Richard Blackmore - Dariel - A Romance of Surrey

How sharp girls are! This was too bad of her, when I was doing my utmost for her good. The twinkle in her eyes was enough to show that she suspected something; and if she found it out, all up thenceforth with the whole of my scheme for her benefit.

"Yes, to be sure there is," I answered in some haste, for if I had said no, it would have been untrue, for I thought more highly every day of Jackson Stoneman, whereas Lord Melladew might be soon pulled down as we were, and through the same ruinous policy; "where will you find a nicer fellow, or one more highly esteemed (at any rate by himself), than my old friend, Tom Erricker? And when the tinning business comes to you, Harold will invent you a new process every day, until we are enabled to buy back all our land. Though that would be a foolish thing to do, unless he could find some new crop to put upon it. I cannot see why you think so little of Tom Erricker."

"Do you think much of him, George, in earnest? Is he a man to lead one's life? Would you like to see your favourite sister the wife of a man she could turn round her finger?"

"Confound it! There is no such thing as pleasing you," I spoke with a sense of what was due to myself, having made the great mistake of reasoning. "All of you girls begin to talk as if you were to rule the universe. No man is good enough for you, unless he is a perfect wonder of intellect. And then if you condescend to accept him, his mind is to be in perfect servitude to yours – yours that are occupied nine minutes out of ten with considerations of the looking-glass."

"Can you say that of me, George? Now with your love of truth, can you find it in your conscience to say such a thing of me?"

"Well, perhaps not. And for excellent reason. You have no need to make a study of it. Whatever you do, or whatever you wear, it makes no difference; for you are always – "

"What? What am I? Come, tell me the worst, while you are so put out with me. What are you going to call me now?"

"The sweetest and the best girl in the world." I should not have put it quite so strongly, except for the way she was looking at me. But it was too late to qualify my words. Before I could think again, Grace was in my arms, and her hair in a golden shower falling on my breast. "After all, this is the best way to reason," she said with a smile that contained a world of logic; and I only answered, "At any rate for women;" because it is not for them to have the last word always.

However I had not changed my opinions, and did not mean to change them. For Jackson Stoneman, whom I had at first repulsed and kept at a very stiff arm's length, was beginning to grow upon me, – as people say, – not through any affection for his money; so far from that indeed, that the true reason was, I could think of him now without thinking of his money. When we first know a man of great wealth, especially if we happen to be very short of cash ourselves, we are apt to feel a certain shyness and desire to keep away from him; not from any dislike of his money, or sense of injustice at his owning such a pile, but rather through uneasiness about ourselves, and want of perfect certainty in the bottom of our hearts, that we may not try – like a man who steals his gas – to tap the "main chance" behind the meter, and fetch a little into our own parlour on the sly. And even if our conscience is too brave to shrink from that, we know that if we walk too much in amity with this man of gold he will want, or at least he ought to want, to pay the piper who besets every path of every kind in England; whereas it hurts our dignity to be paid for, except by our Uncles, or the Government.

But supposing Jackson were to become a member of our family, what could be more inspiring and graceful, as well as delightful, for him, than the privilege which must fall to his share, of endeavouring to please his relatives? And looking at the matter from a point of view even more exalted, I began to perceive the course of duty very clearly staked out for me. And the conversation above recorded made it doubly manifest. My sister had neither admitted, nor denied, that this young Melladew had been attracted by her, while she was staying at her sister's house. She had spoken of his courage with some contempt; and any perception of such a defect would be fatal to his chances with nine girls out of ten. But Grace had her own little pet ideas; and to shoot with swan-shot at a swarm of gnats is better worth the cost than to reason with such girls. They are above reason; and there's an end of it.

To pass from all this to the things one can see, it was either that very same day or the next, that I came away out of the harvest-field, just for a morsel to eat and a pipe, in a snug place under the fringe of a wood, where a very small brook, fit only for minnows and grigs, made a lot of loops and tinkles. Two or three times I had been there before, and in fact was getting fond of it, because I believed, or as good as believed, without knowing every twist of it, that this little water in its own modest way never left off running until it reached the Pebblebourne; and after that it must have gone a little faster, till it came to the place where Dariel lived.

Possibly if I threw in a pint bottle, after scraping off the red pyramid, who could say that it might not land at the very feet to which all the world they ever trod upon must bow?

Encouraging these profound reflections, I sat upon the bank, and pulled out my pocket-knife, being a little sharp-set for the moment, and aware of some thrills in a quarter near the heart. There was very little more to be done that afternoon, the week having ripened into Saturday, when no man of any self-respect does more than congratulate himself upon his industry; and on this point few have a stronger sense of duty than the cultivator of the soil of Surrey. No matter what the weather is, or how important the job in hand may be, his employer may repose the purest confidence in him, that he will make off with holy zeal, right early on a Saturday.

Therefore when I heard a step behind me, I knew that it could be none of our "enlightened operatives;" not even Bob Slemmick would pull his coat off at that hour, though he would sometimes stop long enough to put away his tools. Correct was my reasoning, and with pleasure I beheld the active figure and expressive countenance of Mr. Jackson Stoneman. Not that every one would like this man, or care to have very much to do with him. Universal benevolence was not by any means the polestar of his existence, neither was it his chief employment to saunter amicably in the Milky Way. Butter for his bread, and that the very best butter, had probably been the main quest of his life; until his good stars brought him down into our county, and toward our Grace. He was even beginning to relax his mind, while he braced up his body already; and we thought that a year or two of our fine air would bring a lot of hard gold out of him.

"Glad to see you again. Somebody told us that you were off for the Mediterranean." In this careless manner did I shake hands with this 70 cubit and 20 carat Colossus of gold. There is humbug in all of us – even in me.

"Well, I was thinking of it," he replied, as he sat down beside me, and stretched his long legs, trousered a thousand times better than mine, though I knew which had most inside the cloth; "but after all, what's the good of foreign parts?"

Knowing but little about them as yet, and believing that he might traverse many thousand leagues without finding anything to come up to Surrey, I answered very simply, "You are quite right there."

"But isn't it disgusting, that in your native land, you can never make anything go to your liking?"

This was very difficult for me to answer. I could not get along for a thousand wicked reasons – Free-trade, Democracy, adulteration, sewage-butter, foot-and-mouth complaint, living wage for men who have no life, and all the other wrong end of the stick we get.