opportunity of 
 gaining knowledge." Daniel Brady's eldest son "William 
 and he set to work and did their best, and John used to say 
 one of the "proudest moments of his life" was when, at 
 the end of the summer, they saw the water run successfully 
 down the drains in this first plot at Okta. 
 
 But this is looking too far in advance : they were only 
 planning their work yet. They proposed to cany all round
 
 TO THE NEVA. 93 
 
 the boundary a wide deep drain that would have a good 
 fall into the river Okta, and that would serve for a fence 
 as well as a general outlet. "Wolves must be taken into 
 consideration in preparing for the future, that pleasant 
 future when they hoped to see these acres dotted with 
 dwellings amongst verdant pastures and fields of waving 
 corn ! They would next intersect their plot with smaller 
 drains, cutting it up into fields of about eight acres each, 
 small fields, but their land was almost level and the 
 drains must be close accordingly. As soon as the surface 
 was sufficiently dry they would proceed to hack up the moss. 
 In experimenting a little upon this, they discovered that 
 beneath the foot and half of sphagnum there were the roots 
 of an old forest, and occasionally, near the surface, some 
 large tree trunks in an advanced stage of decay, which would 
 effectually prevent the use of a plough, and compel them to 
 break up the surface by hand labour. 
 
 There would be no difficulty about this, however, as there 
 might have been at home ; the Emperor would supply them 
 with everything they required, men included. They had 
 already been promised three hundred "soldiers'* for the work, 
 and began to wish they would make their appearance ; the few 
 men already here could only just help them in their experi- 
 ments. For some things it was pleasant to farm on this 
 ask-and-have system, with no anxiety as to whether it would 
 pay, but to men whose honest desire was to make it pay and 
 to get their work done, the dilatory style of transacting 
 business around them was very painful. They all had need 
 of John's favourite because, he fell, for himself so much 
 needed word, Patience. " In Kussia," as Mr. "Wallace says, 
 " time is not money." In the course of their poking about,
 
 94 FROM THE 1TTNE 
 
 they found amongst the roots part of a bombshell and a 
 Swedish axe, which led them to suppose the forest might 
 have been destroyed in the wars between Charles XII. of 
 Sweden and Peter the Great ; they had previously concluded 
 that it had been felled to furnish timber for the building of 
 the city; the " window " Peter wisely felt was wanted " to 
 look out of into Europe." 
 
 The long wished for soldiers came at last; explicit 
 instructions had been received as to the preparations to be 
 made for them or Daniel Brady would have been at a loss, 
 and would certainly not have provided what seemed to be 
 expected. He was ordered to prepare long shelves, six feet 
 wide, against the wall of a wooden building, to serve as 
 beds ; here they slept, in their clothes, side by side, 
 apparently comfortable or at least apathetic ; their dining 
 table was a plank and tressels the black bread and onions 
 of their usual mid-day meal needed no dishes. Indeed it 
 seemed at first sight that they might have called a table a 
 luxury and dispensed with it altogether, but it proved 
 useful for holding, at intervals of a few feet, the little heaps 
 of salt that they shook out of a curious bottle-like receptable 
 made of the inner bark of the birch. And that was all. 
 They were to be paid thirty kopeks, or about threepence a 
 day, in money, clothes and food being also found by the 
 Emperor. William Brady and John were ready with their 
 plans and at five o'clock next morning arranged their men, 
 each armed with a spade, at equal distances on the line of 
 the proposed boundary drain. They were expecting them 
 to begin when they were startled and impressed by the 
 preliminary movement ; as by one impulse these peasants, 
 dirty, bearded, and loosely garmented, removed their caps,
 
 TO THE NEVA. 95 
 
 crossed themselves devoutly, and prayed in a few words to the 
 Virgin Mary to intercede for a blessing on the work begun that 
 day. The same desire, with variations, had been in their 
 own hearts and notwithstanding the errors and superstition 
 they could not help feeling a sympathy with these Russian 
 boors, whose language they could not yet understand. But 
 I am afraid there was not much ground for real sympathy. 
 A recent writer says : " In all that regards externals " the 
 Russian peasant "is decidedly religious"; and that is exactly 
 what can be said of it. His religion is external only, and 
 does not touch the spring of his actions. John used to 
 say "he would cross himself with one hand and rob you 
 with the other," religion and conduct had nothing to do with 
 each other, according to Russian ideas, and, perhaps, we could 
 find the same division nearer home, too. 
 
