 CHAPTER 17 of IREMA Before very long it was manifest enough that Mr. Gundry looked down upon Miss Sylvester with a large contempt. But while this raised my opinion of his judgment, it almost deprived me of a great relief, the relief of supposing that he wished his grandson to marry this Pennsylvania. For although her father, with his pigs and cattle, and a low sort of hostelry which he kept, could settle, quote, a good pile of dollars, unquote, upon her, and had kept her at the learned ladies' college even in San Francisco till he himself trembled at her erudition. Still it was scarcely to be believed that a man of Sawyer's strong common sense and disregard of finery would ever accept for his grandchild a girl made of affectation, vulgarity, and conceit. And one day, quite in the early spring, he was so much vexed with this fine ladies' heirs that he left no doubt about his meaning. Miss Sylvester was very proud of the figure she made on horseback. And having been brought up, perhaps as a child to ride after pigs and so on, she must have had fine opportunities of acquiring a graceful style of horsemanship. And now she dashed through thick and thin in a most commanding manner, carrying no more for a snowdrift than ladies do for a scraping of the road. No one with the least observation could doubt that this young woman was extremely anxious to attract firm Gundry's notice. And therefore, on the day above spoken of, once more she rode over with her poor father in waiting upon her as usual. Now, I know very well how many faults I have, and to deny them has never been my practice. But this is the honest and earnest truth that no smallness of mind or narrowness of feeling or want of large or fine sentiments made me bolt my door when that girl was in the house. I simply refused, after seeing her once, to have anything more to say to her by no means because of my birth and breeding, which are things that can be most easily waved when the difference is acknowledged, nor yet on account of my being brought up in the company of ladies, nor even by reason of any dislike which her bold brown eyes put into me my cause was sufficient and just and wise. I felt myself here as a very young girl in safe and pure and honest hands yet thrown on my own discretion without any feminine guidance whatsoever. And I had learned enough from the wise French sisters to know at a glance that Miss Sylvester was not a young woman who would do me good. Even Uncle Sam, who was full of thought and delicate care about me so far as a man can understand and so far as his simple shrewdness went in spite of all his hospitable ways and open universal welcome, though he said not a word on such a point he was quite right in doing, even he, as I knew by his manner, was quite content with my decision. But Firm, being young and in many ways stupid, made a little grievance of it. And of course Miss Sylvester made a great one. Oh, I do declare I am going away. Through my open window I heard her exclaim in her sweetly affected tone at the end of that long visit. Without even had the honor of saying a kind word to your young visitor, do not wait for me, papa, I must pay my devours. Such a distinguished and traveled person can hardly be afflicted with mauvee's haunt. Why does she not rush to embrace me? All the French people do and she is so French. Let me see her for the sake of my accent. We don't want no French here, ma'am, replied Uncle Sam as Sylvester wrote off. And the young lady wants no doctor haunt. Her health is as good as your own and you never catch no French actions from her. If she wanted to see you, she would have come down. Oh, now this is too barbarous. Colonel Gundry, you are the most tyrannous man. In your own dominions an autocrat. Everybody says so, but I never would believe it. Oh, don't let me go away with that impression. And you do look so good-natured. And so I mean to look, Miss Penny, until you are out of sight. The voice of the Sawyer was more dry than that of his oldest and rustiest saw. The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea what to make of him. But gave her young horse a sharp cut to show her figure as she reigned him, and then galloping off she kissed her tan gauntlet with crimson network down it, and left Uncle Sam to resolve his rudeness with the dash of the wet road scattered in the air. I wouldn't have spoke to her so coarse, he said to Firm, who now returned from opening the gate and delivering his farewell. If she wouldn't herself so extra-particular, killed me, and sky-blue my moldins fine, how my mother would have stared at the sight of such a gal. Keep free of her, my lad, keep free of her, but no harm to put her on to keep our Missy alive and awake, my boy. Immediately I withdrew from earshot, more deeply mortified than I can tell, and perhaps doing Firm an injustice but not waiting for his answer. I knew not then how lightly men will speak of such delicate subjects, and it set me more against all thoughts affirmed that a monster-reflection could have done. When I came to know more of the world, I saw that I had been very foolish. At the time, however, I was firmly set in a strong resolve to do that which alone seemed right, or even possible, to quit with all speed a place which could no longer be suited for me. For several days I feared to say a single word about it, while equally I condemned myself for having so little courage, but it was not as if there were anybody to help me or to tell me what to do. Sometimes I was bold with the surety of right, and then again I shook with the fear of being wrong, because through the whole of it I felt how wonderfully well I had been treated, and what a great debt I owed of kindness, and it seemed to be only a nasty little pride which made me so particular, and being so unable to settle for myself, I waited for something to settle it. Something came in a way which I had not by any means expected. I had told Suan Iscoe how glad I was that Fern had fixed his liking steadily upon Miss Sylvester. If any woman on earth could be trusted not to say a thing again, that one was this good Indian, not only because of her provident habits, but also in right of the difficulty which encompassed her in our language. But she managed to get over both of these, and to let Mr. Ephraim know, as cleverly as if she had lived in drawing rooms, whatever I had said about him. She did it for the best, but it put him in a rage which he came at once to have out with me. And so, Miss Erema, he said throwing down his hat upon the table of the little parlor, where I sat with an old book of Norman Ballads, I have your best wishes then, have I, for a happy marriage with Miss Sylvester? I was greatly surprised at the tone of his voice, while the flush on his cheeks and the flash of his eyes, and even his quick heavy tread, showed plainly that his mind was a little out of balance. He deserved it, however, and I could not grieve. You have my best wishes, I replied demurely. For any state of life to which you may be called, you could scarcely expect any less of me than that. How kind you are, but do you really wish that I should marry old Sylvester's girl? Firm, as he asked this question, looked so bitterly reproachful, as if he were saying, do you wish to see me hanged? While his eyes took a form which reminded me so of the sawyer in a furious puzzle, that it was impossible for me to answer as lightly as I meant to do. No, I cannot say firm that I wish it at all, unless your heart is set on it. Don't you know then where my heart is set? He asked me in a deep voice coming nearer and taking the ballad book from my hands. Why will you feign not to know, arena, who is the only one I can ever think of twice? Above me I know in every possible way birth and education and mind and appearance, and now far above me in money as well. But what are all these things? Try to think if only you could like me. Liking gets over everything and without it nothing is anything. Why do I like you so, Arama? Is it because of your birth, your teaching, your manners and sweet looks and all that? Or even because of your troubles? How can I tell firm? How can I tell? Perhaps it is just because of myself. And why do you do it at all, firm? Ah, why do I do it? How I wish I knew. Perhaps then I might cure it. To begin with, what is there after all so very wonderful about you? Oh, nothing I should hope. Well, surely nothing. It would grieve me to be at all wonderful that I leave for the American ladies. Now you don't understand me. I mean, of course, that you are wonderfully good and kind and clever and your eyes. I am sure and your lips and smile and all your other features. There is nothing about them that can be called anything else but wonderful. Now, firm, how exceedingly foolish you are. I did hope that you knew better. Arama, I never shall know better. I never can swerve or change if I live to be a hundred and fifty. You think me presumptuous, no doubt. From what you are brought up to and you are so young that to seek to bind you, even if you love me would be an unmanly thing. But now you are old enough and you know your own mind surely well enough just to say whether you feel as if you could ever love me as I love you. He turned away as if he felt that he had no right to press me so and blamed himself for selfishness. And I liked him better for doing that than for anything he had done before. Yet I knew that I ought to speak clearly. And though my voice was full of tears, I tried. Dear firm, I said as I took his hand and strove to look at him steadily. I like and admire you very much and by and by and by and by I might, that is, if you did not hurry me, of all the obstacles you have mentioned nothing is worth considering. I am nothing but a poor castaway owing my life to Uncle Sam and you. But one thing there is which could never be got over even if I felt as you feel towards me. Never can I think of little matters or of turning my thoughts to any such things as you speak of as long as a vile reproach and wicked imputation lies on me. And before even that I have to think of my father who gave his life for me. Firm, I have been here too long delaying and wasting my time in trifles. I ought to have been in Europe long ago. If I am old enough for what you talk of, I am old enough to do my duty. If I am old enough for love, as it is called, I am old enough for hate. I have more to do with hate than love, I think. Erema, cried Firm, what a puzzle you are. I never even dreamed that you could be so fierce. You are enough to frighten Uncle Sam himself. If I frighten you, Firm, that is quite enough. You see how vain it is to say another word. I do not see anything of that sort. Come back and look at me quite calmly. Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken and having passed the prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment and came up gently and let him look at me to his liking. For little as I thought of such things till now, I seemed already to know more about them or at least to wonder which is the stirrer of the curtain of knowledge. I did not say anything but labored to think nothing and to look up with unconscious eyes. But Firm put me out altogether by his warmth and made me flutter like a stupid little bird. My darling, he said, soothing back my hair with a kindness such as I could not resent and quieting me with the clear blue eyes. You are not fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is devoting you. You have not the hardness and the bitterness of mind, the cold self-possession and the contempt of others, the power of dissembling and the iron will. In a word, the fundamental nastiness without which you never could get through such a job. Why, you cannot even be contemptuous even to me. I should hope not. I should earn your contempt if I could. There, you are ready to cry at the thought of Rama. Do not mistake yourself. Remember that your father never would have wished it, would have given his life ten thousand times over to prevent it. Why did he bring you to this remote, inaccessible part of the world except to save you from further thought of evil? He knew that we listened to no rumors here, no social scandals, no malignant lies, but we value people as we find them. He meant this to be a haven for you, and so it shall be if you will only rest. And you shall be the queen of it. Instead of redressing his memory now, you would only distress his spirit. What does he care for the world's gossip now? But he does care for your happiness. I am not old enough to tell you things as I should like to tell them. I wish I could, how I wish I could. It would make all the difference to me. It would make no difference for him to me because I should know it was selfishness. Not selfishness of yours, I mean, for you never could be selfish, but the vile is selfishness of mine, the same as starved my father. You cannot see things as I see them, or else you would not talk so. When you know that a thing is right, you do it. Can you tell me otherwise? If you did, I should despise you. If you put it so, I can say no more. You will leave us forever, Arama? No, not forever. If the good God wills it, I will come back when my work is done. Forgive me, dear firm, and forget me. There is nothing to forgive Arama, but a great deal I never can hope to forgot. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of Arama. This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. Recording by Linda Dodge. Arama by R. D. Blackmore. Chapter 18. Out of the Golden Gate. Little things, or what we call little, always will come in among great ones, or at least among those which we call great. Before I pass the Golden Gate in the Clippership Bridal Vale, so-called from one of the Yosemite Cascades, I found out what I had long wished to know. Why firm had a crooked nose? At least it could hardly be called crooked if anybody looked right at it, but still it departed from the bold straight line which nature must have meant for it. Everything else about him being as straight as could be required. This subject had troubled me more than once, though, of course, it had nothing whatever to do with the point of view whence I regarded him. Suan Isco could not tell me, neither could Martin of the Mill. I certainly could not ask firm himself, as the Sawyer told me to do when once I put the question in despair to him. But now, as we stood on the wharf exchanging farewells, perhaps forever, and tears of anguish were in my eyes and my heart was both full and empty, ample and unexpected light was thrown on the curvature of firm's nose. For a beautiful girl of about my own age and very nicely dressed came up and spoke to the Sawyer, who stood at my side, and then with a blush took his grandson's hand. Firm took off his hat to her very politely but allowed her to see perhaps by his manner that he was particularly engaged just now. And the young lady, with a quick glance at me, walked off to rejoin her party. But a gargulous old negro servant who seemed to be in attendance upon her ran up and caught firm by his coat and peered up curiously at his face. How young Massa's poor nose dislonged, Tom! How him feel-spose now again! He inquired with a deferential grin. Young Massa abba able to take a pinch of good snuff? Hee-hee! Missa bear a heavy din? Missa no learn to dance to nose poke it in? What on earth does he mean? I could not help asking, in spite of our sorrowful farewell, as the negro went on with sundry other jokes and cackles at his own facetiousness. And then Uncle Sam to divert my thoughts while I waited for signal to say goodbye told me how Firm had got a slight twist to his nose. Ephraim Gundry had been well taught in all the common things a man should learn at a good, quiet school at Frisco, and distinguished itself from all other schools by not calling itself a college. And when he was leaving to begin home life with as much put into him as he could manage for his nature was not bookish when he was just 17 years old and tall and straight and upright but not set into great bodily strength which could not yet be expected, a terrible fire broke out in a great block of houses on the side over against the schoolhouse front without waiting for master's leave or matrons the boys in the Californian style jumped over the fencing and went to help and they found a great crowd collected and flames flaring out over the top of the house. At the top of the house according to a stupid and therefore general practice was the nursery made of more nurses than children as often happens with rich people. The nurses had run away for their lives taking two of the children with them but the third, a fine little girl of ten had been left behind and now ran to the window with red hot flames behind her. The window was open and barbs of fire like serpents tongues played over it. Jump! Child, jump! For God's sake jump! cried half a hundred people while the poor scared creature quivered on the edge and shrank from the frightful depth below. At last, stung by a scorching volley she gathered her nightgown tight and leaped trusting to the many faces and many arms raised toward her but though many gallant men were there only one stood fast and just where she fell and that one was the youth, firm gundry. Upon him she fell like a stone from heaven and though he held up his arms in the smoky glare she came down badly, badly at least for him but as her father said providentially for one of her souls or heels alighted on the bridge of Ephraim's young nose he caught her on his chest and forgetful of himself he bore her to her friends triumphantly unharmed and almost smiling but the symmetry of an important part of his face was spoiled forever. When I heard of this noble affair and thought of my own pusillanimous rendering for verily I had been low enough from rumors of firm's pugnacity to attribute these little defects of line to some fisticuffs with some minor I looked at firm's nose through tears in my eyes and I had a great mind not to go away at all for what is the noblest of all things in man as I bitterly learned thereafter and already had some guesses not the power of moving multitudes with eloquence or by orders not the elevation of one's tribe through the lowering of others nor even the imaginary lift of all by sentiments as yet above them there may be glory in all of these but the greatness is not with them it remains with those who behave like firm and get their noses broken however I did not know those things at that time of life though I thought it right for every man to be brave and good and I could not help asking who the young lady was as if that were part of the heroism the Sawyer who was never unready for a joke of however ancient quality gave a great wink at firm which I failed to understand and asked him how much the young lady was worth he expected that firm would say $500,000 which was about her value I believe and Uncle Sam wanted me to hear it not that he cared a single cent himself but to let me know what firm could do firm however was not to be led into any trap of that sort he knew me better than the old man did and that nothing would stir me to jealousy and he quite disappointed the Sawyer I have never asked what she is worth he said with a glance of contempt at money but she scarcely seems worth looking at compared compared with certain others in the distance I saw the young lady again attempting no attraction but walking along quite harmlessly with the talkative negro after her it would have been below me to pursue the subject and I waited for others to reopen it for I had heard no more about her until I had been for more than a week at sea and was able again to feel interest then I heard that her name was Annie Banks of the firm of Hinnicker Banks & Co who owned the ship I sailed in but now it was nothing to me who she was or how beautiful or how wealthy when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam and implored him not to forget me over and over again he promised to be full of