Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale
by R. D. Blackmore · English · Gutenberg #43281 · 754,379 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale
Author: R. D. Blackmore
Release date: July 22, 2013 [eBook #43281]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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CRIPPS, THE CARRIER.
A WOODLAND TALE.
by
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE,
Author of "Lorna Doone," "Alice Lorraine," etc.
[Greek: ar estin hêmin logidion gnômên echon,
humn men autôn ouchi dexiôteron,
kômpsdias de photikês sophôteron;]
AR. VESP. 64.
New Edition
London:
Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited,
St. Dunstan's House,
Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C.
1892.
[All rights reserved.]
* * * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
LORNA DOONE.
(_Illustrated, édition de luxe, parchment, 35s.; plainer
bindings, 31s. 6d., 21s., and 7s. 6d._)
ALICE LORRAINE.
CLARA VAUGHAN.
CRADOCK NOWELL,
CRIPPS, THE CARRIER.
MARY ANERLEY.
EREMA: or, My Father's Sin.
CHRISTOWELL: A Dartmoor Tale.
TOMMY UPMORE.
SPRINGHAVEN.
KIT AND KITTY.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED.
FETTER LANE. FLEET STREET, E.C.
* * * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY 1
II. THE SWING OF THE PICKAXE 7
III. OAKLEAF POTATOES 14
IV. CRIPPS IN A QUANDARY 21
V. A RIDE THROUGH THE SNOW 24
VI. THE PUBLIC OF THE "PUBLIC" 30
VII. THE BEST FOOT FOREMOST 37
VIII. BALDERDASH 43
IX. CRIPPS IN AFFLICTION 50
X. ALL DEAD AGAINST HIM 55
XI. KNOCKER VERSUS BELL-PULL 60
XII. MR. JOHN SMITH 68
XIII. MR. SMITH IS ACTIVE 74
XIV. SO IS MR. SHARP 79
XV. A SPOTTED DOG 85
XVI. A GRAND SMOCK-FROCK 91
XVII. INSTALLED AT BRASENOSE 98
XVIII. A FLASH OF LIGHT 104
XIX. A STORMY NIGHT 110
XX. CRIPPS DRAWS THE CORK 120
XXI. CINNAMINTA 127
XXII. A DELICATE SUBJECT 132
XXIII. QUITE ANOTHER PAIR OF SOCKS! 141
XXIV. SUO SIBI BACULO 149
XXV. MISS PATCH 157
XXVI. RUTS 164
XXVII. RATS 173
XXVIII. BOOTS ON 180
XXIX. A SPIDER'S DINNER-PARTY 190
XXX. THE FIRE-BELL 198
XXXI. THROW PHYSIC TO THE DOGS 206
XXXII. CRIPPS ON CELIBACY 214
XXXIII. KIT 223
XXXIV. A WOOLHOPIAN 230
XXXV. NIGHTINGALES 237
XXXVI. MAY MORN 242
XXXVII. MAY-DAY 248
XXXVIII. THE DIGNITY OF THE FAMILY 259
XXXIX. A TOMBSTONE 267
XL. LET ME OUT 276
XLI. REASON AND UNREASON 284
XLII. MEETING THE COACH 291
XLIII. THE MOTIVE 300
XLIV. THE MANNER 307
XLV. THE POSITION 313
XLVI. IN THE MESHES 324
XLVII. COMBINED WISDOM 335
XLVIII. MASCULINE ERROR 342
XLIX. PROMETHEUS VINCTUS 351
L. FEMININE ERROR 361
LI. UNFILIAL 367
LII. UNPATERNAL 375
LIII. "THIS WILL DO" 386
LIV. CRIPPS BRINGS HOME THE CROWN 391
LV. SMITH TO THE RESCUE 402
LVI. FATAL ACCIDENT TO THE CARRIER 410
CRIPPS, THE CARRIER.
CHAPTER I.
THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY.
The little village of Beckley lies, or rather lay many years ago, in
the quiet embrace of old Stow Wood, well known to every Oxford man who
loves the horn or fusil. This wood or forest (now broken up into many
straggling copses) spread in the olden time across the main breadth of
the highland to the north of Headington, between the valley of the
Cherwell and the bogs of Otmoor. Beckley itself, though once
approached by the Roman road from Alchester, must for many a century
have nursed its rural quietude, withdrawn as it was from the
stage-waggon track from High Wycombe to Chipping Norton, through
Wheatley, Islip, and Bletchingdon, and lying in a tangle of narrow
lanes leading only to one another. So Beckley took that cheerful view
of life which enabled the fox to disdain the blandishments of the
vintage, and prided itself on its happy seclusion and untutored
honesty.
But as all sons of Adam must have something or other to say to the
rest, and especially to his daughters, this little village carried on
some commerce with the outer world; and did it through a carrier.
The name of this excellent man was Cripps; and the Carrier's mantle,
or woolsey coat, had descended on this particular Cripps from many
generations. All the Cripps family had a habit of adding largely to
their number in every generation. In this they resembled most other
families which have to fight the world, and therefore recruit their
forces zealously; but in one great point they were very distinct--they
agreed among one another. And ever since roads were made, or rather
lanes began trying to make themselves, one great tradition had
confirmed the dynasty of Crippses.
This was that the eldest son should take the carrying business; the
second son (upon first avoidance) should have the baker's shop in
Oxford over against old Balliol College; the third should have the
queer old swine-farm in the heart of Stow Forest; the fourth should be
the butcher of Beckley, and the fifth its shoemaker. If ever it
pleased the Lord to proceed with the masculine fork of the family (as
had happened several times), the sixth boy and the rest were expected
to start on their travels, when big enough. As for the girls, the
Carrier, being the head of the family, and holding the house and the
stable and cart, was bound to take the maids, one by one, to and fro
under his tilt twice a week, till the public fell in love with them.
Now, so many things come cross and across in the countless ins and
outs of life, that even the laws of the Crippses failed sometimes, in
some jot or tittle. Still there they stuck, and strong cause was
needed ere they could be departed from. Of course the side-shoots of
the family (shoemakers' sons, and so on) were not to be bound by this
great code, however ambitious to be so. To deal with such rovers is
not our duty. Our privilege is to trace the strict succession of the
Crippses, the deeds of the Carrier now on the throne and his second
best brother, the baker, with a little side-peep at the man on the
farm, and a shy desire to be very delicate to the last unmarried
"female."
The present head of the family, Zacchary Cripps, the Beckley carrier,
under the laws of time (which are even stricter than the Cripps'
code), was crossing the ridge of manhood towards the western side of
forty, without providing the due successor to the ancestral
driving-board. Public opinion was already beginning to exclaim at him;
and the man who kept the chandler's shop, with a large small family to
maintain, was threatening to make the most of this, and set up his own
eldest son on the road; though "dot and carry one" was all he knew
about the business. Zacchary was not a likely man to be at all upset
by this; but rather one of a tarrying order, as his name might
indicate.
Truly intelligent families living round about the city of Oxford had,
and even to this day have, a habit of naming their male babies after
the books of the Bible, in their just canonical sequence; while
infants of the better sex are baptized into the Apocrypha, or even the
Epistles. So that Zacchary should have been "Genesis," only his father
had suffered such pangs of mind at being cut down, by the
ever-strengthening curtness of British diction, into "Jenny Cripps,"
that he laid his thumb to the New Testament when his first man-child
was born to him, and finding a father in like case, quite relieved of
responsibility, took it for a good sign, and applied his name
triumphantly.
But though the eldest born was thus transferred into the New
Testament, the second son reverted to the proper dispensation; and the
one who went into the baker's shop was Exodus, as he ought to be. The
children of the former Exodus were turned out testamentarily, save
those who were needed to carry the bread out till their cousin's boys
should be big enough.
All of these doings were right enough, and everybody approved of them.
Leviticus Cripps was the lord of the swine, and Numbers bore the
cleaver, while Deuteronomy stuck to his last, when the public-house
could spare him. There was only one more brother of the dominant
generation, whose name was "Pentachook," for thus they pronounced the
collective eponym, and he had been compendiously kicked abroad, to
seek his own fortune, right early.
But as for the daughters (who took their names from the best women of
the Apocrypha, and sat up successively under the tilt until they were
disposed of), for the moment it is enough to say that all except one
were now forth and settled. Some married farmers, some married
tradesmen, one took a miller's eldest son, one had a gentleman more or
less, but all with expectations. Only the youngest was still in the
tilt, a very pretty girl called Esther.
All Beckley declared that Esther's heart had been touched by a College
lad, who came some five years since to lodge with Zacchary for the
long vacation, and was waited on by this young girl, supposed to be
then unripe for dreaming of the tender sentiment. That a girl of only
fifteen summers should allow her thoughts to stray, contrary to all
common sense and her duty to her betters, for no other reason (to
anybody's knowledge) than that a young man ate and drank with less
noise than the Crippses, and went on about the moonlight and the
stars, and the rubbishy things in the hedges--that a child like that
should know no better than to mix what a gentleman said with his inner
meaning--put it right or left, it showed that something was amiss with
her. However, the women would say no more until it was pulled out of
them. To mix or meddle with the Crippses was like putting one's
fingers into a steel trap.
With female opinion in this condition, and eager to catch at anything,
Mrs. Exodus Cripps, in Oxford, was confined rather suddenly. She had
kneaded a batch of two sacks of flour, to put it to rise for the
morning, and her husband (who should not have let her do it) was
smoking a pipe, and exciting her. Nevertheless, it would not have
harmed her (as both the doctor and the midwife said) if only she had
kept herself from arguing while about it. But, somehow or other, her
husband said a thing she could not agree with, and the strength of her
reason went the other way, and it served him right that he had to rush
off in his slippers to the night-bell.
On the next day, although things were quite brought round, and the
world was the richer by the addition of another rational animal, Mr.
Exodus sent up the crumpet-boy all the way from Broad Street in Oxford
to Beckley, to beg and implore Miss Esther Cripps to come down and
attend to the caudle. And the crumpet-boy, being short of breath,
became so full of power that the Carrier scarcely knew what to do in
the teeth of so urgent a message. For he had made quite a pet of his
youngest sister, and the twenty years of age betwixt them stopped the
gap of rivalry. It was getting quite late in the afternoon when the
crumpet-boy knocked at the Carrier's door, because he had met upon
Magdalen Bridge a boy who owed him twopence; and eager as he was to
fulfil his duty, a sense of justice to himself compelled him to do his
best to get it. His knowledge of the world was increased by the
failure of this Utopian vision, for the other boy offered to toss him
"double or quits," and having no specie, borrowed poor Crumpy's last
penny to do it; then, being defeated in the issue, he cast the young
baker's cap over the bridge, and made off at fine speed with his coin
of the realm. What other thing could Crumpy do than attempt to outvie
his activity? In a word, he chased him as far as Carfax, with
well-winged feet and sad labour of lungs, but Mercury laughed at
Astræa, and Crumpy had a very distant view of fivepence. Recording a
highly vindictive vow, he scratched his bare head, and set forth
again, being further from Beckley than at his first start.
It certainly was an unlucky thing that the day of the week should be
Tuesday--Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1837. For Zacchary always had
to make his rounds on a Wednesday and a Saturday, and if he were to
drive his poor old Dobbin into Oxford on a Tuesday evening, how could
he get through his business to-morrow? For Dobbin insisted on a day in
stable whenever he had been in Oxford. He was full of the air of the
laziest place, and perhaps the most delightful, in the world. He
despised all the horses of low agriculture after that inspiration, and
he sighed out sweet grunts at the colour of his straw, instead of
getting up the next morning.
Zacchary Cripps was a thoughtful man, as well as a very kind-hearted
one. In the crown of his hat he always carried a monthly calendar
gummed on cardboard, and opposite almost every day he had dots, or
round O's, or crosses. Each of these to his very steady mind meant
something not to be neglected; and being (as time went) a pretty fair
scholar--ere School Boards destroyed true scholarship--with the help
of his horse he could make out nearly every place he had to call at.
So now he looked at the crumpet-boy, to receive and absorb his
excitement, and then he turned to young Esther, and let her speak
first, as she always liked to do.
"Oh, please to go back quite as fast as you can," said Esther to the
Crumpy, "and say that I shall be there before you; or, at any rate, as
soon as you are. And, Crumpy, there ought to be something for you.
Dear Zak, have you got twopence?"
"Not I," said the Carrier, "and if I had, it would do him a deal more
harm than good. Run away down the hill, my lad, and you come to me at
the Golden Cross, perhaps as soon as Saturday, and I'll look in my bag
for a halfpenny. Run away, boy; run away, or the bogies will be after
you."
CHAPTER II.
THE SWING OF THE PICKAXE.
The baker's boy felt that his luck was askew upon this day of his
existence, for Carrier Cripps was vexed so much at this sudden demand
for his sister that he never even thought of asking the boy to have a
glass of home-brewed ale.
"Zak, what made you send the boy away?" Esther asked, when she came
downstairs, with her bonnet and short cloak on. "Of course, I am very
foolish; but he would have been some little company."
"There, now, I never thought of it! I am doiled, a do believe,
sometimes. Tramp with you to the Bar mysell, I wull. Sarve me right
for a-doin' of it."
"Indeed, then, you won't," she answered firmly. "There's a hard day's
work for you, Zak, to-morrow, with all the Christmas parcels, and your
touch of rheumatics so bad last week."
"Why, bless the cheeld, I be as hearty as ever!"
"Of course you are, Zak; of course you are, and think nought of a sack
of potatoes. But if you declare to come with me one step, backward is
the only step I take."
"Well, well," said the Carrier, glad on the whole to escape a long
walk and keep conscience clear; "when you say a thing, Etty, what good
is it? Round these here parts none would harm 'ee. And none of they
furriners be about just now."
"Good-night, Zak, good-night, dear," cried Esther, to shorten
departure, for Cripps was a man of a slow turn of mind, and might go
on for an hour or two; "I shall sleep there to-night, of course, and
meet you at the Golden Cross to-morrow. When had I best be there?"
"Well, you know better than I do. It might be one o'clock, or it might
be two, or it might be half-past three a'most. All you have to do is
this--to leave word at the bar with Sally Brown."
"I shall do nothing of the sort," she answered; "I don't like bars,
and I don't like Miss Brown. I shall look in the yard for the cart,
brother."
"You'll do pretty much as you like. That much a may be cock-sure of."
But before he could finish his exposition of his sister's character,
she was out of sight; and he dropped his grumble, and doubted his mind
about letting her go. Nor that any one at all of the neighbourhood
would hurt her; but that there had been much talk about a camp of
dark-skinned people in Cowley Marsh, not long ago. Therefore he laid
his palm flat from his eyebrows, to follow the distance further; and
seeing no more than the hedges of the lane (now growing in the cold
wind naked) and the track of the lane (from wet mud slaking into
light-coloured crustiness), without any figures, or sound, or shadow,
or sense of life moving anywhere--he made for the best side of his
cottage-door, and brightened up the firelight.
The weather had been for some few weeks in a good constitutional
English state; that is to say, it had no settled tendency towards
anything. Or at any rate, so it seemed to people who took little heed
of it. There had been a little rain, and then a little snow, and a
touch of frost, and then a sample of fog, and so on: trying all
varieties, to suit the British public. True Britons, however, had
grumbled duly at each successive overture; so that the winter was now
resolving henceforth only to please itself. And this determined will
was in the wind, the air, and the earth itself, just when night began
to fall on this dark day of December.
As Esther turned the corner from the Beckley lane into the road, the
broad coach road to Oxford, she met a wind that knew its mind coming
over the crest of Shotover, a stern east wind that whistled sadly over
the brown and barren fields, and bitterly piped in the roadway. To the
chill of this blast the sere oak-leaves shivered in the dusk and
rattled; the grey ash saplings bent their naked length to get away
from it; and the surly stubs of the hedge went to and fro to one
another. The slimy dips of the path began to rib themselves, like the
fronds of fern, and to shrink into wrinkles and sinewy knobs; while
the broader puddles, though skirred by the breeze, found the network
of ice veiling over them. This, as it crusted, began to be capable of
a consistent quivering, with a frail infinitude of spikelets, crossing
and yet carrying into one another. And the cold work (marred every now
and then by the hurry of the wind that urged it) in the main was going
on so fast, that the face of the water ceased to glisten, and instead
of ruffling lifted, and instead of waving wavered. So that, as the
surface trembled, any level eye might see little splinters (held as
are the ribs and harl of feathers) spreading, and rising like stems of
lace, and then with a smooth, crisp jostle sinking, as the wind flew
over them, into the quavering consistence of a coverlet of ice.