 By slow degrees the drains were cut, and the moss gathered 
 off the land, and the next operation was the stubbing up of 
 the tree roots, and the laying them in a line down the middle 
 of each field to dry, and become lighter before their removal 
 the following spring. The moss was also left in heaps for 
 the winter ; some powder magazines were situated not far 
 away, and it was forbidden to burn the rubbish on the land. 
 By very slow degrees it was that the work proceeded ; English 
 energy was disgusted and despairing. "The Russian peasant," 
 says Mr. Wallace, " has a capacity of patient endurance 
 that would do honour to a martyr, and a power of continued 
 dogged passive resistance such as is possessed I believe by no 
 other class of men in Europe, and these qualities form a very 
 powerful barrier against the rapacity of unconscientious 
 proprietors." This so exactly expresses the character given 
 of them by our friends sixty years ago that it is interesting
 
 96 FEOM THE LTTNE 
 
 to find it also the opinion of a traveller who has been amongst 
 them so lately. The qualities he speaks of were no doubt 
 useful to the poor serfs as a defence from the rapacity of 
 their owners ; but they also formed a barrier against the 
 honest desire of conscientious employers to finish their work 
 in proper time. 
 
 After long consideration Daniel Brady decided to try 
 another plan with the men ; he had tried appealing to their 
 sense of duty, he would now appeal to their self-interest. 
 He had them assembled, and told them through the inter- 
 preter that " their father the Emperor " had ordered him to 
 give them threepence a day, and he had obeyed his orders. 
 But that in the country he came from people only expected 
 three-penny-worth of work for threepence ; and he proposed 
 to measure off a certain quantity of work that he considered 
 worth the money, and when they had done it they might go 
 for the day ; or, if they wished to earn a little more, whatever 
 they did after that should be measured at night and paid for 
 at the same rate. The men were astonished at the address, 
 but the work went on more briskly next morning when the 
 plan was tried. The greater number left, however, when 
 the allotted piece was done ; some because they were too 
 idle to work, others because they did not believe the promises. 
 A few continued to dig, and at night their work was care- 
 fully measured and of course paid for to the full. As they 
 went away delighted with their extra gains and surveying 
 the money actually in their hands, they remarked with 
 surprise one to another, " Why, this man does as he says he 
 will ! " an instructive comment on the usual style of treating 
 them. The plan was kept up, and had a marked effect upon 
 the work, but this small experience gave them an idea of the
 
 TO THE NEVA. 97 
 
 manner in which the ruler of such a people could be quietly 
 and passively thwarted in his best endeavours for the general 
 good. 
 
 Much curiosity was excited about this scheme of the 
 Emperor's, and the strange people that he had brought into 
 the country, but his favour secured them from annoyance, 
 and very soon they were better known and appreciated. 
 They had many visitors, and amongst them were many from 
 the court. As Wm. Brady and John were surveying on the 
 land near the road, one day, a carriage stopped, and the 
 Minister of the Interior descended and approached them; 
 their hands were in a condition that may be imagined, from 
 dragging the chain and clearing away obstructions, and in 
 any case they would not have offered to shake hands, but he 
 insisted on it with great warmth and cordiality. The 
 Empress came more than once to call upon them, delighting 
 them by her simple and unassuming manners ; and another 
 day they received a message that they might expect the 
 Emperor that afternoon, but that no special preparation was 
 to be made for him. He enjoyed escaping from the pomp 
 and ceremony of the court, and walking or driving about the 
 city unattended ; he arrived at Okta accompanied only by the 
 coachman who had been with him in England. He made 
 Daniel Brady take the second seat in his Droschky, and show 
 him everything they had done and were doing, telling him, 
 after a tour of inspection that had lasted a couple of hours, 
 " You have done a great deal of work since you came, Mr. 
 "Brady." On returning to the house, their august visitor 
 joined the family at tea, and told them he should like to 
 come again. There was a little check on free conversation, 
 because Daniel Brady did not speak French, and the
 
 98 PEOM THE LTJtTE 
 
 Emperor's English was not thoroughly fluent ; if they could 
 have expressed themselves to each other more easily, he said 
 to "Allen and Grellett," as he used to call them, he should 
 go to Okta more frequently. One ear was deaf, too, which 
 increased the difficulty ; but both he and the Empress objected 
 to the presence of an interpreter during these visits they 
 preferred to manage as well as they could without him. 
 The Emperor had shown, on his return from England, that 
 he felt a knowledge of our language to be desirable, by 
 ordering that it should be taught in all schools throughout 
 the Empire. 
 
