The Squire of Sandal-Side A Pastoral Romance

CHAPTER XI.

SAN­DAL AND SAN­DAL.

“Time will dis­cov­er ev­ery thing; it is a bab­bler, and speaks even when no ques­tion is put.”

“Run, spin­dles! Run, and weave the threads of doom.”

Next morn­ing very ear­ly, Stephen had a let­ter from Char­lotte. He was sit­ting at break­fast with Ducie when the rec­tor's boy brought it; and it came, as great events gen­er­al­ly come, with­out any pre­mo­ni­tion or herald­ing cir­cum­stance. Ducie was pour­ing out cof­fee; and she went on with her em­ploy­ment, think­ing, not of the let­ter Stephen was open­ing, but of the malt, and of the con­di­tion of the brew­ing-​boil­er. An an­gry ex­cla­ma­tion from Stephen made her lift her eyes to his face. “My word, Stephen, you are put out! What's to do?”

“Julius has turned Mrs. San­dal and Char­lotte from house and home, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. They are at the rec­to­ry. I am go­ing, moth­er.”

“Stop a mo­ment, Steve. This is now my af­fair.”

Stephen looked at his moth­er with amaze­ment. Her coun­te­nance, her voice, her whole man­ner, had sud­den­ly changed. An ex­pres­sion of an­gry pur­pose was in her wide-​open eyes and firm mouth, as she asked, “Can you or Jamie, or any of the men, drive me to Kendal?”

“To-​day?”

“I want to leave with­in an hour.”

“The rain down-​pours; and it is like to be worse yet, if the wind does not change.”

“If it were ten times worse, I must to Kendal. I am much to blame that I have let weath­er stop me so far and so long. While Dame Na­ture was busy about her af­fairs, I should have been mind­ing mine. Deary me, deary me!”

“If you are for Kendal, then I will drive. The cart-​road down the fell is too bad to trust you with any one but my­self. Can we stop a mo­ment at the rec­to­ry on our road?”

“We can stop a good­ish bit. I have a deal to say to the par­son. Have the tax-​cart ready in half an hour; for there will be no bet­ter­ness in the weath­er un­til the moon--God bless her!--is full round; and things are past wait­ing for now.”

In twen­ty min­utes Ducie was ready. The large cloak and hood of the Daleswom­an wrapped her close. She was al­most in­dis­tin­guish­able in its folds. The rec­tor met her with a lit­tle ir­ri­ta­tion. It was very ear­ly to be dis­turbed, and he thought her vis­it would re­fer, doubt­less, to some triv­ial right be­tween her son and Char­lotte San­dal; be­sides which, he had made up his mind to dis­cuss the San­dal af­fairs with no one.

But Ducie had spo­ken but a few mo­ments be­fore a re­mark­able change took place in his man­ner. He was bend­ing ea­ger­ly for­ward, lis­ten­ing to her half-​whis­pered words with the great­est in­ter­est and amaze­ment. As she pro­ceed­ed, he could scarce­ly con­trol his emo­tion; and very soon all oth­er ex­pres­sions were lost in one of a sat­is­fac­tion that was al­most tri­umph.

“I will keep them here un­til you re­turn,” he an­swered; “but let me tell you, Ducie, you have been less quick to do right than I thought of you.”

“The fell has been a hard walk for an old wom­an, the cart-​road near­ly im­pass­able un­til this rain washed away the drifts; but I did not ne­glect my du­ty al­to­geth­er, nei­ther, par­son. Moser was writ­ten to six weeks since, and he has been at work. Maybe, af­ter all, no time has been lost. I'll away now, if you will call Stephen. Don't let Mrs. San­dal 'take on' more than you can help;” and, as Stephen lift­ed the reins, “You think it best to bring all here?”

“Far away best. God speed you!” He watched them out of sight,--his snowy hair and strong face and black gar­ments mak­ing a vivid pic­ture in the misty, drip­py door­way,--and then, re­turn­ing to his study, he be­gan his dai­ly walk up and down its car­pet­ed length, with a sin­gu­lar­ly solemn ela­tion. Ere long, the thought­ful stride was ac­com­pa­nied by low, mu­si­cal mut­ter­ings, drop­ping from his lips in such ma­jes­tic ca­dences that his steps in­vol­un­tar­ily fell to their mu­sic in a march-​like rhythm.

"Daugh­ter of Jus­tice, wronged Neme­sis, Thou of the aw­ful eyes, Whose silent sen­tence jud­geth mor­tal life,-- Thou with the curb of steel, Which proud­est jaws must feel, Stayest the snort and champ of hu­man strife.

Un­der thy wheel un­rest­ing, track­less, all Our joys and griefs be­fall; In thy full sight our se­cret things go on; Step af­ter step, thy wrath Fol­lows the caitiff's path, And in his tri­umph breaks his vile neck bone. To all alike, thou meetest out their due, Cu­bit for cu­bit, inch for inch,--stern, true."

At the word “true” he paused a mo­ment, and touched with his fin­ger an old black vol­ume on one of the book-​shelves. “'Stern, true,' whether Eu­ripi­des says 'cu­bit for cu­bit,' or Moses 'an eye for an eye,' or Solomon that 'he that trou­bleth his own house shall in­her­it the wind.' Stern, true; for sure­ly that which a man sows he shall al­so reap.”

Af­ter a while he went up-​stairs and talked with Mrs. San­dal and Char­lotte. They were much de­pressed and very anx­ious, and had what Char­lotte de­fined “a home­less feel­ing.” “But you must be bid­dable, Char­lotte,” said the rec­tor; “you must re­main here un­til Stephen re­turns. Ducie had busi­ness that could not wait, and who but Stephen should drive her? When he comes back, we will all look to it. You shall not be very long out of your own home; and, in the mean time, how wel­come you are here!”

“It seems such a weary time, sir; so many months that we have been in trou­ble.”

“It was all night long, once, with some tired, fear­ful ones 'toil­ing in row­ing;' but in the fourth watch came Christ and help to them. It is nigh hand--the 'fourth watch'--with you; so be cheer­ful.”

Yet it was the evening of the sixth day be­fore Ducie and Stephen re­turned. It was still rain­ing heav­ily, and Ducie on­ly wait­ed a mo­ment or two at the rec­to­ry gate. Char­lotte was amazed to see the old cler­gy­man has­ten through the plash­ing show­er to speak to her. “Sure­ly Ducie's busi­ness must have a great deal of in­ter­est to the rec­tor, moth­er: he has gone out to speak to her, and such weath­er too.”

“Ducie was al­ways a fa­vorite with him. I hope, now that her af­fairs have been at­tend­ed to, ours may re­ceive some care.”

Char­lotte an­swered on­ly by a look of sym­pa­thy. It had seemed to her a lit­tle hard that their ur­gent need must wait up­on Ducie's busi­ness; that Stephen should al­to­geth­er leave them in their ex­trem­ity; that her anx­ious in­quiries and sug­ges­tions, her plans and ef­forts about their new home, should have been so cold­ly re­ceived, and so pos­itive­ly put aside un­til Ducie and Stephen came back. And she had a pang of jeal­ousy when she saw the rec­tor, usu­al­ly so care­ful of his health, has­ten with slip­pered feet and un­cov­ered head, through the wet, chill­ing at­mo­sphere, to speak to them.

