Chapter One.

Jenny prepares to go a-journeying.

“Jenny, my dear maid, thou wilt never fetch white meal out of a sack of sea-coal.” Jenny tossed her head. It would have been a nice little brown head, if it had not been quite so fond of tossing itself. But Jenny was just sixteen, and laboured under a delusion which besets young folks of that age—namely, that half the brains in the world had got into her head, and very few had been left in her grandmother’s.

“I don’t know what you mean, Grandmother,” said Jenny, as an accompaniment to that toss.

“O Jenny, Jenny! what a shocking thing of you to say, when you knew what your grandmother meant as well as you knew your name was Jane Lavender!”

“I rather think thou dost, my lass,” said old Mrs Lavender quietly.

“Well, I suppose you mean to run down Mr Featherstone,” said Jenny, pouting. “You’re always running him down. And there isn’t a bit of use in it—not with me. I like him, and I always shall. He’s such a gentleman, and always so soft-spoken. But I believe you like that clod-hopper Tom Fenton, ever so much better. I can’t abide him.”

“There’s a deal more of the feather than the stone about Robin Featherstone, lass. If he be a stone, he’s a rolling one. Hasn’t he been in three places since he came here?”

“Yes, because they didn’t use him right in none of ’em. Wanted him to do things out of his place, and such like. Why, at Hampstead Hall, they set him to chop wood.”

“Well, why not?” asked Mrs Lavender, knitting away.

“Because it wasn’t his place,” answered Jenny, indignantly. “It made his hands all rough, and he’s that like a gentleman he couldn’t stand it.”

“Tom Fenton would have done it, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“As if it would have mattered to Tom Fenton, with his great red hands! They couldn’t be no rougher than they are, if he chopped wood while Christmas. Besides, it’s his trade—wood-chopping is. Mr Featherstone’s some’at better nor a carpenter.”

“They’re honest hands, if they are red, Jenny.”

“And he’s a cast in his eyes.”

“Scarcely. Anyhow, he’s none in his heart.”

“And his nose turns up!”

“Not as much as thine, Jenny.”

“Mine!” cried Jenny, in angry amazement, “Grandmother, what will you say next? My nose is as straight as—as the church tower.”

“Maybe it is, in general, my lass. But just now thou art turning it up at poor Tom.”

“‘Poor Tom,’ indeed!” said Jenny, in a disgusted tone. “He’d best not come after me, or I’ll ‘poor Tom’ him. I want none of him, I can tell you.”

“Well, Jenny, don’t lose thy temper over Tom, or Robin either. Thou’rt like the most of maids—they’ll never heed the experience of old folks. If thou wilt not be ‘ruled by the rudder, thou must be ruled by the rock.’ ‘All is not gold that glitters,’ and I’m afeard thou shalt find it so, poor soul! But I can’t put wisdom into thee; I can only pray the Lord to give it thee. Be thy bags packed up?”

“Ay,” said Jenny, rather sulkily.

“And all ready to set forth?”

“There’s just a few little things to see to yet.”

“Best go and see to them, then.”

Mrs Lavender knitted quietly on, and Jenny shut the door with a little more of a slam than it quite needed, and ran up to her own room, where she slept with her elder sister.

“Jenny, thy bags are not locked,” said her sister, as she came in.

“Oh, let be, Kate, do! Grandmother’s been at me with a whole heap of her old saws, till I’m worn out. I wish nobody had ever spoke one of ’em.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, she’s at me about Robin Featherstone: wants me to give up keeping company with him, and all that. Tom Fenton’s her pattern man, and a pretty pattern he is. I wouldn’t look at him if there wasn’t another man in Staffordshire. Robin’s a gentleman, and Tom’s a clown.”

“I don’t see how you are to give up Robin, when you are going into the very house where he lives.”

“Of course not. ’Tis all rubbish! I wish old women would hold their tongues. I’m not going to Bentley Hall to sit mewed up in my mistress’ chamber, turning up the whites of my eyes, and singing Psalms through my nose. I mean to lead a jolly life there, I can tell you, for all Grandmother. It really is too bad of old folks, that can’t knock about and enjoy their lives, to pen up young maids like so many sheep. I shall never be young but once, and I want some pleasure in my life.”

“All right,” said Kate lightly. “I scarce think they turn up the whites of their eyes at Bentley Hall. Have your fling, Jenny—only don’t go too far, look you.”

“I can take care of myself, thank you,” returned Jenny scornfully. “Lock that striped bag for me, Kate, there’s a darling; there’s father calling downstairs.”

And Jenny ran off, to cry softly in a high treble to Kate, a minute afterwards—“Supper!”

Supper was spread in the large kitchen of the farmhouse. Jenny’s father was a tenant farmer, his landlord being Colonel Lane, of Bentley Hall, and it was to be maid (or, as they said then, “lady’s woman”) to the Colonel’s sister, that Jenny was going to the Hall. Mrs Jane was much younger than her brother, being only six years older than Jenny herself. In the present day she would be called Miss Jane, but in 1651 only little girls were termed Miss. Jenny had always been rather a pet, both with Mrs Lane and her daughter; for she was a bright child, who learned easily, and could repeat the Creed and the Ten Commandments as glibly as possible when she was only six years old. Unhappily, lessons were apt to run out of Jenny’s head as fast as they ran in, except when frequently demanded; but the Creed and the Commandments had to stay there, for every Saturday night she was called on to repeat them to her Grandmother, and every Sunday afternoon she had to say them at the catechising in church. In Jenny’s head, therefore, they remained; but down to Jenny’s heart they never penetrated.

It was only now that Mrs Jane was setting up a maid for herself. Hitherto she had been served by her mother’s woman; but now she was going on a visit to some relatives near Bristol, and it was thought proper that she should have a woman of her own. And when the question was asked where the maid should be sought, Mrs Jane had said at once—“Oh, let me have little Jenny Lavender!”

Farmer Lavender was not quite so ready to let Jenny go as Mrs Jane was to ask it. Bristol seemed to him a long way off, and, being a town, most likely a wicked place. Those were days in which people made their wills before they took a journey of a hundred miles; and no wonder, when the roads were so bad that men had frequently to be hired to walk beside a gentleman’s carriage, and give it a push to either side, when it showed an inclination to topple over; or oxen sometimes were fetched, to pull the coach out of a deep quagmire of mud, from which only one half of it was visible. So Farmer Lavender shook his head, and said “he didn’t know, no, he didn’t, whether he’d let his little maid go.” But Mrs Jane was determined—and so was Jenny; and between them they conquered the farmer, though his old mother was on the prudent side. This was Friday, and Mrs Jane was to leave home on Tuesday; and on Saturday afternoon, Robert Featherstone, Colonel Lane’s valet, whom Jenny thought such a gentleman, was to come for her and her luggage.

If a gentleman be a man who never does any useful thing that he can help, then Mr Robin Featherstone was a perfect gentleman—much more