Esther Cripps took little heed of these things, or of any other in the
matter of weather, except to say to herself now and then how bitter
cold the wind was, and that she feared it would turn to snow, and how
she longed to be sitting with a cup of "Aunt Exie's" caudle in the
snug room next to the bakehouse, or how glad she would be to get only
as far as the first house of St. Clement's, to see the lamps and the
lights in the shops, and be quit of this dreary loneliness. For now it
must be three market days since fearful rumours began to stir in
several neighbouring villages, which made even strong men discontent
with solitude towards nightfall; and as for the women--just now poor
Esther would rather not think of what they declared. It was all very
well to pretend to doubt it while hanging the clothes out, or turning
the mangle; but as for laughing out here in the dark, and a mile away
from the nearest house--Good Lord! How that white owl frightened her!
Being a sensible and brave girl, she forced her mind as well as she
could into another channel, and lifted the cover of the basket in
which she had some nice things for "Aunt Exie," and then she set off
for a bold little run, until she was out of breath, and trembling at
the sound of her own light feet. For though all the Crippses were
known to be of a firm and resolute fibre, who could expect a young
maid like this to tramp on like a Roman sentinel?
And a lucky thing for her it was that she tried nothing of the sort,
but glided along with her heart in her mouth, and her short skirt
tucked up round her. Lucky also for her that the ground (which she so
little heeded, and so wanted to get over) was in that early stage of
freezing, or of drying to forestall frost, in which it deadens sound
as much as the later stage enlivens it, otherwise it is doubtful
whether she would have seen the Christmas-dressing of the shops in
Oxford.
For, a little further on, she came, without so much as a cow in the
road or a sheep in a field for company, to a dark narrow place, where
the way hung over the verge of a stony hollow, an ancient pit which
had once been worked as part of the quarries of Headington. This had
long been of bad repute as a haunted and ill-omened place; and even
the Carrier himself, strong and resolute as he was, felt no shame in
whispering when he passed by in the moonlight. And the name of the
place was the "Gipsy's Grave." Therefore, as Esther Cripps approached
it, she was half inclined to wait and hide herself in a bush or gap
until a cart or waggon should come down the hill behind her, or an
honest dairyman whistling softly to reassure his shadow, or even a
woman no braver than herself.
But neither any cart came near, nor any other kind of company, only
the violence of the wind, and the keen increase of the frost-bite. So
that the girl made up her mind to put the best foot foremost, and run
through her terrors at such a pace that none of them could lay hold of
her.
Through yards of darkness she skimmed the ground, in haste only to be
rid of it, without looking forward, or over her shoulders, or
anywhere, when she could help it. And now she was ready to laugh at
herself and her stupid fears, as she caught through the trees a
glimpse of the lights of Oxford, down in the low land, scarcely more
than a mile and a half away from her. In the joy of relief she was
ready to jump and pant without fear of the echoes, when suddenly
something caught her ears.
This was not a thing at first to be at all afraid of, but only just
enough to rouse a little curiosity. It seemed to be nothing more nor
less than the steady stroke of a pickaxe. The sound came from the
further corner of the deserted quarry, where a crest of soft and
shingly rock overhung a briary thicket. Any person working there would
be quite out of sight from the road, by reason of the bend of the
hollow.
The blow of the tool came dull and heavy on the dark and frosty wind;
and Esther almost made up her mind to run on, and take no heed of it.
And so she would have done, no doubt, if she had not been a Cripps
girl. But in this family firm and settled opinions had been handed
down concerning the rights of property--the rights that overcome all
wrongs, and outlive death. The brother Leviticus of Stow Wood had sown
a piece of waste at the corner of the clevice with winter carrots for
his herd of swine. The land being none of his thus far, his right so
to treat it was not established, and therefore likely to be attacked
by any rapacious encroacher. Esther felt all such things keenly, and
resolved to find out what was going on.
To this intent she gathered in the skirt of her frock and the fulling
of her cloak, and fending the twigs from her eyes and bonnet, quietly
slipped through a gap in the hedge. For she knew that a steep track,
trodden by children in the blackberry season, led from this gap to the
deep and tangled bottom of the quarry. With care and fear she went
softly down, and followed the curve of the hollow.
The heavy sound of the pickaxe ceased, as she came near and nearer,
and the muttering of rough voices made her shrink into a nook and
listen.
"Tell 'ee, I did see zummat moving," said a man, whom she could dimly
make out on the beetling ridge above her, by the light of the clearing
eastern sky; "a zummat moving down yonner, I tell 'ee."
"No patience, I han't no patience with 'ee," answered a taller man
coming forward, and speaking with a guttural twang, as if the roof of
his mouth were imperfect. "Skeary Jem is your name and nature. Give me
the pick if thee beest aveared. Is this job to be finished to-night,
or not?"
The answer was only a growl or an oath, and the swing of the tool
began again, while Esther's fright grew hot, and thumped in her heart,
and made her throat swell. It was all she could do to keep quiet
breath, and prevent herself from screaming; for something told her
that she was watching a darker crime than theft of roots or robbery of
a sheepfold.
In a short or a long time--she knew not which--as she still lay hid
and dared not show her face above the gorse-tuft, a sound of sliding
and falling shale heavily shook her refuge. She drew herself closer,
and prayed to the Lord, and clasped her hands before her eyes, and
cowered, expecting to be killed at least. And then she peeped forth,
to know what it was about. She never had harmed any mortal body; why
should she be frightened so?
In the catch of the breath which comes when sudden courage makes gulp
at uncertainty, she lifted herself by a stiff old root, to know the
very worst of it. Better almost to be killed and be done with, than
bear the heart-pang of this terrible fear. And there she saw a thing
that struck her so aback with amazement, that every timid sense was
mute.
Whether the sky began to shed a hovering light, or the girl's own eyes
spread and bred a power of vision from their nervous dilation--at any
rate, she saw in the darkness what she had not seen till now. It was
the body of a young woman (such a body as herself might be), lying,
only with white things round it, in the black corner, with gravel and
earth and pieces of rock rolling down on it. There was nothing to
frighten a sensible person now that the worst was known perhaps.
Everybody must be buried at some time. Why should she be frightened
so?
However, Esther Cripps fell faint, and lay in that state long enough
for tons of burying rock to fall, and secret buryers to depart.
CHAPTER III.
OAKLEAF POTATOES.
"Of all slow people in this slow place, I am quite certain that there
is none so slow as Cripps, the Carrier."
This "hot spache," as the patient Zacchary would perhaps have called
it, passed the lips of no less a person than old Squire Oglander. He,
on the 20th day of December (the day after that we began with), was
hurrying up and down the long straight walk of his kitchen garden, and
running every now and then to a post of vantage, from which he could
look over the top of his beloved holly hedge, and make out some of the
zigzags of the narrow lane from Beckley. A bitter black frost had now
set in, and the Squire knew that if he wanted anything more fetched
out of his ground, or anything new put into it, it might be weeks
before he got another chance of doing it. So he made a good bustle,
and stamped, and ran, and did all he could to arouse his men, who knew
him too well to concern themselves about any of his menaces.
"I tell you we are all caught napping, Thomas. I tell you we ought to
be ashamed of ourselves. The frost is an inch in the ground already.
Artichokes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, even horse-radish for our
Christmas beef--and upon my soul, a row of potatoes never even dug
yet! Unless I am after you at every corner--well, I am blessed if I
don't see our keeping onions!"
"Now, measter, 'ee no call to be so grum! None of they things'll be a
haporth the worse. The frost'll ony swaten 'em."
"You zany, I know all your talk. Hold your tongue. Not a glass of beer
will I send out, if this is all I get for it. Sweeten them, indeed!
And when we want them, are we to dig them with mattocks, pray? Or do
you thick-heads expect it to thaw to order, when the pot is bubbling?
Stir your lazy legs, or I'll throw every one of you on the work-house
the moment the first snow falls."
The three men grinned at one another, and proceeded leisurely. They
knew much better than the Squire himself what his gentle nature was,
and that he always expiated a scolding with a jug of beer.
"Man and boy," said the eldest of them, speaking below his breath, as
if this tyranny had extinguished him; "in this here gearden have I
worked, man and boy, for threescore year, and always gi'en
satisfaction. Workuss! What would his father a' said, to hear tell in
this gearden of workuss? Workuss! Well, let un coom, if a will! Can't
be harder work, God knoweth."
"Tummuss, Tummuss, you may say that," said another lazy rascal,
shaking his head, with his heel on his spade, and then wiping his
forehead laboriously. "'Tis the sweat of our brow, Tummuss, none of
'em thinks on--but there, they was born to be driving of us!"
Squire Oglander made as if he heard them not; and then he hurried to
the hedge again, and stood on the wall of the leaf-mould pit, and
peered over the beard of hollies. And this time he spied in the
distance Cripps, or at any rate the tilt of the Crippsian cart,
jogging sedately to the rhythm of the feet of Dobbin.
"Hurrah!" cried the Squire, who was still as young in mind as if he
had no body. "By George, we shall be just in time. Never mind what I
said, my lads. I was a little bit cross, I know. Take out the crumbs
from the bottom of your trenches, and go two inches deeper. Our new
potatoes are come at last! Mary, come out with a gallon of ale."
Squire Oglander, having retired now from the army and all warfare, was
warmly devoted to the arts of peace. Farming, planting, gardening,
breeding, training of dogs, and so on--all of these quiet delights
fell softly on a very active mind, when the vigour of the body began
to fail. He loved his farm, and he loved his garden, and all his
attempts at improvement, and nothing better than to point out his own
mistakes to rash admirers. But where is the pleasure of showing things
to strangers who know nothing? The old man's grand delight of all was
to astonish his own daughter, his only child, Grace Oglander.
This it was that made him work so hard at the present moment. He was
determined to have his kitchen garden in first-rate winter order by
the time his daughter should come home from a visit to her aunt at
Cowley. Now this sister, Mrs. Fermitage, had promised to bring home
their joint pet Gracie in time for the dinner at five o'clock that
very day, and to dine there with them; so that it was needful to look
alive, and to make quick step of everything. Moreover, this good
Squire had some little insight (as behoves a farmer and a sportsman)
into the ways and meaning of the weather of the neighbourhood. He knew
as well as a short-tailed field-mouse that a long frost was coming.
The sharp dry rustle of the upturned leaves of holly and of ivy, the
heavy stoop of the sullen sky, the patches of spaded mould already
browning with powdery crispness, the upward shivering look of the
grass, and the loss of all gloss upon everything, and the shuddering
rattle in the teeth of a man who opened his mouth to the wind at
all--many other things than these, as well as all of them, were here;
that any man (not blind, or deaf, or choked in citied ignorance) might
fall to at once, and dig every root of his potatoes.
But the strange thing, in this present matter, was that Squire
Oglander was bent not only on digging potatoes, but also on planting
them, this very day. Forsooth it was one of his fixed dates in the
chronicles of the garden, that happen what might, or be the season
whatsoever it chose to be, new potatoes and peas he would have by the
last day of May, at the latest. And this without any ignoble resort to
forcing-pit, hot-bed, or even cold frame; under the pure gaze of the
sky, by that time they must be ready. Now, this may be easy at
Ventnor, or Penzance, or even Bournemouth; but in the highlands of
Oxfordshire it requires some skill and management. In the first place,
both pea and potato must be of a kind that is ready to awake right
early; and then they must be humoured with a very choice place; and
after that they must be shielded from the winter's rages. If all these
"musts" can be complied with, and several "ifs" are solved aright, the
gardener (eager as well as patient) may hope to get pleasure from his
early work.
Of all men there was none perhaps more capable of hoping than this
good Squire Oglander. In his garden and his household, or among his
friends and neighbours, or the world at large, he not only tried to
see, but saw, the very best side of everything. When things fell out
amiss, he always looked very wise, and shook his head, and declared
that he had predicted them; and before very long he began to find out
that they were not so bad as they might have been. His ruddy face, and
blue eyes, and sometimes decidedly waggish nose, as well as his crisp
white hair, and way of standing to be looked at, let everybody know
that here was a man of no great pretension, yet true, and of kind and
happy heart, and fit to be relied upon. Ten thousand such may be found
in England; and they cannot be too many.
"Inside and outside, all look alive!" cried this gentleman, running to
and fro: "Gracie will be home; Miss Grace, I mean; and not a bit of
fire in the drawing-room grate! No Christmas-boxes for any of you
sluts! Now, I did not mean that, Mary, as you might know. Inside the
women, and outside the men--now, what is this paper for, my dear?"
"That there Cripps, sir, have a sent 'un in. He be gettin' so
pertikular!"
"Quite right. Quite right. Business is business. No man can be too
particular. Let him sit down and have a pint of ale. He wants me to
sign this paper, does he? Very well; tell him to come next week. My
fingers are cramped with the wind. Tell Cripps--now, don't you be in
such a hurry, Mary; Cripps is not a marrying man."
"As if I would touch him with a pair of tongs, sir! A Hookham to have
a Cripps, sir!--a man who always smells as if he had been a-combing of
a horse!"
"Ah, poor Mary, the grapes are sour. Tell bachelor Cripps to send in
the bag. And bring me the little truck-basket, Mary; I dare say that
will hold them. Just in time, they are only just in time. To-morrow
would have been a day too late."
The Squire was to pay a guinea for this bushel of early oakleaf
potatoes, a sort that was warranted to beat the ashleaf by a
fortnight, and to crop tenfold as much. The bag had been sent by the
Henley coach from a nursery near Maidenhead, and left at the Black
Horse in St. Clement's, to be called for by the Beckley carrier.
"Stay now," cried the Squire; "now I think of it we will unpack the
bag in the brewery, Mary. They have had a fire there all the morning.
And it will save making any mess in here. Miss Grace is coming, bless
her heart! And she'll give it to me, if she finds any dirt."
"But, sir, if you please, Master Cripps now just is beginning of his
pint of ale. And he never hurrieth over that----"
"Well, we don't want Cripps. We only want the bag. Jem will bring it
into the brewery, if you want to sit with Cripps. Cripps is tired, I
dare say. These young men's legs are not fit for much. Stop--call old
Thomas; he's the best, after all. If I want a thing done, I come back
to the old folk, after all."
"Well, sir, I don't think you have any reason to say that. Howsomever,
here cometh Mr. Kale. Mr. Kale, if you please, you be wanted."
Presently Thomas Kale, the man who had worked so long in the garden
there, followed his master across the court, with the bag of potatoes
on his back. The weight was a trifle, of course, being scarcely over
half a hundredweight; but Thomas was too old a hand to make too light
of anything.
"I've knowed the time," he said, setting down the sack on the head of
an empty barrel, "when that there weight would have failed, you might
say, to crook my little finger. Now, make so bold--do you know the
raison?"
"Why, Thomas, we cannot expect to be always so young as we were once,
you know."
"Nout to do wi' it--less nor nout. The raison lie all in the vittels,
maister; the vittels is fallen from what they was."
"Thomas, you give me no peace with your victuals. You must groan to
the cook, not to me, about them. Now, cut the cord. Why, what has
Cripps been about?"
The bag was made of a stout grey canvas, not so thick as sacking, and
as the creases of the neck began to open, under the slackening cord,
three or four red stripes were shown, such as are sometimes to be
found in the neck of a leather mail-bag, when the postmaster has been
in a hurry, and dropped his wax too plenteously. But the stripes in
these creases were not dry and brittle, as of run sealing-wax, but
clammy and damp, as if some thick fluid had oozed from dripping
fingers.
"I don't like the look of it," cried the old Squire. "Cripps should be
more careful. He has left the bag down at his brother the butcher's. I
am sure they never sent it out like this. Not that I am of a squeamish
order, but still--good God! What is this that I see?"
With scarcely time for his cheeks to blanch, or his firm old hands to
tremble, Squire Oglander took from the mouth of the sack a coil of
long bright golden hair. The brown shade of the potatoes beneath it
set off its glistening beauty. He knew it at a glance; there was no
such hair in all Oxfordshire but his Gracie's. A piece of paper was
roughly twisted in and out the shining wreath. This he spread in the
hollow of his palm, and then put on his spectacles, and read by the
waning light these words, "All you will ever see of her."