 John sent home an account of this visit, which gratified 
 everybody very much. I dare say his letters were great 
 treasures, and that his father felt very proud to be able to 
 give news of " my son, who is with Daniel Brady in 
 St. Petersburg." He had also written to his old master 
 soon after landing, hoping to be allowed to keep up a 
 correspondence with him, but it was flagging, and at 
 present his only medium of communication with Hallam 
 and Heatherby was his old friend Willie Dunning. 
 
 Fortunately for our agriculturists, winter delayed its 
 approach this year. " It was not until November 11" 
 John mentions the date particularly, perhaps remembering 
 as he wrote that it was Margaret's birthday " that a strong 
 westerly wind broke up the ice in Lake Ladoga, which 
 came floating down for fifteen days afterwards." Then 
 followed the real Russian winter ; tie broken flakes and 
 lumps of ice froze together again in the Neva, and roads 
 were levelled across it, marked out by fir trees, where the 
 floating bridges had been. This weather would last for six 
 months, and arrangements were made in good earnest
 
 TO THE NEVA. 99 
 
 accordingly ; amongst other preparations, the second windows 
 were put up, and a thermometer was hung outside, in such a 
 position that it could be seen from the room and consulted 
 before leaving the house, as a guide to the amount of clothing 
 to put on ; the cold was so intense it was not safe to 
 risk stepping out to try. And yet it was not a severe 
 winter, they were told, which was considered a calamity ; 
 there was not so much sledging in consequence, and sledging 
 was a delightful means of locomotion at the beginning 
 of the season at least. The gliding along during the first 
 few weeks while the snow was smooth and hard, or 
 during the whole winter in the unfrequented parts, was 
 like that " of a boat in calm water;" but when the ice 
 and snow had been cut up by much travelling it was more 
 like the same boat on a billowy sea. One winter while 
 they were there the deeply snow-covered road between 
 St. Petersburg and Moscow was worn so full of holes by the 
 sledges that many people were thoroughly sea-sick on the 
 journey. 
 
 Sledges were very handsome looking conveyances ; their 
 strong frame-work was only rough, but when a richly- 
 coloured carpet was thrown over the back, and plenty of 
 furs about the feet and knees, the general appearance was 
 truly luxurious. They were, like the carriages in summer, 
 drawn by three horses abreast ; or, to speak correctly, they 
 were drawn by one horse trotting in the shafts, accompanied 
 by two outsiders, whose business it was to gallop gracefully, 
 one on his left, the other on his right, at the same time 
 bending their heads away from him with a peculiar turn, 
 which had a very showy effect. This is not, as a recent 
 writer has allowed his imagination to explain, the conse-
 
 100 FBOM THE LtTNE 
 
 I 
 
 quence of the animals' desire to watch the whip-hand of 
 their driver, but is the result of deliberate training, and 
 each side horse can only run on the side he is trained for. 
 The head of the middle one is held high by a bearing-rein 
 carried over a lofty arched collar; all three have long 
 glossy tails, and being affectionately cared for, their 
 appearance is splendid. It is a plan, fortunately for their 
 horses, that could only be adopted in a country where horses 
 are plentiful and space ample, but it seems to be still kept 
 up in the Imperial city of the north. 
 
 "We watched an amusing scene to-day from our windows," 
 John writes to his friend at Hallam. "A large handsome 
 sledge, full of richly-dressed gentlemen and ladies, was 
 upset just opposite the house. People are often toppled over. 
 "We knew there was no danger and no chance of their being 
 hurt, so we could join in their hearty laughter as they rolled 
 over and over in the snow. Their beautiful fur-lined 
 silks were so slippery, it was impossible to rise, and they 
 could neither help each other nor find a resting-place for 
 arm or foot by which to raise themselves. Of course, we did 
 not only laugh ; as soon as we could get into our own furs 
 we went to their help." 
 
 Frosted provisions do not keep in a mild winter, which is 
 another calamity ; and the ice to supply the ice-houses for 
 the following summer is not so thick and firm as is desired. 
 There would be more danger of finding that the cream had 
 slipped on to the floor, because the blocks of ice many of 
 them three feet square had begun to melt, and that is 
 disappointing. The ice-houses were double buildings, the 
 internal one, its floor covered with these blocks, having a 
 passage round it after the fashion of the British Museum
 
