The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

“There are two things I can do. I will marry Faith, and be happier than words can tell; or I will leave England forever.”

“Dick, you never can do that. Everything good forbids it – and there. Jane’s carriage is coming.”

“Then good-by. When can I see you tomorrow?”

“In the afternoon, perhaps. I may speak to mother before three o’clock.”

Then Dick went away and a servant entered with a letter. It was from Lady Jane, bidding Katherine return home immediately or she would not be dressed in time for dinner. On her way home she passed Dick walking slowly with his head cast down and carrying himself in a very dejected manner. Katherine stopped the carriage and offered to give him a lift as far as his club.

“No, thank you, Kitty,” he answered. “You may interview mother for me if you like. I was coming to a resolution to take the bull by the horns, or at least in some manner find a way that is satisfactory in the meantime.”

“That is right. There is nothing like patient watching and waiting. Every ball finally comes to the hand held out for it.”

Then with a nod and a half-smile, Dick lifted his hat and went forward. While he was in the act of speaking to Katherine an illuminating thought had flashed through his consciousness and he walked with a purposeful stride towards his club. Immediately he sat down and began to write a letter, and the rapid scratching of the goose quill on the fine glazed paper indicated there was no lack of feeling in what he was writing. The firm, strong, small letters, the wide open long letters, the rapid fluency and haste of the tell-tale quill, all indicated great emotion, and it was without hesitation or consideration he boldly signed his name to the following letter: —

To the Rev. John Foster.

Dear Sir:

You have made me the most wretched of men. You have made Faith the most unhappy of women. Faith never wronged you in all her life. Do you imagine she would do for me what she has never before done? I never wronged you by one thought. Can you not trust my word and my honor? I throw myself and Faith on your mercy. You are punishing us before we have done anything worthy of punishment. Is that procedure just and right? If so, it is very unlike you. Let me write to Faith once every week and permit her to answer my letter. I have given you my word; my word is my honor. I cannot break it without your permission, and until you grant my prayer, I am bound by a cruel obligation to lead a life, that being beyond Love and Hope, is a living death. And the terrible aching torture of this ordeal is that Faith must suffer it with me. Sir, I pray your mercy for both of us.

Your sincere suppliant,

Richard Haveling Annis.

Dick posted this letter as soon as it was written and the following day it was in the hands of the preacher. He received it as he was going home to his tea, about half past five, and he read it, and then turned towards the open country, and read it again and again. He had been in the house of mourning all day. His heart was tender, his thoughts sadly tuned to the sorrows and broken affections of life, and at the top of the Brow he sat down on a large granite boulder and let his heart lead him.

“Richard Annis is right,” he said. “I have acted as if I could not trust. Oh, how could I so wrong my good, sweet daughter I I have almost insulted her, to her lover. Why did I do this evil thing? Self! Self! Only for Self! I was determined to serve myself first. I did not consider others as I ought to have done – and Pride! Yes, Pride! John Foster! You have been far out of the way of the Master whom you serve. Go quickly, and put the wrong right.” And he rose at the spiritual order and walked quickly home. As he passed through the Green he saw Faith come to the door and look up and down the street. “She is uneasy about my delay,” he thought, “how careful and loving she is about me! How anxious, if I am a little late! The dear one! How I wronged her!”

“I have been detained, Faith,” he said, as she met him at the door. “There are four deaths from cholera this afternoon, and they talk of forbidding me to visit the sick, till this strange sickness disappears.” During the meal, Foster said nothing of the letter he had received, but as Faith rose, he also rose, and laying his hand upon her shoulder said: “Faith, here is a letter that I received this afternoon from Richard Annis.”

“Oh, father, I am so sorry! I thought Richard would keep his word. He promised me – ” and her voice sunk almost to a whisper.

“Richard has not broken a letter of his promise. The letter was sent to me. It is my letter. I want you to read it, and to answer it for me, and you might write to him once a week, without infringing on the time necessary for your duties here. I wish to tell you also, that I think Annis is right. I have put both of you under restraints not needful, not supposable, even from my knowledge of both of you. Answer the letter according to your loyal, loving heart. Annis will understand by my utterly revoking the charge I gave you both, that I see my fault, and am sorry for it.”

Then Faith’s head was on her father’s shoulder, and she was clasped to his heart, and he kissed the silent happy tears from off her cheeks and went to the chapel with a heart at peace.

Two days afterward the squire went to call upon his son and he found him in his usual buoyant temper. “Mother was anxious about thee, Dick. She says she has not seen thee for four or five days.”

“I have been under the weather for a week, but I am all right now. Tell her I will come and dine with her to-night. What are you going to do with yourself to-day?”