CHAPTER IV.
CRIPPS IN A QUANDARY.
Worth Oglander, now in his seventieth year, although he might be a
trifle fat, was a truly hale and active man. His limbs were as sound
as his conscience; and he was well content with his life and age. He
had seen a good deal of the world and of enemies, in the stirring
times of war. But no wrong lay in the bottom of his heart, no harm
ever done to any one, except that he had killed a few Frenchmen,
perhaps, as all Englishmen used to be forced to do.
Moreover, he had what most folk now, of the very best kind, have
almost outlived, a staunch and steadfast faith in the management of
the world by its Maker. We are too clever now for all this, of course.
But it must be allowed that this fine old faith bred courage, truth,
and comfort.
"Whoever has played this trick with me," said the Squire, as soon as
he recovered himself, "is, to say the least of it, a blackguard. Even
for a Christmas joke, it is carrying things a great deal too far. I
have played, and been played, many practical jokes, when there was
nothing else to do; in winter-quarters, and such like. But this is
beyond---- Thomas, run and fetch Cripps. I will get to the bottom of
this, I am resolved."
In a minute or two Master Cripps came in. His face was a little
flushed, from the power of the compliments paid to Mary, but his eyes
were quite firm, and his breeches and gaiters strictly under
discipline of the legs inside them.
"Servant, sir," he said, touching his forelock, nearly of the colour
of clover hay; "all correct, I hope, Squire, safe and sound and in
good condition. That's how I deliver all goods, barring the will of
the A'mighty."
"Tell me the meaning of this." As he spoke Mr. Oglander held up the
bright wreath of hair, and pointed to the red stains on the sack.
Cripps, as behoved a slow-minded man, stared at the hair, and the bag,
and the Squire, the roof of the brewery, and all the tubs; and then
began feeling in his hat for orders.
"Cripps, are you dumb; are you tipsy; or what? Or are you too much
ashamed of yourself?"
"I ain't done nort for to be ashamed of--me, nor my father avoore me."
"Then will you tell me what this means? Are you going to keep me all
night, for God's sake?"
"Squire, I never, I never see'd 'un. I know no more than a sto-un. I
know no more than the dead, I do."
"Where did you get the bag? Was it like this? Who gave it to you? Have
you let it out of sight? Did you see anybody come near it?"
"Squire, I can't tell 'ee such a many things. They heft up the barg to
me at the Black Horse, where the bargs is alwas left for you. I took
no heed of 'un, out of common. And no one have a titched him since,
but me."
There was nothing more to be learned from Cripps, except that he
passed the Black Horse that day a little earlier than usual, and had
not brought his sister Esther, who was to have met him at the Golden
Cross. He had come home by way of Elsfield, having something to
deliver there, and had given a lift to old Shepherd Wakeling; but that
could have naught to do with it.
It was now getting dark, and the Squire every moment grew more and
more uneasy. "Keep all this nonsense to yourself now, Cripps," he
said, as he stowed the bag under a tub, and carefully covered his
daughter's hair, and the piece of paper, with a straining sieve; "it
might annoy me very much if this joke went any further, you know. I
can trust Thomas to hold his tongue, and I hope I can trust you,
neighbour Cripps."
"Your honour knoweth what I be," answered the loyal Carrier. "Ever
since I were a boy--but there, they all knows what I be."
Master Cripps, with his brain "a good piece doiled," as he afterwards
said of it, made his way back to the cart, and mounted in his special
manner. Although he was only two-score years of age, he had so much
rheumatism in his right knee--whether it sprang from the mud, or the
ruts, or (as he believed) from the turnpike gates--that he was bound
to get up in this way. First he looked well up and down the lane, to
be sure there was no other cart in sight, then he said "whoa-hoa" to
Dobbin (who was always quite ready to receive that advice), and then
he put his left foot on the little step, and made sure that it was
quite steady. Throwing his weight on that foot, he laid hold of the
crupper with his right hand, and placed his stiff knee on the flat of
the shaft, never without a groan or two. At this stage he rested, to
collect his powers; and then with decisive action flung his left foot
upon the footboard, and casting the weight of his body thither, came
down on the seat, with a thump and rattle. He was now all right, and
Dobbin felt it, and acknowledged the fact with a grateful grunt. Then
Carrier Cripps took up the reins, and made a little flourish with his
brass-bound whip, and Dobbin put up his head, and started with his
most convenient foot.
"I dunno what to make of this here start," said Cripps to himself, and
his horse and cart, as soon as he had smitten his broad chest long
enough to arouse circulation. "Seemeth to me a queer thing truly. But
I never were a hand at a riddle. Wugg then, Dobbin! Wun'not go home
to-night?"
CHAPTER V.
A RIDE THROUGH THE SNOW.
Meanwhile the old Squire, with a troubled mind, kept talking and
walking about, and listening for the rumble of his sister's carriage,
the clank of horses' hoofs, and the ring of wheels upon the frozen
road. He could not believe that any one in the world would hurt his
darling Gracie. Everybody loved her so, and the whole parish was so
fond of her, and she had such a way of easing every one's
perplexities, that if any villain durst even think of touching a hair
of her blessed head--yet whose hair was it?--whose hair was it? And
such a quantity as never could have been cut with her consent!
"This is too much! I cannot bear it!" he said to himself, after many a
turn, and anxious search of the distance; "Joan's carriage should have
been here long ago. My darling would have made them keep their time. I
cannot stop here: I must go to meet them. But I need not startle any
one."
To provide for this, he just looked in at the kitchen door, and told
the old cook to keep the dinner back awhile; for the roads were so bad
that the ladies were almost sure to be behind their time; and then he
went quietly to the stable, where the horses were bedded down, and by
the light of an old horn lantern saddled and bridled his favourite
hack.
Heavy snow-clouds had been gathering all the afternoon; and now as he
passed through a side-gate into the lane, and turned his mare's head
eastward, the forward flakes were borne by the sharp wind into his
white whiskers. "We shall have a coarse night of it, I doubt," he said
to himself, as he buttoned his coat. At every turn of the lane he
hoped to meet his sister's chariot labouring up the slippery track
with the coal-black horses gray with snow, and somebody well wrapped
up inside, to make him laugh at his childish fears. But corner after
corner he turned, and met no carriage, no cart, no horse, nor even so
much as a man afoot; only the snow getting thicker and sharper, and
the wind beginning to wail to it. The ruts of the lane grew more
distinct, as their combs of frozen mud attracted and held the driving
whiteness; and the frogs of heavy cart-horses might be traced by the
hoary increment. Then in three or four minutes, a silvery greyness
(cast by the brown face of the roadway underlying the skin of snow)
glistened between steep hedgerows wherein the depth of darkness
rested. Soon even these showed traitor members, and began to hang the
white feather forth, where drooping spray or jutting thicket stopped
the course of the laden air. Every hoof of the horse fell softer than
it had fallen the step before, and the old man stooped to heed his
reins, as his hoary eyebrows crusted.
Fear struck colder to his heart than frost, as he turned the last
corner of his way, without meeting presence or token of his sister or
darling daughter. In the deepening snow he drew his horse up under the
two great yew-trees that overhung his sister's gate, and fumbled in
the dark for the handle. The close heavy gates were locked and barred;
and nothing had lately passed through them. Then he hoped that the
weather might have stopped the carriage, and he tugged out the heavy
bronze lion's-head in the pillar, which was the bell-pull. The bell in
the porch of the house clanged deeply, and the mastiff heavily bayed
at him; but he had to make the bell clang thrice before any servant
answered it.
"Who be you there?" at last a gruff voice asked, without stretch of
courtesy. "This sort of weather, come ringing like that! If 'ee say
much more, I'll let the big dog loose."
"Open the gate, you young oaf," cried the Squire. "I suppose you are
one of the new lot, eh? Not to know me, Worth Oglander!"
"Why couldn't you have said so then?" the surly fellow answered, as he
slowly opened one leaf of the gate, sweeping a fringe of snow back.
"Such a fellow wouldn't be with me half a day. Are you too big for
your work, sir? Run on before me, you piecrust in pumps, or you shall
taste my whip, sir."
The footman, for once in his life, took his feet up, and ran in a
bluster of rage and terror to the front door, which he had left wide
open to secure a retreat from violence. Mr. Oglander struck his mare,
and she started so that he scarcely pulled her head up under the
coigne of his sister's porch.
"What is all this, I would beg to know? If you think to frighten me,
you are mistaken. Oh, Worth is it? Worth, whatever do you mean by
making such a commotion?"
Three or four frightened maids were peeping, safe in the gloom of the
entrance-hall; while the lady of the house came forward bravely in the
lamp-light.
"I will speak to you presently, Joan," said the Squire, as he vainly
searched, with a falling heart, for some dear face behind her. "Here,
Bob, I know you at any rate; take the old mare to the stable."
Then, with a sign to his sister, he followed her softly into the
dining-room. At a glance he saw that she had dined alone, and he fell
into a chair, and could not speak.
"Have you brought back the stockings? Why, how ill you look? The cold
has been too much for you, brother. You should not have come out. What
was Grace doing to let----"
"Where is my daughter Grace?"
"Your daughter Grace! My niece Grace! Why, at home in her father's
house, to be sure! Worth, are your wits wandering?"
"When did Grace leave you?"
"At three o'clock, yesterday. How can you ask, when you sent in such
hot haste for her? You might be quite sure that she would not linger.
I thought it rather--let me tell you----"
"I never sent for Grace. I have not seen her!"
Mrs. Fermitage looked at her brother steadily, with one hand fencing
her forehead. She knew that he was of no drunken kind--yet once in a
way a man might take too much--especially in such weather. But he
answered her gaze with such eyes that she came up to him, and began to
tremble.
"I tell you, Joan, I never sent for Grace. If you don't know where she
is--none but God knows!"
"I have told you all," his sister answered, catching her breath at
every word almost--"a letter came from you, overruling the whole of
our arrangement--you were not ill; but you wanted her for some
particular purpose. She was to walk, and you would meet her; and walk
she did, poor darling! And I was so hurt that I would not send----"
"You let her go, Joan! You let her go! It was a piece of your proud
temper. Her death lies at your door. And so will mine!"
Mr. Oglander was very sorry, as soon as he had spoken thus unjustly;
but the deep pang of the heart devoured any qualms of conscience.
"Are you sure that you let her go? Are you sure that she is not in
this house now?" he cried, coming up to his sister, and taking both
hands to be sure of her. "She must be here; and you are joking with
me."
"Worth, she left this house at two o'clock by that timepiece
yesterday, instead of to-day, as we meant to do. She would not let any
one go with her, because you were coming down the hill to meet her.
Not expecting to go home that day, she had a pair of my silk stockings
on, because--well, I need not go into that--and knowing what a darling
little fidget she is, I thought she had sent you back with them, and
to make your peace for so flurrying me."
"Have you nothing more to tell me, Joan? I shall go mad while you
dwell on your stockings. Who brought that letter? What is become of
it? Did you see it? Can you think of anything? Oh, Joan, you women are
so quick-witted! Surely you can think of something!"
Mrs. Fermitage knew what her brother meant; but no sign would she show
of it. The Squire was thinking of a little touch of something that
might have grown up into love, if Grace had not been so shy about it,
and so full of doubts as to what she ought to do. Her aunt had been
anxious to help this forward; but not for the world to speak of it.
"Concerning the letter, I only just saw it. I was up--well, well, I
mean I happened to have something to do in my own room then. The dear
creature knocked at my door, and I could not let her in at the
moment----"
"You were doing your wig--well, well, go on."
"I was doing nothing of the kind--your anxiety need not make you rude,
Worth. However, she put the letter under the door, and I saw that it
was your handwriting, and so urgent that I was quite flurried, and she
was off in two minutes, without my even kissing her. Oh, poor dear! My
little dear! She said good-bye through the key-hole, and could not
wait for me even to kiss her!"
At this thought the elderly lady broke down, and could for the moment
do nothing but sob.
"Dear heart, dear heart!" cried the Squire, who was deeply attached to
his sister; "don't take on so, my dear good Joan! We know of no harm
as yet--that is"--for he thought of the coil of hair, but with strong
effort forbore to speak of it--"nothing I mean in any way positive, or
disastrous. She may have, you know--she may have taken it into her
head to--to leave us for awhile, Joan."
"To run away! To elope! Not she! She is the last girl in the world to
do it. Whatever may have happened, she has not done that. You ought to
know better than that, Worth."
"Perhaps I do; I have no more time to talk of that, or any other
thing. I shall hurry into Oxford, and see John Smith, and let
everybody know of it. What do I care what people think? Send a man on
horseback to Beckley at once. Have you any man worth a pinch of salt?
You are always changing so."
"I cannot keep cripples, or sots, dear brother. Take any one you
please of them."
"Any one who will deign to come, you should say. Deep snow tries the
mettle of new-comers."
CHAPTER VI.
THE PUBLIC OF THE "PUBLIC."
Meanwhile, Esther Cripps, who perhaps could have thrown some light on
this strange affair, was very uneasy in her mind. She had not heard,
of course, as yet, that Grace Oglander was missing. But she could not
get rid of the fright she had felt, and the dread of some dark secret.
Her sister-in-law was in such a condition that she must not be told of
it; and as for her brother Exodus, it would be worse than useless to
speak to him. He had taken it into his head, ever since that business
with the "College gent," that his sister was not "right-minded"--that
she dreamed things, and imagined things; and that anything she liked
to say should be listened to, and thought no more of. And Baker Cripps
was one of those men from whose minds no hydraulic power can lift an
idea--laid once, laid for ever.
Esther had no one to tell her tale to. She longed to be home at
Beckley; but there had been such symptoms with the baker's wife, that
a woman, of the largest experience to be found in Oxford, declared
that there was another coming. This was not so. But still (as all the
women said) it might have been; and where was the man to lay down the
law to them that had been through it?
The whole of this was made quite right in the end and everybody
satisfied; but it prevented poor Esther from going to the Golden
Cross, as she should have done; and the Carrier (having a little tiff
with his brother about a sack of meal, as long ago as Michaelmas) left
him to bake his own bread, and would rather drive over his dinner than
dine with him.
The days of the week are hard to follow, as everybody must have long
found out; but still, from Tuesday to Saturday is a considerable time
to think of. Master Cripps had two carrying days, two great days of
long voyaging. Not that he refrained from coasting here and there
about the parish, or up and down a lane or two, on days of briefer
enterprise; or refused to take some washings round; for he was not the
man to be ashamed of earning sixpence honourably.
But now such weather had set in, that even Cripps, with his active
turn and pride in his honest calling, was forced to stay at home and
boil the bones the butcher sent him, and nurse his stiff knee, and
smoke his pipe, and go no further than his bed of hardy kail, or
Dobbin's stable. Except that when the sun went down--if it ever got
up, for aught he knew--his social instincts so awoke, that he managed
to go to the corner of the lane, where the blacksmith kept the
"public-house." This was a most respectable house, frequented very
quietly. Master Cripps, from his intercourse with the world, and
leading position in Beckley, as well as his pleasant way of letting
other people talk, and nodding when their words were wisdom--Cripps
had long been accepted as the oracle; and he liked it.
Even there--in his brightest moments, when he smoked his pipe and
thought, leaving emptier folk to waste the income of their brain in
words, and even when he had been roused up to settle some vast
question by a brief emphatic utterance--his satisfaction was now
alloyed. Not from any threat of rival wisdom--that was hopeless--but
from the universal call for a guiding judgment from him. The whole of
Beckley village now was more upset than had been known for thirty
years and upward. Ever since Napoleon had been expected to encamp at
Carfax, and all the University went into white gaiters against him,
there had been no such stir of parochial mind as now was heaving.
Cripps could remember the former movement, and how his father had lost
wisdom by saying that nothing would come of it--whereas the greatest
things came of it; the tailor was bankrupt by making breeches which
the Government would not pay for, the publican bought a horse and
defied his brewer on the strength of it, and the parish-clerk limped
for the rest of his life through the loss of two toes when
tipsy--therefore Zacchary Cripps was now determined to hide his
opinion.