thoughts of me even when the new mill was started which would be a most trying time he bowed his tall white head into my shoveled hair and blessed and kissed me although I never deserved it and a number of people were looking on then I laid my hand in firms and he did not lift it to his lips or sigh but pressed it long and softly and looked into my eyes without a word and I knew that there would be none to love like them wherever I might go but the last of all to say goodbye was my beloved Jaller he jumped into the boat after me for we were obliged to have a boat the ship having laid in further down and he put his fore paws on my shoulders and whined and drooped his under jaw and when he looked at me as he used to know whether I was in fun or earnest with more expression in his bright brown eyes than any human being has I fell back under his weight and sobbed and could not look at anyone we had beautiful weather and the view was glorious as we passed the Golden Gate the entrance to what will one day be the capital of the world perhaps for as our captain said all power and human energy and strength are always going westward and when they come here they must stop or else they would be going eastward again which they never yet have done his argument may have been right or wrong and indeed it must have been one or the other but who could think of such things now with a grander thing than human power human love fading way behind I could not even bear to see the glorious mountains sinking but ran below and cried for hours until all was dark and calm the reason for my sailing by this particular ship and indeed rather suddenly was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry who had spent some years in California was now returning to England by the Bridal Vale this was Major Hawken an officer of the British Army now on half pay and getting on in years his wife was going home with him for their children were married and settled in England all but one now in San Francisco and that one being well placed in the firm of Hinnaker Banks & Co had obtained for his father and mother passage upon favorable terms which was as we say quote an object to them unquote for the Major though admirably connected as his kinship to Colonel Gundry showed and having a baronet not far off if the twist of the world were set aside also having served his country and received a furrow on the top of his head which made him brush his hair up nevertheless or all the more for that was as poor as a British officer must be without official sesame how he managed to feed and teach a large and not clever family and trained them all to fight their way in a battle worse than any of his own and make gentlemen and ladies of them whatever they did or wherever they went he only knew and his faithful wife and the Lord who helps brave poverty of such things he never spoke unless his temper was aroused by luxury and self indulgence and laziness but now he was a little better off through having his children off his hands and by means of a little property left him by a distant relative he was on his way home to see to this and a better man never returned to England after always standing up for her being a child in the ways of the world and accustomed to large people I could not make out Major Hawkin at first and thought him no more than a little man with many peculiarities for he was not so tall as myself until he put his high heeled boots on and he made such a stir about trifles at which Uncle Sam would have only grunted that I took him to be nothing more than a fidgety old campaigner he wore a black rimmed double eyeglass with blue side lights at his temples and his hat from the shape of his forehead hung back he had narrow white wiry whiskers and a Roman nose and most prominent chin and keen grey eyes with gingery brows which contracted like sharp little gables over them whenever anything displeased him rosy cheeks, tight drawn, close shaven and gleaming with friction of yellow soap added vigor to the general expression of his face which was firm and quick and straight forward the weather being warm at the tropics close at hand Major Hawkin was dressed in a fine suit of nankin spruce and trim and beautifully made setting off his spare and active figure which, though he was 62 years of age seemed always to be ready for a game of leapfrog we were three days out of the golden gate and the hills of the coast ridge were faint and small and the spires of the lower Nevada could only be caught when the hot haze lifted everybody lay about in our ship where it seemed to afford the least smell and heat and nobody for a moment dreamed for we really all were dreaming of anybody with energy enough to be disturbed about anything when Major Hawkin burst in upon us all who were trying not to be red hot in the feeble shade of poop awnings leading by the hand an ancient woman scarcely dressed with decency and howling in a tone very sad to hear this lady has been robbed cried the major robbed, not 15 feet below us robbed, ladies and gentlemen the most cherished treasures of her life the portrait of her only son the savings of a life of honest toil her poor dead husband's tobacco box and a fine cut of Colorado cheese ten pounds in a quarter gospel true cried the poor woman wringing her hands and searching for any kind face among us go for the captain muttered one sleeping gentleman go to the devil said another sleepy man what have we to do with it I will neither go to the captain replied the major very distinctly nor to the devil as a fellow who is not a man has dared to suggest to me I'll tide in my own pocket handkerchief the poor old woman began to scream the one with the three cornered spots on him only two I have ever owned in all my life and this was the very best of oh dear, oh dear that I should ever come to this exposing of my things Madame, you shall have justice done as sure as my name is Huckin gentlemen and ladies if you are not all asleep how would you like to be treated so because the weather is a trifle warm there you lie like a parcel of Mexicans if anybody picked your pockets would you have life enough to roll over I don't think I should said a fat young Briton with a very good natured face but for a poor woman I can stand upright major Huckin here is a guinea for her perhaps more of us will give a trifle well done cried the major but not so much as that let us first ascertained all the rights of the case perhaps half a crown of peace would reach it half a crown of peace would have gone beyond it as we discovered afterward for the old ladies handkerchief was in her box lost under some more of her property and the tide of sleepy charity taking this direction under such vehement impulse several other steerage passengers lost their goods but found themselves too late in doing so but the major was satisfied and the rude man who had told him to go amiss begged his pardon and thus we sailed on slowly and peaceably end of chapter 18 chapter 19 of Arema this is a Libra box recording all Libra box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libra box.org recording by Linda Dodge Arema by R.D. Blackmore chapter 19 inside the channel that little incident threw some light upon major Huckin's character it was not for himself alone that he was so particular or as many would call it fidgety to have everything done properly for if anything came to his knowledge which he thought unfair to anyone it concerned him almost as much as if the wrong had been done to his own home self through this he had fallen into many troubles for his impressions were not always accurate but they taught him nothing or rather as his wife said the major could not help it the leading journals of the various places in which major Huckin sojourned had published his letters of grievances sometimes in the absence of the chief editor and had suffered in purse by doing so but the major always said ventilate it ventilate the subject my dear sir bring public opinion to bear on it and Mrs. Huckin always said that it was her husband who belonged the whole credit of this new and spirited use of the fine word ventilation as betwixt this faithful payer it is scarcely needful perhaps to say that the major was the master his sense of justice dictated that as well as his general briskness though he was not at all like Mr. Gundry in undervaluing female mind his larger experience and more frequent intercourse with our sex had taught him to do justice to us and it was pleasant to hear him often deferred to the judgment of ladies but this he did more perhaps in theory than in practice yet it made all the ladies declare to one another that he was a perfect gentleman and so he was though he had his faults but his faults were such as we approve of but Mrs. Huckin had no fault in any way we're speaking of and whatever she had was her husband's doing through her desire to keep up with him she was pretty even now in her 60th year and a great deal prettier because she never tried to look younger silver hair and gentle eyes and a forehead in which all the cares of eight children had scarcely imprinted a wrinkle also a kind of expression of interest in whatever was spoken of with a quiet voice and smile and a power of not saying too much at a time combined to make this lady pleasant without any fuss or declaration she took me immediately under her care and I doubt not that after two years past in the society of Swan Isco and the gentle Sawyer she found many things in me to amend which she did by example and without reproof she shielded me also in the cleverest way from the curiosities of the salon which at first was very trying for the bridal veil being a well-known ship both for swift passages and for equipment almost every birth was taken and when the weather was calm quite a large assembly sat down to dinner among these of course were some ill-bred people and my youth and reserve and self-consciousness and so on made my reluctant face the mark for many a long and searching gaze my own wish had been