 TO THE NEVA. 101 
 
 reading room. The servant shut the outer door before 
 opening that of the inner apartment, which was visited many 
 times a day in summer. It was not merely a storehouse of 
 ice as a luxury for the table, but was the common larder for 
 provisions. Boards were laid across the immense blocks to 
 hold the food, but even then it was often impossible to keep 
 it from one day to another in the hot season. The frosted 
 provisions spoken of refer to a custom of freezing carcases 
 whole, instead of salting them to preserve them for use. 
 What is called "the frozen market" was held three days 
 before Christmas, and must have been a curious sight ; all 
 sorts of animals, killed and frozen, were to be bought there, 
 and the custom was for a housekeeper to purchase two or 
 three, or more, according to the size of the family, keep them 
 whole in his ice-cellar, and in an evening chop oif with an 
 axe the joint required for the next day's dinner and lay it 
 on the stove all night to thaw. The axe was needed for the 
 flesh as well as the bone, they being equally hard and 
 splintery. The flavour was not quite so good as that of fresh 
 meat, but the plan was a great convenience. 
 
 These new scenes and new experiences seemed to shorten 
 the winter; our friends were surprised that they did not 
 feel it irksome. John was required to spend four hours each 
 day with the children at lessons, and the rest of the time 
 was his own, which he thought a grand opportunity for 
 study. The worst was the scarcity of letters; the frost 
 stopped the communication with England by water, and 
 though Count Lieven, the Russian Ambassador in London, 
 had orders to forward with his own, all letters sent to him 
 for the Emperor's "good friends the Quakers," there was 
 probably a shyness amongst the correspondents at home about 
 
 8
 
 102 FEOM THE LUNE 
 
 availing themselves of this channel. The health of the whole 
 party was remarkably good, but much as they enjoyed the 
 winter altogether, they were not sorry when " the ice left 
 them." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Volkova. Almost Desponding. Keturn to England. 
 
 The little plot of a thousand acres at Okta was nearly all 
 cleared, and part of it rapidly greening over with its first 
 crop of grass, when John was sent to the Volkova district, on 
 the south side of the city, about five versts (three miles) on 
 the Moscow road. Here there was a tract of 50,000 
 acres for them to bring into cultivation, and he was to com- 
 mence operations on a portion of it. He had a couple of 
 hundred men under his command, whose labours in clearing 
 and draining the ground it was his duty to superintend. 
 They were eight miles from the establishment at Okta, too 
 far to go and come each day, as they began work at five 
 o'clock in the morning ; the village of Volkova was about 
 equally distant in another direction, and, of course, equally 
 inconvenient. The only other dwelling was a small wooden 
 house inhabited by an old Eussian peasant, who lived quite 
 alone and did everything for himself; a venerable-looking 
 old man, whose white beard and simple dress gave him a 
 patriarchal, almost a hermit-like, appearance. Here John 
 could be accommodated with a lodging, and be saved a great 
 deal of fatigue if he would manage to cook for himself. 
 Under the circumstances he was not only willing, but he pre- 
 ferred to try rather than run the risk of what he might other-
 
 TO THE NEVA. 103 
 
 wise be called upon to eat. Cookery had not been one of the 
 accomplishments taught at Ackworth, but the domestic 
 knowledge of various kinds that the boys could not help 
 picking up there, added to a little common sense, enabled 
 him to get along quite easily. Daniel Brady came twice 
 a- week to see him, and bring " provisions to the garrison," 
 as he said ; and John returned to Okta on a Saturday even- 
 ing, to spend Sunday there, and join his friends in the little 
 meeling, which they regularly kept up. " It is noon here 
 two hours before it is with you," he said, in one of his letters 
 to his father ; " and when we are concluding our little meet- 
 ing I often think you are just walking up Kil vert-street to 
 join yours." 
 
 It was a lonely life for him at Volkova, but the months in 
 which they could work on the land being only from May 
 until the breaking up of the ice in Lake Ladoga (which was 
 an uncertain date), he managed very well, and looked for- 
 ward to the winter season for a return of rest and sociability. 
 He rose at four, made his bed, swept his room with a bundle 
 of birch twigs, prepared breakfast, and left all as tidy and 
 bright as if he daily expected a visit from the Emperor. 
 External dirt and disorder, he used to say, tended to a dis- 
 orderly state of mind. But though contented with what 
 seemed best for the time, it was an intense pleasure to him to 
 have the weekly refreshment of English conversation with 
 his friends at Okta. His twenty-first birthday came whilst 
 he was alone in his wooden " box," for the old man and he 
 exchanged so few words, and those few Russian, that he 
 might be said to be alone in it. He felt dull. He had 
 written twice to "VVm. Doubleday, but to his second letter 
 there had been no reply, and though the one letter he had
 
 104 FROM THE LU1TE 
 
 received from his old master, as he still often called him, was 
 thoroughly kind, six months had elapsed since his second 
 epistle must have reached Heatherby, and no notice had 
 been taken of it. He had wonderful communications from 
 Willie whenever there was a private opportunity, eight and 
 nine sheets of foolscap sometimes, filled with minute intelli- 
 gence of everybody; but, welcome as they were, the same 
 number of words from his old master would have been more 
 so to John. This entire silence, brooded over in his solitude 
 at Yolkova, was robbing him of all hope and spirit. He 
 was forbidden to write to Margaret, but he had flattered 
 himself that her father would be willing to keep up a 
 correspondence. 
 