When the mind is in this uncertain state, it fails of receiving that
consideration which it is slowly exerting. If Cripps had stood up, and
rashly spoken, he must have carried all before him: whereas now he
felt, and was grieved to feel, that shallow fellows were taking his
place, by dint of decisive ignorance. This Friday evening, everybody,
who had teeth to face the arrowy wind, came into the Dusty Anvil, well
laden with enormous rumours.
Phil Hiss, the blacksmith, had a daughter, who served him as a
barmaid, Amelia, or Mealy Hiss; a year or two older than Miss
Oglander, and in the simple country fashion (setting birth and rank
aside) a true ally and favourite. Now, some old woman in Beckley had
said, as long ago as yesterday, that she could not believe but what
Mealy Hiss, who dressed herself so outrageous, knew a deal more than
she dared speak out concerning that wonderful unkid thing about the
Squire's daughter. For her part, this old woman was sure that a young
man lay at the bottom of it. Them good young ladies that went to the
school, and made up soup and such-like, was not a bit better than the
rest of us; and if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, pitchforks
wouldn't choke them. She would say no more, it was no concern of hers;
and everybody knew what she was. But as sure as her copper burst that
morning, something would come out ere long; and Mealy would be at the
bottom of it!
Miss Amelia Hiss, before she lit her two tallow-candles--which never
was allowed to be done till a quart of beer had been called for--knew
right well that all her wits must be brought into use that evening. A
young man, who had a liking for her, which she was beginning to think
about, came in before his time to tell her all that Gammer Gurdon
said. Wherefore she put on her new neck-ribbon (believed to have come
express from London) and her agate brooch, and other most imposing
properties. With the confidence of all these, she drew the ale, and
kept her distance.
For an hour or so these tactics answered. Young men, old men, and good
women (who came of course for their husbands' sakes), soberly took
their little drop of beer, nodded to one another, and said little.
Pressure lay on heart and mind; and nature's safety-valve, the tongue,
was sat upon by prudence. But this, of course, could not last long.
Little jerkings of short questions broke the crust of silence; lips
from blowing froth of beer began to relax their grimness; eyelids that
had drooped went up, and winks grew into friendly gaze; and everybody
began to beg everybody's pardon less. The genial power of good ale,
and the presence of old friends, were working on the solid English
hearts; and every man was ready for his neighbour to say something.
Hiss, the blacksmith and the landlord, felt that on his heavy
shoulders lay the duty of promoting warmth and cordiality. He sat
without a coat, as usual, and his woolsey sleeves rolled back
displayed the proper might of arm. In one grimy hand he held a pipe,
at which he had given the final puff, and in the other a broad-rimmed
penny, ready to drop it into the balance of the brass tobacco-box, and
open it for a fresh supply. First he glanced at the door, to be sure
that his daughter Mealy could not hear; for ever since her mother's
death he had stood in some awe of Mealy; and then receiving from
Zacchary Cripps a nod of grave encouragement, he fixed his eyes on him
through the smoke, and uttered what all were inditing of.
"I call this a very rum start, I do, about poor Squire's daughter."
The public of the public gazed with admiring approval at him. The
sentiment was their own, and he had put it well and briefly. In
different ways, according to the state and manner of each of them,
they let him know that he was right, and might hold on by what he
said. Then Master Hiss grew proud of this, and left it for some other
body to bear the weight of thinking out. But even before his broad
forefinger had quite finished with his pipe, and pressed the crown of
fuel flat, a man of no particular wisdom, and without much money,
could not check a weak desire to say something striking. His name was
Batts, and he kept a shop, and many things in it which he could not
sell. Before he spoke, he took precautions to secure an audience, by
standing up, and rapping the table with the heel of his half-pint mug.
"Hear, hear!" cried some young fellow; and Batts was afraid that he
had gone too far.
"Gentlemen," said Grocer Batts, the very same man who had threatened
to put his son into the carrying line, "I bows, in course, to superior
wisdom, and them as is always to and fro. But every man must think his
thoughts, right or wrong, and speak them out, and not be afeared of no
one. And my mind is that in this here business, we be all of us going
to work the wrong way altogether."
As no one had any sense as yet of having gone to work at all, in this
or any other matter, and several men had made up their minds to be
thrown out of work on the Saturday night if the bitter weather lasted,
this great speech of Grocer Batts created some confusion.
"Let 'un go to work, hisself!" "What do he know about work?"
"Altogether wrong! Give me the saw-dust for to clear my throat!" These
and stronger exclamations showed poor Batts that it would have been
better for trade if he had held his tongue. He hid his discomfiture in
his mug, and made believe to drink, although it had ever so long been
empty.
But Carrier Cripps had a generous soul. He did not owe so much as a
halfpenny piece to Master Batts, neither did he expect to make a
single halfpenny out of him--quite the contrary, in fact; and yet he
came to his rescue.
"Touching what neighbour Batts have said," he began in his slow and
steadfast voice, "it may be neither here nor there; and all of us be
liable, in our best of times, to error. But I do believe as he means
well, and hath a good deal inside him, and a large family to put up
with. He may be right, and all us in the wrong. Time will show, with
patience. I have knowed so many things as looked at first unlikely,
come true as Gospel in the end, and so many things I were sure of turn
out quite contrairy, that whenever a man hath aught to say, I likes to
hearken to him. There now, I han't no more to say; and I leave you to
make the best of it."
Zacchary rose, for his time was up; he saw that hot words might ensue,
and he detested brawling. Moreover, although he did not always keep
strict time with his horse and cart, no man among the living could be
more punctual to his pillow. With kind "good-nights" from all, he
passed, and left the smoky scene behind. As he stopped at the bar to
say good-bye, and to pay his score to Amelia, for whom he had a
liking, a short, quick, rosy man came in, shaking snow from his boots,
and seeming to have lost his way that night. By the light from the
bar, the Carrier knew him, and was about to speak to him, but received
a sign to hold his tongue, and pass on without notice. Clumsily enough
he did as he was bidden, and went forth, puzzled in his homely pate by
this new piece of mystery.
For the man who passed him was John Smith, not as yet well-known, but
held by all who had experience of him to be the shrewdest man in
Oxford. This man quietly went into the sanded parlour, and took his
glass, and showed good manners to the company. They set him down as a
wayfarer, but a pleasant one, and well to do; and as words began to
kindle with the friction of opinions, he listened to all that was
said, but did not presume to side with any one.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BEST FOOT FOREMOST.
The arrows of the snowy wind came shooting over Shotover. It was
Saturday now of that same week with which we began on Tuesday. The
mercury during those four days had not risen once above 28° of
Fahrenheit, and now it stood about 22°, and lower than that in the
river meadows. Trusty and resolute Dobbin never had a harder job than
now. Some parts of Headington Hill give pretty smart collar-work in
the best of times; and now with deep snow scarred by hoofs, and ridged
by wheels, but not worn down, hard it seemed for a horse, however
sagacious, to judge what to do. Dobbin had seen snow ere now, and gone
through a good deal of it. But that was before the snow had fallen so
thickly on his own mane and tail, and even his wise eyebrows. That was
in the golden days, when youth and quick impatience moved him, and the
biggest flint before his wheel was crushed, with a snort at the
road-surveyor.
But now he was come to a different state of body, and therefore of
spirit too. At his time of life it would not do to be extravagant of
strength; it was not comely to kick up the heels; neither was it wise
to cherish indignation at the whip. So now on the homeward road, with
a heavy Christmas-laden cart to drag, this fine old horse took good
care of himself, and having only a choice of evils, chose the least
that he could find.
Alas, the smallest that he could find were great and very heavy ills.
Scarcely any man stops to think of the many weary cares that weigh
upon the back of an honest horse. Men are eloquent on the trouble that
sits behind the horseman; but the silent horse may bear all that, and
the troublesome man in the saddle to boot, without any poet to pity
him. Dobbin knew all this, but was too much of a horse to dwell on it.
He kept his tongue well under bit, and his eyes in sagacious blinkers,
and sturdily up the hill he stepped, while Cripps, his master, trudged
beside him.
Every "talented" man must think, whenever he walks beside a horse, of
the superior talents of the horse--the bounty of nature in four curved
legs, the pleasure there must be in timing them, the pride of the hard
and goutless feet, the glory of the mane (to which the human beard is
no more than seaweed in a billow), the power of blowing (which no man
has in a comely and decorous form); and last, not least, the final
blessing of terminating usefully in a tail. Zacchary Cripps was a man
of five talents, and traded with them wisely; but often as he walked
beside his horse, and smelled his superiority, he became quite humble,
and wiped his head, and put his whip back in the cart again. The
horse, on the other hand, looked up to Zacchary with soft faith and
love. He knew that his master could not be expected quite to
understand the ways a horse is bound to have of getting on in
harness--the hundreds of things that must needs be done--and done in
proper order, too--the duty of going always like a piece of the finest
music, with chains, and shafts, and buckles, and hard leather to be
harmonized, and the load which men are not born to drag, until they
make it for themselves. Dobbin felt the difference, but he never
grumbled as men do.
He made the best of the situation; and it was a hard one. The hill was
strong against the collar; and, by reason of the snow, zigzag and the
corkscrew tactics could not be resorted to. At all of these he was a
dab, by dint of steep experience; but now the long hill must be
breasted, and both shoulders set to it. The ruts were as slippery as
glass, and did not altogether fit the wheels he had behind him; and in
spite of the spikes which the blacksmith gave him, the snow balled on
his hairy feet. So he stopped, and shook himself, and panted with
large resolutions; and Cripps from his capacious pockets fetched the
two oak wedges, and pushed one under either wheel; while Esther, who
was coming home at last, jumped from her seat, to help the load, and
patted Dobbin's kind nose, and said a word or two to cheer him.
"The best harse as ever looked through a bridle," Zacchary declared
across his mane; "but he must be hoomered with his own way now, same
as the rest on us, when us grows old. Etty, my dear, no call for you
to come down and catch chilblains."
"Zak, I am going to push behind. I am not big enough to do much good.
But I would rather be alongside of you, through this here bend of the
road, I would."
For now the dusk was gathering in, as they toiled up the lonesome and
snowy road where it overhung the "Gipsy's Grave."
"This here bend be as good as any other," said Cripps, though himself
afraid of it. "What ails you, girl? What hath ailed you, ever since
out of Oxford town you come? Is it a jail thou be coming home to?
Oxford turns the head of thee!"
"Now, Zak, you know better than that. I would liefer be at Beckley any
day. But I have been that frightened since I passed this road on
Tuesday night that scarce a morsel could I eat or drink, and never
sleep for dreaming."
"Frightened, child? Lord, bless my heart! you make me creep by talking
so. There, wait till we be in our own lane--can't spare the time now
to speak of it."
"Oh, but, Zak, if you please, you must. I have had it on my mind so
long. And I kept it for you, till we got to the place, that you might
go and see to it."
"Etty, now, this is childish stuff; no time to hearken to any such
tell-up. Enough to do, the Lord knows there be, without no foolish
stories."
"It is not a foolish story, Zak. It is what I saw with my own eyes. We
are close to the place; it was in a dark hollow, just below the road
on here. I will show you; and then I will stand by the cart, while you
go and seek into it."
"I wun't leave the haigh road for any one, I tell 'ee. All these goods
is committed to my charge, and my dooty is to stick to them. A likely
thing as I'd leave the cart to be robbed in that there sort of way.
Ah, ha! they'd soon find out, I reckon, what Zacchary Cripps is made
of."
"Ah, we all know how brave you are, dear Zak. And perhaps you wouldn't
like to leave me, brother?"
"No, no; of course not. How could I do it? All by yourself, and the
weather getting dark. Hup! Hup! Dobbin, there. Best foot foremost
kills the hill."
But Esther was even more strongly set to tell the story and relieve
her mind, than Zacchary was to relieve his mind by turning a deaf ear
to all of it. Nevertheless, she might have failed, if it had not been
for a lucky chance. Dobbin, after a very fine rush, and spirited
bodily tug at the shafts, was suddenly forced to pull up and pant, and
spread his legs, to keep where he was, until his wind should come back
again. And he stopped with the off-wheel of the cart within a few
yards of the gap in the hedge, where Esther began her search that
night. She knew the place at a glance, although in the snow it looked
so different; and she ran to the gap, and peeped as if she expected to
see it all again.
In all the beauty of fair earth, few things are more beautiful than
snow on clustering ivy-leaves. Wednesday's fall had been shaken off;
for even in the coldest weather, jealous winds and evaporation soon
clear foliage of snow. But a little powdery shed of flakes had come at
noon that very day, like the flitting of a fairy; and every delicate
star shone crisply in its cupped or pillowed rest. The girl was afraid
to shake a leaf, because she had her best bonnet on; therefore she
drew back, and called the reluctant Zacchary to gaze.
"Nort but a sight of snow," said he; "it hath almost filled old quarry
up. Harse have rested, and so have we. Shan't be home by candlelight.
Wugg then! Dobbin--wugg then! wilt 'a?"
"Stop, brother, stop! Don't be in such a hurry. Something I must tell
you now, that I have been feared to tell anybody else. It was so
dreadfully terrible! Do you see anything in the snow down there?"
"As I am a sinner, there be something moving. Jump up into the cart,
girl. I shall never get round with my things to-night."
"There is something there, Zak, that will never move again. There is
the dead body of a woman there!"
"No romantics! No romantics!" the Carrier answered as he turned away;
but his cheeks beneath a week's growth of beard turned as white as the
snow in the buckthorn. No living man might scare him--but a woman, and
a dead one----
"Come, Zak," cried Esther, having seen much worse than she was likely
now to see, "you cannot be afraid of 'romantics,' Zak. Come here, and
I will show thee."
Driven by shame and curiosity, the valiant Cripps came back to her,
and even allowed himself to be led a little way through the gap into
the deep untrodden and drifted snow. She took him as far as a corner,
whence the nook of the quarry was visible; and there with trembling
fingers pointed to a vast billow of pure white, piled by the driving
east wind over the grave, as she thought, of the murdered one.
"Enough," he said, having heard her tale, and becoming at once a man
again in the face of something real; "my dear, what a fright thou must
have had! How couldst thou have kept it all this time? I would not
tell thee our news at home, for fear of tarrifying thee in the cold.
Hath no one to Oxford told thee?"
"Told me what? Oh, Zak, dear Zak, I am so frightened, I can hardly
stand."
"Then run, girl, run! We must go home, fast as ever we can, for
constable."
He took her to the cart, and reckless of Dobbin's indignation, lashed
him up the hill, and made him trot the whole length of Beckley lane,
then threw a sack over his loins and left his Christmas parcels in the
frost and snow, while he hurried to Squire Oglander.
CHAPTER VIII.
BALDERDASH.
Worth Oglander sat in his old oak chair, weary, and very low of heart,
but not altogether broken down. He had not been in bed since last
Monday night, and had slept, if at all, in the saddle, or on the roof
of the Henley and Maidenhead coach. For miles he had scoured the
country round, until his three horses quite broke down, with the
weather so much against them; and all the bran to be got in the
villages was made away with in mashes. One of these horses "got the
pipes;" and had to be tickled before he could eat.
The Squire cared not a button for this. The most particular of mankind
concerning what is grossly and contemptuously (if not carnivorously)
spoken of as "horseflesh," forgets his tender feelings towards the
noblest of all animals when his own flesh and blood come into
competition with them. But ride, and lash, and spur as he might, the
old Squire made no discovery.
His daughter, his only child, in whom all the rest of his old life
lived and loved, was gone and lost; not even leaving knowledge of
where she lay, or surety of a better meeting. His faith in God was
true and firm; for on the whole he was a pious man, although no great
professor: and if it had pleased the Lord to take his only joy from
his old age, he could have tried to bear it.
But thus to lose her, without good-bye, without even knowing how the
loss befell, and with the deep misery of doubting what she might
herself have done--only a chilly stoic, or a remarkably warm
Christian, could have borne it with resignation. The Squire was
neither of these; but only a simple, kind, and loving-hearted
gentleman; with many faults, and among them, a habit of expecting the
Lord to favour him perpetually. And of this he could not quit himself,
in the deepest tribulation; but still expected all things to be
tempered to his happiness, according to his own ideas of what
happiness should be. The clergyman of the parish, a good and zealous
man, had called upon him, and with many words had proved how thankful
he was bound to be for this kindly-ordered chastisement. The Squire,
however, could not see it. He listened with his old politeness, but a
sad and weary face, and quietly said that the words were good, but he
could not yet enter into them. Hereat the parson withdrew, to wait for
a softer and wiser season.