not to dine thus in public but hearing that my absence would only afford fresh grounds for curiosity I took my seat between the major and his wife the former having pledged himself to the latter to leave everything to her management his temper was tried more than once to its utmost which was not a very great distance but he kept his word and did not interfere and I having had some experience with firm issued all perception of glances and as for all words Mrs. Hawke and met them with an obtuse obliqueness so that after a day or two it was settled that nothing could be done about quote Miss Wood unquote it had been a very sore point to come to and cost an unparalleled shed of pride that I should be shorn of two thirds of my name and be called Miss Wood like almost anybody else I refused to entertain such a very poor idea and clung to the name which had always been mine for my father would never depart from it and I even burst into tears which would I suppose be called sentimental but still the stern fact stared me in the face I must go as Miss Wood or not go at all upon this major hawken had insisted and even Colonel Gundry could not move him from his resolution Uncle Sam had done his utmost as was said before to stop me from wishing to go at all but when he found my whole heart bent upon it and even my soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's chief duty his own stern sense of right came in and decided with my prayers to him and so it was that he let me go with pity for my youth and sex but a knowledge that I was in good hands and an inborn perhaps puritanical faith that the Lord of all right would see to me the major on the other hand had none of this he differed from Uncle Sam as much as a trim cut highly cultured garden tree differs from a great spreading king of the woods he was not without a strict sense of religion especially when he had to march men to church and he never even used a bad word except when wicked facts compelled him when properly let alone and allowed to nurse his own opinions he had a respectable idea that all things were certain to be ordered for the best but nothing enraged him so much as to tell him that when things went against him or even against his predictions it was lucky for me then that Major Hocken had taken a most adverse view of my case he formed his opinions with the greatest haste and with the greatest perseverance stuck to them for he was the most generous of mankind if generous means one quite full of his genus and in my little case he had made up his mind that the whole of the facts were against me fact was his favorite word and one which he always used with great effect for nobody knows very well what it means as it does not belong to our language and so when he said that the facts were against me he was there to answer that facts are not truth this fast set conclusion of his was known to me not through himself but through his wife for I could not yet bring myself to speak of the things that lay close at my heart to him though I knew he must be aware of them and he like a gentleman left me to begin I could often see that he was ready and quite eager to give me the benefit of his opinion which would have only turned me against him and irritated him perhaps with me and having no home in England or indeed I might say anywhere I was to live with the major and his wife supposing that they could arrange it so until I should discover relatives we had a long and stormy voyage although we set sail so fairly and I thought that we should never round Cape Horn in the teeth of the furious northeast winds and after that we lay becombed I have no idea in what latitude though the passengers now talked quite like seamen at least till the sea got up again however at last we made the English Channel in the dreary days of November we were more peril there than anywhere else we were safely docked at Southampton here the major was met by two dutiful daughters bringing their husbands and children and I saw more of family life at a distance than had fallen my lot to observe before and although there were many little jars and brawls and cuts at one another I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for others and sisters to quarrel with but having none to quarrel with and none to love except good Mrs. Hawkin who went away by train immediately I spent such a wretched time in that town that I longed to be back in the bridal veil in the very worst of weather the ooze of the shore and the reek of the water and the dreary flatness of the land around after the glorious heaven clad heights which made me a shame of littleness also the rough stupid stare of the men when I went about as an American lady may freely do in America and the sharpness of everybody's voice instead of the genial tones which those cannot produce them called nasal but which from a higher view are cordial taken one after another or altogether these things make me think in the first flush of thought that England was not a nice country after a little while I found that I had been a great deal too quick as foreigners are with things which require quiet comprehension for instance I was annoyed at having a stupid woman put over me as I could not mind myself a cook or a nurse or housekeeper or something very useful in the Hawkin family but to me a mere encumbrance and as I thought in my wrath sometimes a spy what was I likely to do or what was anyone likely to do to me in a thoroughly civilized country that I could not even stay in private lodgings where I had a great deal to think of without this dull creature being forced upon me but the major ordered it so and I gave in there I must have stayed for the slowest three months ever passed without slow starvation being my growth but not knowing how to quote form my mind unquote as I was told to do Major Hawkin came down once or twice to see me and though I did not like him yet it was almost enough to make me do so to see a little liveliness but I could not and I would not put up with a frightful German baron of music with a polished card like a toast rack whom the major tried to impress upon me as if I could stop to take music lessons Miss Wood said Major Hawkin in his strongest manner the last time he came to see me I stand to you in loco parentis that means with the duties responsibilities relationships and what not of the unfortunate I should rather say of the beloved parent deceased I wish to be more careful of you than a daughter of my own a great deal more careful ten times Miss Wood I may say a thousand times more careful because you have not had the discipline which a daughter of mine would have enjoyed and you are so impulsive when you take an idea you judge everybody by your likings this leads to error error error my name is not Miss Wood I answered my name is Arama Castlewood whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody knowing who I am surely I may have my own name now when anybody says surely at once up springs a question nothing being sure and the word itself at heart quite interrogative the major knew all those little things which manage women so manfully so he took me by the hand and led me to the light and looked at me I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed china grass in my hair nor even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow neither in my face or figure was I conscious of false presentment the major was welcome to lead me to the light and throw up all his spectacles and gaze with all his eyes my only vexation was with myself because I could not keep the weakness which a stranger should not see out of my eyes upon sudden remembrance who it was that used to have the right to do such things to me this it was and nothing else that made me drop my eyes perhaps there there my dear said major Hawken in a softer voice than usual pretty fit you are to combat with the world and defy the world and brave the world and abolish the world or at least the world's opinion boo to a goose you can say my dear but no boo to a gander no no do quietly what I advise by the by you have never asked my advice I cannot have been hypocritical for of all things I detest that the most but in good faith I said being conquered by the major's relaxation of his eyes oh why have you never offered it to me you knew that I could never ask for it for the moment he looks surprised as if our ideas had gone crosswise and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith in his opinions which was now growing inevitable with his wife and daughters and many grandchildren all certain that he was a Solomon Erema he said you are a dear good girl though sadly sadly romantic I had no idea you had so much sense I will talk with you Erema when we both have leisure I am quiet at leisure major Hawken I replied and only too happy to listen to you yes yes I dare say you are in lodgings you can do exactly as you please but I have a basin of oxtail soup a cutlet and a woodcock waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel bless me I am five minutes late already I will come and have a talk with you afterward thank you I said we had better leave it it seems of no importance compared compared with my dinner said the major but he was offended and so was I a little though neither of us meant to vex the other end of chapter 19 chapter 20 of Erema this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Linda Dodge Erema by R. D. Blackmore chapter 20 Runt C it would be unfair to major Hawken to take him for an extravagant man or a self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had ordered and his eagerness to sit down to it through all the best years of his life he had been most frugal and steameous and self-denying grudging every penny of his own expense bearing none for his family and now when he found himself so much better off with more income and less outlay he could not be blamed for enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of abstinence for coming to the point and going well into the matter