He came back with a ra­di­ant face, how­ev­er, and Char­lotte could hear him mov­ing about his study; now rolling out a grand march of mu­si­cal Greek syl­la­bles from Homer or Eu­ripi­des, anon break­ing in­to some fa­mil­iar verse of Chris­tian song. And, when tea was served, he went up-​stairs for the ladies, and es­cort­ed them to the ta­ble with a man­ner so beam­ing and so hap­pi­ly pre­dic­tive that Char­lotte could not but catch some of its hope­ful spir­it.

Just as they sat down to the tea-​ta­ble, the wet, weary trav­ellers reached Up-​Hill. With a sigh of plea­sure and con­tent, Ducie once more passed in­to its com­fort­able shel­ter; and nev­er had it seemed to her such a haven of earth­ly peace. Her usu­al­ly placid face bore marks of strong emo­tion; she was phys­ical­ly tired; and Stephen was glad to see her among the white fleeces of his grand­fa­ther's big chair, with her feet out­stretched to the blaz­ing warmth of the fire, and their cosey tea-​ser­vice by her side. Al­ways ret­icent with him, she had been very try­ing­ly so on their jour­ney. No ex­pla­na­tion of it had been giv­en; and he had been per­mit­ted to pass his time among the looms in Ire­land's mill, while she and the lawyer were oc­cu­pied about af­fairs to which even his sig­na­ture was not asked.

As they sat to­geth­er in the evening, she caught his glance search­ing her face ten­der­ly; and she bent for­ward, and said, “Kiss me, Stephen, my dear lad. I have seen this week how kind and pa­tient, how hon­or­able and trust­ful, thou art. Well, then, the hour has come that will try thy love to the ut­ter­most. But wise or un­wise, all that has been done has been done with good in­tent, and I look for no word to pain me from thy mouth. Stephen, what is thy name?”

“Stephen La­trigg.”

“Nay, but it isn't.”

Stephen blushed vivid­ly; his moth­er's face was white and calm. “I would rather be called La­trigg than--the oth­er name, than by my fa­ther's name.”

“Has any one named thy fa­ther to thee?”

“Char­lotte told me what you and she said on the mat­ter. She un­der­stood his name to be Pat­ti­son. We were won­der­ing if our mar­riage could be un­der my adopt­ed name, that was all, and things like it.”

Ducie was watch­ing his hand­some face as he spoke, and feel­ing keen­ly the ea­ger dep­re­ca­tion of pain to her­self, min­gling with the nat­ural cu­rios­ity about his own iden­ti­ty, which the cloud up­on his ear­ly years war­rant­ed. She looked at him steadi­ly, with eyes shin­ing bright­ly through tears.

“Your name is not Pat­ti­son, nei­ther is it La­trigg. When you mar­ry Char­lotte San­dal, it must be by your own true name; and that is Stephen San­dal.”

“Stephen San­dal, moth­er?”

“Yes. You are the son of Launcelot San­dal, the late squire's el­dest broth­er.”

“Then, moth­er, then I am--What am I, moth­er?”

“You are squire of San­dal-​Side and Torv­er. No liv­ing man but you has a right to the name, or the land, or to Seat-​San­dal.”

“I should have known this be­fore, moth­er.”

“I think not. We had, fa­ther and I, what we be­lieved good rea­sons, and kind rea­sons, for hold­ing our peace. But times and cir­cum­stances have changed; and, where si­lence was once true friend­ship and kind­ness, it is now wrong and cru­el­ty. Many years ago, Stephen, when I was young and beau­ti­ful, Launcelot San­dal loved me. And my fa­ther and Launcelot's fa­ther loved each oth­er as David and Jonathan loved. They were scarce­ly hap­py apart; and not even to please the proud mis­tress Char­lotte, would the squire loosen the grip of heart and hand be­tween them. But your fa­ther was more un­der his moth­er's in­flu­ence: proud lad as he was, he feared her; and when she dis­cov­ered his love for me, there was such a scene be­tween them as no man will go through twice in his life­time. I have no ex­cuse to make for mar­ry­ing him se­cret­ly ex­cept the old, old one, Stephen. I loved him, loved him as wom­en have loved, and will love, from the be­gin­ning to the end of time.”

“Dear moth­er, there was no wrong in that. But why did you let the world think you loved a man be­neath you? an un­ed­ucat­ed shep­herd like my re­put­ed fa­ther? That wronged not on­ly you, but those be­hind and those af­ter you.”

“We were afraid of many things, and we wished to spare the friend­ship be­tween our fa­thers. There were many oth­er rea­sons, scarce­ly worth re­peat­ing now.”

“And what be­came of the shep­herd?”

“He was not Cum­ber­land born. He came from the Cheviot Hills, and was al­ways fret­ting for the bor­der life: so he glad­ly fell in with the pro­pos­al your fa­ther made him. One sum­mer morn­ing he said he was go­ing to herd the lambs on La­trigg Fell, but he went to Egre­mont. Your fa­ther had gone there a week be­fore; but he came back that night, and met me at Raven­glass. We were mar­ried in Egre­mont church, by Par­son Sel­lafield, and went to White­haven, where we lived qui­et­ly and hap­pi­ly for many a week. Pat­ti­son wit­nessed our mar­riage, and then, with gold in his pock­et, took the bor­der road. He went to Mof­fat and wed the girl he loved, and has been shep­herd­ing on Loch Fell ev­er since.”

“He is alive, then?”

“He is at the Salu­ta­tion Inn at Am­ble­side to-​night. So, al­so, is Par­son Sel­lafield, and the man and wom­an with whom we staid in White­haven, and in whose house you were born and lived un­til your fourth year. They are called Chisholm, and have been at Up-​Hill many times.”

“I re­mem­ber them.”

“And I did not in­tend that they should for­get you.”

“I have al­ways heard that Launcelot San­dal was drowned.”

“You have al­ways heard that your fa­ther was drowned? That was near by the truth. While in White­haven, he wrote to his broth­er Tom, who was liv­ing and do­ing well in In­dia. When his an­swer came, we de­ter­mined to go to Cal­cut­ta; but I was not in a state of health fit for such a jour­ney as that then was. So it was de­cid­ed that your fa­ther should go first, and get a home ready for me. He left in the 'La­dy Lid­del,' and she was lost at sea. Your fa­ther was in an open boat for many days, and died of ex­haus­tion.”

“Who told you so, moth­er?”

“The cap­tain lived to reach his home again, and he brought me his watch and ring and last mes­sage. He nev­er saw your face, my lad, he nev­er saw your face.”

A si­lence of some min­utes en­sued. Ducie had long ceased to weep for her dead love, but he was un­for­got­ten. Her si­lence was not obliv­ion: it was a sanc­tu­ary where lights were burn­ing round the shrine, over which the wings of af­fec­tion were fold­ed.

“When my fa­ther was gone, then you came back to Up-​Hill?”

"No: I did not come back un­til you were in your fourth year. Then my moth­er died, and I brought you home. At the first mo­ment you went straight to your grand­fa­ther's heart; and that night, as you lay asleep up­on his knee, I told him the truth, as I tell it to you this night. And he said to me, 'Ducie, things have set­tled a bit late­ly. The squire has got over his trou­ble about Laun­cie; and young William is the ac­knowl­edged heir, and the wel­come heir. He is go­ing to mar­ry Al­ice More­combe at the long last, but it will make a big dif­fer­ence if Launcelot's son steps in where no­body wants him. Now, then,' he said, 'I will tell thee a far bet­ter way. We will give this dear lad my own name, none bet­ter in old Cum­bria; and we will save gold, and we will make gold, to put it to the very front in the new times that are com­ing. And he will keep my name on the face of the earth, and so please the great com­pa­ny of his kin be­hind him. And it will be far bet­ter for him to be the top-​sheaf of the La­trig­gs, than to force his way in­to Seat-​San­dal, where there is nei­ther love nor wel­come for him.'