 He had been so closely engaged since they landed in 
 Russia, new impressions had followed one another so quickly, 
 that while he was at Okta, I am inclined to think the 
 separation from Heatherby, its inmates and many interests, 
 had been less painful to him than to the one who was left 
 behind. Perhaps it is always so. When he was working 
 there was an under-current of feeling, that he was preparing 
 for Margaret, while she had nothing to do but to wait, the 
 hardest work of all ; she was as busy as John, but without 
 his variety of occupation ; her's had no reference to their 
 future, it was memory only that was affected by it. And 
 I fancy the silence about him maintained in her presence 
 was complete; in both those letters that John sent to 
 Heatherby, during the first year, a thick black stroke is 
 drawn through two lines of writing amongst the messages 
 of love and remembrance, as if he had ventured to send one 
 to the name he was forbidden to address, and it had been 
 obliterated before the letters were allowed to be read in the
 
 TO THE NEVA. 105 
 
 family. This is only a guess, the writing is so thoroughly 
 obliterated. One medium of communication there was, as 
 we have said before, but it was not quite satisfactory. 
 His letters to "Willie, filled with every detail that he 
 imagined could interest his Hallam friends, were, he knew, 
 taken to Heatherby and read to Margaret, and he had been 
 amused and pleased, since he had confidence in both of 
 them, to hear that Mahmadee had taken the young lady to 
 task for allowing these long visits from Willie, saying "me 
 tell your friend," with a serious shake of the head; but she 
 had satisfied the clear-sighted and warmhearted African as 
 to her motives for permitting the interviews and had 
 regained her place in his esteem. This seemed now his only 
 means of communicating with Heatherby and he would, for 
 many reasons, have preferred some more straightforward 
 plan. It was, therefore, with a feeling of great delight that 
 he heard on reaching Okta, one Saturday evening about this 
 time, that two Friends had arrived in the city that morning 
 from England, and would join their evening meeting next 
 day, bringing with them a large packet of letters. 
 
 There was still another chance. 
 
 The Friends and the letters arrived as expected on Sunday 
 afternoon. "It was a time of rejoicing," John wrote, a few 
 weeks later; "none without a letter. R. B. had as many as 
 her hand could well hold. On opening my packet, I found it 
 not entirely for myself ; one after another I had to distribute, 
 until I was left with only three one from my sister, one from 
 Willie, and the other, glancing my eye on the word Petersburg, 
 I perceived was from Wm. Doubleday. Judge, then, how 
 eagerly I opened it, and how much I was disappointed to 
 find it belonged not to me, but to Daniel Brady ! The rest
 
 106 FKOM THE LT7NE 
 
 of the direction being covered with another letter, I had not 
 seen his name. The moment I discovered my mistake, of 
 course, I closed it and gave it, with an apology, to its owner, 
 but as it had come from Heatherby, I could not suppress a 
 desire to become acquainted with that part of its CDntents 
 which was of general import. This pleasure, however, was 
 denied me to-day, for tea was ready, and we must obey the 
 summons. Then came our evening meeting, and immediately 
 afterwards it was time for me to set off for my eight miles 
 walk, leaving me no opportunity of making the enquiry. It 
 was a hard task to go back to my lonely rooms without a 
 word." 
 
 " Farewell, John," said Daniel Brady at parting, " I intend 
 to come and see thee on Third-day, and bring the usual pro- 
 visions and something " he checked himself in what he 
 was going to say, repeating, " provisions, &c." " Am I to 
 expect something more than common ?" John ventured to 
 ask, hoping for a message of remembrance if nothing else. 
 " Thou wilt see," replied his friend, with a significant smile 
 that was the only clue he gave as to the nature of the 
 " something" ; and John was obliged to go. 
 
