these, your lordship, are serious domestic evils; and i wish i could say they were confined to the house. but the workmen at the mills are so ungrateful as to hate my husband for the over care he obliges them to take of their own lives; and make no secret of wanting his removal, by trying to torment him into resignation. not a day passes without squabbles about smoking, for mr. d. is apt to sniff tobacco, and insists on searching pockets for pipes, which the labourers one and all decline; and besides scuffles, there have been several pay offs on the spot. the consequence is ill will and bad blood to their superior, and it is become a standing practical joke to play upon the family feelings and fears. i have twice suffered all the disagreeables of escaping from nothing at all in my night dress, exposed to rheumatism, and the natives of a low neighbourhood; indeed only last sunday the fire bell was rung by nobody, and no wind at all to speak of. another party at enmity is doctor worral and all his establishment; because mr. d. felt it his public duty to have the doctor up before a justice, for allowing his young
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gentlemen to send up fire-balloons. we had one day of dreadful excitement on my husband’s part, through a wicked little wretch of a pupil flashing the sunshine into the mill with a bit of looking-glass; and of course we are indebted for the swing letters we receive to the same juvenile quarters. to make bad worse, mr. d. takes them all for gospel, and the extra watchings, and patrollings, and precautions, after getting a threatening notice, are enough to wear out all our hearts. as regards the school, i am ready to agree that it is too near the works; and to tell the truth, i shake in my shoes as much as mr. d., every fifth of november, at each squib and cracker that goes off. on the same score our own sons are an everlasting misery to us when they are at home; which they seldom are, poor fellows, on that account. but if there is one thing above another that boys delight
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to play with, it is gunpowder; and being at the very fountainhead, your lordship may conceive the constant care it is to prevent their getting at it, and what is worse, not always crowned with success. indeed even more innocent playthings are obliged to be guarded against; for as their father says, “a little brat, just breeched, may strike light enough to blow up a whole neighbourhood, through only spinning a peg-tog in a paved yard.”
such, your lordship, is our present melancholy state. i have not dwelt, as i might do, on expenses, such as the dresses that are spoiled in the coal-cellar; the paying months’ wages instead of warnings; nor the trays upon trays of glass and china that are chucked down, as the way the servants always empty their hands when making their escapes from my husband’s false alarms. sometimes it’s a chair falls overhead; or the wind slams the back door; or a smell of burnt wood from the kitchen; or the ironing-blanket; or fat catched; or fall of soot; or a candle-snuff; or a smoky coal; or, as i have known before now, only the smell of the drains; with a hundred other little things that will spring up in families, take what care you will. i ought not to forget thunder-storms, which are another source of trouble; for, besides seeing a dozen fanciful flashes for one real one, it is the misfortune of mr. d. not to put faith in conductors, or, to use his own words, “in franklin, philosophy, and fiddlesticks,—and a birch rod as likely to frighten away lightning as an iron one.” in the meantime, through the constant frights and flurries, i begin to find my own nerves infected by bad example, and getting into startlish habits; and my daughter lucy, who was always delicate, seems actually going into a poor low way. agreeable society might do much to enliven our spirits; but my husband is become very shy of visitors, ever since captain gower was so inconsiderate as to walk in, one foggy night, with a lighted cigar in his mouth. in fact he quite sets his face against the male sex: for, if they do not smoke
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cigars, he says, and carry lucifers, they strut on their iron heels and flourish about with iron-pointed walking-sticks and umbrellas. all which, your lordship, is extremely hard on myself and daughters, who, like all young people, are fond of a little gaiety; but the very utmost they are allowed, is a single quadrille party at christmas, and then they are all obliged to dance in list shoes.