“And I thought the same thing, Stephen; and af­ter that, our one care was to make you hap­py, and to do well to you. That you were a born San­dal, was a great joy to him, for he loved your fa­ther and your grand­fa­ther; and, when Har­ry came, he loved him al­so, and he liked well to see you two on the fells to­geth­er. Of­ten he called me to come and look at you go­ing off with your rods or guns; and of­ten he said, 'Both fine lads, Ducie, but our Steve is the fin­er.'”

“Oh, moth­er, I can­not take Har­ry's place! I love Har­ry, and I did not know how much un­til this hour”--

"Stop a bit, Stephen. When Har­ry grew up, and went in­to the army, your grand­fa­ther wasn't so sat­is­fied with what he had done. 'Here's a fine prop­er­ty go­ing to sharpers and tai­lors and Ital­ian singing-​wom­en,' he used to say; and he felt bad­dish about it. And yet he loved Squire William, as he had loved his fa­ther, and Mis­tress Al­ice and Har­ry and Sophia and Char­lotte; why, he thought of them like his own flesh and blood. And he could not bear to un­do his kind­ness. And he could not bear to tell Squire William the truth, for he knew well that he would un­do it. So one day he sent for Lawyer Moser; and the two of them to­geth­er found out a plan that seemed fair, for both San­dal and La­trigg.

"You were to re­main Stephen La­trigg, un­less it was to ward off wrong or ru­in in San­dal-​Side. But if ev­er the day came when San­dal need­ed La­trigg, you were to claim your right, and stand up for San­dal. Such a state of things as Har­ry brought about, my fa­ther nev­er dreamed of. He would not have been able to think of a man sell­ing away his right to a place like Seat-​San­dal; and among all the vil­lains he ev­er knew, or heard tell of, he couldn't have picked out one to lead him to such a vil­lain as Julius San­dal. So, you see, he left no spe­cial di­rec­tions for such a case, and I was a bit feared to move in too big a hur­ry; and, maybe, I was a bit of a cow­ard about set­ting ev­ery tongue in San­dal-​Side talk­ing about me and my by­gone days.

“But, when the squire died, I thought from what Char­lotte told me of the Julius San­dals, that there would have to be a change; and when I saw your grand­fa­ther sort­ing the pa­pers for me, and heard that Mis­tress Al­ice and Char­lotte had been forced to leave their home, I knew that the hour for the change had struck, and that I must be about the busi­ness. Moser was writ­ten to soon af­ter the fu­ner­al of Squire William. He has now all the nec­es­sary wit­ness­es and pa­pers ready. He is at Am­ble­side with them, and to-​mor­row morn­ing they will have a talk with Mr. Julius at Seat-​San­dal.”

“I won­der where Har­ry San­dal is.”

“Af­ter you, comes Har­ry. Your grand­fa­ther did not for­get him. There is a pro­vi­sion in the will, which di­rects, that if, for any cause not con­ceiv­able by the tes­ta­tor, Har­ry San­dal must re­sign in fa­vor of Stephen San­dal, then the land and mon­ey de­vised to you, as his heir, shall be­come the prop­er­ty of Har­ry San­dal. In a great mea­sure you would on­ly change places, and that is not a very hard pun­ish­ment for a man who cared so lit­tle for his fam­ily home as Har­ry did. So you see, Stephen, you must claim your rights in or­der to give Har­ry his.”

The facts of this con­ver­sa­tion opened up end­less­ly to the moth­er and son, and hour af­ter hour it was con­tin­ued with­out any loss of in­ter­est. But the keen­est plea­sure his new prospects gave Stephen re­ferred it­self to Mrs. San­dal and Char­lotte. He could now re­in­state them in their old home and in their old au­thor­ity in it. For the bright vi­sions un­der­neath his eye­lids, he could not sleep,--vi­sions of sat­is­fied af­fec­tion, and of grief and hu­mil­ia­tion crowned with joy and hap­pi­ness and hon­or.

It had been de­cid­ed that Stephen should drive his moth­er to the rec­to­ry in the morn­ing, and there they were to wait the re­sult of Moser's in­ter­view with Julius. The dawn­ing came up with sun­shine; the storm was over, the earth lay smil­ing in that “clear shin­ing af­ter rain,” which is so ex­hil­arat­ing and full of promise. The sky was as blue, the air as fresh, fell and wood, mead­ow and moun­tain, as clean and bright as if they had just come new from the fin­gers of the Almighty. Ducie was hand­some­ly dressed in dark vi­olet-​col­ored satin, and Stephen no­ticed with pride how well her rich cloth­ing and qui­et, dig­ni­fied man­ner be­came her; while Ducie felt even a greater pride in the state­ly, hand­some young man who drove her with such lov­ing care down La­trigg fell that event­ful morn­ing.

Julius was at break­fast when the com­pa­ny from Am­ble­side were shown in­to the mas­ter's room in Seat-​San­dal. The lawyer sent in his card; and Julius, who knew him well, was a tri­fle an­noyed by the vis­it. “It will be about your moth­er's in­come, Sophia,” he said, as he vi­cious­ly broke the egg he was hold­ing; “now mind, I am not go­ing to yield one inch.”

“Why should you, Julius? I am sure we have been blamed and talked over enough. We nev­er can be pop­ular here.”

“We don't want to be pop­ular here. When we have re­fur­nished the house, we will bring our com­pa­ny from Ox­ford and Lon­don and else­where. We will have fine din­ners and balls, hunt­ing-​par­ties and fish­ing-​par­ties; and, de­pend up­on it, we shall very soon have these shep­herd lords and gen­tle­men beg­ging for our fa­vor.”

“Oh, you don't know them, Julius! They would not break bread with us if they were starv­ing.”

“Very well. What do I care?”

But he did care. When the wag­oners driv­ing their long teams pre­tend­ed not to hear his greet­ing, for the jin­gling of their bells, he knew it was pre­tence, and the wag­oners' aver­sion hurt him. When the herds­men saun­tered away from his path, and pre­ferred not to talk to him, he felt the bit­ter­ness of their dis­like, though they were on­ly shep­herds. When the gen­tle­men of the neigh­bor­hood looked straight be­fore them, and did not see him in their path, he burned with an in­dig­na­tion he would have liked well to ex­press. But no one took the trou­ble to of­fend him by word or deed, and a man can­not pick a quar­rel with peo­ple for sim­ply let­ting him alone.

Sophia's opin­ion re­called one or two of these events that were par­tic­ular­ly galling; and he fin­ished his break­fast in a sulky, leisure­ly fash­ion, to such re­flec­tions as they evoked. Then, with a cigar in his mouth, he went to the mas­ter's room to see Moser. He had been told that oth­er par­ties were there al­so, but he did not sur­mise that their busi­ness was iden­ti­cal. Yet he no­ticed the cler­gy­man on en­ter­ing, and ap­peared in­clined to at­tend to his re­quest first; but as he cour­te­ous­ly waved his claim away, and re­tired to the oth­er end of the room, Julius said curt­ly,--

“Well, Mr. Moser, good-​morn­ing, sir.”