 About the usual time of Daniel Brady's arrival at Yolkova, 
 John kept a strict look-out for him, but no one was to be 
 seen ; it was particularly trying that he should be late to-day, 
 for John could not forget that there had been a letter from 
 Heatherby, and pleased himself with thinking that the "&c." 
 was in some way connected with it. Daniel Brady generally 
 dined with him on his days for relieving the garrison, and 
 amused himself by good-naturedly making fun of his host's 
 handy ways, but to-day John was obliged to dine alone. 
 His men would be waiting for him. He had scarcely reached
 
 TO THE NEVA. 107 
 
 the part of the land they were engaged upon, however, when 
 a messenger came to fetch him hack Daniel Brady had 
 arrived. He had been detained in the city, and was still on 
 the wrong side of his dinner ! John prepared some refresh- 
 ment for him, receiving, during the operation, several scraps 
 of news from the various budgets of letters. His visitor even 
 mentioned Wm. Doubleday's name more than once, but had 
 nothing particular to say from him. Poor John felt sure 
 then that all was over that was certainly not the quarter 
 from which his pleasant "something" was to come; how 
 foolish he had been these two days ! how credulous ! He 
 had thought there was a peculiar look directed towards him 
 as that letter was being read, but he must have been 
 deceived "such tricks hath strong imagination." Yet, 
 how tantalizing altogether ! first to be obliged to give up the 
 letter, at the moment when he was promising himself a treat, 
 and now to find it did not contain even a message for him ! 
 The clouds were gathering threateningly in the sky, but not 
 more gloomily than in John's desponding heart. His honest 
 face, no doubt, expressed something of his feelings, and 
 touched his visitor's sympathy, or, perhaps, his compassion ; 
 if it had been sympathy, I think he would not have kept him 
 so long in suspense. 
 
 " What art thou going to do this afternoon, John ? It is 
 of no use to attempt to go out ; the men will have left work. 
 It is brewing a regular storm." 
 
 "It is, indeed; I wish thou wert safe at Okta," replied 
 John, endeavouring to speak cheerfully. 
 
 " My horse and I will soon be there; but what art thou 
 going to do? Suppose," he continued, with that peculiar 
 smile again " suppose thou wert to sit down and pen a long 
 letter to Margaret Doubleday ? "
 
 108 FKOM THE LTJNE 
 
 John looked so searchingly into his face, that he felt it was 
 time to be serious. 
 
 "Yes, my dear young friend, her father desires me to tell 
 thee that they withdraw their prohibition ; her mother sends 
 thee her good wishes, and I need not add that both of you 
 have mine." 
 
 He only lingered long enough, after imparting his good 
 news, to satisfy his young friend's curiosity as to how the 
 change was brought about. It seemed that the number of 
 persons interested in the young people had gradually 
 increased, and the kind expressions in John's favour that 
 came dropping in at Heatherby had the effect commonly 
 ascribed to drops when "often falling." John felt very 
 grateful to everybody, and, of course, very happy. 
 
 We will leave him in quietness to his evening's occupation. 
 He said he wrote till the small hours of the night, and then, 
 remembering that he must be out of doors at day-break, 
 reluctantly retired to rest. 
 
 Sleep and rest are not the only refreshers ; short as his 
 night had been, he was alert and brisk next morning, full of 
 interest in his work and his men. 
 
 "Ivan Ivanovitch" (John the son of John) one of them 
 addressed him as he joined them on the land, " is it permitted 
 to go to my master and ask to have a tooth taken out ? " 
 
 This was the most respectful style of address possible ; it 
 was perfectly correct to speak to the Emperor even as Alex- 
 ander Paulovitch. "What is his father's name ? was the 
 question asked when wishing to introduce a person, his 
 first not his family name, for few family names existed. It 
 was a stage that the English have passed through, but of 
 which they still retain a trace in the Bill o' Jack's and Tom 
 o' Dick's of out of the way country nooks.
 
 TO THE JfEVA. 109 
 
 The poor man's check was swollen to double its usual size, 
 his eyes were bloodshot, and his whole appearance denoted 
 great suffering. 
 
 " Put on thy cap, my friend, in the first place," said John, 
 "and then tell me whose tooth thou art talking about. It 
 is eighty miles to thy master's estate, and I do not kn6w 
 what thou means. Is it thy master's tooth or thy own ? " 
 
 " It is my master's tooth, Ivan Ivanoyitch, but it is in 
 this head," putting his hand up to his cheek, '' I am entirely 
 my master's property, and can do nothing without his leave." 
 
 According to the letter of the law this was found to be 
 correct. Serfdom was still existing, though doomed. The 
 first Alexander would gladly have exterminated it, but its 
 roots were so interlaced amongst the foundations of society 
 that it could not be pulled up without threatening the whole 
 structure; he did what he could to loosen them, but its- 
 complete overthrow was left to become a jewel in the crown 
 of the second of his name. 
 
