"Father,"said I,when he ceased talking--and Jael,who always ate her dinner at the same time and table as ourselves,but "below the salt,"had ceased nodding a respectful running comment on all he said--"Father?""Well,my son."
"I should like to go with thee to the tan-yard this afternoon."Here Jael,who had been busy pulling back the table,replacing the long row of chairs,and re-sanding the broad centre Sahara of the room to its dreary,pristine aridness,stopped,fairly aghast with amazement.
"Abel--Abel Fletcher!the lad's just out of his bed;he is no more fit to--""Pshaw,woman!"was the sharp answer."So,Phineas,thee art really strong enough to go out?""If thou wilt take me,father."
He looked pleased,as he always did when I used the Friends'mode of phraseology--for I had not been brought up in the Society;this having been the last request of my mother,rigidly observed by her husband.The more so,people said,as while she lived they had not been quite happy together.But whatever he was to her,in their brief union,he was a good father to me,and for his sake I have always loved and honoured the Society of Friends.
"Phineas,"said he (after having stopped a volley of poor Jael's indignations,beseechings,threats,and prognostications,by a resolute "Get the lad ready to go")--"Phineas,my son,I rejoice to see thy mind turning towards business.I trust,should better health be vouchsafed thee,that some day soon--""Not just yet,father,"said I,sadly--for I knew what he referred to,and that it would never be.Mentally and physically I alike revolted from my father's trade.I held the tan-yard in abhorrence--to enter it made me ill for days;sometimes for months and months Inever went near it.That I should ever be what was my poor father's one desire,his assistant and successor in his business,was,I knew,a thing totally impossible.
It hurt me a little that my project of going with him to-day should in any way have deceived him;and rather silently and drearily we set out together;progressing through Norton Bury streets in our old way,my father marching along in his grave fashion,I steering my little carriage,and keeping as close as I could beside him.Many a person looked at us as we passed;almost everybody knew us,but few,even of our own neighbours,saluted us;we were Nonconformists and Quakers.
I had never been in the town since the day I came through it with John Halifax.The season was much later now,but it was quite warm still in the sunshine,and very pleasant looked the streets,even the close,narrow streets of Norton Bury.I beg its pardon;antiquaries hold it a most "interesting and remarkable"place:and I myself have sometimes admired its quaint,overhanging,ornamented house-fronts--blackened,and wonderfully old.But one rarely notices what has been familiar throughout life;and now I was less struck by the beauty of the picturesque old town than by the muddiness of its pathways,and the mingled noises of murmuring looms,scolding women,and squabbling children,that came up from the alleys which lay between the High Street and the Avon.In those alleys were hundreds of our poor folk living,huddled together in misery,rags,and dirt.Was John Halifax living there too?
My father's tan-yard was in an alley a little further on.Already Iperceived the familiar odour;sometimes a not unpleasant barky smell;at other times borne in horrible wafts,as if from a lately forsaken battle-field.I wondered how anybody could endure it--yet some did;and among the workmen,as we entered,I looked round for the lad Iknew.
He was sitting in a corner in one of the sheds,helping two or three women to split bark,very busy at work;yet he found time to stop now and then,and administered a wisp of sweet hay to the old blind mare,as she went slowly round and round,turning the bark mill.Nobody seemed to notice him,and he did not speak to anybody.
As we passed John did not even see us.I asked my father,in a whisper,how he liked the boy.
"What boy?--eh,him?--Oh,well enough--there's no harm in him that Iknow of.Dost thee want him to wheel thee about the yard?Here,Isay,lad--bless me!I've forgot thy name."
John Halifax started up at the sharp tone of command;but when he saw me he smiled.My father walked on to some pits where he told me he was trying an important experiment,how a hide might be tanned completely in five months instead of eight.I stayed behind.
"John,I want you."
John shook himself free of the bark-heap,and came rather hesitatingly at first.
"Anything I can do for you,sir?"
"Don't call me 'sir';if I say 'John,'why don't you say 'Phineas'?"And I held out my hand--his was all grimed with bark-dust.
"Are you not ashamed to shake hands with me?""Nonsense,John."
So we settled that point entirely.And though he never failed to maintain externally a certain gentle respectfulness of demeanour towards me,yet it was more the natural deference of the younger to the elder,of the strong to the weak,than the duty paid by a serving-lad to his master's son.And this was how I best liked it to be.
He guided me carefully among the tan-pits--those deep fosses of abomination,with a slender network of pathways thrown between--until we reached the lower end of the yard.It was bounded by the Avon only,and by a great heap of refuse bark.
"This is not a bad place to rest in;if you liked to get out of the carriage I'd make you comfortable here in no time."I was quite willing;so he ran off and fetched an old horserug,which he laid upon the soft,dry mass.Then he helped me thither,and covered me with my cloak.Lying thus,with my hat over my eyes,just distinguishing the shiny glimmer of the Avon running below,and beyond that the green,level Ham,dotted with cows,my position was anything but unpleasant.In fact,positively agreeable--ay,even though the tan-yard was close behind;but here it would offend none of my senses.
"Are you comfortable,Phineas?"
"Very,if you would come and sit down too."
"That I will."