The lawyer was pre­tend­ing to be ab­sorbed in the cap­tions of the pa­pers in his hand, for he was of­fend­ed at be­ing kept wait­ing so long: “As if a bite of vict­uals was of more ado than busi­ness that could bring Matthew Moser all the road from Kendal.”

“Good-​morn­ing, Mr. San­dal.”

The omis­sion of “Squire,” and the sub­sti­tu­tion of “Mr.,” an­noyed Julius very much, though he had not a sus­pi­cion of the lawyer's er­rand; and he cor­rect­ed the mis­take with a bland smile on his lips, and an an­gry light in his eyes. Moser, in re­ply, se­lect­ed one par­tic­ular pa­per, and put it in­to the hand of Julius.

“Act­ing for Squire San­dal, I would be a mid­dling bad sort of a lawyer to give you his name. Eh?”

“You are talk­ing in rid­dles, sir.”

“Eh! But I al­ways read my rid­dles, Mr. San­dal. I am here to take pos­ses­sion of house and land, for the re­al heir of San­dal-​Side.”

“I bought his right, as you know very well. You have Har­ry San­dal's own ac­knowl­edg­ment.”

“Eh? But you see, Har­ry San­dal nev­er had a pen­ny-​worth of right to sell. Launcelot San­dal left a son, and for him I am act­ing. Eh?”

“Launcelot San­dal was drowned. He nev­er mar­ried.”

“Eh, but he did!--Par­son Sel­lafield, what do you say about that?”

“I mar­ried him on Ju­ly 11, 18--, at Egre­mont church. There,” point­ing to Matt Pat­ti­son, “is the wit­ness. Here is a copy of the li­cense and the 'lines.' They are signed, 'Launcelot San­dal' and 'Ducie La­trigg.'”

“Con­fu­sion!”

“Eh? No, no! There's not a bit of con­fu­sion, Mr. San­dal. It is all as clear as the mul­ti­pli­ca­tion ta­ble, and there is noth­ing clear­er than that. Launcelot San­dal mar­ried Ducie La­trigg; they had one son, Stephen San­dal, oth­er­wise known as Stephen La­trigg: proofs all ready, sir, not a link miss­ing, Mr. San­dal. When will you va­cate? The squire is in­clined to be easy with you, and not to back-​reck­on, un­less you force him to do so.”

“This is a con­spir­acy, Moser.”

“Con­spir­acy! Eh? Ug­ly word, Mr. San­dal. An ac­tion­able word, I may say.”

“It is a con­spir­acy. You shall hear from me through some re­spectable lawyer.”

“In the mean time, Mr. San­dal, I have tak­en, as you will see, the prop­er le­gal steps to pre­vent you wast­ing any more of the San­dal rev­enues. Ev­ery shilling you touch now, you will be held re­spon­si­ble for. Al­so,” and he laid an­oth­er pa­per down, “you are here­by re­strained from re­mov­ing, in­jur­ing, or in any way chang­ing, or dis­pos­ing of, the present fur­ni­ture of the Seat. The squire in­sists spe­cial­ly on this di­rec­tion, and he kind­ly al­lows you sev­en days to re­move your pri­vate ef­fects. A very rea­son­able gen­tle­man is Squire San­dal.”

With­out fur­ther cour­te­sies they part­ed; and the de­posed squire locked the room-​door, lift­ed the var­ious doc­uments, and read them with ev­ery sense he had. Then he went to Sophia; and at that hour he was al­most an­gry with her, al­though he could not have told how, or why, such a feel­ing ex­ist­ed. When he opened the door of the par­lor, her first words were a wor­ry over the non-​ar­rival, by mail, of some floss-​silks, need­ful in the bird's-​nest she was work­ing for a fire-​screen.

“They have not come, Julius,” she cried, with a face full of in­quiry and an­noy­ance.

“They? Who?”

“The floss­es for my bird's-​nest. The eggs must be in white floss.”

“The bird's nest can go to Jeri­cho, or Cal­cut­ta, or in­to the fire. We are or­dered to leave Seat-​San­dal in sev­en days.”

“I would not be so ab­surd, Julius, so un­feel­ing, so un­gentle­man­ly.”

“Well, then, my soul,” and he bowed with elab­orate grace, “Stephen La­trigg, squire of San­dal-​Side, or­ders us to leave in sev­en days. Can you be ready?”

She looked in­to the suave, mock­ing, in­scrutable face, shrugged her shoul­ders, and be­gan to count her stitch­es. Julius had many va­ri­eties of ill-​hu­mor. She re­gard­ed this state­ment on­ly as a new phase of his tem­per; but he soon un­de­ceived her. With a piti­less ex­act­ness he went over his po­si­tion, and, in do­ing so, made the hope­less­ness of his case as clear to him­self as it was to oth­ers. And yet he was de­ter­mined not to yield with­out a strug­gle; though, apart from the in­come of San­dal, which he could not reach, he had lit­tle mon­ey and no cred­it.

The sto­ry, with all its ro­mance of at­tach­ment and its long tri­al of faith­ful se­cre­cy, touched the prej­udices and the sym­pa­thies of ev­ery squire and shep­herd be­tween Dud­don and Esk and Win­der­mere. Stephen came to his own, and they re­ceived him with open arms. But for Julius, there was not a “seat” in the Dales, nor a cot­tage on the fells, no, nor a chair in any of the lo­cal inns, where he was wel­come. He stood his so­cial ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion longer than could have been ex­pect­ed; and, even at the end, his sur­ren­der was forced from him by the want of mon­ey, and the nev­er-​ceas­ing laments of Sophia. She was clever enough to un­der­stand from the first, that fight­ing the case was sim­ply “in­dulging Julius in his tem­per;” and she did not see the wis­dom of spend­ing what lit­tle mon­ey they had in such a grat­ifi­ca­tion.

“You have been caught in your own trap, Julius,” she said ag­gra­vat­ing­ly. “Very clever peo­ple of­ten are. It is fol­ly to strug­gle. You had bet­ter ask Stephen to pay you back the ten thou­sand pounds. I think he ought to do that. It is on­ly com­mon hon­esty.”

But Stephen had not the same idea of com­mon hon­esty as Sophia had. He re­ferred Julius to Har­ry.

“Har­ry, in­deed! Har­ry who is in New York mak­ing ducks and drakes of your mon­ey, Julius,--try­ing to buy shares and things that he knows no more of than he knows of Greek. It's a shame!” and Sophia burst in­to some gen­uine tears over the re­flec­tion.

Still the idea, on a less ex­trav­agant ba­sis, seemed pos­si­ble to Steve. He be­gan to think that it would be bet­ter to com­pro­mise mat­ters with the Julius San­dals; bet­ter to lose a thou­sand pounds, or even two thou­sand pounds, if, by do­ing so, he could at once re­store Mrs. San­dal and Char­lotte to their home. And he was on the point of mak­ing a propo­si­tion of this kind, when it was dis­cov­ered that Julius and his wife had silent­ly tak­en their de­par­ture.

“It is a hope­less fight against des­tiny,” said Julius. “When the purse is emp­ty, any cause is weak. I have bare­ly mon­ey to take us to Cal­cut­ta, Sophia. It is very dis­agree­able to go there, of course; but my fa­ther ad­vised this step, and I shall re­mind him of it. He ought, there­fore, to re-​ar­range my fu­ture. It is hard enough for me to have lost so much time car­ry­ing out his plans. And I should write a let­ter to your moth­er be­fore you go, if I were you, Sophia. It is your du­ty. She ought to have her cru­el be­hav­ior to you point­ed out to her.”