the major had discovered that his quote little property left to him and which he was come to see to really was quite a fine estate for anyone who knew how to manage it and would not spare courage and diligence and of these two qualities he had such abundance that without any outlet they might have turned him sour the property lately devised to him by his cousin Sir Rufus Hawken had long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet Sir Rufus hated all exertion yet could not comfortably put up with the only alternative extortion having no knowledge of his cousin Nick except that he was undefaggable and knowing his own son to be lazier even than himself had been longing also to inflict even posthumous justice upon the land agent and with the glad consent of his heir he left this distant, fretful and naked spur of land to his beloved cousin Major Nicholas Hawken the major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings while he was hovering in the land of gold between his desire to speculate and his dread of speculation at once he consulted our Colonel Gundry who met him by appointment at Sacramento and Uncle Sam having a vast idea of the value of land in England which the Major naturally made the most of now being an English landowner they spent a most pleasant evening and agreed upon the line marked out by Providence thus it was that he came home bringing by kind arrangement me who was much more troubled and comfort to him and at first disposed to be cold and curt and thus it was that I was left so long in that wretched Southampton under the care of a very kind person who could never understand me and all this while as I ought to have known without anyone to tell me Major Hawken was testing the value and beating the bounds of his new estate and prolonging his dinner from one to two courses or three if he had been traveling his property was large enough to afford him many dinners and rich enough when rightly treated to ensure their quality Brunt Sea is a quiet little village on the southeast coast of England in Kent or in Sussex I am not sure which for it has a constitution of its own and says that it belongs to neither it used to be a place of size and valor furnishing ships and finding money for patriotic purposes and great people both embarked and landed one doing this and the other that though nobody seems to have ever done both if history is to be relied upon the glory of the place is still preserved in a seal and an immemorial stick each of which is blessed with marks as incomprehensible as could be wished though both are to be seen for six pence the name of the place is written in more than 40 different ways they say and the oldest inhabitant is less positive than the youngest and how to spell it the village lies in the mouth or rather at the eastern end of the mouth of a long and wide depression among the hills through which a sluggish river wins its muddy consummation this river once went far along the sea brink without entering like a child who has a fade to bathe as the adder does it sure him and as many other rivers do and in those days the mouth and the harbor were under the cliff at Brunsey wins its seal and corporation stick and other blessings but three or four centuries ago the river was drawn by a violent storm like a badger from his barrel and forced to come straight out and face the sea without any three miles of dalliance the time serving water made the best of this for sook its ancient bed as classic nymphs and fountains used to do and left for Brunsey with a dry bank and no haven for a cockle shell a new port such as it is encrusted the fickle jaw of the river piles were driven and earthworks formed the water should return to its old love and Brunsey as concerned her traffic became but a mark of memory her noble corporation never demanded their old channel but regarded the whole as a will of the Lord and had the good sense to insist upon nothing except their time honored ceremonies in spite of all these and their importance land became of no value there the owner of the eastern manor and of many ancient rites having no means of getting at them sold them for an quote old song unquote which they were and the buyer was one of the hawken race a shipwrecked mariner from Cornwall who had been kindly treated there and took a fancy accordingly he sold his share in some mine to pay for it settled here and died here and his son getting on in the world built a house and took to serious smuggling in the chalk cliffs eastward he found holes of honest value to him capable of cheap enlargements which the Cornish holes were not and much more accessible from France becoming a magistrate and deputy lieutenant he had the duty and privilege of inquiring into his own deeds which enabled him to check those few who otherwise might have competed with him he flourished and bought more secure estates and his son for activity against smugglers was made a gentle baronette these things now had passed away and the first fee simple of the hawken family became a mere load and encumbrance Sir George and Sir Robert and Sir Rufus one after another did not like the hints about contraband dealings which met them whenever they deigned to come down there till at last the estate being left to an agent cost a great deal more than he ever paid in and thus as should have been more briefly told the owner was our major hawken no wonder that this gentleman with so many cares to attend to had no time at first to send for me and no wonder that when he came down to see me he was obliged to have good dinners for the work done by him in those three months surprised everybody except himself and made in old Brunsey a stir unknown since the time of the Spanish Armada for he owned the house under the eastern cliff and the warren and the dairy farm inland and the slope of the ground where the sea used to come and the fields where people grew potatoes gratis and all the eastern village where the tenants paid their rents whenever they found it rational a hot young man in a place like this would have done a great deal of mischief either he would have accepted large views and applauded this fine communism if he could afford it and had no wife or else he would have rushed at everybody headlong and batted them back to their abutments neither course would have created half the excitement which the majors did at least there might have been more talk at first but not a quarter or so much in some total of those things however there is time enough to speak if I dare to say anything about them the things more to my mind and therefore more likely to be made plain to another mind are not the petty flickering phantoms of the shadow we call human and which alone we realize and well inside it and upon it as if it were all creation but the infinitely nobler things of ever changing but perpetual beauty and no selfishness these without daining to us even since to be aware of them shape our little minds and bodies and our large self-importance and fail to know when the Lord or King who owns is buried under them to have perception of such mighty truths is good for all of us and I never had keener perception of them than when I sat down on the majors campstool and saw all his land around me and even the sea where all the fish were his as soon as he could catch them and largely reflected that not a square foot of the whole world would ever belong to me Bruntland's as the house was called perhaps from standing well above the sea was sheltered by the curve of the eastern cliff which looked down over Bruntsea the cliff was of chalk very steep toward the sea and showing a prominent headland toward the south but prettily rising in grassy curves from the inland and from the westward and then where it suddenly chined away from land slope to sea front a long bar of shingle began at right angles to it and level as a railroad went to the river's mouth a league or so now to the westward and beyond that another line of white cliffs rose and looked well till they came to their headland inside this bank of shingle from end to end might be traced the old course of the river and to landward of that trough at the hither end stood or lay the calm old village forsaken as it was by the river this village stuck to its ancient site and home and instead of migrating contracted itself and cast off needless members shrunken Bruntsea clung about the oldest of its churches while the four others fell to rack and ruin and settled into cowyards and barns and places where old men might sit and sigh but Bruntsea distinctly and trenchantly kept the old town's division into east and west East Bruntsea was wholly in the majors manner which had a special charter and most of the houses belonged to him this ownership here there too had meant only that the landlord should do all the tumble-bound repairs when the agent reported that they must be done but must never enter the door for his rent the borough had been disfranchised though the snugest of the snug for generations and the freemen thus being robbed of their rights had no power to discharge their duties and to complicate matters yet further for the few who wished to simplify them the custom of quote borough English unquote prevailed and govern the descent of the lapidations making nice niceties for clever men of law you see a fine property here Miss Wood Major Hawkins said to me as we sat on the day after I was allowed to come enjoying the fresh breeze from the sea and the newness of the February air and looking abroad very generally a very fine property but neglected shamefully, horribly, atrociously neglected but capable of nobler things of grand things of magnificent with a trifle of judicious outlay oh please not to talk about lay my dear said good Mrs. Hawkins gently it is such an odious word and where in the world is it to come from leave that to me when I was a boy my favorite copy in my copy book was where there's a will there's a way Miss Wood what is your opinion but wait you must have time to