"I will pray for you.Only let me come and see you--you and your children.""Come,and welcome."
"Heartily welcome,Lord--"
"No--not that name,Mrs.Halifax.Call me as they used to call me at St.Omer--Brother Anselmo."The mother was half inclined to smile;but John never smiled at any one's religious beliefs,howsoever foolish.He held in universal sacredness that one rare thing--sincerity,So henceforward "Brother Anselmo"was almost domesticated at Rose Cottage.What would the earl have said,had a little bird flown over to London and told him that his only son,the heir-apparent to his title and political opinions,was in constant and open association--for clandestine acquaintance was against all our laws and rules--with John Halifax the mill-owner,John Halifax the radical,as he was still called sometimes;imbibing principles,modes of life and of thought,which,to say the least,were decidedly different from those of the house of Luxmore!
Above all,what would that noble parent have said,had he been aware that this,his only son,for whom,report whispered,he was already planning a splendid marriage--as grand in a financial point of view as that he planned for his only daughter--that Lord Ravenel was spending all the love of his loving nature in the half paternal,half lover-like sentiment which a young man will sometimes lavish on a mere child--upon John Halifax's little blind daughter,Muriel!
He said,"She made him good"--our child of peace.He would sit,gazing on her almost as if she were his guardian angel--his patron saint.And the little maid in her quiet way was very fond of him;delighting in his company when her father was not by.But no one ever was to her like her father.
The chief bond between her and Lord Ravenel--or "Anselmo,"as he would have us call him--was music.He taught her to play on the organ,in the empty church close by.There during the long midsummer evenings,they two would sit for hours in the organ-gallery,while Ilistened down below;hardly believing that such heavenly sounds could come from those small child-fingers;almost ready to fancy she had called down some celestial harmonist to aid her in playing.Since,as we used to say--but by some instinct never said now--Muriel was so fond of "talking with the angels."Just at this time,her father saw somewhat less of her than usual.
He was oppressed with business cares;daily,hourly vexations.Only twice a week the great water-wheel,the delight of our little Edwin as it had once been of his father,might be seen slowly turning;and the water-courses along the meadows,with their mechanically-forced channels,and their pretty sham cataracts,were almost always low or dry.It ceased to be a pleasure to walk in the green hollow,between the two grassy hills,which heretofore Muriel and I had liked even better than the Flat.Now she missed the noise of the water--the cry of the water-hens--the stirring of the reeds.Above all,she missed her father,who was too busy to come out of his mill to us,and hardly ever had a spare minute,even for his little daughter.
He was setting up that wonderful novelty--a steam-engine.He had already been to Manchester and elsewhere,and seen how the new power was applied by Arkwright,Hargreaves,and others;his own ingenuity and mechanical knowledge furnished the rest.He worked early and late--often with his own hands--aided by the men he brought with him from Manchester.For it was necessary to keep the secret--especially in our primitive valley--until the thing was complete.So the ignorant,simple mill people,when they came for their easy Saturday's wages,only stood and gaped at the mass of iron,and the curiously-shaped brickwork,and wondered what on earth "the master"was about?But he was so thoroughly "the master,"with all his kindness,that no one ventured either to question or interfere.