Sophia did her du­ty. She wrote a very clever let­ter, which re­al­ly did make both her moth­er and sis­ter wretched­ly un­com­fort­able. Char­lotte held it in her hand with a heartache, won­der­ing whether she had in­deed been as en­vi­ous and un­just and un­kind as Sophia felt her to have been; and Mrs. San­dal buried her face in her so­fa pil­low, and had a cry over her sup­posed par­tial­ity and want of true moth­er­ly feel­ing. “They had been so mis­un­der­stood, Julius and she,--wil­ful­ly mis­un­der­stood, she feared; and they were be­ing driv­en to a for­eign land, a dead­ly for­eign land, be­cause Char­lotte and Stephen had raised against them a so­cial ha­tred they had not the heart to con­quer. If they de­fend­ed them­selves, they must ac­cuse those of their own blood and house, and they were not mean enough to do such a thing as that. Oh, no! Sophia San­dal had al­ways done her du­ty, and al­ways would do it for­ev­er.” And broad state­ments are such con­fus­ing, con­found­ing things, that for one mis­er­able hour the moth­er and sis­ter felt as mean and re­morse­ful as Sophia and Julius could de­sire. Then the rec­tor read the let­ter aloud, and dived down in­to its depths as if it was a knot­ty text, and showed the two sim­ple wom­en on what false con­di­tions all of its ac­cu­sa­tions rest­ed.

At the same time Julius wrote a let­ter al­so. It was to Har­ry San­dal,--a very short let­ter, but des­tined to cause near­ly six years of lone­ly, wretched wan­der­ing and anx­ious sor­row.

DEAR HAR­RY,--There is great trou­ble about that ten thou­sand pounds. It seems you had no right to sell. “Mon­ey on false pre­tences,” I think they call it. I should go West, far West, if I were you.

Your friend,

JULIUS SAN­DAL.

He read it to Sophia, and she said, “What fol­ly! Let Har­ry re­turn home. You have heard that he comes in­to the La­trigg mon­ey. Very well, let him come home, and then you can make him pay you back. Har­ry is very hon­or­able.”

“There is not the slight­est chance of Har­ry pay­ing me back. If he had a mil­lion, he wouldn't pay me back. Har­ry spoke me fair, but I caught one look which let me see in­to his soul. He hat­ed me for buy­ing his right. With my mon­ey in his hand, he hat­ed me. He would toss his hat to the stars if he heard how far I have been over-​reached. Next to Char­lotte San­dal, I hate Har­ry San­dal; and I am go­ing to send him a road that he is not like­ly to re­turn. I don't in­tend Stephen and Har­ry to sit to­geth­er, and chuck­le over me. Be­sides, your moth­er and Char­lotte are sure­ly cal­cu­lat­ing up­on hav­ing 'dear Har­ry' and 'poor Har­ry' at home again very soon. I have no doubt Char­lotte is plan­ning about that Emi­ly Bev­er­ley al­ready. For Har­ry is to have La­trigg Hall when it is fin­ished, I hear.”

“Re­al­ly? Is that so? Are you sure?”

“Har­ry is to have the new hall, and all of old La­trigg's gold and prop­er­ty.”

“Julius, would it not be bet­ter to try and get around Har­ry? We could stay with him. I can­not en­dure Cal­cut­ta, and I al­ways did like Har­ry.”

“And I al­ways de­test­ed him. And he al­ways de­test­ed me. No, my sweet Sophia, there is re­al­ly noth­ing for us but a de­cent lodg­ing-​house on the shady side of the Chowringhee Road. My fa­ther can give me a post in 'The Com­pa­ny,' and I must get as many of its ru­pees as I can man­age. Go through the old rooms, and bid them farewell, my soul. We shall not come back to Seat-​San­dal again in this chap­ter of our eter­ni­ty.” And with a mock­ing laugh he turned away to make his own prepa­ra­tions.

“But why go in the night, Julius? You said to-​night at eleven o'clock. Why not wait un­til morn­ing?”

“Be­cause, beloved, I owe a great deal of mon­ey in the neigh­bor­hood. Stephen can pay it for me. I have sent him word to do so. Why should we waste our mon­ey? We have done with these boors. What they think of us, what they say of us, shall we mind it, my soul, when we drive un­der the peopuls and tamarinds at Bar­rack­pore, or jos­tle the crowds up­on the Moy­dana, or sit un­der the great stars and lis­ten to the tread of the chokedars? All fate, Sophia! All fate, soul of my soul! What is San­dal-​Side? Noth­ing. What is Cal­cut­ta? Noth­ing. What is life it­self, my own one? On­ly a lit­tle piece out of some­thing that was be­fore, and will be af­ter.”

* * * * *

Who that has seen the Cum­ber­land moors and fells in Ju­ly can ev­er for­get them?--the yel­low broom and pur­ple heather, the pink and white wax­en balls of the rare vac­cini­ums, the red-​leaved sun­dew, the as­pho­dels, the cran­ber­ries and blue­ber­ries and bil­ber­ries, and the won­der­ful green moss­es in all the wet­ter places; and, above and around all, the great moun­tain chains veiled in pale, ethe­re­al at­mo­sphere, and ris­ing in it as airy and un­sub­stan­tial as if they could trem­ble in uni­son with ev­ery thrill of the ether above them.

It was thus they looked, and thus the fells and the moors looked, one day in Ju­ly, eigh­teen months af­ter the death of Squire William San­dal,--his daugh­ter Char­lotte's wed­ding-​day. From far and near, the shep­herd boys and lass­es were trav­el­ling down the crag­gy ways, mak­ing all the val­leys ring to their wild and sim­ple songs, and ev­er and anon the bells rung out in joy­ful peals; and from Up-​Hill to Seat-​San­dal, and around the val­ley to La­trigg Hall, there were hap­py com­pa­nies telling each oth­er, “Oh, how beau­ti­ful was the bride with her gold­en hair flow­ing down over her dress of shin­ing white satin!” “And how proud and hand­some the bride­groom!” “And how love­ly in their au­tumn days the two moth­ers! Mis­tress Al­ice San­dal lean­ing so con­fi­dent­ly up­on the arm of the state­ly Mrs. Ducie San­dal.” “And how glad was the good rec­tor!” Lit­tle work, ei­ther in field or house or fell­side, was done that day; for, when all has been said about hu­man self­ish­ness, this truth abides,--in the main, we do re­joice with those who re­joice, and we do weep with those who weep.

The old Seat was al­most gay in the sun­shine, all its win­dows open for the wan­der­ing breezes, and its great hall doors set wide for the feet of the new squire and his bride. For they were too wise to be­gin their mar­ried life by go­ing away from their home; they felt that it was bet­ter to come to it with the bridal bene­dic­tion in their ears, and the sun­shine of the wed­ding-​day up­on their faces.

The cer­emo­ny had been de­layed some months, for Stephen had been in Amer­ica seek­ing Har­ry; seek­ing him in the great cities and in the lone­ly min­ing-​camps, but nev­er com­ing up­on his foot steps un­til they had been worn away in­to for­get­ful­ness. At last the rec­tor wrote to him, “Re­turn home, Stephen. We are both wrong. It is not hu­man love, but God love, that must seek the lost ones. If you found Har­ry now, and brought him back, it would be too soon. When his les­son is learned, the heart of God will be touched, and he will say, 'That will do, my son. Arise, and go home.'”