understand the subject first we bring a railway always the first step why the line is already made for it by the course of the old river and the distance from Newport three miles and a half it ought not to cost quite 200 pounds a mile the mayor outlay for rails and sleepers the land is all mine and of course all landed proprietors very well these with all unite of course so that not a far they need to be paid for land which is the best half of the battle we have the station here not too near my house that would never do I could not bear the noise but in a fine central place where nobody on earth could object to it lively and close at hand for all of them and luckily I was just too late we have lost a parliamentary year through that excruble calm you remember all about it otherwise we would have had Billy Puff stabled at front seat by the first of May but never mind we shall do it all the better and cheaper by taking our time about it very well we have the railway opened in the trade of the place developed we build a fine terrace of elegant fillers a crescent also and a large hotel replete with every luxury and we form the finest sea parade in England by simply assisting nature half London comes down here but to bathe to catch shrimps to flirt and to do the rest of it we become a select salubrious influential and yet economical place then what do we do Miss Hawkin oh my dear how can I tell but I hope we should rest and be thankful not a bit of it I should hope not indeed Arama what do we do then it is useless to ask me well then perhaps you set up a handsome sawmill a sawmill what a notion of paradise no this is what we do but remember that I speak in the strictest confidence dishonest antagonism might arise if we ventilated our ideas too soon Miss Hawkin and Miss Wood we demand the restoration of our river the return of our river to its ancient course I see said his wife oh how grand that would be and how beautiful from our windows that really now is a noble thought a just one simply a just one justice ought not to be noble my dear however rare it may be generosity, magnanimity, heroism and so on these are the things we call noble my dear and the founding of cities oh my dear I remember when I was at school it was always said in what we called our histories that the founders of cities had honors paid them and altars built and divinities done and holidays held in their honor to that I object cried the major sternly if I founded fifty cities I would never allow one holiday the Sabbath is enough one day and seven fifteen percent of one's whole time and twenty percent of your Sunday goes in church very right of course and loyal and truly edifying Mrs. Hawkins father was a clergyman Miss Wood and the last thing I would ever allow on my manner would be a dissenting chapel but still I will have no new churches here and a man who might go against me they all want to pick their own religious views instead of reflecting who supports them it never used to be so and such things shall never occur on my manner a good hotel attendance included and a sound moderate table dothel but no church with a popish bag sent around and money to pay quote without anything to eat unquote oh my dear my dear cried Mrs. Hawkins I never like you to talk like that you quite forget who my father was and your own second son such a very sound priest a priest don't let him come here cried the major or I'll let him know what tonsure is and read him have the order of McKizadek a priest after going around the world three times to come home and be held as the father of a priest don't let him come near me or I'll sacrifice him now major you are very proud of him his good wife answered as he shook his stick how could he help taking orders when he was under orders to do so and his views are sound to the last degree most strictly correct and practical at least accept as to celibacy he holds that his own mother ought never to have been born Miss Wood do you call that practical I have no acquaintance with such things I replied we had none of them in California but is it practical major Hawkins of course you know best in your engineering I mean would it not require something like a tunnel for the river and the railway to run on the same ground why bless me that seems to have escaped my notice you have not been with old Uncle Sam for nothing we shall have to appoint you our chief engineer end of chapter 20 Chapter 21 of Arema this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Arema by R.D. Blackmore Chapter 21 it seems an unfortunate thing for me and unfavorable to my purpose that my hosts and even my hostess too should be so engrossed with their new estate its beauties and capabilities Mrs. Hawkins devoted herself at once to 1,000 pigs in the lake extravagant economies having bought at some ill-starred moment a book which proved that hence ought to lay eggs in a manner to support themselves their families and the family they belong to at the price of one penny a dozen eggs being two shillings a dozen and Brent C. here was a margin for profit no less than 2,000 percent to be made allowing for all accidents the lady also found another book divulging for a shilling the author's purely invaluable secret how to work an acre of ground pay house rent supply the house grandly and give away a barrel load of vegetables every day to the poor of the parish by keeping a pig if that pig were kept properly and after that pork and ham and bacon came of him while another golden pig went on Mrs. Hawkins was very soft hearted and said that she never could make bacon of a pig like that if she ever got him it would be unwise to do so however the law was laid down in both books that golden fowls and diamondic pigs must die the death before they begin to overeat production and the major said to be sure yes yes let them come to good meat and then off with their heads and his wife said that she was sure she could do it when it comes to a question of tear and threat false sentiment must be excluded at the moment these things went by me as trifles yet may be more impatient being older now and beholding what happens with tolerance and complacence I'm only surprised that my good friends were so tolerant of me and so complacent for I must have been a great annoyance to them with my hurry and my one idea happily they made allowance for me which I was not old enough to make for them go to London indeed go to London by yourself cried the major with a red face in his glasses up when I told him one morning stop no longer without doing something Mary my dear when you've done out there will you come in and reason if you can with Miss Wood she vows that she is going to London all alone oh major Hawkin oh Nicholas dear such a thing has happened Mrs. Hawkin had scarcely any breath to tell us as she came in through the window you know that they have had only three bushels or any rate no more than five almost ever since they came Arama you know as well as I do seven and three-quarter bushels of barley at five and nine pence of bushel Mary said the major pulling out a pocketbook besides Indian corn chopped meat and potatoes and fourteen pounds of patty I said which was a paltry thing of me not to mention a cake of graves three sacks of brewers grains and then I forgot what next you were too bad all of you Arama I never thought you would turn against me so and you made me get nearly all of it but please to look here what do you call this is this no reward is this not enough major please what do you call this what a pity you've had your breakfast a blessing if this is to be my breakfast I call that my dear the very smallest egg I have seen since I took sparrows nests no wonder they sell them at twelve a penny I congratulate you upon your first egg my dear Mary well I don't care replied Mrs. Hawkin who had the sweetest temper in the world small beginnings make large endings and an egg must always be small at one end you scored my first egg and Arama should have had it if she had been good but she was very wicked and I know not what to do with it blow it cried the major I mean no harm ladies I never use low language what I mean is make a pinhole at each end give a puff and away goes two penny worth and you have a cabinet specimen which your egg is quite fitted by its cost to be but now Mary talk to Miss Wood if you please it is useless for me to say anything and I have three appointments in the town I always called it in the town now three appointments if not four yes I may certainly say four talk to Miss Wood my dear if you please she wants to go to London which would be absurd ladies seem to enter into ladies logic they seem to be able to appreciate it better to see all the turns and the ins and outs which no man has intellect enough to see or at least to make head or tail of goodbye for the present I had better be off I should think you had exclaimed Mrs. Hawkin as her husband marched off with the side lights on in a short quick step and well-satisfied glance at the hill which belonged to him and the beach over there over which he had rights of plunder or at least Uncle Sam would have called them so strictly as he stood up for his own now come and talk quietly to me my dear Mrs. Hawkin began softly forgetting all the marvel of her first born egg I have noticed how restless you are and devoid of all healthy interest in anything listless is the word listless is exactly what I mean Arama when I was at your time of life I could never have gone about caring for nothing I wonder that you knew that I even had a foul much more all they had eaten I really try to do all I can and that is a proof of it I said I am not quite so listless as you think but those things do seem so little to me my dear if you were happy they would seem quite large as after all the anxieties of my life I am able to now think of them it is a power to be thankful for or at least I often think so look at my husband he has outlived and outlasted more trouble than any one but myself could reckon upon to him and yet he