And now, in the dusk of this cold dark day, Squire Oglander sat gazing
from the window of his dining-room; with his head fallen back, and his
white chin up, and hard-worn hands clasped languidly. His heavy eyes
dwelled on the dreary snow that buried his daughter's handiwork--the
dwarf plants not to be traced, and the tall ones only as soft
hillocks, like the tufts in a great white counterpane. And more and
more, as the twilight deepened, and the curves of white grew dim, he
kept repeating below his voice, "Her winding-sheet, her winding-sheet;
and her pretty eyes wide open perhaps!"
"Now, sir, if you please, you must--you must," cried Mary Hookham, his
best maid, trotting in with her thumbs turned back from a right hot
dish, and her lips up as if she were longing to kiss him, to let out
her feelings. "Here be a duster, by way of a cloth, not to scorch the
table against Miss Grace comes home again. Sir, if you please, you
must ate a bit. Not a bit have you aten sin' Toosday, and it is enough
to kill a carrier's horse. 'Take on,' as my mother have often said;
'take on, as you must, if your heart is right, when the hand of the
Lord is upon you; but never take off with your victuals.' And a hearty
good woman my mother is, and have seen much tribulation. You never
would repent, sir, of hearkening to me, and of trying of her, till
such time as poor Miss Grace comes back. And not a penny would she
charge you."
"Let her come, if she will," he answered, without thinking twice about
it; for he paid no heed to household matters in his present trouble.
"Let her come, if you wish it, Mary. At any rate, she can do no harm."
"She will do a mort of good, sir. But now do try to ate a bit. My
mother will make you, if you have her, sir."
The old man did his best to eat; for he knew that he must keep his
strength up, to abide the end of it. And Mary, without asking leave,
lit four good candles, and drew the curtains, and made the fire
cheerful. "All of us has our troubles," said Mary; "but these here
pickles is wonderful."
"You are a good girl," answered the Squire; "and you deserve a good
husband. Now, if either the man from Oxford or young Mr. Overshute
should come, show them in directly; but I can see no other person. No
more, thank you. Take all away, Mary."
"Oh my! what a precious little bit you've had! But as sure as my name
is Mary Hookham, you shall have three glasses of port, sir. You don't
keep no butler, because you knows better; and no housekeeper, because
you don't know mother. Likewise, Miss Grace is so clever--but there,
now, if she stay long for her honeymoon, a housekeeper you must have,
sir."
The master was tempted to ask what she meant, but he scarcely thought
it worth while, perhaps. By pressure of advice from all the womankind
within his doors (whenever they could get hold of him) he had been
sped on many bootless errands, as was natural. For without any ground,
except that of their hearts, all the gentler bosoms of the place were
filled with large belief that this was only a lovely love affair.
Russel Overshute, the heir of the Overshutes of Shotover, was a young
man who could speak for himself, and did it sometimes too strongly. He
had long been taken prisoner by the sweet spell of Grace Oglander; and
being of a bold and fearless order, he had so avowed himself. But her
father had always been against him; not from personal dislike, but
simply because he could not bear his "wild political sentiments."
Worth Oglander was as staunch an old Tory as ever stood in buckram,
although in social and domestic matters perhaps almost too gentle.
Radical and rascal were upon his tongue the self-same word; and he
passed the salt with the back of his hand to even a mild Reformer.
And now, as he drank his glass of port, by dint of Mary's management,
and did his best to think about it, as he always used to do, the door
of the room was thrown open strongly, and in strode Russel Overshute.
"Will you kindly leave the room," he said to the sedulous Mary. "I
wish to say a few words to the Squire of a private nature."
This young gentleman was a favourite with maid-servants everywhere,
because he always spoke to them "just the same as if they was ladies."
Every housemaid now demands this, in our advanced intelligence; and
doubtless she is right; but forty years ago it was otherwise, and
"Polly, my dear," and a chuck of the chin, were not as yet vile
antiquity. Mary made a bob of the order still taught at the
village-school, and set a glass for the gentleman, and simpered, and
departed.
"Shake hands with me, Squire," said Overshute, as Mr. Oglander arose,
with cold dignity, and bowed to him. "You have sent for me; I rode
over at once, the moment that I heard of it. I returned from London
this afternoon, having been there for a fortnight. When I heard the
news, I was thunderstruck. What can I do to help you?"
"I will not shake hands with you," answered the Squire, "until you
have solemnly pledged your honour, that you know nothing of this--of
this--there, I have no word for it!" Mr. Oglander trembled, though his
eyes were stern. His last hope of his daughter's life lay in the young
man before him; and bitterly as he would have felt the treachery of
his only child, and deeply as he despised himself for harbouring such
a suspicion--yet even that disgrace and blow would be better than the
alternative, the only alternative--her death.
"I should have thought it quite needless," young Overshute answered,
with some disdain, until he observed the father's face, so broken down
with misery; "from any one but you, sir, it would have been an insult.
If you do not know the Overshutes, you ought to know your own
daughter."
"But against her will--against her will. Say that you took her against
her will. You have been from home. For what else was it? Tell me the
truth, Russel Overshute--only the truth, and I will forgive you."
"You have nothing to forgive, sir. Upon the word of an Englishman, I
hadn't even heard of it."
The old man watched his clear keen eyes, with deep tears gathering in
his own. Then Russel took his hand, and led him tenderly to his hard
oak chair.
For a minute or two not a word was said: the young man doubting what
to say, and the old one really not caring whether he ever spoke again.
At last he looked up and spread both hands, as if he groped forth from
a heavy dream; and the rheumatism from so much night-work caught him
in both shoulder-blades.
"What is it?--what is it?" he cried. "I have lived a long time in this
wicked world, and I have not found it painful."
"My dear sir," his visitor answered, pitying him sincerely, and hiding
(like a man) his own deep heart-burn of anxiety, "may I say, without
your being in the least degree offended, what I fancy--or at least, I
mean a thing that has occurred to me? You will take it for its worth.
Most likely you will laugh at it; but taking my chance of that, may I
say it? Will you promise not to be angry?"
"I wish I could be angry, Russel. What have I to be angry for?"
"A terrible wrong, if I am right, but not a purely hopeless one. I
have not had time to think it out, because I have been hurried so.
But, right or wrong, what I think is this--the whole is a foul scheme
of Luke Sharp's."
"Luke Sharp! My own solicitor! The most respectable man in Oxford!
Overshute, you have made me hope, and then you dash me with
balderdash!"
"Well, sir, I have no evidence at all; but I go by something I heard
in London, which supplies the strongest motive; and I know, from my
own family affairs, what Luke Sharp will do when he has strong motive.
I beg you to keep my guess quite secret. Not that I fear a score of
such fellows, but that he would be ten times craftier if he thought we
suspected him; and he is crafty enough without that, as his principal
client, the Devil, knows!"
"I will not speak of it," the Squire answered; "such a crotchet is not
worth speaking of, and it might get you into great trouble. With one
thing and another now, I am so knocked about, that I cannot put two
and two together. But one thing really comforts me."
"My dear sir, I am so glad! What is it?"
"That a man of your old family, Russel, and at the same time of such
new ways, is still enabled by the grace of God to retain his faith in
the Devil."
"While Luke Sharp lives I cannot lose it," he answered, with a bitter
smile. "That man is too deep and consummate a villain to be
uninspired. But now, sir, we have no time to lose. You tell me what
you have done, and then I will tell you what I have been thinking of,
unless you are too exhausted."
For the old man, in spite of fierce anxiety, long suspense, and keen
excitement, began to be so overpowered with downright bodily weariness
that now he could scarcely keep his head from nodding, and his eyes
from closing. The hope which had roused him, when Overshute entered,
was gone, and despair took the place of it; tired body and sad mind
had but a very low heart to work them. Russel, with a strong man's
pity, and the love which must arise between one man and another
whenever small vanity vanishes, watched the creeping shades of slumber
soften the lines of the harrowed face. As evening steals along a
hill-side where the sun has tyrannised, and spreads the withering and
the wearying of the day with gentleness, and brings relief to rugged
points, and breadth of calm to everything; so the Squire's fine old
face relaxed in slumber's halo, and tranquil ease began to settle on
each yielding lineament; when open flew the door of the room, and
Mary, at the top of her voice, exclaimed--
"Plaize, sir, Maister Cripps be here."
CHAPTER IX.
CRIPPS IN AFFLICTION.
"Confound that Cripps!" young Overshute cried, with irritation getting
the better of his larger elements; while the Squire slowly awoke and
stared, and rubbed his gray eyelashes, and said that he really was
almost falling off, and he ought to be quite ashamed of himself. Then
he begged his visitor's pardon for bad manners, and asked what the
matter was. "Sir, it is only that fool Cripps," said the young man,
still in vexation, and signing to Mary to go, and to shut the door.
"Some trumpery parcel, of course. They might have let you rest for a
minute or two."
"No, sir, no; if you plaize, sir, no!" cried Mary, advancing with her
hands up. "Maister Cripps have seen something terrible, and he hath
come straight to his Worship. He be that out of breath that he was
aforced to lay hold of me, before he could stand a'most! He must have
met them sheep-stealers!"
"Sheep-stealing again!" said Mr. Oglander, who was an active
magistrate. "Well, let him come in. I have troubles of my own; but I
must attend to my duty."
"Let me attend to it," interposed the other, being also one of the
"great unpaid." "You must not be pestered with such things now. Try to
get some little rest while I attend to this Cripps affair."
"I am much obliged to you," answered the Squire, rising, and looking
wide-awake; "but I will hear what he has to say myself. Of course, I
shall be too glad of your aid if you are not in a hurry."
Mr. Overshute knew that this fine old Justice, although so good in the
main, was not entirely free from foibles, of which there was none more
conspicuous than a keen and resolute jealousy if any brother
magistrate dared to meddle with Beckley matters. Therefore Russel for
the time withdrew, but promised to return in half an hour, not only
for the sake of consulting with the Squire, but also because he
suspected that Cripps might be come on an errand different from what
Mary had imagined.
Meanwhile, the Carrier could hardly be kept from bursting in
head-foremost. Betty, the cook, laid hold of him in the passage, while
he was short of breath; but he pushed at even her, although he ought
to have known better manners. Betty was also in a state of mind at
having cooked no dinner worth speaking of since Tuesday; and Cripps,
if his wits had been about him, must have yielded space and bowed.
Betty, however, was nearly as wide, and a great deal thicker than he
was; and she spread forth two great arms that might have stopped even
Dobbin with a load downhill.
At last the signal was passed that Cripps might now come on, and tell
his tale; and he felt as if he should have served them right by
refusing to say anything. But when he saw the Squire's jovial face
drawn thin with misery, and his sturdy form unlike itself, and the
soft puzzled manner in lieu of the old distinct demand to know
everything, Zacchary Cripps came forward gently, and thought of what
he had to tell, with fear.
"What is it, my good fellow?" asked the Squire, perceiving his
hesitation. "Nothing amiss with your household, I sincerely hope, my
friend? You are a fortunate man in one thing--you have had no children
yet."
"Ay, ay; your Worship is right enough there. The Lord lends they, and
He takes them away. And the taking be worse than the giving was good."
"Now, Master Cripps, we must not talk so. All is meant for the best, I
doubt."
"Her may be. Her may be," Cripps replied. "The Lord is the one to
pronounce upon that, knowing His own maning best. But He do give very
hard measure some time to them as have never desarved it. Now, there
be your poor Miss Grace, for instance. As nice a young lady as ever
lived; the purtiest ever come out of a bed; that humble, too, and
gracious always, that 'Cripps,' she would say--nay 'Master
Cripps'--she always give me my proper title, even on a dirty linen
day--'Master Cripps,' her always said, 'let me mark it off, in your
hat, for you'--no matter whether it was my best hat, or the one with
the grease come through--'Master Cripps,' she always say, 'let me mark
it out for you.'"
"Very well, Cripps. I know all that. It is nothing to what my Grace
was. And I hope, with God's blessing, she will do it again. But what
is it you are so full of, Cripps?"
The Carrier felt in the crown of his hat, and then inside the lining;
as if he had something entered there, to help him in this predicament.
And then he turned away, to wipe--as if the weather was very wet--the
drops of the hedge from the daze of his eyes; and after that he could
not help himself, but out with everything.
"I knows where Miss Gracie be," he began with a little defiance, as
if, after all, it was nothing to him, but a thing that he might have a
bet about. "I knows where our Miss Gracie lies--dead and cold--dead
and cold--without no coffin, nor a winding-sheet--the purty crature,
the purty crature--there, what a fool I be, good Lord!"
Master Cripps, at the picture himself had drawn, was taken with a
short fit of sobs, and turned away, partly to hunt for his "kercher,"
and partly to shun the poor Squire's eyes. Mr. Oglander slowly laid
down the pen, which he had taken for notes of a case, and standing as
firm as his own great oak-tree (famous in that neighbourhood), gave no
sign of the shock, except in the colour of his face, and the
brightness of his gaze.
"Go on, Cripps, as soon as you can," he said in a calm and gentle
voice. "Try not to keep me waiting, Cripps."
"I be trying; I be trying all I knows. The blessed angel be dead and
buried, close to Tickuss's tatie crop, in the corner of bramble
quarry. At least, I mean Tickuss's taties was there; but he dug them a
fortnight, come Monday, he did."
"The corner of the 'Gipsy's Grave,' as they call it. Who found it? How
do you know it?"
"Esther was there. She seed the whole of it. Before the snow
come--last Tuesday night."
"Tuesday night! Ah, Tuesday night!"--for the moment, the old man had
lost his clearness. "It can't have been Tuesday night--it was
Wednesday when I rode down to my sister's. Cripps, your sister must
have dreamed it. My darling was then at her aunt's, quite safe. You
have frightened me for nothing, Cripps."
"I am glad with all my heart," cried Zacchary; "I am quite sure it
were Tuesday night, because of Mrs. Exie. And your Worship knows best
of the days, no doubt. Thank the Lord for all His mercies! Well,
seeing now it were somebody else, in no ways particular, and perhaps
one of them gipsy girls as took the fever to Cowley, if your Worship
will take your pen again, I will tell you all as Esther seed:--Two men
with a pickaxe working, where the stone overhangeth so, and the corpse
of a nice young woman laid for the stone to bury it natural. No harm
at all in the world, when you come to think, being nought of a
Christian body. And they let go the rock, and it come down over, to
save all infection. Lord, what a turn that Etty gived me, all about a
trifle!" The Carrier wiped his forehead, and smiled. "And won't I give
it well to her?"
"Poor girl! It is no trifle, Cripps, whoever it may have been. But
stop--I am all abroad. It was Tuesday afternoon when my poor darling
left Mrs. Fermitage. And to the quarry, across the fields, from the
way she would come, is not half a mile--half a mile of fields and
hedgerows---- Oh, Cripps, it was my daughter!"
"Her maight a' been, sure enough," said Cripps, in whom the reflective
vein, for the moment, had crossed the sentimental--"sure enough, her
maight a' been. A pasture meadow, and a field of rape, and Gibbs's
turnips, and then a fallow, and then into Tickuss's taties--half an
hour maight a' done the carrying--and consarning of the rest--your
Worship, now when did she leave the lady? Can you count the time of
it?"
"Zacchary now, the will of the Lord be done, without calculation! My
grave is all I care to count on, if my Grace lies buried so. But
before I go to it, please God, I will find out who has done it!"
CHAPTER X.
ALL DEAD AGAINST HIM.
"Now, do 'ee put on a muffler, sir," cried Mary, running out with her
arms full, as Mr. Oglander set forth in the bitter air, without
overcoat, but ready to meet everything. At the door was his old
Whitechapel cart, with a fresh young colt between the shafts, pawing
the snow, and snorting; the only one of his little stud not lamed by
rugged travelling. The floor of the cart was jingling with iron tools,
as the young horse shook himself; and the Squire's groom, and two
gardeners, were ready to jump in, when called for. They stamped a
little, and flapped their bodies, as if they would like a cordial; but
their master was too busy with his own heart to remember it.
"If we be goin' to dig some hours in such weather as this be," Mr.