 John ventured to take the responsibility of giving permission 
 for the extraction of the offending tooth if poor Alexis could 
 find a dentist amongst his comrades. John feared he could 
 not undertake it himself ; he was often called upon to act 
 the physician, but dentistry was beyond him. He had 
 neither horehound tea nor solution, but some of his prescrip- 
 tions were quite as simple, and would have astonished the 
 Pharmaceutical Society by their success. 
 
 One of the men had taken the opportunity of a fete day 
 to fetch from a little distance a basket of oranges. The fete 
 days are numerous, and are all well kept as holidays, 
 another hindrance to steady work. Whether Petrof was
 
 110 FROM THE lino: 
 
 commercially inclined or what was his object I do not know, 
 but he told John on his return he was very sorry he had 
 bought the oranges, for there was an evil spirit amongst 
 them. It had been singing in the basket all the way home, 
 and it would not leave him ; sometimes it was singing and 
 sometimes dancing before him like a little black imp. John 
 strongly suspected there had been an evil spirit somewhere, 
 if not amongst the oranges ; however, he saw the man had a 
 severe cold, and prescribed for him accordingly. He was to 
 go home he lived in the village get his wife to make some 
 tea, and was to drink not less than fifteen cups of it ; then he 
 was to wrap himself in his schoub (a coat lined with sheep- 
 skin), and lie down on the top of the stove ! One other 
 order the amateur doctor thought it wise to add, knowing by 
 this time the habits of the people : Petrof was not, on any 
 account, to get up in the night to roll himself in the snow ; 
 if he did he would be sure to meet the evil spirit, and the 
 consequences might be serious ! This was language the man 
 could understand ; it conveyed to him the desired idea ; and 
 therefore it was truth. He was obedient, happily, and came 
 back to work very thankful to their young commander, and 
 wonderfully impressed by his powers of exorcising the wicked 
 one. 
 
 Daniel Brady was very busy the following winter with 
 the model of a farm-house, such as he was anxious to have 
 erected on the Okta plot, which was now ready for dividing 
 into farms. The first idea had been that he should continue 
 the management of all the land as it came into cultivation ; 
 but that would have required too much oversight, and it 
 was eventually decided to divide it into farms of thirty to
 
 TO THE NEVA. Ill 
 
 forty -five acres each, to be let at a moderate rent. He was 
 wishful to have it called the "Free Tillage," but that was 
 not allowed the nobles did not like the suggestion of 
 freedom. A large farm in each district was to be retained 
 in the hands of the English agriculturists as an example for 
 the rest, and he occasionally hinted to John that one of the 
 model farm-houses would make a nice home for him and 
 Margaret when the draining was completed. A pleasant 
 picture for the future ; and, though much still remained to be 
 done, he did not despair of its realization. Impracticability 
 was again forgotten, Patience having proved itself so 
 triumphantly superior. 
 
 They heard this winter of an affecting incident on the 
 occasion of blessing the waters of the Neva. It is an 
 important ceremony, and crowds of people assemble to 
 watch the procession of priests of the Greek church. A 
 hole has previously been cut in the ice, which covers the 
 beautiful blue water to the thickness of two or three feet, 
 and on reaching the river, a priest, after reading a short 
 portion of Scripture, thrice dips into the stream a hollow 
 cross. The water that drops from this is deemed specially 
 precious, and happy are the favoured few who are near 
 enough to catch some of it ;' they consider themselves safe 
 from illness and many other calamities for the next twelve 
 months. The priest then dips a bundle of birch twigs into 
 the water and sprinkles all within reach ; after this, babies 
 are broiight to him by their devoted mothers, who think 
 they will be blest for life, poor little things ! by a plunge 
 into the cold stream. The priest, this year, was unfortunate 
 or unskilful enough to lose hold of one little foot, the strong
 
 112 FBOM THE LTJNE 
 
 current quickly carrying the child fax away beneath the ice. 
 He lost no time in regrets, or apologies, or even consolation * 
 but turned to the bereaved woman, and, calmly saying, 
 " The Lord has taken it," held out his hand for the next ! 
 Stranger still was the fact that the mother accepted his 
 version, and considered herself an object for envy rather 
 than commiseration. 
 
 The present winter proved as much above the average 
 for severity as their first one had been for mildness. The 
 wolves, emboldened by hunger, came very close to the 
 dwellings, numbers of the young ones went mad, and it felt 
 very terrible. Three beautiful horses which had, by some 
 oversight, been left outside the protecting wall, were never 
 seen again ; but the party within had no difficulty in 
 guessing what had happened, for they were roused during 
 the night by the most pitiable sounds they ever heard. 
 Nothing could be done, but it was fearful. 
 