is as brisk as full as life as ready to begin a new thing tomorrow when at our age there may be no tomorrow except in that better world my dear of which it is high time for him and me to think as I truly hope we may spare the time to do oh don't talk like that I cried please mrs. Hawkin to talk of your hands and chicks at least there will always be chicks by and by I am almost sure there will if you only persevere you were very young my child or you would know that in that case we should never think of it at all but I don't want to preach you a sermon even if I could do so I only just want you to tell me what you think what good you imagine that you can do it is no imagination I am sure I can write my father's wrongs and I never shall rest till I do so are you sure that there is any wrong to write she asked in the warmth of the moment and then seeing perhaps how my color changed she looked at me sadly and kissed my forehead oh if you had only once seen him I said without any exaggeration you would have been satisfied at once that he could ever have done any harm was impossible utterly impossible I am not as I was I can listen to almost anything now quite calmly but never let me hear such a wicked thing again you must not go on like that arema unless you wish to lose all your friends no one can help being very sorry for you very few girls have been placed as you are I am sure when I think of my own daughters I can never be too thankful but the very first thing you have to learn above all things is to control yourself I know it I know it of course I said and I keep on trying my very best I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said and I hope you will try to forgive me a very slight exertion is enough for that but now my dear what I want to know is this and you'll excuse me if I ask too much what good do you expect to get by going thus to London have you any friend there anybody to trust anything settled as to what you were to do yes everything is settled in my own mind I answered very bravely I have the address of a very good woman found among my father's papers who nursed his children and understood his nature and always kept her faith in him there must be a great many more who do the same and she'll be sure to know them and introduce me to them and I shall be guided by their advice but suppose that this excellent woman is dead or not to be found or has changed her opinion her opinion she never could change but if she is not to be found her husband or her children or somebody and besides that I have a hundred things to do I have the address of the agent through whom my father drew his income though Uncle Sam let me know as little as he could and I know who his bankers were when he had a bank and he may have left important papers there come that looks a little more sensible my dear bankers may always be relied upon and there may be some valuable plate Arama but why not let the major go with you his advice is so invaluable I know that it is in all ordinary things but I cannot have him now for a very simple reason he is made up his mind about my dear father horribly horribly I can't speak of it and he never changes his mind and sometimes when I look at him I hate him Arama you are quite a violent girl although you so seldom show it is the whole world divided then into two camps those who think as you wish and those who are led by their judgment to think otherwise and are you to hate all who do not think as you wish no because I do not hate you I said I love you though you do not think as I wish but that is only because you think your husband must be right of course but I cannot like those who have made up their minds according to their own coldness Major Hawken is not cold at all on the contrary he is a warm hearted man I might almost say hot hearted yes I know he is and that makes it ten times worse except everybody's case but mine sad it as it is you almost make me smile my hostess answered gravely and yet it must be very bitter for you knowing how to just and kind my husband is I am sure that you will give him credit for at least desiring to take your part and doing so at least you might let him go with you if only as a good protection I have no fear of anyone and I might take him into the society that he would not like and a good cause he would go anywhere I know but in my cause of course he would be scrupulous your kindness I always can rely upon and I hope in the end to earn his as well my dear he has never been unkind to you I am certain that you can never say that of him Major Hawken unkind to a poor girl like you the last thing I wish to claim is anybody's pity I answered less humbly than I should have spoken though the pride was only in my tone perhaps if people choose to pity me they are very good and I am not at all offended because they cannot help it perhaps from knowing anything about me I have nothing whatever to be pitied for except that I have lost my father and have nobody left to care for me except Uncle Sam in America your Uncle Sam as you call him seems to be a very wonderful man Arama said Mrs. Hawken craftily so far as there could be any craft in her I never saw him a great loss on my part but the Major went up to meet him somewhere and came home with the stock of his best tie broken and two buttons gone from his waistcoat does Uncle Sam make people laugh so much or is it that he has some extraordinary gift of inducing people to taste whiskey my husband is a very most obstemious man as you must be well aware Miss Wood or we never should have been as we are I am sure but for the first time in all my life I doubted his discretion on the following day when he had what shall I say when he had been exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way or applied to this new attack he knows what he ought to take then he stops do you think that it may have been sentiments perhaps that were too strong and large for the Major Arama cried Miss Hawkins with amazement as if I had no right to think or express my thoughts on life so early if you can talk politics at 18 you are quite fit to go anywhere I have heard a great deal of American ladies and seen not a little of them as you know but I thought that you called yourself an English girl and insisted particularly upon it yes that I do and I have good reason I am born of an old English family and I hope to be noticed grace to it but being brought up in a number of ways as I have been without thinking of it and being quite different from the fashionable girls Major Hawkins likes to walk with my dear he never walks with anybody but myself oh yes I remember I was thinking of the deck there are no fashionable girls here yet till the terrace is built and the Esplanade there shall be neither terrace nor Esplanade if the Major is to do such things upon them I am sure that he never would I replied it was only their dresses that he liked at all and that vary to my mind extraordinary style as well as unbecoming you know what I mean Mrs. Hawkins that wonderful what shall I call it way of looping up call me Aunt Mary my dear as you did when the waves were so dreadful you mean that hideous Mexican poncho as they call it stuck up there and going down there Arama what observation you have nothing seems ever to escape you did you ever see anything so incredulous it made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them I answered with perfect truth for so it did I have never been accustomed to such things but seeing how the Major approved of them and liked to be walking up and down between them is that they must be not only decorous but attractive there is no appeal from his judgment is there I agree with him upon every point my dear child but I have always longed to say a few words to him about that for I cannot help but thinking that he went too far end of chapter 21 recording by Ezra Goldschlager New York New York Chapter 22 of Arama this is a Libravox recording all Libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libravox.org recording by Linda Dodge Arama by R.D. Blackmore Chapter 22 Betsy Bowen so far then there was nobody found to go into my case and to think with me and to give me friendly countenance with the exception of firm gundry and I feared that he tried to think with me because of his faithful and manly love more than from balance of evidence the Sawyer of course held my father guiltless through his own fidelity in simple ways but he could not enter into my set thought of a stern duty laid upon me because to his mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing so long as a man did all right for wisdom like this if wisdom it is I was a great deal to young and ardent and to me fair fame was almost equal value with clear conscious and therefore wise or foolish rich or poor be loved or unloved I must be listless about other things and restless in all until I should establish truth and justice however I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly obstinate and beginning more and more to allow for honest though hateful opinions I yielded to dear Mrs. Hawkins wish that I should not do anything out of keeping with English ideas and habits in a word I accepted the major's kind offer to see me quite safe in good hands in London or else bring me straight way back again and I took only just things enough for a day or two meaning to come back by the end of the week and I kissed Mrs. Hawkins just enough for that it would not be a new thing for me to say that we never know what is going to happen but newer stale it was true enough as old common sayings of common sense those spurned when not wanted show themselves at first indeed it seems as if I were come for nothing at least as concerned what I thought the chief business of my journey the major had wished to go first to the bank and appeared to think nothing of anything else but I on the other hand did not want him there preferring to keep him out of my money matters and so he was obliged to let me have my way I always am sorry when I have