Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1874-06-12
From the Cornhill Magazine.
THE WHITE CAT.

From the Cornhill Magazine.
THE WHITE CAT.
Br MISS TACKERAY.
What is a respectable man? ? Joseph Gour-
Law. Of Gill Mills and Gilwick Manor was a
respectable man. very much looked up 10 in
hisown neighborhood. Of which indeed many
acres belonged to him. Acres enclosing the
handsome stone-fronted house in which he
lived. in which his wife had died. in which
his three sons had been born. All his life
and his fortune seemed to be enclosed in the
Yorkshire valley which YOU might zee from
the dining-room window. flooded with green,
while sudden smoke-volleys burst from the
tall chimneys of the mill The valley is
crossed again and again by the streem that
come, daShinr from It's source in the distant
hills. straight to the mills at the foot Of the
GREAT crac. Wick Gil Suarkles with the
1-tune Of the Gourlays, daShing over rocks
and ridges a limpid and rainbow-tinted tor
rent. well fit. as Mr.. Gourlay had t0reSeen
long aro. to turn the creaking cogs of his
water-wheel. to boil up his steam-engines,
~ wash and purify his cotton in many
yygters. while the threads of his fortune
spun on their thousand hobbinS, glistenIng
AS thev whirlel. drawing wealth with every
turn Of the quiyering line Hugh, the
Youngest son. a. be sat in the little counting
house. could hear the family fortunes beating
time over head a~ they passed from the
mountain gill and the raw cotton heaps, to
the Gilwick wharfs and bank in family cred
it. and in the cio~e-Tackei bales Of which
bis two brothers were 50 proud. Bathurst
and Ben we're soon to be- admitted partners
in the business. llHghS turn was yet TO
come. but meanwhile he had perhaps found
for himself another more absorbing interest,
undreamt Of by Joseph 'and his elder sons. 1t
va, not one that Hugh could share with any
one. The habit of the house, the steady
reserve. the north country mistrust of fine
speaking and tiuSv sentiment, had induenc-
ei the Younger brother as well as his elders.
More than once 0i Gourlav had found
Hugh leaning back, absorbed and forgetful.
with 4 pile Of unanswered letters on the
desk beside him. The old man would tap
him on the shoulder, point significantly at
the heap. frlwn, and stump off to his own
well-worn desk in the inner room. What
was there breeding in Hugh mind Often
Of late he had seemed scarcely himself. and
answered vaguely. Was he getting i'm
patient2 was he ike other Young men? did
he want TO grasp more power in his hands
O.d G0urlay had a morbid horror Of giving
up one shred of his hard-earned rule. He
would suspect Others Of doing that which he
himself would have dOne unto them He
was both true and unjust in many of his
dealings. lie remembered his own early
imTatience Of all authority. lie had labor
ed hard 10 earn his own living and his chill
dren's. Now, he thought uneasily, the DAY
was come when they were children no long
er, but young men nearly as capable as he
had been at their age. Sometimes old
Gouray would throw out gloomy hints Of
giving up work altogether, and look sharply
into the Young mems faces to catch their
expression. Ben never had any expression
at all in his round pink checks Bathurst.
who knew his father, and was not afraid Of
him, would burst out laughing YES,
father, that would Just suit YOU. he would
say. You might walk about with your
hands in your pockets all day long or YOU
might take 10 croquet. Ben would give vou
some lessons Hugh sometimes flushed up.
and a curious, questioning look would come
INTO his eve>. when his father talked ola
change. 1t was his look his father could
not understand. "Well. Hugh" he would
cry impatieutly, "can't We speak - But
Hugh would walk ON in stohd silence he
waS not 50 much ut ease with his father H.
Bathurst, and he shut himself more and
more away from him. Ben, who had moth
ing to -hutup, might keep the talk going if
he chose. Poor Hugh had reached one of
the fiat stages of existence. Life Is scarcely
to he compared to the inclined plane that
people describe it. but To something in the
Shape Of pyramid. with intervals Of steps
between each effort. Hugh had made a
great effort Of late He was not without
the family good sense and determination,
and be could see as plainly as his father or
his brother the advantage Of a definite career
and occupation What he had within him
might as well be expressed in the intervals
Of business as of leisure, but at the same
time this strange feeling was swelling within
him. An impatience and distaste for all he
had been used to, longing for fresh air,
for expression, for better things than money
making. 1t Is in vain some people lead
mon0tonOus lives Events without form or
sound, mental catastropheS, great sweeps of
feeling and opinion, who is to guard against
these silent, irresistible powers? lie had
tried to make friends with the mill hands,
hut he had tried wrongly, perhaps any
how, some discomfort was set to his inter
ference, and Mr.. Gourlay had angrily forbid
den anything of the sort in future.
There had been some words at the time.
Hugh had walked over Gil Crag, feeling as
if he could bear this slavery no longer. He
enyied the very birds their freedom as they
few across the path lie forgot that to he
condemned to freedom from all care, re-
straint, internal effort. is, perhaps, the
greatest bondage of all. But rs yet | have
said il was not for nothing that Hugh Gour-
lay had been born a Yorkshireman; he was
sensible and clear-headed, for all his impress
sionable poets nature lie had begun a
book which he finished in after years, and
published at his own expense 4 sort of story
embodying system of practical philosophy.
Mr.. Gourlay might have been relieved if he
could have read his younger sons mind as
clear as the debit and credit figures in the
books in his counting-house. 1t was not his
fathers power that Hugh enyied and would
have grasped. 1t was something very far
distant from old Gourlay's horizon. voice,
coming he traced not whence, that haunted
him as an evil spirit "You are wasting
your life, it is wasting. wasting" The
turning wheels had seemed to say so, the
torrent had seemed to say so. every event of
the day and every dream of the night had
only y seemed to repeat it. Minor poets,
people born with a certain fervor and sensi-
bility which does not amount TO genius. are
often haunted by this vague want. They
require the domination of the unforeseen,
the touch Of greater minds TO raise them
IRON themselves. They have the gift of i'm
posing their own personality upon the things
around them, upon the inanimate sights
they see, upon the people they live with /;
and then they weary of it-common life only
repeats their own moods to them, instead of
carrying them away from themselves. Great
poets are different; they are like Nature
herself-supreme, Indifferent. Their moods
may be storms or mighty Gains, or the broad
stream Of daylight falling upon common
lhings, but they are masters all the while,
not servants; and yet even servants, faith
iaily working, need not be ashamed, either
oi @ their work or of the impulse which urges
at best.