Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/687

 . 15, 1860.] “In the power of the servant, too! I will go to Paris.”

“There will be a train in an hour.”

“I go alone.”

“Assuredly. But shall I not attend you to the station?”

“I prefer to go alone.”

“Money—if one might suggest—”

“I am provided.”

“In that case, our interview is over. The carriage is at the door, where we left it.”

“There is mischief in her head,” said Adair, as Mrs. Lygon drove away.

I venture upon saying how my household treat the short days of this month? In all companies we hear of the evils of the short daylight; and yet there seems to be nobody among our neighbours who considers how to make the most of the daylight we have. I believe I am pointed out to strangers as an eccentric man, a cruel father, and hard master—not perhaps, all the year round, but in the depth of winter. In short, we are up long before sunrise. We covet every ray of heaven’s light, at this season; and we naturally watch for the earliest, as well as linger upon the latest.

I must say in self-defence, that my wife and children are free to please themselves about getting up early; though, as a matter of fact, we all do it. Our servants are country-bred, and of cottage parentage; so that they have been accustomed to rise at five, or earlier, all their lives. They feel no great pity for the much pitied herd-boy and dairy-maid, who turn out of bed, after eight or nine hours sleep, and are under no misfortune but its being dark. They have not to stand shivering for a quarter of an hour over the tinder-box, as their forefathers had; and I assure fine ladies and gentlemen that there is nothing very fearful in going across the farmyard, or into the field, with a lantern, to find one’s self welcomed by the warm cows and the hungry sheep. The long icicles may sparkle in the light the boy carries; and he may have to sweep a path through the night’s snow, before the animals and their food can be got at; but a healthy young person has his own enjoyment in the exercise. The milker certainly likes to bring the warm fragrant streams into the pail, and to exchange greetings with pet cows. The boy has a pleasure in cleaning out the stalls; and then, when the creatures come in relieved of their burden of milk, he likes filling their troughs with the warm mess of roots and straw, sliced, and chopped, and recommended by a spice of condiment. If his duty lies a-field, and he has to go there through wind and sleet, carrying food for the sheep, the task may set lazy people shuddering, even to hear of; but I can tell them the walk a-field, through wind and sleet, is what my children and I undertake, because we like it. I do not believe in the pleasantness of turning once more in one’s bed, when the house is once astir. The sense that one ought to be up, and must be up presently, must spoil the luxury of bed completely. Fear ruins everything in these small matters as in greater. I once heard a young lady of twenty or thereabouts complaining of the misery of having to get up in winter. She did not rise early? No. She did not use cold water? O, no! She had a good fire? Yes. While I was wondering where, then, the hardship lay, she explained that it spoiled all her comfort in waking to think of crossing the room from the bed to the fire. Such people can know nothing of the satisfaction of a good circulation, and the vigorous exercise of the frame, by which the winter is made a pleasant season in its own way. As for our particular way of welcoming it, it is by seeing as much of it as we can. The parson in the next parish complains to me that the daylight is gone by the time he leaves his desk, during this month and the next; so that he sees and feels nothing of the sun during the season when he needs it most; a hardship for which I must say I cannot think the sun to blame. Our plan is rather to accommodate our ways to the sun. The maids are up (by their own choice), so as to have hot water for anybody who wants it by six. I believe the fowls, and the two lambs, and the calf are the only consumers of hot water till breakfast time. They must have their warm messes early; but as I do not shave, and we all prefer a cold bath to a warm one, we are entirely independent in our early pleasures. Sometimes we sally forth (at half-past six), in a party of four or five. Sometimes, in rainy mornings, I start off by myself. Any way, and in any weather, I am sure of a good deal of pleasure before I come home. At that time of day, no wind is too keen: no darkness is gloomy: no rain is depressing. Moreover, the rainy mornings are few in comparison with the fair. In the very worst, the daylight does come, in some mode or other; and, in fine weather, what is more beautiful than a winter dawn? Coveting every ray, as I said, we catch one touching the lake, another penetrating the wood; and more bringing out the forms of the hills and the track of the road. We see one star set after another, and the moon grow pale as the sky kindles. Underfoot, when we have swept away any drift of snow that has gathered in the night, we find the ice beneath looking of a blacker blue than ever, and full of promise for sport. Though our neighbours are, for the most part, not up, we have some social adventures on our way. We overtake a succession of labourers going to their work. One of them probably cries out nin [sic] the dark, “And who may you be?” When he learns, he is more pleased than ashamed. He knows now that gentry are abroad early, as he is. The herd-boy and dairy-maid are pleased likewise, when we pass the farmyard. At the pond, we summon any grumbling boys, lounging about with blue faces, and hands in pockets, for a slide. (We all slide, from the oldest to the youngest.) We meet, in returning, children carrying breakfast to their fathers in the woods; and, perhaps, we turn back with them, and hear much about rats, and weazles, and stoats, and squirrel-hunts, and holly-gathering. When we have knocked off the snow from our boots, and seated ourselves round the breakfast-table, it is not above half light. Even by that twilight, however, any one