been perverse and it seemed to serve me right for wilfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered either at the place which we tried first or that to which we were sent thence major Hawkins looked at me till I could have cried as much as to hint that the whole of my story was all of a piece of old goose chase and being more curious than ever now to go to the bank and ransack he actually called out to the cab man to drive without delay to measure shoveling weight and shoveling but I begged him to allow me just one minute while I spoke to the servant made alone then I showed her a sovereign at which she opened her mouth in more ways than one she gave me that quote though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about it because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strauss that was now and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond belief she could not refuse such a nice young lady if I would promise faithfully not to tell unquote this promise I gave with fidelity and returning to the cab man I expected him to drive not to matures shoveling weight and shoveling just yet but to number 17 European Square St. Catharines from a maze of streets and rugged corners and in the now nearly as crooked as those of a narrow human nature we turned at last into European Square which was no square at all but an oblong opening pitched with rough granite and distinguished with a pump there were great thoroughfares within a hundred yards but the place itself seemed unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into it only murmurous with distant London Den as the spires of a shell hold the heavings of the sea after driving three or four times round the pump for the houses were numbered anyhow we found number 17 and I jumped out now don't be in such a fierce hurry Miss Wood cried the major who was now a little crusty English ladies allow themselves to be handed out without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor but I wanted to save you the honor I said I will come back immediately if you will kindly wait and with this I ran up the old steps and rang and knocked while several bearded faces came and gazed through dingy windows can I see Miss Strauss I asked when a queer old man in a faded brown livery came to the door with a candle in his hand though the sun was shining I am the Mr. Strauss when you see me you behold the good Mrs. Strauss also oh thank you but that will not do I replied my business is with Mrs. Strauss alone he did not seem to like this at first sight but politely put the chain bolt on the door while he retired to take advice and the major looked out of the cab and laughed you had better come back while you can he said he seemed to be in no hurry to swallow you this was intended to vex me and I did not even turn my head to him the house looked very respectable and there were railings to the area the house is very respectable continued Major Hawkin who always seemed to know what I was thinking of and now in his quick manner ran up the steps just look the scraper is clean you never see that or at least not often except with respectable people Arama pray what would my scraper be and who is Arama cried a strong clear voice as the chain of the door was set free and a stout tall woman with a flush in her cheeks confronted us I never knew more than one Arama good mercy my eyes met hers and she turned as pale as death and fell back into a lobby chair she knew me by my likeness to my father falling on the memories started by my name and strong as she was the surprise overcame her at the sound of which up rushed the small hair Strauss are you doing there all of you but have you enterprise with my thrall explain Vioromina or I called the policemen but I should say the peelers stop cried the major and he stopped at once not for the word which would have had no power although I knew nothing about it then but because he had received a sign which assured him that here was a brother Mason in a moment the infuriated husband vanished into the rational and docile brother ladies and gentlemen knock in if you please he said to my great astonishment Vioromina and my good self make you welcome to our poor house Vioromina arise and say so go back to the kitchen Hans replied Vioromina whose name was Betsy and don't you come out till I tell you you will find work to do there and remember to pump up I wish to hear things that you are not to hear mind you and if you soak the door to deceive me I shall know it very good very good said the philosophical German I never meddle with nothing Vioromina no more than what I do for the money and the house Betsy however was not quite so sure of that with no more ceremony she locked him in and then came back to us who could not make things out my husband is the bravest of the brave she told us while she put down his key on the table and a nobler man never lived I am sure of that but every one of them foreigners excuse me sir you are an Englishman I am replied the major pulling up his little whiskers I am so madame and nothing you can say well in any way hurt my feelings I am above nationalities just so sir then you will feel with me when I say that they foreigners is dreadful oh the day I ever married one of them but there I ought to be ashamed of myself and my Lord's daughter facing me do you know me I ask with hot color in my face and my eyes I dare say glistening are you sure that you know me and then please to tell me how as I spoke I was taking off the close silk bonnet which I had worn for traveling and my hair having caught in a pin fell around me and before I could put it up or even think of it I lay in the great arms of Betsy Bowen as I used to lie when I was a little baby and when my father was in his own land with a home and a wife and seven little ones and to think of this made me keep her company in crying it was some time before we did anything else well well replied the major who detested scenes except when he had made them I shall be off you are in good hands and the cabinet pulled out his watch when we stopped so did I but he is sure to beat me they draw the minute hand on with a magnet I am told while the watch hangs on their badge and they can swear they never opened it wonderful age very wonderful age since the time when you and I were young man yes sir to be sure sir Mrs. Strauss replied as she wiped her eyes to speak of things but the most wonderful list of all things don't you think is the going of the time sir no cabbie can make it go faster while he waits or slower while he is a driving than the minds inside of us manage it why sir it war only like yesterday that this here tall elegant royal young lady was a lion on my breast and what a hand she was to kick and I said that her hair was sure to grow like this if I was to tell you only half of what comes across me if you did man the cab man would make his fortune and I should lose mine which is more than I can afford Arama after dinner I shall look you up I know a good woman when I see her Mrs. Strauss which does not happen every day I can trust Miss Castlewood with you goodbye goodbye for the present it was the first time that he ever called me by my proper name and that made me all the more pleased with it you see sir why I were obliged to lock him in by the quote good woman unquote following to the door to clear every blur from her virtues for his own sake I done it for I felt my cry a coming and to see me cry Lord bless you the effect upon him is to call out for a walk and stick and a pint of beer all right ma'am all right the major answered in a tone which appeared to me unfeeling cab man are you asleep there bring the ladies bag this moment as the cab disappeared without my even knowing where to find that good protector again in this vast maze of millions I could not help letting a little cold fear encroach on the warmth of my outburst I had heard so much in America of the dark subtle places of London and the wicked things that happen all along the Thames covered or invented by great writers of their own that the neighborhood of the docks and the thought of rats to which I could never grow accustomed make me look with a flash perhaps of doubt at my new old friend you are not sure of me Miss Arama said Mrs. Strauss without taking offense after all that has happened who can blame it on you but your father was not so suspicious Miss it might have been better for him if he had accordingly to my belief which a team of wild horses will never drag out oh let me hear you talk of that I exclaimed forgetting all other things you know more about it than anybody I have ever met with except my own father who would never tell a word and quite right he was Miss according to his views but come to my little room unless you are afraid I can tell you some things that your father never knew afraid do you think I am a baby still but I cannot bear that Mr. Strauss should be locked up on my account then he shall come out said Mrs. Strauss looking at me very pleasantly that was just like your father Miss Arama but I fall into the foreign ways so much with the foreigners whether she thought at the custom among quote foreigners unquote for wives to lock their husbands in back kitchens was more than she ever took the trouble to explain but she walked away in her stout firm manner and presently returned with Mr. Strauss who seemed to be quite contented and made me a bow with a very placid smile he is harmless and his ideas are most grand and good his wife explained to me with a nod at him but I could not have you in with the gentleman Hans he always makes mistakes with the gentleman Miss but with the ladies he behaves quite well yes yes with the ladies I'm nearly always good Mr. Strauss replied with diffidence the ladies comprehend me right all right because I am so habitual with my wife but the gentlemen in London have no comprehension of me then the losses on their side I answered with a smile and he said yes yes they lose very much by me end of chapter 22