 Another year passed with little variation in the employ- 
 ment of our friends. John returned to Volkova, never dull 
 or at a loss for occupation now. "Win. Brady had been 
 intended for the post there, but he was not strong enough to 
 bear the exposure to weather, and he and the tutor changed 
 places ; William taught his brothers and sisters, and John 
 did a little of everything. Daniel Brady used to call him 
 his lieutenant and, varying the well known couplet from 
 Hudibras, to say : 
 
 " At once the sage, the hero, and the cook, 
 
 He wields the (spade), the saucepan, and the book." 
 
 The little farms and farmhouses were beginning to take 
 shape, and thoughts and plans seemed centering in the idea
 
 TO THE NEVA. 113 
 
 that next summer the "lieutenant" might fetch his bride. 
 The intention seemed to he generally known and to prove 
 generally interesting, hut he scarcely expected that the kind 
 interest -would extend to the Emperor. He was, however, 
 called one day to speak to him. 
 
 " Ivan Ivanovitch," was the address again, " I hear you 
 are intending to return to England for a wife." 
 
 "That is true," replied John, "with the permission of 
 the Emperor." 
 
 "And could you not, in my wide dominions, find a lady 
 to suit you, that you are going to take this long journey 
 merely to fetch one ? " 
 
 It was a question the young man scarcely knew how to 
 answer, hut Alexander came to his relief by adding, 
 
 "Perhaps it has been a long engagement?" to which he 
 could truly reply that it had, a long attachment at least. 
 
 " Keep to it, then, by all means; but bring the lady here, 
 do not be tempted to remain in England. I do not like to 
 lose honest men out of my empire. When are you going? " 
 As soon as the harvest was over, John replied, but the 
 Emperor objected that the storms would then have set in, and 
 desired him not to mind the harvest this year, but go early 
 in the pleasanter and safer weather. Our young friend was 
 naturally much gratified by the personal expression of their 
 Imperial master's kind thought, but could not entertain the 
 idea of neglecting his duties. He fancied there was a more 
 melancholy expression on Alexander's face than when they 
 first knew him, and he gratefully acknowledged, as the royal 
 visitor returned to his carriage, how incomparably happier 
 his own lot was than that of the Emperor of all the Russias.
 
 114 FEOM THE LUNE 
 
 He remained to help with the harvest, and as soon as that 
 was over, with a light heart set sail for England. 
 
 Forty years afterwards a gentleman, almost a stranger ta 
 him, rode up to John's door, and handed him an old, worn 
 letter, saying, "I wonder, Mr. Skelton, if you are the 
 gentleman mentioned in this epistle ? I have been occupied 
 in looking over some papers, in consequence of a relative's 
 death, in Guernsey, and thought it might interest you to 
 have this one." 
 
 John thanked him, and opening the paper saw that it was 
 dated 12 mo. 21, 1821, and signed by a well-remembered 
 Hallam name, but seemed to have been written when the 
 lady was from home. The few words alluded to were: " I 
 have heard, since I came here, that John Skelton has returned 
 from Russia. The young man is come over to marry Wm. 
 Doubleday's eldest daughter, Margaret, but I have not heard 
 what account he has brought of Daniel Brady's family." 
 How it took him back to the old time ! The landing at Hull, 
 the universal welcome, the meeting with his dear Margaret, 
 all rose so vividly before him that he forgot he was not 
 alone, until his visitor, exclaiming, "I see I am right," rode 
 away as suddenly as he came. 
 
 Six days after the date of that letter they were married. 
 The Hallam meeting-house was fuller than ever; and when 
 the young couple rose, and John, in simple Quaker fashion, 
 took Margaret's hand, and said, "Friends, I take this 
 my friend, Margaret Doubleday, to be my wife, promising, 
 through Divine assistance, to be unto her a loving and faith- 
 ful husband, until it shall please the Lord by death to 
 separate us," King George had not a happier subject. And
 
 TO THE NEVA. 115 
 
 patient, trusting, sunny Margaret? She made no promise to 
 obey, but repeated the same words, with only the necessary 
 alterations for the different individual; but a woman who 
 keeps her promise to be "a loving and faithful wife" includes 
 everything else. 
 
 " No language more fully the heart can resign 
 Than the Quakeress bride's 'until death I am thine.' " 
 
 THE END.
 
 402O8
 
 A 000 667 809