The Billow and the Rock. Harriet Martineau

When Lord Carse issued from his own house the next morning to visit the President, he had his daughter Janet by his side, and John behind him. He took Janet in the hope that her presence, while it would be no impediment to any properly legal business, would secure him from any political conversation being introduced; and there was no need of any apology for her visit, as the President usually asked why he had not the pleasure of seeing her, if her father went alone. Duncan Forbes’s good nature to all young people was known to everybody; but he declared himself an admirer of Janet above all others; and Janet never felt herself of so much consequence as in the President’s house.

John went as an escort to his young lady on her return.

Janet felt her father’s arm twitch as they issued from their gates; and, looking up to see why, she saw that his face was twitching too. She did not know how near her mother was, nor that her father and John had their ears on the stretch for a hail from the voice they dreaded above all others in the world. But nothing was seen or heard of Lady Carse; and when they turned out of the Wynd Lord Carse resumed his usual air and step of formal importance; and Janet held up her head, and tried to take steps as long as his.

All was right about her going to the President’s. He kissed her forehead, and praised her father for bringing her, and picked out for her the prettiest flowers from a bouquet before he sat down to business; and then he rose again, and provided her with a portfolio of prints to amuse herself with; and even then he did not forget her, but glanced aside several times, to explain the subject of some print, or to draw her attention to some beauty in the one she was looking at.

“My dear lord,” said he, “I have taken a liberty with your time; but I want your opinion on a scheme I have drawn out at length for Government, for preventing and punishing the use of tea among the common people.”

“Very good, very good!” observed Lord Carse, greatly relieved about the reasons for his being sent for. “It is high time, if our agriculture is to be preserved, that the use of malt should be promoted to the utmost by those in power.”

“I am sure of it,” said the President. “Things have got to such a pass, that in towns the meanest people have tea at the morning’s meal, to the discontinuance of the ale which ought to be their diet; and poor women dank this drug also in the afternoons, to the exclusion of the twopenny.”

“It is very bad; very unpatriotic; very immoral,” declared Lord Carse. “Such people must be dealt with outright.”

The President put on his spectacles, and opened his papers to explain his plan—that plan, which it now appears almost incredible should have come from a man so wise, so liberal, so kind-hearted as Duncan Forbes. He showed how he would draw the line between those who ought and those who ought not to be permitted to drink tea; how each was to be described, and how, when anyone was suspected of taking tea, when he ought to be drinking beer, he was to tell on oath what his income was, that it might be judged whether he could pay the extremely high duty on tea which the plan would impose. Houses might be visited, and cupboards and cellars searched, at all hours, in cases of suspicion.

“These provisions are pretty severe,” the President himself observed. “But—”

“But not more than is necessary,” declared Lord Carse. “I should say they are too mild. If our agriculture is not supported, if the malt tax falls off, what is to become of us?”

And he sighed deeply.

“If we find this scheme work well, as far as it goes,” observed the President, cheerfully, “we can easily render it as much more stringent as occasion may require. And now, what can Miss Janet tell us on this subject? Can she give information of any tea being drunk in the nursery at home?”

“Oh! to be sure,” said Janet. “Nurse often lets me have some with her; and Katie fills Flora’s doll’s teapot out of her own, almost every afternoon.”

“Bless my soul!” cried Lord Carse, starting from his seat in consternation. “My servants drink tea in my house! Off they shall go—every one of them who does it.”

“Oh! papa. No; pray papa!” implored Janet. “They will say I sent them away. Oh! I wish nobody had asked me anything about it.”

“It was my doing,” said the President. “My dear lord, I make it my request that your servants may be forgiven.”

Lord Carse bowed his acquiescence; but he shook his head, and looked very gloomy about such a thing happening in his house. The President agreed with him that it must not happen again, on pain of instant dismissal.

The

Скачать книгу