Cousin Phillis | Page 6

I hoped
we should often have to go there, for the shaking, uncertain ground was
puzzling our engineers--one end of the line going up as soon as the
other was weighted down. (I had no thought for the shareholders'
interests, as may be seen; we had to make a new line on firmer ground
before the junction railway was completed.) I told all this at great
length, thankful to fill up my paper. By return letter, I heard that a
second-cousin of my mother's was married to the Independent minister
of Hornby, Ebenezer Holman by name, and lived at Heathbridge proper;
the very Heathbridge I had described, or so my mother believed, for she
had never seen her cousin Phillis Green, who was something of an
heiress (my father believed), being her father's only child, and old
Thomas Green had owned an estate of near upon fifty acres, which
must have come to his daughter. My mother's feeling of kinship seemed
to have been strongly stirred by the mention of Heathbridge; for my
father said she desired me, if ever I went thither again, to make inquiry
for the Reverend Ebenezer Holman; and if indeed he lived there, I was
further to ask if he had not married one Phillis Green; and if both these

questions were answered in the affirmative, I was to go and introduce
myself as the only child of Margaret Manning, born Moneypenny. I
was enraged at myself for having named Heathbridge at all, when I
found what it was drawing down upon me. One Independent minister,
as I said to myself, was enough for any man; and here I knew (that is to
say, I had been catechized on Sabbath mornings by) Mr Dawson, our
minister at home; and I had had to be civil to old Peters at Eltham, and
behave myself for five hours running whenever he asked me to tea at
his house; and now, just as I felt the free air blowing about me up at
Heathbridge, I was to ferret out another minister, and I should perhaps
have to be catechized by him, or else asked to tea at his house. Besides,
I did not like pushing myself upon strangers, who perhaps had never
heard of my mother's name, and such an odd name as it
was--Moneypenny; and if they had, had never cared more for her than
she had for them, apparently, until this unlucky mention of Heathbridge.
Still, I would not disobey my parents in such a trifle, however irksome
it might be. So the next time our business took me to Heathbridge, and
we were dining in the little sanded inn-parlour, I took the opportunity
of Mr Holdsworth's being out of the room, and asked the questions
which I was bidden to ask of the rosy-cheeked maid. I was either
unintelligible or she was stupid; for she said she did not know, but
would ask master; and of course the landlord came in to understand
what it was I wanted to know; and I had to bring out all my stammering
inquiries before Mr Holdsworth, who would never have attended to
them, I dare say, if I had not blushed, and blundered, and made such a
fool of myself.
'Yes,' the landlord said, 'the Hope Farm was in Heathbridge proper, and
the owner's name was Holman, and he was an Independent minister,
and, as far as the landlord could tell, his wife's Christian name was
Phillis, anyhow her maiden name was Green.'
'Relations of yours?' asked Mr Holdsworth.
'No, sir--only my mother's second-cousins. Yes, I suppose they are
relations. But I never saw them in my life.'
'The Hope Farm is not a stone's throw from here,' said the officious

landlord, going to the window. 'If you carry your eye over yon bed of
hollyhocks, over the damson-trees in the orchard yonder, you may see a
stack of queer-like stone chimneys. Them is the Hope Farm chimneys;
it's an old place, though Holman keeps it in good order.'
Mr Holdsworth had risen from the table with more promptitude than I
had, and was standing by the window, looking. At the landlord's last
words, he turned round, smiling,--'It is not often that parsons know how
to keep land in order, is it?'
'Beg pardon, sir, but I must speak as I find; and Minister Holman--we
call the Church clergyman here "parson," sir; he would be a bit jealous
if he heard a Dissenter called parson--Minister Holman knows what
he's about as well as e'er a farmer in the neighbourhood. He gives up
five days a week to his own work, and two to the Lord's; and it is
difficult to say which he works hardest at. He spends Saturday and
Sunday a-writing sermons and a-visiting his flock at Hornby; and