Kale managed to whisper--"best way put in a good brandy flask, Mary,
my dear, with Master's leave. Poor soul, a' can't heed everything."
"Go along," answered Mary; "you have had enough. Shamed I be of you,
to think of such things, and to look at that poor Hangel!"
"So plaize your Worship, let me drive," said Cripps, who was going to
sit in front. "A young horse, and you at your time of life, and all
this trouble over you!"
"Give me the reins, my friend," cried his Worship; and Cripps, in some
dread for his neck, obeyed. The men jumped in, and the young horse
started at a rather dangerous pace. Many a time had Miss Grace fed
him, and he used to follow her, like a lamb.
"He will take us safe enough," said the Squire; "he seems to know what
he is going for."
Not another word was spoken, until they came to the gap at the verge
of the quarry, where the frosty moon shone through it. "Tie him here,"
said the master shortly, as the groom produced his ring-rope; "and
throw the big cloth over him. Now, all of you come; and Cripps go
first."
Scared as they were, they could not in shame decline the old man's
orders; and the sturdy Cripps, with a spade on his shoulders, led
through the drifted thicket. Behind him plodded the Squire, with an
unlit lantern in one hand, and a stout oak staff in the other; the
moonlight glistening in his long white hair, and sparkling frost in
his hoary beard. The snow before them showed no print larger than the
pad of an old dog-fox pursuing the spluttering track of a pheasant's
spurs; and it crunched beneath their boots with the crusty impact of
crisp severance. All around was white and waste with depth of unknown
loneliness; and Master Cripps said for the rest of his life, that he
could not tell what he was about, to do it!
After many flounderings in and out of hollow places, they came to the
corner of the quarry-dingle, and found it entirely choked with snow.
The driving of the north-east wind had gathered as into a funnel
there, and had stacked the snow of many acres in a hollow of less than
half a rood. The men stopped short, where the gaunt brown fern, and
then the furze, and then the hazels, in rising tier waded out of
sight; and behind them even some ash-saplings scarcely had a knuckled
joint to lift from out their burial. Over the whole the cold moon
shone, and made the depth look deeper. The men stopped short, and
looked at their shovels, and looked at one another. They may not have
been very bright of mind, or accustomed to hurried conclusions; and
doubtless they were, as true Englishmen are, of a tough unelastic
fibre. All powers of evil were banded against them, and they saw no
turn to take; still it was not their own wish to go back, without
having struck a blow for it.
"You can do nothing," said the Squire, with perhaps the first bitter
feeling he had yet displayed. "All things are dead against me; I must
grin, as you say, and bear it. It would take a whole corps of sappers
and miners a week to clear this place out. We cannot even be sure of
the spot; we cannot tell where the corner is; all is smothered up so.
Ill luck always rides ill luck. This proves beyond doubt that my child
lies here!"
The men were good men, as men go, and they all felt love and pity for
the lost young lady and the poor old master. Still their fingers were
so blue, and their frozen feet so hard to feel, and the deep white
gulf before them surged so palpably invincible, that they could not
repine at a dispensation which sent them home to their suppers.
"Nort to be done till change of weather," said Cripps, as they sat in
the cart again; "I reckon they villains knew what was coming, better
nor I, who have kept the road, man and boy, for thirty year. The Lord
knoweth best, as He always do! But to my mind He maneth to kape on
snowing and freezing for a month at laste. Moon have changed last
night, I b'lieve; and a bitter moon we shall have of it."
And so they did; the bitterest moon, save one, of the present century.
And old men said that there had not been such a winter, and such a
sight of snow, since the one which the Lord had sent on purpose to
discomfit Bony.
Mr. Oglander, in his lonely home, strove bravely to make the best of
it. He had none of that grand religious consolation which some people
have (especially for others), and he grounded his happiness perhaps
too much upon his own hearthstone. His mind was not an extraordinary
one, and his soul was too old-fashioned to demand periods of purging.
Moreover, his sister Joan came up--a truly pious and devoted woman,
the widow of an Oxford wine-merchant. Mrs. Fermitage loved her niece
so deeply that she had no patience with any selfish pinings after her.
"She is gone to the better land," she said; "the shores of bliss
unspeakable!--unless Russel Overshute knows about her a great deal
more than he will tell. I have far less confidence in that young man
since he took to wear india-rubber. But to wish her back is a very
sinful and unchristian act, I fear."
"Now, Joan, you know that you wish her back every time that you sit
down, or get up, or go to tea without her."
"Yes, I know, I know, I do. And most of all when I pour it out--she
used to do it for me. But, Worth, you can wrestle more than I can. The
Lord expects so much more of a man!"
Being exhorted thus, the Squire did his best to wrestle. Not that any
words of hers could carry now their former weight; for if he had no
daughter left, what good was money left to her? The Squire did not
want his sister's money for himself at all. Indeed, he would rather be
without it. Dirty money, won by trade!--but still it had been his duty
always to try to get it for his daughter. And this is worth a word or
two.
At the Oxford bank, and among the lawyers and the leading tradesmen,
it had been a well-known thing that old Fermitage had not died with
less than £150,000 behind him. Even in Oxford there never had been a
man so illustrious for port wine. "Fortiter occupa portum" was the
motto over the door to his vaults, and he fortified port impregnably.
Therefore he supplied all the common-room cellars, which cannot have
too much geropiga; and among the undergraduates his name was surety
for another glass. And there really was a port wine basis; so that
nobody died of him.
All these things are beside the mark. Mr. Fermitage, however, went on,
and hit his mark continually; and his mark was that bull's eye of this
golden age, a yellow imprint of a dragon. So many of these came
pouring in that he kept them in bottles without any "kicks," sealed,
and left to mature, and acquire "the genuine bottle flavour." When he
had bottled half a pipe of these, and was thinking of beginning now to
store them in the wood, a man coming down with a tap found him dead;
and was too much scared to steal anything.
This man reproached himself, ever afterwards, for his irresolute
conscience; and the two executors gave him nothing but blame for his
behaviour. People in Holiwell said that these two took a dozen bottles
of guineas between them, to toast their testator's memory; but
Holiwell never has been famous for the holy thing lying at the bottom
of the well. Enough that he was dead; and every man, seeing his
funeral, praised him.
CHAPTER XI.
KNOCKER VERSUS BELL-PULL.
There is, or was, a street in Oxford, near the ruins of the ancient
castle, and behind the new county jail, where one of the many offsets
of the Isis filters its artificial way beneath low arches and betwixt
dead walls; and this street (partly destroyed since then) was known to
the elder generation by the name of "Cross Duck Lane." Of course what
remains of it now exults in an infinitely grander title, though
smelling thereby no sweeter. With that we have nothing to do; the
street was "Cross Duck Lane" in our time.
Here, in a highly respectable house, a truly respectable man was
living, with his business and his family. "Luke Sharp, gentleman," was
his name, description, style, and title; and he was not by any means a
bad man, so as to be an Attorney.
This man possessed a great deal of influence, having much
house-property; and he never in the least disguised his sentiments, or
played fast and loose with them. Being of a commanding figure, and
fine straightforward aspect, he left an impression, wherever he went,
of honesty, vigour, and manliness. And he went into very good society,
as often as he cared to do so; for although not a native of Oxford,
but of unknown (though clearly large) origin, he now was the head, and
indeed the entirety, of a long-established legal firm. He had married
the daughter of the senior partner, and bought or ousted away the
rest; and although the legend on his plate was still "Piper, Pepper,
Sharp, and Co.," every one knew that the learning, wealth, and honour
of the whole concern were now embodied in Mr. Luke Sharp. Such a man
was under no necessity ever to blow his own trumpet.
His wife, a fat and goodly person, Miranda Piper of former days,
happened to be the first cousin and nearest relative of a famous
man--"Port-wine Fermitage" himself; and his death had affected her
very sadly. For she found that he had provided for himself a most
precarious future, by unjust disposal of his worldly goods, which he
could not come back to rectify. To his godson, her only child and her
idol, Christopher Fermitage Sharp, he had left a copy of Dr.
Doddridge's "Expositor," and nothing else! A golden work, no
doubt--but still golden precepts fill no purse, but rather tend to
empty it. Mrs. Luke Sharp, though a very good Christian, repacked and
sent back the "Expositor."
If Mr. Sharp had been at home, he would not have let her do so. He was
full at all times of large generous impulse, but never yet guilty of
impulsive acts. It had always been said that his son was to have the
bottled half-pipe of gold, or the chief body of it, after the widow's
life-interest. Whereas now, Mrs. Fermitage, if she liked, might roll
all the bottles down the High Street. She, however, was a careful
woman; and it was manifest where the whole of this Côte d'Or vintage
would be binned away--to wit, in the cellars of Beckley Barton, with
the key at Grace Oglander's very pretty waist. Mr. Sharp at the moment
could descry no cure; but still to show temper was a vulgar thing.
Now, upon the New Year's Day of 1838, the bitter weather continuing
still, and doing its best to grow more bitter, Mr. Sharp, being of a
festive turn, had closed his office early. The demand for universal
closing and perpetual holiday had not yet risen to its present height,
and the clerks, though familiar with the kindness of their principal,
scarcely expected such a premature relief. But this only added to the
satisfaction with which they went home to their New Year dinners.
But Mr. Sharp, though of early habits, and hungry at proper seasons,
was not preparing for his dinner now. He had ordered his turkey to be
kept back, and begged his wife to see to it until he could make out
and settle the import of a letter which reached him about one o'clock.
It had been delivered by a groom on horseback, who had suffered some
inward struggle before he had stooped to ring the Attorney's bell. For
"Cross Duck House," though a comfortable place, was not of an
aristocratic cast. The letter was short, and expounded little.
"SIR,--I shall do myself the honour of calling upon you at four
o'clock this afternoon, upon some important business.
"Obediently yours,
"RUSSEL OVERSHUTE."
It is not altogether an agreeable thing, even for a man with the
finest conscience, such as Mr. Sharp was blest with, to receive a
challenge upon an unknown point, curtly worded in this wise. And the
pleasure does not increase, when the strong correspondent is partly
suspected of holding unfavourable views towards one, and the gaze of
self-inspection needs a little more time to compose itself. Luke Sharp
had led an unblemished life, since the follies of his youth subsided;
he subscribed to inevitable charities; and he waited for his rents,
when sure of them. Still he did not like that letter.
Now he took off the coat which he wore at his desk, and his waistcoat
of the morning, and washed his nice white hands, and clothed himself
in expensive dignity. Then he opened his book of daily entries, and
folded blotting-paper, and prepared to receive instructions, or give
advice, or be wise abstractedly. But he thought it a sound precaution
to have his son Christopher within earshot; for young Overshute was
reputed to be of a rather excitable nature; therefore Kit Sharp was
commanded to finish the cleaning of his gun--which was his chief
delight--in his father's closet adjoining the office, and to keep the
door shut, unless called for.
The lawyer was not kept waiting long. As the clock of St. Thomas
struck four, the shoes of a horse rang sharply on the icy road, and
the office-bell kicked up its tongue, with a jerk showing great
extra-mural energy. "Let him ring again," said Mr. Sharp; "I defy him
to ring much harder."
The defiance was soon proved to be unsound; for in less than ten
seconds, the bell, which had stood many years of strong emotion, was
visited with such a violent spasm that nothing short of the
melting-pot restored its constitution. A piece clinked on the passage
floor, and the lawyer was filled with unfeigned wrath. That bell had
been ringing for three generations, and was the Palladium of the firm.
"What clumsy clod-hopper," cried Mr. Sharp, rushing out, as if he saw
nobody--"what beggarly bumpkin has broken my bell? Mr. Overshute!--oh!
I beg pardon, I am sure!"
"We must make allowance," said Russel calmly, "for fidgety animals,
Mr. Sharp; and for thick gloves in this frosty weather. John, take my
horse on the Seven-bridges road, and be back in exactly fifteen
minutes. How kind of you to be at home, Mr. Sharp!"
With the words, the young man bestowed on the lawyer a short sharp
glance, which entirely failed to penetrate the latter.
"Shut out this cold wind, for Heaven's sake!" he exclaimed, as he shut
in his visitor. "You young folk never seem to feel the cold. But you
carry it a little too far sometimes. Ah, I must have been about your
age when we had such another hard winter as this, four and twenty
years ago. Scarcely so bitter, but a deal more snow; snow, snow, six
feet everywhere. I was six and twenty then--about your age, I take it,
sir?"
"My age to a tittle," said Overshute; "but I am generally taken for
thirty-two. How can you have guessed it so?"
"Early thought, sir, juvenile thought, and advanced intelligence make
young people look far in front of their age. When you come to my time
of life, young sir, your thoughts and your looks will be younger. Now
take this chair. Never mind your boots; let them hiss as they will on
the fender. I like to hear it--a genial sound--a touch of emery paper
in the morning, and there we are, ready for other boots. I have had
men here come fifty miles across country, as the crow flies, to see
me, when the floods were out; and go away with minds comforted."
"I have heard of your skill in all legal points. But I am not come on
that account. Quibbles and shuffles I detest."
"Well, Mr. Overshute, I have met with a good deal of rudeness in my
early days; before I was known, as I am now. It was worth my while to
disarm it then. It is not so now, in your case. You belong to a very
good county family; and although you are committed to inferior hands,
if you had come in a friendly spirit, I would have been glad to serve
you. As it is, I can only request you to say what your purpose is, and
to settle it."
Russel Overshute, with his large and powerful eyes, gazed straight at
Sharp; and Mr. Sharp (who had steely eyes--the best of all for getting
on with--not very large, but as keen as need be) therewith answered
complacently, and as if he saw hope of amusement.
"You puzzle me, Sharp," said Overshute--about the worst thing he could
have said; and he knew it before the words had passed.
"I am called, for the most part, 'Mister Sharp,' except by gentlemen
of my own age, or friends who entirely trust me. Mr. Russel Overshute,
explain how I have puzzled you."
"Never mind that. You would never understand. Have you any idea what
has brought me here?"
"Yes, to be plain with you, I have. One of your least, but very oldest
tenants, has been caught out in poaching. You hate the game-laws; you
are a Radical, ranter, and reformer. You know that your lawyer is good
and active, but too well known as a Liberal. It requires a man of
settled principles to contest with the game-laws."
"You could not be more wide astray!" cried young Overshute
triumphantly, taking in every word the other had said, as a piece of
his victory. "No, no, thank goodness, we are not come so low that we
cannot get off our tenants, in spite of any evidence; you must indeed
think that our family is quite reduced to the dirt, if we can no
longer do even that much."
"Not at all, sir. You are much too hot. I only supposed for the moment
that your principles might have stopped you."
"Oh dear, no! My mother could not take it at all, in that way. Now,
where have you put Grace Oglander?"
Impetuous Russel, with his nostrils quivering, and his eyes fixed on
the lawyer's, and his right hand clenching his heavy whip, purposely
fired his question thus, like a thunderbolt out of pure heaven. He
felt sure of producing a grand effect; and so he did, but not the
right one.
"You threaten me, do you?" said Mr. Sharp. "I think that you make a
mistake, young man. Violence is objectionable in every way, though
natural with fools, who believe they are the stronger. I am sorry to
have spoiled your whip; but you will acknowledge that the fault was
yours. Now, I am ready for reason--if you are."
With a grave bow, Luke Sharp offered Russel the fragments of his pet
hunting-crop, which he had caught from his hand, and snapped like a
stick of peppermint, as he spoke. Overshute thought himself a fine,
strong fellow, and with very good reason; but the quickness of his
antagonist left him gasping.
"I want no apologies," Mr. Sharp continued, going to his desk; while
the young man looked sadly at his brazen-knockered butt, for he had
been at that admirable college, and cherished his chief reminiscence
of it thus. "Apologies are always waste of time. You have threatened
me, and you have found your mistake. Such a formidable antagonist
makes one's hand shake. Still, I think that I can hit my key-hole."
"You can always make your keys fit, I dare say. But you never could do
that to me again."
"Very likely not. I shall never care to try it. Physical force is
always low. But, as a gentleman, you must own that you first offered
violence."
"Mr. Sharp, I confess that I did. Not in word, or deed; but still my
manner fairly imported it. And the first respect I ever felt for you,
I feel now, for your quickness and pluck."
"I am pleased with any respect from you; because you have little for
anything. Now, repeat your question, moderately."
"Where have you put Grace Oglander?"