“Well, I’ll tell thee – Russell and Grey hev asked me to go to Hyde Park Gate and talk to the people, and keep them quiet, till parliament can fashion to get back to its place.”

“Are not the Easter holidays over yet?”

“The taking of holidays at this time was both a sin and a shame. The streets are full of men who are only wanting a leader and they would give king and lords and commons a long, long holiday. Earl Russell says I am the best man to manage them, and he hes asked by proclamation Yorkshire and Lancashire men to meet me, and talk over our program with me.”

“Can I go with you?”

“If tha wants to.”

“There may be quarreling and danger. I will not let you go alone. I must be at your side.”

“Nay, then, there is no ‘must be.’ I can manage Yorkshire lads without anybody’s help.”

“What time do you speak?”

“About seven o’clock.”

“All right. Tell mother I’ll have my dinner with her and you at the Clarendon, and then we will go to interview the mob afterward.”

“They are not a mob. Doan’t thee call them names. They are ivery one Englishmen, holding themsens with sinews of steel, from becoming mobs; but if they should, by any evil chance, become a mob, then, bless thee, lad, it would be well for thee and me to keep out of their way!”

“The trouble lies here,” the squire continued, – “these gatherings of men waiting to see The Bill passed that shall give them their rights, have been well taught by Earl Grey, Lord Russell, and Lord Brougham, but only fitfully, at times and seasons; but by day and night ivery day and Sunday, there hev been and there are chartists and socialist lecturers among them, putting bitter thoughts against their awn country into their hearts. And they’re a soft lot. They believe all they are told, if t’ speaker but claim to be educated. Such precious nonsense!”

“Well, then, father, a good many really educated people go to lectures about what they call science and they, too, believe all that they are told.”

“I’ll warrant them, Dick. Yet our Rector, when he paid us a visit last summer, told me emphatically, that science was a new kind of sin – a new kind of sin, that, and nothing more, or better! And I’ll be bound thy mother will varry soon find it out and I’m glad she hed the sense to keep Kitty away from such teachers. Just look at Brougham. He is making a perfect fool of himsen about tunneling under the Thames River and lighting cities with the gas we see sputtering out of our coal fires and carrying men in comfortable coaches thirty, ay, even forty, miles an hour by steam. Why Bingley told me, that he heard Brougham say he hoped to live to see men heving their homes in Norfolk or Suffolk villages, running up or down to London ivery day to do their business. Did tha iver hear such nonsense, Dick? And when men who publish books and sit on the government benches talk it, what can you expect from men who don’t know their alphabet?”

“You have an easier fight than I have, sir. Love and one woman, can be harder to win, than a thousand men for freedom.”

“Tha knows nothing about it, if that is thy opinion,” and the squire straightened himself, and stood up, and with a great deal of passion recited three fine lines from Byron, the favorite men’s poet of that day: —

“For Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is always won!”

“Those lines sound grandly in your mouth, dad,” said Dick, as he looked with admiring love into his father’s face.

“Ay, I think they do. I hev been reciting them a good deal lately. They allays bring what t’ Methodists call ‘the Amen’ from the audience. I don’t care whether it is made up of rich men, or poor men, they fetch a ringing Amen from every heart.”

“I should think that climax would carry any meeting.

“No, it won’t. The men I am going to address to-night doan’t read; but they do think, and when a man hes drawn his conclusions from what he hes seen, and what he hes felt or experienced, they hev a bulldog grip on him. I will tell thee now, and keep mind of what I say – when tha hes to talk to fools, tha needs ivery bit of all the senses tha happens to hev.”

“Well, father, can I be of any use to you to-night?”

“Tha can not. Not a bit, not a word. Dick, thou belongs to the coming generation and they would see it and make thee feel it. Thy up-to-date dress would offend them. I shall go to t’ meeting in my leather breeches, and laced-up Blucher shoes, my hunting coat and waistcoat with dog head buttons, and my Madras red neckerchief. They will understand that dress. It will explain my connection with the land that we all of us belong to. Now be off with thee and I am glad to see thou hes got over thy last sweet-hearting so soon, and so easy. I thought thou wert surely in for a head-over-ears attack.”

“Good-by, dad I and do not forget the three lines of poetry.”

“I’m not likely to forget them. No one loves a bit of poetry better than a Yorkshire weaver. Tha sees they were mostly brought up on Wesley’s Hymn Book,” and he was just going to recite the three lines again, but he saw Dick had turned towards the door and he let him go. “Ah, well!” he muttered, “it is easy to make Youth see, but you can’t make it believe.”

CHAPTER IX – LOVERS QUARREL AND THE SQUIRE MAKES A SPEECH

“There are no little events with the Heart.”
“The more we judge, the less we Love.”
“Kindred is kindred, and Love is Love.”
“The look that leaves no doubt, that the last