"She has no housekeeping ability. Every thing is
in a mess. If I only durst take hold of things. But Charlotte is such a
spitfire, one does not like to offer help. I would be only too glad to
put things right, but I should give offence," etc. "The poison of asps
under the tongue," and a very little of it, can paralyze and irritate a
whole household.
Mowing-time and shearing-time and reaping-time came and went, but the
gay pastoral festivals brought none of their old-time pleasure. The men
in the fields did not like Julius in the squire's place, and they took
no pains to hide the fact. Then he came home with complaints. "They were
idle. They were disrespectful. The crops had fallen short." He could not
understand it; and when he had expressed some dissatisfaction on the
matter, the head man had told him, to take his grumbling to God
Almighty. "An insolent race, these statesmen and Dale shepherds," he
added; "if one of them owns ten acres, he thinks himself as good as if
he owns a thousand."
"All well-born men, Julius, all of them; are they not, Charlotte? Eh?
What?"
"So well born," answered Charlotte warmly, "that King James the First
set up a claim to all these small estates, on the plea that their owners
had never served a feudal lord, and were, therefore, tenants of the
crown. But the large statesmen went with the small ones. They led them
in a body to a heath between Kendal and Stavely, and there over two
thousand men swore, 'that as they had their lands by the sword, they
would keep them by the same.
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