And when Mrs. San­dal smiled through her tears, for the hope's sake, he took her hand, and added solemn­ly, “Be con­fi­dent and glad, you shall see Har­ry come joy­ful­ly to his own home. Oh, if you could on­ly lis­ten, an­gels still talk with men! Raphael, the af­fa­ble an­gel, loves to bring them con­fi­dences. God al­so speaks to his chil­dren in dreams, and by the or­acles that wait in dark­ness. If we know not, it is be­cause we ask not. But I know, and am sure, that Har­ry will re­turn in joy and in peace. And if the dead look over the gold­en bar of heav­en up­on their earth­ly homes, Barf La­trigg, see­ing the pros­per­ity of the two hous­es, which stand up­on his love and his self-​de­nial, will say once more to his friend, 'William, I did well to San­dal.'”

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTEN­BERG EBOOK THE SQUIRE OF SAN­DAL-​SIDE***

******* This file should be named 16258.txt or 16258.zip *******

This and all as­so­ci­at­ed files of var­ious for­mats will be found in: http://www.guten­berg.org/dirs/1/6/2/5/16258

Up­dat­ed edi­tions will re­place the pre­vi­ous one--the old edi­tions will be re­named.

Cre­at­ing the works from pub­lic do­main print edi­tions means that no one owns a Unit­ed States copy­right in these works, so the Foun­da­tion (and you!) can copy and dis­tribute it in the Unit­ed States with­out per­mis­sion and with­out pay­ing copy­right roy­al­ties. Spe­cial rules, set forth in the Gen­er­al Terms of Use part of this li­cense, ap­ply to copy­ing and dis­tribut­ing Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works to pro­tect the PROJECT GUTEN­BERG-​tm con­cept and trade­mark. Project Guten­berg is a reg­is­tered trade­mark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, un­less you re­ceive spe­cif­ic per­mis­sion. If you do not charge any­thing for copies of this eBook, com­ply­ing with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for near­ly any pur­pose such as cre­ation of deriva­tive works, re­ports, per­for­mances and re­search. They may be mod­ified and print­ed and giv­en away--you may do prac­ti­cal­ly ANY­THING with pub­lic do­main eBooks. Re­dis­tri­bu­tion is sub­ject to the trade­mark li­cense, es­pe­cial­ly com­mer­cial re­dis­tri­bu­tion.

*** START: FULL LI­CENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTEN­BERG LI­CENSE PLEASE READ THIS BE­FORE YOU DIS­TRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To pro­tect the Project Guten­berg-​tm mis­sion of pro­mot­ing the free dis­tri­bu­tion of elec­tron­ic works, by us­ing or dis­tribut­ing this work (or any oth­er work as­so­ci­at­ed in any way with the phrase “Project Guten­berg”), you agree to com­ply with all the terms of the Full Project Guten­berg-​tm Li­cense (avail­able with this file or on­line at http://guten­berg.net/li­cense).

Sec­tion 1. Gen­er­al Terms of Use and Re­dis­tribut­ing Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works

1.A. By read­ing or us­ing any part of this Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic work, you in­di­cate that you have read, un­der­stand, agree to and ac­cept all the terms of this li­cense and in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (trade­mark/copy­right) agree­ment. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agree­ment, you must cease us­ing and re­turn or de­stroy all copies of Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works in your pos­ses­sion. If you paid a fee for ob­tain­ing a copy of or ac­cess to a Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agree­ment, you may ob­tain a re­fund from the per­son or en­ti­ty to whom you paid the fee as set forth in para­graph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Guten­berg” is a reg­is­tered trade­mark. It may on­ly be used on or as­so­ci­at­ed in any way with an elec­tron­ic work by peo­ple who agree to be bound by the terms of this agree­ment. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works even with­out com­ply­ing with the full terms of this agree­ment. See para­graph 1.C be­low. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works if you fol­low the terms of this agree­ment and help pre­serve free fu­ture ac­cess to Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works. See para­graph 1.E be­low.

1.C. The Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion (“the Foun­da­tion” or PGLAF), owns a com­pi­la­tion copy­right in the col­lec­tion of Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works. Near­ly all the in­di­vid­ual works in the col­lec­tion are in the pub­lic do­main in the Unit­ed States. If an in­di­vid­ual work is in the pub­lic do­main in the Unit­ed States and you are lo­cat­ed in the Unit­ed States, we do not claim a right to pre­vent you from copy­ing, dis­tribut­ing, per­form­ing, dis­play­ing or cre­at­ing deriva­tive works based on the work as long as all ref­er­ences to Project Guten­berg are re­moved. Of course, we hope that you will sup­port the Project Guten­berg-​tm mis­sion of pro­mot­ing free ac­cess to elec­tron­ic works by freely shar­ing Project Guten­berg-​tm works in com­pli­ance with the terms of this agree­ment for keep­ing the Project Guten­berg-​tm name as­so­ci­at­ed with the work. You can eas­ily com­ply with the terms of this agree­ment by keep­ing this work in the same for­mat with its at­tached full Project Guten­berg-​tm Li­cense when you share it with­out charge with oth­ers.

1.D. The copy­right laws of the place where you are lo­cat­ed al­so gov­ern what you can do with this work. Copy­right laws in most coun­tries are in a con­stant state of change. If you are out­side the Unit­ed States, check the laws of your coun­try in ad­di­tion to the terms of this agree­ment be­fore down­load­ing, copy­ing, dis­play­ing, per­form­ing, dis­tribut­ing or cre­at­ing deriva­tive works based on this work or any oth­er Project Guten­berg-​tm work. The Foun­da­tion makes no rep­re­sen­ta­tions con­cern­ing the copy­right sta­tus of any work in any coun­try out­side the Unit­ed States.

1.E. Un­less you have re­moved all ref­er­ences to Project Guten­berg:

1.E.1. The fol­low­ing sen­tence, with ac­tive links to, or oth­er im­me­di­ate ac­cess to, the full Project Guten­berg-​tm Li­cense must ap­pear promi­nent­ly when­ev­er any copy of a Project Guten­berg-​tm work (any work on which the phrase “Project Guten­berg” ap­pears, or with which the phrase “Project Guten­berg” is as­so­ci­at­ed) is ac­cessed, dis­played, per­formed, viewed, copied or dis­tribut­ed:

This eBook is for the use of any­one any­where at no cost and with al­most no re­stric­tions what­so­ev­er. You may copy it, give it away or re-​use it un­der the terms of the Project Guten­berg Li­cense in­clud­ed with this eBook or on­line at www.guten­berg.net

1.E.2. If an in­di­vid­ual Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic work is de­rived from the pub­lic do­main (does not con­tain a no­tice in­di­cat­ing that it is post­ed with per­mis­sion of the copy­right hold­er), the work can be copied and dis­tribut­ed to any­one in the Unit­ed States with­out pay­ing any fees or charges. If you are re­dis­tribut­ing or pro­vid­ing ac­cess to a work with the phrase “Project Guten­berg” as­so­ci­at­ed with or ap­pear­ing on the work, you must com­ply ei­ther with the re­quire­ments of para­graphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or ob­tain per­mis­sion for the use of the work and the Project Guten­berg-​tm trade­mark as set forth in para­graphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an in­di­vid­ual Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic work is post­ed with the per­mis­sion of the copy­right hold­er, your use and dis­tri­bu­tion must com­ply with both para­graphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any ad­di­tion­al terms im­posed by the copy­right hold­er. Ad­di­tion­al terms will be linked to the Project Guten­berg-​tm Li­cense for all works post­ed with the per­mis­sion of the copy­right hold­er found at the be­gin­ning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not un­link or de­tach or re­move the full Project Guten­berg-​tm Li­cense terms from this work, or any files con­tain­ing a part of this work or any oth­er work as­so­ci­at­ed with Project Guten­berg-​tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, dis­play, per­form, dis­tribute or re­dis­tribute this elec­tron­ic work, or any part of this elec­tron­ic work, with­out promi­nent­ly dis­play­ing the sen­tence set forth in para­graph 1.E.1 with ac­tive links or im­me­di­ate ac­cess to the full terms of the Project Guten­berg-​tm Li­cense.

