The Farringdons

The Farringdons, by Ellen
Thorneycroft Fowler

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Title: The Farringdons
Author: Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
Release Date: November 13, 2006 [EBook #19798]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE FARRINGDONS BY ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER
AUTHOR OF CONCERNING ISABEL CARNABY, A DOUBLE
THREAD, ETC.

NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1900 COPYRIGHT,
1900, All rights reserved.

DEDICATION
For all such readers as have chanced to be Either in Mershire or in
Arcady, I write this book, that each may smile, and say, "Once on a
time I also passed that way."

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--THE OSIERFIELD 1 II.--CHRISTOPHER 12 III.--MRS.
BATESON'S TEA-PARTY 29 IV.--SCHOOL-DAYS 51 V.--THE
MOAT HOUSE 70 VI.--WHIT MONDAY 90 VII.--BROADER
VIEWS 114 VIII.--GREATER THAN OUR HEARTS 137
IX.--FELICIA FINDS HAPPINESS 156 X.--CHANGES 187
XI.--MISS FARRINGDON'S WILL 213 XII.--"THE DAUGHTERS
OF PHILIP" 232 XIII.--CECIL FARQUHAR 249 XIV.--ON THE
RIVER 272 XV.--LITTLE WILLIE 292 XVI.--THIS SIDE OF THE
HILLS 306 XVII.--GEORGE FARRINGDON'S SON 325
XVIII.--THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILLS 346
* * * * *

THE FARRINGDONS
CHAPTER I
THE OSIERFIELD
They herded not with soulless swine, Nor let strange snares their path
environ: Their only pitfall was a mine-- Their pigs were made of iron.

In the middle of Sedgehill, which is in the middle of Mershire, which is
in the middle of England, there lies a narrow ridge of high table-land,
dividing, as by a straight line, the collieries and ironworks of the great
coal district from the green and pleasant scenery of the western
Midlands. Along the summit of this ridge runs the High Street of the
bleak little town of Sedgehill; so that the houses on the east side of this
street see nothing through their back windows save the huge
slag-mounds and blazing furnaces and tall chimneys of the weird and
terrible, yet withal fascinating, Black Country; while the houses on the
west side of the street have sunny gardens and fruitful orchards, sloping
down toward a fertile land of woods and streams and meadows,
bounded in the far distance by the Clee Hills and the Wrekin, and in the
farthest distance of all by the blue Welsh mountains.
In the dark valley lying to the immediate east of Sedgehill stood the
Osierfield Works, the largest ironworks in Mershire in the good old
days when Mershire made iron for half the world. The owners of these
works were the Farringdons, and had been so for several generations.
So it came to pass that the Farringdons were the royal family of
Sedgehill; and the Osierfield Works was the circle wherein the
inhabitants of that place lived and moved. It was as natural for
everybody born in Sedgehill eventually to work at the Osierfield, as it
was for him eventually to grow into a man and to take unto himself a
wife.
The home of the Farringdons was called the Willows, and was
separated by a carriage-drive of half a mile from the town. Its lodge
stood in the High Street, on the western side; and the drive wandered
through a fine old wood, and across an undulating park, till it stopped
in front of a large square house built of gray stone. It was a handsome
house inside, with wonderful oak staircases and Adams chimneypieces;
and there was an air of great stateliness about it, and of very little
luxury. For the Farringdons were a hardy race, whose time was taken
up by the making of iron and the saving of souls; and they regarded
sofas and easy-chairs in very much the same light as they regarded
theatres and strong drink, thereby proving that their spines were as
strong as their consciences were stern.

Moreover, the Farringdons were of "the people called Methodists";
consequently Methodism was the established religion of Sedgehill,
possessing there that prestige which is the inalienable attribute of all
state churches. In the eyes of Sedgehill it was as necessary to salvation
to pray at the chapel as to work at the Osierfield; and the majority of
the inhabitants would as soon have thought of worshipping at any other
sanctuary as of worshipping at the beacon, a pillar which still marks the
highest point of the highest table-land in England.
At the time when this story begins, the joint ownership of the Osierfield
and the Willows was vested in the two Miss