"Let me offer you a chair again. Striding about with frozen feet is
almost the worst thing a man can do. However, you seem to be a little
excited. Have you brought me a letter from my client, to authorize
this inquiry?"
"From Mr. Oglander? Oh no! He has no idea of my being here."
"We will get over that. You are a friend of his, and a neighbour. He
has asked you, in a general way, to help him in this sad great
trouble."
"Not at all. He would rather not have my interference. He does not
like its motive."
"And the motive is, that like many other people, you were attached to
this young lady?"
"Certainly, I am. I would give my life at any moment for her."
"Well, well; I will not speak quite so strongly as you do. Life grows
dearer as it gets more short. But still, I would give my best year
remaining to get to the bottom of this problem."
"You would?" cried young Overshute, looking at him, with admiration of
his strength and truth. "Give me your hand, sir? I have wronged you! I
see that I am but a hasty fool!"
"You should never own that," said the lawyer.
CHAPTER XII.
MR. JOHN SMITH.
Meanwhile all Beckley and villages around were seething with a ferment
of excitement and contradiction. Esther Cripps had been strictly
ordered by the authorities to hold her tongue; and so far as in her
lay she did so. But there were others--the Squire's three men, and
even the Carrier himself, who had so many things to think, that they
were pretty sure to say some of them. One or two of them had wives;
and though these women could not be called by their very worst friends
"inquisitive," it was not right and lawful that they should be
debarred of everything. They did all they could not to know any more
than they were really bound to know; and whatever was forced upon them
had no chance of going any further.
This made several women look at one another slyly, each knowing more
than the other, and nodding while sounding the other's ignorance.
Until, with one accord they grew provoked at being treated so; and
truth being multiplied to its cube became, of course, infinite error.
Now, Mrs. Fermitage having been obliged to return to Cowley, Mary
Hookham's mother had established her power by this time; and being, as
her daughter had pronounced, a conspicuous member of the females, she
exerted herself about all that was said, and saw the other side of
everything. She never went to no public-house--nobody could say that
of her; but perhaps she could put two and two together every bit as
well as them that did. It had been her fortune to acquire exceptional
experience--or, as she put it more plainly, "she had a seed a many
things;" and the impressions left thereby upon her idiosyncrasy (or,
in her own words, "what she come to think") was and were that nothing
could be true that she had not known the like of. This was the secret
of her success in life--which, however, as yet bore no proportion to
her merits. She frankly scouted as "a pack of stuff" everything to
which her history afforded no vivid parallel. In a word, she believed
only what she had seen.
Now, incredulity is a grand power. To be able to say, "Oh, don't tell
me," or "None of your stuff!" when the rest of the audience, stricken
with awe, is gaping, confers at once the esteem of superior intellect
and vigour. And when there are good high people, who derive comfort
from the denial, the chances are that the active sceptic does not get
the worst of it.
Mrs. Hookham plainly declared that Esther's tale was neither more nor
less than a trumpery cock-and-bull story. She would not call it a
parcel of lies, because the poor girl might have dreamed it. Walking
in the snow was no more than walking in one's sleep; she knew that,
from her own experience; and if there had been no snow as yet, that
made her all the more sure to be right; the air was full of it, and of
course it would have more power overhead. Depend upon it, she had seen
a bush, if indeed she did see anything, and being so dazed by the
weather, she had gone and dreamed the rest of it.
Beckley, on the other hand, having known Esther ever since she toddled
out of her cradle, and knowing her brothers, the carrier, the baker,
and the butcher, and having no experience yet of Mother Hookham's
wisdom, as good as told the latter lady not to be "so bounceable." She
must not come into this parish, and pretend to know more about things
that belonged to it than those who were bred and born there.
But Mrs. Hookham's opinion was, in one way, very important, however
little weight it carried at the Dusty Anvil. Mr. Oglander himself had
to depend for his food entirely on Mrs. Hookham's efforts; for Betty,
the cook, went purely off her head, after all she had gone through;
and they put her in bed with a little barley-water, and much malt
liquor in a nobler form. And though Mrs. Hookham at her time of life
was reluctant so to demean herself, she found all the rest such a
"Noah's compass," that she roused up the fires of departed youth, and
flourished with the basting-ladle. A clever well-conditioned dame,
with a will of her own, is somebody.
"Now, sir," she cried, rushing in to the Squire, with a basin of
first-rate ox-tail soup, upon that melancholy New Year's Day, "you
have been out in the snow again! No use denying of it, sir; I can see
it by the chattering of your teeth. I call it a bad, wicked thing to
go on so. Flying in the face of the Lord like that!"
"You are a most kind and good soul, Mrs. Hookham. But surely you would
not have me sit with my hands crossed, doing nothing."
"No, no; surely not. Take the spoon in one hand, and the basin in the
other. You owe it to yourself to keep up your strength, and to some
one else as well, good sir."
"I have no one else now to owe it to," the old man answered, sadly
tucking his napkin into his waistcoat pockets.
"Yes, you have. You have your Miss Gracie, alive and kicking, as sure
as I be; and with a deal more of life in front of her; though scarce a
week passes but what I takes my regular dose of calumny. Ah, if it had
not been for that, I never could have been twenty year a widow."
"Don't cry, Mrs. Hookham. I beg you not to cry. You have many good
children to look after; and there still is abundance of calomel. But
why do you talk so about my darling?"
"Because, sir, please God, I means to see you spend many a happy year
together. Lord have mercy, if I had took for granted every trouble as
come upon me, who could a' tried for to cheat me this day? My
goodness, don't go for to swallow the bones, sir!"
"To be sure not. No, I was not thinking. Of course there are bones in
every tail."
"And a heap of bones in them Crippses' tale, sir, as won't go down
with me nohow. Have faith in the mercy of the Lord, sir; and in your
own experience."
"That is exactly what I try to do. There cannot be any one in the
world so bad as to hurt my Gracie. Mrs. Hookham, you never can have
seen anybody like her. She was so full of life and kindness that
everybody who knew her seemed to have her in their own family. She
never made pretence to be above herself, or any one; and she entered
into everybody's trouble quite as if she had brought it on. She never
asked them any questions, whether it might have been their own fault;
and she gave away all her own money first before she came to me for
more. She was so simple, and so pleasant, and so full of playful
ways--but there, when I think of that, it makes me almost as bad as
you women are. Take out the dish. I am very much obliged to you."
"Not a bit, sir, not a bit as yet," the brisk dame answered, with
tears on her cheeks. "But before very long, you will own that you was;
when you find every word I say come true. Oh my! How that startled me!
Somebody coming the short way from the fields! That wonderful man, as
is always prowling about, unbeknown to any one. They don't like me in
the village much, civil as I am to all of them. But as sure as six is
half a dozen, that Smith is the one they ought to hate."
"If he is there, show him in at once," said the Squire, without
further argument; "and let no one come interrupting us."
This was very hard upon Mrs. Hookham; and she could not help showing
it in her answer.
"Oh, to be sure, sir! Oh, to be sure not! What is my poor opinion
compared to his? Ah well, it is a fine thing to be a man!"
The man, for whose sake she was thus cast out, seemed to be of the
same opinion. He walked, and looked, and spoke as if it was indeed a
fine thing to be a man; but the finest of all things to be the man
inside his own cloth and leather. Short and thick of form he was, and
likely to be at close quarters a dangerous antagonist. And the set of
his jaws, and the glance of his eyes, showed that no want of manhood
would at the critical moment disable him. His face was of a strong red
colour, equally spread all over it, as if he lived much in the open
air, and fed well, and enjoyed his food.
"John Smith, your Worship--John Smith," he said, without troubling
Mrs. Hookham. "I hope I see your Worship better. Don't rise, I beg of
you. May I shut the door? Oh, Mary, your tea is waiting."
"Mary, indeed!" cried widow Hookham, ungraciously departing; "young
man, address my darter thus!"
"Now, what have you done, Smith, what have you done?" the old
gentleman asked, stooping over him. "Or have you done nothing at all
as usual? You tell me to have patience every day, and every day I have
less and less."
"The elements are against us, sir. If the weather had been anything
but what it is, I must have known everything long ago. Stop, sir,
stop; it is no idle excuse, as you seem to fancy. It is not the snow
that I speak of; it is the intense and deadly cold, that keeps all but
the very strong people indoors. How can any man talk when his beard is
frozen? Look, sir!"
From his short brown beard he took lumps of ice, beginning to thaw in
the warmth of the room, and cast them into the fire to hiss. Mr.
Oglander gazed as if he thought that his visitor took a liberty, but
one that could not matter much. "Go on, sir, with your report," he
said.
"Well, sir, in this chain of crime," Mr. Smith replied in a sprightly
manner, "we have found one very important link."
"What is it, Smith? Don't keep me waiting. Don't fear me. I am now
prepared to stand anything whatever."
"Well, sir, we have discovered, at last, the body of your Worship's
daughter."
The Squire bowed, and hid his face. By the aid of faith, he had been
hoping against hope, till it came to this. Then he looked up, with his
bright old eyes for the moment very steady, and said with a firm
though hollow voice--
"The will of the Lord be done! The will of the Lord be done, Smith."
"The will of the Lord shall not be done," cried Mr. Smith
emphatically, and striking his thick knees with his fist, "until the
man who has done it shall be swung, Squire, swung! Make up your mind
to that, your Worship. You may safely make up your mind to that."
"What good will it do me?" the father asked, talking with himself
alone. "Will it ever bring back my girl--my child? Bereaved I am, but
it cannot be long! I shall meet her in a better world, Smith."
"To be sure your Worship will, with the angels and archangels. But to
my mind that will be no satisfaction, till the man has swung for it."
"Excuse me for a moment, will you, Mr. Smith, excuse me? I have no
right to be overcome, and I thought I had got beyond all that. Ring
the bell, and they will bring you cold sirloin and a jug of ale. Help
yourself, and don't mind me. I will come back directly. No, thank you;
I can walk alone. How many have had much worse to bear! You will find
the under-cut the best."
CHAPTER XIII.
MR. SMITH IS ACTIVE.
Mr. John Smith was a little upset at seeing the Squire so put out. But
he said to himself: "It is natural--after all, it is natural. Poor old
chap! he has taken it as well as could be expected. However, we must
all live; and I feel uncommonly peckish just now. I declare I would
rather have had something hot, this weather. But in such a case, one
must put up with things. I wonder if they have got any horseradish.
All frozen hard in the ground, I fear--no harm, at any rate, in
asking."
With this self-commune he rang the bell; and Mary, by her mother's
order, answered. "I'll not go nigh the baste!" cried widow Hookham,
still indignant. Mary, like a good maid, laid the cloth without a
syllable, and, like a good young woman, took the keenest heed of Mr.
Smith, without letting him dream that she peeped at him.
"Thank you, Mary," said Mr. Smith, to open conversation.
"My mother's name is Mary," she answered, "and perhaps you would like
some pickles."
"By all means, as there is no horseradish. Bring onions, gherkins, and
walnuts, Mary. But above all things, walnuts."
"You must have what you can get," said Mary. "I will go and tell
master what you require."
"On no account, Mary; on no account! He is gone away to pray, I
believe. On no account disturb him."
"Poor dear, I should hope not. Perhaps you can manage with what I have
set before you."
"I will do my best," he answered.
"The scum of the earth!" said Mary to herself; good servants being the
most intensely aristocratic of all the world.
"He never dined at a gentleman's table before, and his head is turned
with it. Our kitchen is too good for him. But poor master never heeds
nothing now."
As soon, however, as Mr. Smith had appeased the rage of hunger, and
having called for a glass of hot brandy and water, was clinking the
spoon in it, the Squire showed that he did heed something, by coming
back calmly to talk with him. Mr. Oglander had passed the bitterest
hour of his long life yet; filled at every turn of thought with
yearning to break down and weep. Sometimes his mind was so confused
that he did not know how old he was, but seemed to be in the long past
days, with his loving wife upon his arm, and their Gracie toddling in
front of them. He spoke to them both as he used to do, and speaking
cleared his thoughts again; and he shook away the dreamy joy in the
blank forlorn of facts. At last he washed his face, and brushed his
silver hair and untended beard, and half in the looking-glass expected
to see his daughter scolding him, because he knew that he had
neglected many things she insisted on; and his conscience caught him
when he seemed to be taking a low advantage.
"I hope you have been treated well," he said, with his fine
old-fashioned bow, to Smith, as he came back again. "I do not often
leave my guests to attend to themselves in this way."
"Don't apologize, Squire, I beg you. I have done first chop, I assure
you, sir. I have not tasted real mustard, ground at home as yours is,
since I was up in Durham county, where they never grow it."
"Well, Mr. Smith," said the Squire, trying to smile at his
facetiousness, "I am very glad that you have done well. In weather
like this, a young man like you must want a good deal of nourishment.
But now, will you--will you tell me----"
"Yes, your Worship, everything! Of course you are anxious; and I
thoroughly enter into your feelings. There are none of the women at
the door, I hope?"
"Such things do not happen in my house. I will not interrupt you."
"Very well, sir; then sit down here. You must be aware in the first
place, then, that I was not likely to be content with your way of
regarding things. The Lord is the Lord of the weather, of course, and
does it without consulting us. Nevertheless, He allows us also to do
our best against it. So I took the bull by the horns, as John Bull, by
his name, has a right to do. I just resolved to beat the weather, and
have it out with everything. So I communicated with the authorities in
London. You know we are in a transition state--a transition state at
present, sir--between the old system and the new."
"Yes, yes, of course I know all that."
"Very well, your Worship, we are obliged, of course, to be doubly
careful. In London, we are quite established; but down here, we must
feel our way. The magistrates, saving your Worship's presence, look
upon us with dislike, as if we were superseding them. That will wear
off, your Worship, and the new system will work wonders."
"Yes, so you all say. But now, be quick. What wonders have you
wrought, John Smith?"
"Well, I was going to tell your Worship when you interrupted me. You
know that story of Cripps, the Carrier, and his sister--what's her
name? Well, some folk believed it, and some bereaved it. I did neither
of the two, but resolved to get to the bottom of it. Your Worship was
afraid, you remember--well, then, let us say daunted, sir--or, if you
will not have that, we may say, that you trusted in Providence."
"It was not quite that; but still, Mr. Smith----"
"Your Worship will excuse me. Things of that sort happen always, and
the people are always wrong that do it. I trusted in Providence once
myself, but now I trust twice in my own self first and leave
Providence to come after me. Ha, ha! I speak my mind. No offence, your
Worship. Well then, this was what I did. A brave regiment of soldiers
having newly returned from India, was ordered to march from London to
the Land's End for change of temperature. They had not been supplied,
of course, with any change of clothes for climate, and they felt it a
little, but were exhorted not to be too particular. Two companies were
to be billeted at Abingdon last evening; and having, of course,
received notice of that, I procured authority to use them. They
shivered so that they wanted work; and there is nothing, your Worship,
like discipline."
"Of course, I know that from my early days. Will you tell your story
speedily?"
"Sir, that is just what I am doing. I brought them without many words
to the quarry, where ten times the number of our clodhoppers would
only have shovelled at one another. Bless my heart! they did work, and
with order and arrangement. Being clothed all in cotton, they had no
time to lose, unless they meant to get frozen; and it was a fine
sight, I assure your Worship, to see how they showed their
shoulder-blades, being skinny from that hot climate, and their
brown-freckled arms in the white of the drift, and the Indian steam
coming out of them! In about two hours all the ground was clear, and
the trees put away, like basket-work; and then we could see what had
happened exactly, and even the mark of the pickaxes. Every word of
that girl was proved true to a tittle! I never heard finer evidence.
We can even see that two men had been at work, and the stroke of their
tools was different. You may trust me for getting up a case; but I see
that you have no patience, Squire. We shovelled away all the fallen
rock, and mould, and stumps, and furze-roots; and, at last, we came to
the poor, poor innocent body, as fresh as the daylight!"
"I can hear no more! You have lost no child--if you have, perhaps you
could spare it. Tell me nothing--nothing more! But prove that it was
my child!"
"Lord a' mercy, your Worship! Why, you are only fit to go to bed!
Here, Mary! Mary! Mother Hookham! Curse the bell--I have broken it!
Your master is taken very queer! Look alive, woman! Stir your stumps!