1.E.6. You may con­vert to and dis­tribute this work in any bi­na­ry, com­pressed, marked up, non­pro­pri­etary or pro­pri­etary form, in­clud­ing any word pro­cess­ing or hy­per­text form. How­ev­er, if you pro­vide ac­cess to or dis­tribute copies of a Project Guten­berg-​tm work in a for­mat oth­er than “Plain Vanil­la ASCII” or oth­er for­mat used in the of­fi­cial ver­sion post­ed on the of­fi­cial Project Guten­berg-​tm web site (www.guten­berg.net), you must, at no ad­di­tion­al cost, fee or ex­pense to the us­er, pro­vide a copy, a means of ex­port­ing a copy, or a means of ob­tain­ing a copy up­on re­quest, of the work in its orig­inal “Plain Vanil­la ASCII” or oth­er form. Any al­ter­nate for­mat must in­clude the full Project Guten­berg-​tm Li­cense as spec­ified in para­graph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for ac­cess to, view­ing, dis­play­ing, per­form­ing, copy­ing or dis­tribut­ing any Project Guten­berg-​tm works un­less you com­ply with para­graph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a rea­son­able fee for copies of or pro­vid­ing ac­cess to or dis­tribut­ing Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works pro­vid­ed that

- You pay a roy­al­ty fee of 20% of the gross prof­its you de­rive from the use of Project Guten­berg-​tm works cal­cu­lat­ed us­ing the method you al­ready use to cal­cu­late your ap­pli­ca­ble tax­es. The fee is owed to the own­er of the Project Guten­berg-​tm trade­mark, but he has agreed to do­nate roy­al­ties un­der this para­graph to the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion. Roy­al­ty pay­ments must be paid with­in 60 days fol­low­ing each date on which you pre­pare (or are legal­ly re­quired to pre­pare) your pe­ri­od­ic tax re­turns. Roy­al­ty pay­ments should be clear­ly marked as such and sent to the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion at the ad­dress spec­ified in Sec­tion 4, “In­for­ma­tion about do­na­tions to the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion.”

- You pro­vide a full re­fund of any mon­ey paid by a us­er who no­ti­fies you in writ­ing (or by e-​mail) with­in 30 days of re­ceipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Guten­berg-​tm Li­cense. You must re­quire such a us­er to re­turn or de­stroy all copies of the works pos­sessed in a phys­ical medi­um and dis­con­tin­ue all use of and all ac­cess to oth­er copies of Project Guten­berg-​tm works.

- You pro­vide, in ac­cor­dance with para­graph 1.F.3, a full re­fund of any mon­ey paid for a work or a re­place­ment copy, if a de­fect in the elec­tron­ic work is dis­cov­ered and re­port­ed to you with­in 90 days of re­ceipt of the work.

- You com­ply with all oth­er terms of this agree­ment for free dis­tri­bu­tion of Project Guten­berg-​tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or dis­tribute a Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic work or group of works on dif­fer­ent terms than are set forth in this agree­ment, you must ob­tain per­mis­sion in writ­ing from both the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion and Michael Hart, the own­er of the Project Guten­berg-​tm trade­mark. Con­tact the Foun­da­tion as set forth in Sec­tion 3 be­low.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Guten­berg vol­un­teers and em­ploy­ees ex­pend con­sid­er­able ef­fort to iden­ti­fy, do copy­right re­search on, tran­scribe and proof­read pub­lic do­main works in cre­at­ing the Project Guten­berg-​tm col­lec­tion. De­spite these ef­forts, Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works, and the medi­um on which they may be stored, may con­tain “De­fects,” such as, but not lim­it­ed to, in­com­plete, in­ac­cu­rate or cor­rupt da­ta, tran­scrip­tion er­rors, a copy­right or oth­er in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty in­fringe­ment, a de­fec­tive or dam­aged disk or oth­er medi­um, a com­put­er virus, or com­put­er codes that dam­age or can­not be read by your equip­ment.

1.F.2. LIM­IT­ED WAR­RAN­TY, DIS­CLAIMER OF DAM­AGES - Ex­cept for the “Right of Re­place­ment or Re­fund” de­scribed in para­graph 1.F.3, the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion, the own­er of the Project Guten­berg-​tm trade­mark, and any oth­er par­ty dis­tribut­ing a Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic work un­der this agree­ment, dis­claim all li­abil­ity to you for dam­ages, costs and ex­pens­es, in­clud­ing le­gal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REME­DIES FOR NEG­LI­GENCE, STRICT LI­ABIL­ITY, BREACH OF WAR­RAN­TY OR BREACH OF CON­TRACT EX­CEPT THOSE PRO­VID­ED IN PARA­GRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUN­DA­TION, THE TRADE­MARK OWN­ER, AND ANY DIS­TRIB­UTOR UN­DER THIS AGREE­MENT WILL NOT BE LI­ABLE TO YOU FOR AC­TU­AL, DI­RECT, IN­DI­RECT, CON­SE­QUEN­TIAL, PUNI­TIVE OR IN­CI­DEN­TAL DAM­AGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NO­TICE OF THE POS­SI­BIL­ITY OF SUCH DAM­AGE.

1.F.3. LIM­IT­ED RIGHT OF RE­PLACE­MENT OR RE­FUND - If you dis­cov­er a de­fect in this elec­tron­ic work with­in 90 days of re­ceiv­ing it, you can re­ceive a re­fund of the mon­ey (if any) you paid for it by send­ing a writ­ten ex­pla­na­tion to the per­son you re­ceived the work from. If you re­ceived the work on a phys­ical medi­um, you must re­turn the medi­um with your writ­ten ex­pla­na­tion. The per­son or en­ti­ty that pro­vid­ed you with the de­fec­tive work may elect to pro­vide a re­place­ment copy in lieu of a re­fund. If you re­ceived the work elec­tron­ical­ly, the per­son or en­ti­ty pro­vid­ing it to you may choose to give you a sec­ond op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­ceive the work elec­tron­ical­ly in lieu of a re­fund. If the sec­ond copy is al­so de­fec­tive, you may de­mand a re­fund in writ­ing with­out fur­ther op­por­tu­ni­ties to fix the prob­lem.

