| CHAPTER I. |
| CHAPTER II. |
| CHAPTER III. |
| CHAPTER IV. |
| CHAPTER V. |
Half a life-time ago, there lived in one of the Westmoreland dales a singlewoman, of the name of Susan Dixon. She was owner of the small farm-house whereshe resided, and of some thirty or forty acres of land by which it wassurrounded. She had also an hereditary right to a sheep-walk, extending to thewild fells that overhang Blea Tarn. In the language of the country she was aStateswoman. Her house is yet to be seen on the Oxenfell road, between Skelwithand Coniston. You go along a moorland track, made by the carts thatoccasionally came for turf from the Oxenfell. A brook babbles and brattles bythe wayside, giving you a sense of companionship, which relieves the deepsolitude in which this way is usually traversed. Some miles on this side ofConiston there is a farmstead—a gray stone house, and a square offarm-buildings surrounding a green space of rough turf, in the midst of whichstands a mighty, funereal umbrageous yew, making a solemn shadow, as of death,in the very heart and centre of the light and heat of the brightest summer day.On the side away from the house, this yard slopes down to a dark-brown pool,which is supplied with fresh water from the overflowings of a stone cistern,into which some rivulet of the brook before-mentioned continually andmelodiously falls bubbling. The cattle drink out of this cistern. The householdbring their pitchers and fill them with drinking-water by a dilatory, yetpretty, process. The water-carrier brings with her a leaf of thehound’s-tongue fern, and, inserting it in the crevice of the gray rock,makes a cool, green spout for the sparkling stream.
The house is no specimen, at the present day, of what it was in the lifetime ofSusan Dixon. Then, every small diamond pane in the windows glittered withcleanliness. You might have eaten off the floor; you could see yourself in thepewter plates and the polished oaken awmry, or dresser, of the state kitcheninto which you entered. Few strangers penetrated further than this room. Onceor twice, wandering tourists, attracted by the lonely picturesqueness of thesituation, and the exquisite cleanliness of the house itself, made their wayinto this house-place, and offered money enough (as they thought) to tempt thehostess to receive them as lodgers. They would give no trouble, they said; theywould be out rambling or sketching all day long; would be perfectly contentwith a share of the food which she provided for herself; or would procure whatthey required from the Waterhead Inn at Coniston. But no liberal sum—nofair words—moved her from her stony manner, or her monotonous tone ofindifferent refusal. No persuasion could induce her to show any more of thehouse than that first room; no appearance of fatigue procured for the weary aninvitation to sit down and rest; and if one more bold and less delicate did sowithout being asked, Susan stood by, cold and apparently deaf, or only replyingby the briefest monosyllables, till the unwelcome visitor had departed. Yetthose with whom she had dealings, in the way of selling her cattle or her farmproduce, spoke of her as keen after a bargain—a hard one to have to dowith; and she never spared herself exertion or fatigue, at market or in thefield, to make the most of her produce. She led the