“Where is your father?” said Mr. Hardcastle; “he used to be as fond as any one of the ice. Gone to business! he’ll kill himself if he goes on going to business like this all the year round, every day.”
“Oh, no,” said Jack, “he’ll not kill himself; all the same he might have come, and so would Sara, had we known that the Mere was bearing. I did not think it possible there could have been such good ice to-day.”
“Not Sara,” said the rector; “this sort of thing is not the thing for her. The village folks are all very well, and in the exercise of my profession I see a great deal of them. But not for Sara, my dear boy--this sort of thing is not in her way.”
“Why Fanny is here,” said Jack, opening his eyes.
“Fanny is different,” said Mr. Hardcastle; “clergywomen have got to be friendly with their poor neighbors--but Sara, who will be an heiress--”
“Is she to be an heiress?” said Jack, with a laugh which could not but sound a little peculiar. “I am sure I don’t mind if she is; but I think we may let the future take care of itself. The presence of the cads would not hurt her any more than they hurt me.”
“Don’t speak of cads,” said the rector, “to me; they are all equal--human beings among whom I have lived and labored. Of course it is natural that you should look on them differently. Jack, can you tell me what it is that keeps young Keppel so long about Ridley? What interest has he in remaining here?”
“The hounds, I suppose,” said Jack, curtly, not caring to be questioned.
“Oh, the hounds!” repeated Mr. Hardcastle, with a dubious tone. “I suppose it must be that--and nothing particular to do in town. You were quite right, Jack, to stick to your father’s business. A briefless barrister is one of the most hopeless wretches in the world.”
“I don’t think you always thought so, sir,” said Jack; “but here is an opening and I’ll see you again.” He had not come there to talk to the parson. When he had gone flying across the Mere thinking of nothing at all but the pleasure of the motion, and had skirted it round and round and made figures of 8 and all the gambols common to a first outbreak, he stopped himself at a corner where Fanny Hardcastle, whom her father had been leading about, was standing with young Keppel looking very pretty, with her rose cheeks and downcast eyes. Keppel had been mooning about Sara the night before, was the thought that passed through Jack’s mind; and what right had he to give Fanny Hardcastle occasion to cast down her eyes? Perhaps it was purely on his friend’s account; perhaps because he thought that girls were very hardly dealt with in never being left alone to think of any thing but that confounded love-making; but the fact was that he disturbed them rather ruthlessly, and stood before them, balancing himself on his skates. “Get into this chair, Fanny, and I’ll give you a turn of the Mere,” he said; and the downcast eyes were immediately raised, and their fullest attention conferred upon him. All the humble maidens of Dewsbury at that moment cast glances of envy and yet awe at Fanny. Alice Stanmore, who was growing up, and thought herself quite old enough to receive attention in her own person, glowered at the rector’s daughter with horrible thoughts. The two young gentlemen, the envied of all observers, seemed for the moment, to the female population of the village, to have put themselves at Fanny’s feet. Even Mrs. Brightbank, the doctor’s little clever wife, was taken in for the moment. For the instant that energetic person balanced in her mind the respective merits of the two candidates, and considered which it would be best for Fanny to marry; never thinking that the whole matter involved was half-a-dozen words of nonsense on Mr. Keppel’s part, and on Jack Brownlow’s one turn on the ice in the skater’s chair.