1.F.4. Ex­cept for the lim­it­ed right of re­place­ment or re­fund set forth in para­graph 1.F.3, this work is pro­vid­ed to you 'AS-​IS', WITH NO OTH­ER WAR­RANTIES OF ANY KIND, EX­PRESS OR IM­PLIED, IN­CLUD­ING BUT NOT LIM­IT­ED TO WAR­RANTIES OF MER­CHAN­TIBIL­ITY OR FIT­NESS FOR ANY PUR­POSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not al­low dis­claimers of cer­tain im­plied war­ranties or the ex­clu­sion or lim­ita­tion of cer­tain types of dam­ages. If any dis­claimer or lim­ita­tion set forth in this agree­ment vi­olates the law of the state ap­pli­ca­ble to this agree­ment, the agree­ment shall be in­ter­pret­ed to make the max­imum dis­claimer or lim­ita­tion per­mit­ted by the ap­pli­ca­ble state law. The in­va­lid­ity or un­en­force­abil­ity of any pro­vi­sion of this agree­ment shall not void the re­main­ing pro­vi­sions.

1.F.6. IN­DEM­NI­TY - You agree to in­dem­ni­fy and hold the Foun­da­tion, the trade­mark own­er, any agent or em­ploy­ee of the Foun­da­tion, any­one pro­vid­ing copies of Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works in ac­cor­dance with this agree­ment, and any vol­un­teers as­so­ci­at­ed with the pro­duc­tion, pro­mo­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion of Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works, harm­less from all li­abil­ity, costs and ex­pens­es, in­clud­ing le­gal fees, that arise di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly from any of the fol­low­ing which you do or cause to oc­cur: (a) dis­tri­bu­tion of this or any Project Guten­berg-​tm work, (b) al­ter­ation, mod­ifi­ca­tion, or ad­di­tions or dele­tions to any Project Guten­berg-​tm work, and (c) any De­fect you cause.

Sec­tion 2. In­for­ma­tion about the Mis­sion of Project Guten­berg-​tm

Project Guten­berg-​tm is syn­ony­mous with the free dis­tri­bu­tion of elec­tron­ic works in for­mats read­able by the widest va­ri­ety of com­put­ers in­clud­ing ob­so­lete, old, mid­dle-​aged and new com­put­ers. It ex­ists be­cause of the ef­forts of hun­dreds of vol­un­teers and do­na­tions from peo­ple in all walks of life.

Vol­un­teers and fi­nan­cial sup­port to pro­vide vol­un­teers with the as­sis­tance they need, is crit­ical to reach­ing Project Guten­berg-​tm's goals and en­sur­ing that the Project Guten­berg-​tm col­lec­tion will re­main freely avail­able for gen­er­ations to come. In 2001, the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion was cre­at­ed to pro­vide a se­cure and per­ma­nent fu­ture for Project Guten­berg-​tm and fu­ture gen­er­ations. To learn more about the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion and how your ef­forts and do­na­tions can help, see Sec­tions 3 and 4 and the Foun­da­tion web page at http://www.guten­berg.net/fundrais­ing/pglaf.

Sec­tion 3. In­for­ma­tion about the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion

The Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion is a non prof­it 501(c)(3) ed­uca­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion or­ga­nized un­der the laws of the state of Mis­sis­sip­pi and grant­ed tax ex­empt sta­tus by the In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice. The Foun­da­tion's EIN or fed­er­al tax iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber is 64-6221541. Con­tri­bu­tions to the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion are tax de­ductible to the full ex­tent per­mit­ted by U.S. fed­er­al laws and your state's laws.

The Foun­da­tion's prin­ci­pal of­fice is lo­cat­ed at 4557 Melan Dr. S. Fair­banks, AK, 99712., but its vol­un­teers and em­ploy­ees are scat­tered through­out nu­mer­ous lo­ca­tions. Its busi­ness of­fice is lo­cat­ed at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email busi­ness@pglaf.org. Email con­tact links and up to date con­tact in­for­ma­tion can be found at the Foun­da­tion's web site and of­fi­cial page at http://www.guten­berg.net/about/con­tact

For ad­di­tion­al con­tact in­for­ma­tion: Dr. Gre­go­ry B. New­by Chief Ex­ec­utive and Di­rec­tor gb­new­by@pglaf.org

Sec­tion 4. In­for­ma­tion about Do­na­tions to the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion

Project Guten­berg-​tm de­pends up­on and can­not sur­vive with­out wide spread pub­lic sup­port and do­na­tions to car­ry out its mis­sion of in­creas­ing the num­ber of pub­lic do­main and li­censed works that can be freely dis­tribut­ed in ma­chine read­able form ac­ces­si­ble by the widest ar­ray of equip­ment in­clud­ing out­dat­ed equip­ment. Many small do­na­tions ($1 to $5,000) are par­tic­ular­ly im­por­tant to main­tain­ing tax ex­empt sta­tus with the IRS.

The Foun­da­tion is com­mit­ted to com­ply­ing with the laws reg­ulat­ing char­ities and char­ita­ble do­na­tions in all 50 states of the Unit­ed States. Com­pli­ance re­quire­ments are not uni­form and it takes a con­sid­er­able ef­fort, much pa­per­work and many fees to meet and keep up with these re­quire­ments. We do not so­lic­it do­na­tions in lo­ca­tions where we have not re­ceived writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion of com­pli­ance. To SEND DO­NA­TIONS or de­ter­mine the sta­tus of com­pli­ance for any par­tic­ular state vis­it http://www.guten­berg.net/fundrais­ing/do­nate

While we can­not and do not so­lic­it con­tri­bu­tions from states where we have not met the so­lic­ita­tion re­quire­ments, we know of no pro­hi­bi­tion against ac­cept­ing un­so­licit­ed do­na­tions from donors in such states who ap­proach us with of­fers to do­nate.

In­ter­na­tion­al do­na­tions are grate­ful­ly ac­cept­ed, but we can­not make any state­ments con­cern­ing tax treat­ment of do­na­tions re­ceived from out­side the Unit­ed States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Guten­berg Web pages for cur­rent do­na­tion meth­ods and ad­dress­es. Do­na­tions are ac­cept­ed in a num­ber of oth­er ways in­clud­ing in­clud­ing checks, on­line pay­ments and cred­it card do­na­tions. To do­nate, please vis­it: http://www.guten­berg.net/fundrais­ing/do­nate

Sec­tion 5. Gen­er­al In­for­ma­tion About Project Guten­berg-​tm elec­tron­ic works.

Pro­fes­sor Michael S. Hart is the orig­ina­tor of the Project Guten­berg-​tm con­cept of a li­brary of elec­tron­ic works that could be freely shared with any­one. For thir­ty years, he pro­duced and dis­tribut­ed Project Guten­berg-​tm eBooks with on­ly a loose net­work of vol­un­teer sup­port.

Project Guten­berg-​tm eBooks are of­ten cre­at­ed from sev­er­al print­ed edi­tions, all of which are con­firmed as Pub­lic Do­main in the U.S. un­less a copy­right no­tice is in­clud­ed. Thus, we do not nec­es­sar­ily keep eBooks in com­pli­ance with any par­tic­ular pa­per edi­tion.

Most peo­ple start at our Web site which has the main PG search fa­cil­ity:

http://www.guten­berg.net

This Web site in­cludes in­for­ma­tion about Project Guten­berg-​tm, in­clud­ing how to make do­na­tions to the Project Guten­berg Lit­er­ary Archive Foun­da­tion, how to help pro­duce our new eBooks, and how to sub­scribe to our email newslet­ter to hear about new eBooks.