Miss Amelyn laughed, and yet glanced around her timidly, as if she thought that Miss Desborough ought to have a larger and more important audience. Then she continued more confidentially and boldly, "But it isn't at all like 'slumming,' you know. These poor people here are not very bad, and are not at all extraordinary.""Never mind," said Sadie, hurrying her along. After a pause she went on, "You know the Priory very well, I guess?""I lived there when I was a little girl, with my aunt, the Dowager Lady Beverdale," said Miss Amelyn. "When my cousin Fred, who was the young heir, died, and the present Lord Beverdale succeeded,--HEnever expected it, you know, for there were two lives, his two elder brothers, besides poor Fred's, between, but they both died,--we went to live in the Dower House."
"The Dower House?" repeated Sadie.
"Yes, Lady Beverdale's separate property."
"But I thought all this property--the Priory--came into the family through HER.""It did--this was the Amelyns' place; but the oldest son or nearest male heir always succeeds to the property and title.""Do you mean to say that the present Lord Beverdale turned that old lady out?"Miss Amelyn looked shocked. "I mean to say," she said gravely, "Lady Beverdale would have had to go when her own son became of age, had he lived." She paused, and then said timidly, "Isn't it that way in America?""Dear no!" Miss Desborough had a faint recollection that there was something in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence against primogeniture. "No! the men haven't it ALL their own way THERE--not much!"Miss Amelyn looked as if she did not care to discuss this problem.
After a few moments Sadie continued, "You and Lord Algernon are pretty old friends, I guess?""No," replied Miss Amelyn. "He came once or twice to the Priory for the holidays, when he was quite a boy at Marlborough--for the family weren't very well off, and his father was in India. He was a very shy boy, and of course no one ever thought of him succeeding."Miss Desborough felt half inclined to be pleased with this, and yet half inclined to resent this possible snubbing of her future husband. But they were nearing the village, and Miss Amelyn turned the conversation to the object of her visit. It was a new village--an unhandsome village, for all that it stood near one of the gates of the park. It had been given over to some mines that were still worked in its vicinity, and to the railway, which the uncle of the present earl had resisted; but the railway had triumphed, and the station for Scrooby Priory was there. There was a grim church, of a blackened or weather-beaten stone, on the hill, with a few grim Amelyns reposing cross-legged in the chancel, but the character of the village was as different from the Priory as if it were in another county. They stopped at the rectory, where Miss Amelyn provided herself with certain doles and gifts, which the American girl would have augmented with a five-pound note but for Miss Amelyn's horrified concern. "As many shillings would do, and they would be as grateful," she said. "More they wouldn't understand.""Then keep it, and dole it out as you like," said Sadie quickly.
"But I don't think that--that Lord Beverdale would quite approve,"hesitated Miss Amelyn.
The pretty brow of her companion knit, and her gray eyes flashed vivaciously. "What has HE to do with it?" she said pertly;"besides, you say these are not HIS poor. Take that five-pound note--or--I'll DOUBLE it, get it changed into sovereigns at the station, and hand 'em round to every man, woman, and child."Miss Amelyn hesitated. The American girl looked capable of doing what she said; perhaps it was a national way of almsgiving! She took the note, with the mental reservation of making a full confession to the rector and Lord Beverdale.
She was right in saying that the poor of Scrooby village were not interesting. There was very little squalor or degradation; their poverty seemed not a descent, but a condition to which they had been born; the faces which Sadie saw were dulled and apathetic rather than sullen or rebellious; they stood up when Miss Amelyn entered, paying HER the deference, but taking little note of the pretty butterfly who was with her, or rather submitting to her frank curiosity with that dull consent of the poor, as if they had lost even the sense of privacy, or a right to respect. It seemed to the American girl that their poverty was more indicated by what they were SATISFIED with than what she thought they MISSED. It is to be feared that this did not add to Sadie's sympathy; all the beggars she had seen in America wanted all they could get, and she felt as if she were confronted with an inferior animal.
"There's a wonderful old man lives here," said Miss Amelyn, as they halted before a stone and thatch cottage quite on the outskirts of the village. "We can't call him one of our poor, for he still works, although over eighty, and it's his pride to keep out of the poorhouse, and, as he calls it, 'off' the hands of his granddaughters. But we manage to do something for THEM, and we hope he profits by it. One of them is at the Priory; they're trying to make a maid of her, but her queer accent--they're from the north--is against her with the servants. I am afraid we won't see old Debs, for he's at work again to-day, though the doctor has warned him.""Debs! What a funny name!"
"Yes, but as many of these people cannot read or write, the name is carried by the ear, and not always correctly. Some of the railway navvies, who come from the north as he does, call him 'Debbers.'"They were obliged to descend into the cottage, which was so low that it seemed to have sunk into the earth until its drooping eaves of thatch mingled with the straw heap beside it. Debs was not at home. But his granddaughter was there, who, after a preliminary "bob," continued the stirring of the pot before the fire in tentative silence.
"I am sorry to find that your grandfather has gone to work again in spite of the doctor's orders," said Miss Amelyn.