A pot of hot water and a foot-tub! Don't get scared--he will be all
right. I always carry a fleam with me. I can bleed him as well as any
doctor. Hold his head up. Let me feel. Oh, he is not going to die just
yet! Stop your caterwauling! There, I have relieved his veins. He will
know us all in a minute again. He ought to have had a deal more
spirit. I never could have expected this. I smoothed off everything so
nicely--just as if it was a lady----"
"Did you, indeed! I have heard every word," said widow Hookham
sternly. "You locked the door, or I would have had my ten nails in you
long ago! Poor dear! What is a scum like you? And after all, what have
you done, John Smith?"
CHAPTER XIV.
SO IS MR. SHARP.
On the very next day it was known throughout the parish and the
neighbourhood that the ancient Squire had broken down at last, under
the weight of anxieties. Nobody blamed him much for this, except his
own sister and Mr. Smith. Mrs. Fermitage said that he ought to have
shown more faith and resignation; and John Smith declared that all his
plans were thrown out by this stupidity. What proper inquiry could be
held, when the universal desire was to spare the feelings and respect
the affliction of a poor old man?
Mr. Smith was right. An inquest truly must be held upon the body which
had been found by the soldiers. But the Coroner, being a good old
friend and admirer of the Oglanders, contrived that the matter should
be a mere form, and the verdict an open nullity. Mr. Luke Sharp
appeared, and in a dignified reserve was ready to represent the
family. He said a few words, in the very best taste, and scarcely
dared to hint at things which must be painful to everybody left alive
to think of them. How the crush of tons of rock upon an unprotected
female form had made it impossible to say--and how all the hair (which
more than any other human gift survived the sad, sad change), having
been cut off, was there no longer--and how there was really nothing
except a pair of not over new silk stockings, belonging to a lady of
lofty position in the county, and the widow of an eminent gentleman,
but not required, he might hope, to present herself so painfully. Mr.
Sharp could say no more; and the jury felt that he now must come, or,
failing him, his son, Kit Sharp, into the £150,000 of "Port-wine
Fermitage."
Therefore they returned the verdict carried in his pocket by them,
"Death by misadventure of a young lady, name unknown." Their object
was to satisfy the Squire and their consciences; and they found it
wise, as it generally is, not to be too particular. And the Coroner
was the last man to make any fuss about anything.
"Are you satisfied now, Mr. Overshute?" asked Lawyer Sharp, as Russel
met him in the passage of the Quarry Arms, where the inquest had been
taken. "The jury have done their best, at once to meet the facts of
the case, and respect the feelings of the family."
"Satisfied! How can I be? Such a hocus-pocus I never knew. It is not
for me to interfere, while things are in this wretched state.
Everybody knows what an inquest is. No doubt you have done your duty,
and acted according to your instructions. Come in here, where we can
speak privately."
Mr. Sharp did not look quite as if he desired a private interview.
However, he followed the young man with the best grace he could
muster.
"I am going to speak quite calmly, and have no whip now for you to
snap," said Russel, sitting down, as soon as he had set a chair for
Mr. Sharp; "but may I ask you why you have done your utmost to prevent
what seemed, to an ordinary mind, the first and most essential thing?"
"The identification? Yes, of course. Will you come and satisfy
yourself? The key of the room is in my pocket."
"I cannot do it. I cannot do it," answered the young man, shuddering.
"My last recollection must not be----"
"Young sir, I respect your feelings. And need I ask you, after that,
whether I have done amiss in sparing the feelings of the family? And
there is something more important than even that at stake just now.
You know the poor Squire's sad condition. The poor old gentleman is
pretty well broken down at last, I fear. What else could we expect of
him? And the doctor his sister had brought from London says that his
life hangs positively upon a thread of hope. Therefore we are telling
him sad stories, or rather, I ought to say, happy stories; and though
he is too sharp to swallow them all, they do him good, sir--they do
him good."
"I can quite understand it. But how does that bear--I mean you could
have misled him surely about the result of this inquest?"
"By no means. He would have insisted on seeing a copy of _The Herald_.
In fact, if the jury could not have been managed, I had arranged with
the editor to print a special copy giving the verdict as we wanted it.
A pious fraud, of course; and so it is better to dispense with it.
This verdict will set him up again upon his poor old legs, I hope. He
seemed to dread the final blow so, and the bandying to and fro of his
unfortunate daughter's name. I scarcely see why it should be so; but
so it is, Mr. Overshute."
"Of course it is. How can you doubt it? How can it be otherwise? You
can have no good blood in you--I beg your pardon, I speak rashly; but
I did not mean to speak rudely. All I mean to say is that you need no
more explain yourself. I seem to be always doubting you; and it always
shows what a fool I am."
"Now, don't say that," Mr. Luke Sharp answered, with a fine and genial
smile. "You are acknowledged to be the most rising member of the
County Bench. But still, sir, still there is such a thing as going too
far with acuteness, sir. You may not perceive it yet; but when you
come to my age, you will own it."
"Truly. But who can be too suspicious, when such things are done as
these? I tell you, Sharp, that I would give my head off my shoulders,
this very instant, to know who has done this damned villainy!--this
infernal--unnatural wrong, to my darling--to my darling!"
"Mr. Overshute, how can we tell that any wrong has been done to her?"
"No wrong to take her life! No wrong to cut off all her lovely hair,
and to send it to her father! No wrong to leave us as we are, with
nothing now to care for! You spoke like a sensible man just now--oh,
don't think that I am excitable."
"Well, how can I think otherwise? But do me the justice to remember
that I do not for one moment assert what everybody takes for granted.
It seems too probable, and it cannot for the present at least be
disproved, that here we have the sad finale of the poor young lady.
But it must be borne in mind that, on the other hand, the body----"
"The thing could be settled in two minutes--Sharp, I have no patience
with you!"
"So it appears; and, making due allowance, I am not vexed with you.
You mean, of course, the interior garments, the nether clothing, and
so on. There is not a clue afforded there. We have found no name on
anything. The features and form, as I need not tell you----"
"I cannot bear to hear of that. Has any old servant of the family; has
the family doctor----"
"All those measures were taken, of course. We had the two oldest
servants. But the one was flurried out of her wits, and the other
three-quarters frozen. And you know what a fellow old Splinters is,
the crustiest of the crusty. He took it in bitter dudgeon that Sir
Anthony had been sent for to see the poor old Squire. And all he would
say was, 'Yes, yes, yes; you had better send for Sir Anthony. Perhaps
he could bring--oh, of course he could bring--my poor little pet to
life again!' Then we tried her aunt, Mrs. Fermitage, one of the last
who had seen her living. But bless you, my dear sir, a team of horses
would not have lugged her into the room. She cried, and shrieked, and
fainted away."
"'Barbarous creatures!' she said, 'you will have to hold another
inquest, if you are so unmanly. I could not even see my dear husband,'
and then she fell into hysterics, and we had to send two miles for
brandy. Now, sir, have we anything more to do? Shall we send a litter
or a coffin for the Squire himself?"
"You are inclined to be sarcastic. But you have taken a great deal
upon yourself. You seem to have ordered everything. Mr. Luke Sharp
everywhere!"
"Will you tell me who else there was to do it? It has not been a very
pleasant task, and certainly not a profitable one. I shall reap the
usual reward--to be called a busybody by every one. But that is a
trifle. Now, if there is anything you can suggest, Mr. Overshute, it
shall be done at once. Take time to think. I feel a little tired and
in need of rest. There has been so much to think of. You should have
come to help us sooner. But, no doubt, you felt a sort of delicacy
about it. The worthy jurymen's feet at last have ceased to rattle in
the passage. My horse will not be here just yet. You will not think me
rude, if I snatch a little rest, while you consider. For three nights
I have had no sleep. Have I your good permission, sir? Here is the key
of that room, meanwhile."
Russel Overshute was surprised to see Mr. Sharp draw forth a large
silk handkerchief, with spots of white upon a yellow ground, and
spread it carefully over the crown of his long, deep head, and around
his temples down to the fine grey eyebrows. Then lifting gaitered
heels upon the flat wide bar of the iron fender--the weather being as
cold as ever--in less than a minute Mr. Luke Sharp was asleep beyond
all contradiction. He slept the sleep of the just, with that gentle
whisper of a snore which Aristotle hints at to prove that virtue
being, as she must be, in the mean, doth in the neutral third of life
maintain a middle course between loud snore and silent slumber.
If Mr. Sharp had striven hard to produce a powerful effect, young
Overshute might have suspected him; but this calm, good sleep and pure
sense of rest laid him open for all the world to take a larger view of
him. No bad man could sleep like that. No narrow-minded man could be
so wide to nature's noblest power. Only a fine and genial soul could
sweetly thus resign itself. The soft content of well-earned repose
spoke volumes in calm silence. Here was a good man (if ever there was
one), at peace with his conscience, the world, and heaven!
Overshute was enabled thus to look at things more loftily;--to judge a
man as he should be judged, when he challenges no verdict;--to see
that there are large points of view, which we lose by worldly wisdom,
and by little peeps through selfish holes, too one-eyed and
ungenerous. Overshute could not bear the idea of any illiberality. He
hated suspicion in anybody, unless it were just; as his own should be.
In this condition of mind he pondered, while the honest lawyer slept.
And he could not think of anything neglected, or mismanaged much, in
the present helpless state of things.
CHAPTER XV.
A SPOTTED DOG.
When at last the frost broke up, and streams began to run again, and
everywhere the earth was glad that men should see her face once more;
and forest-trees, and roadside pollards, and bushes of the common
hedgerow, straightened their unburdened backs, and stood for spring to
look at them; a beautiful young maiden came as far as she could come,
and sighed; as if the beauty of the land awaking was a grief to her.
This pretty lady, in the young moss-bud, and slender-necked chalice of
innocence, was laden with dews of sorrow, such as nature, in her outer
dealings with the more material world, defers until autumnal night and
russet hours are waiting. Scarcely in full bloom of youth, but ripe
for blush or dreaminess, she felt the power of early spring, and the
budding hope around her.
"Am I to be a prisoner always, ever more a prisoner?" she said, as she
touched a willow catkin, the earliest of all, the silver one. She
stroked the delicate silken tassel, doubtful of its prudence yet; and
she looked for leaves, but none there were, and nothing to hold
commune.
The feeble sun seemed well content to have a mere glimpse of the earth
again, and spread his glances diffidently, as if he expected shadow.
Nevertheless, there he was at last; and the world received him
tenderly.
"It has been such a long, long time. It seems to grow longer, as the
days draw out, and nobody comes to talk to me. My place it is to obey,
of course--but still, but still--there he is again!"
The girl drew back; for a fine young man, in a grand new velvet
shooting-coat, wearing also a long shawl waistcoat and good buck-skin
breeches, which (combined with calf-skin gaiters) set off his legs to
the uttermost,--in all this picturesque apparel, and swinging a gun
right gallantly, there he was, and no mistake! He was quietly trying
through the covert, without any beaters, but with a brace of clever
spaniels, for woodcock, snipe, or rabbit perhaps; the season for game
being over. A tall, well-made, and rather nice young man (so far as a
bashful girl might guess) he seemed at this third view of him; and of
course it would be an exceedingly rude and pointed thing to run away.
Needless, also, and indeed absurd; because she was sure that when last
they met, he was frightened much more than she was. It was nothing
less than a duty now, to find out whether he had recovered himself. If
he had done so, it would be as well to frighten him even more this
time. And if he had not, it would only be fair to see what could be
done for him.
One of his dogs--a "cocking spannel," as the great Mr. Looker
warranted--a good young bitch, with liver-coloured spots, and drop
ears torn by brambles, and eyes full of brownish yellow light, ran up
to the girl confidentially, and wagged a brief tail, and sniffed a
little, and with sound discretion gazed. Each black nostril was like a
mark of panting interrogation, and one ear was tucked up like a small
tunnel, and the eye that belonged to it blinked with acumen.
"You pretty dear, come and let me pat you," the young lady cried,
looking down at the dog, as if there were nobody else in the world.
"Oh, I am so fond of dogs--what is your name? Come and tell me,
darling."
"Her name is 'Grace,'" said the master, advancing in a bashful but not
clumsy way. "The most beautiful name in the world, I think."
"Oh, do you think so, Mr.---- but I beg your pardon, you have not told
me what your own name is, I think."
"I hope you are quite well," he answered, turning his gun away
carefully; "quite well this fine afternoon. How beautiful it is to see
the sun, and all the things coming back again so!"
"Oh yes! and the lovely willow-trees! I never noticed them so before.
I had no idea that they did all this." She was stroking the flossiness
as she spoke.
"Neither had I," said the young man, trying to be most agreeable, and
glancing shyly at the haze of silver in lily fingers glistening; "but
do not you think that they do it because--because they can scarcely
help themselves?"
"No! how can you be so stupid? Excuse me--I did not mean that, I am
sure. But they do it because it is their nature; and they like to do
it."
"You know them, no doubt; and you understand them, because you are
like them."
He was frightened as soon as he had said this; which he thought (while
he uttered it) rather good.
"I am really astonished," the fair maid said, with the gleam of a
smile in her lively eyes, but her bright lips very steadfast, "to be
compared to a willow-tree. I thought that a willow meant--but never
mind, I am glad to be like a willow."
"Oh no! oh no! You are not one bit--I am sure you will never be like a
willow. What could I have been thinking of?"
"No harm whatever, I am sure of that," she answered, with so sweet a
look, that he stopped from scraping the toe of his boot on a clump of
moss; and in his heart was wholly taken up with her--"I am sure that
you meant to be very polite."
"More than that--a great deal more than that--oh, ever so much more
than that!"
She let him look at her for a moment, because he had something that he
wanted to express. And she, from pure natural curiosity, would have
been glad to know what it was. And so their eyes dwelt upon one
another just long enough for each to be almost ashamed of leaving off;
and in that short time they seemed to be pleased with one another's
nature. The youth was the first to look away; because he feared that
he might be rude; whereas a maiden cannot be rude. With the speed of a
glance she knew all that, and she blushed at the colour these things
were taking. "I am sure that I ought to go," she said.
"And so ought I, long and long ago. I am sure I cannot tell why I
stop. If you were to get into any trouble----"
"You are very kind. You need not be anxious. If you do not know why
you stop--the sooner you run away at full speed the better."
"Oh, I hope you won't say that," he replied, being gifted by nature
with powers of courting, which only wanted practice. "I really think
that you scarcely ought to say so unkind a thing as that."
"Very well, then. May I say this, that you have important things to
attend to, and that it looks--indeed it does--as if it was coming on
to rain?"
"I assure you there is no fear of that--although, if it did, there is
plenty of shelter. But look at the sun--how it shines in your hair!
Oh, why do you keep your hair so short? It looks as if it ought to be
ten feet long."
"Well, suppose that it was--not quite ten feet, for that would be
rather hard to manage--but say only half that length, and then for a
very good reason was all cut off--but that is altogether another
thing, and in no way can concern you. I give you a very good day,
sir."
"No, no! you will give me a very bad day, if you hurry away so
suddenly. I am anxious to know a great deal more about you. Why do you
live in this lonely place, quite as if you were imprisoned here? And
what makes you look so unhappy sometimes, although your nature is so
bright? There! what a brute I am! I have made you cry. I ought to
shoot myself."
"You must not talk of such wicked things. I am not crying; I am very
happy--at least, I mean quite happy enough. Good-bye! or I never shall
bear you again."
As she turned away, without looking at him, he saw that her pure young
breast was filled with a grief he must not intrude upon. And at the
same moment he caught a glimpse through the trees of some one coming.
So he lifted his smart Glengarry cap, and in sad perplexity strode
away. But over his shoulder he softly said--"I shall come again--you
must let me do that--I am sure that I can help you."
The young lady made no answer; but turned as soon as she thought he
was out of sight, and wistfully looked after him.
"Here comes that Miss Patch, of course," she said. "I wonder whether
she has spied him out. Her eyes are always everywhere."
"Oh, my darling child," cried Miss Patch, an elderly lady of great
dignity; "I had no idea you were gone so far. Come in, I beg of you,
come this moment; what has excited you like this?"
"Nothing at all. At least, I mean, I am not in the least excited. Oh!
look at the beautiful sunset!"
Miss Patch, with deep gravity, took out her spectacles, placed them on
her fine Roman nose, and gazed eastward to watch the sunset.
"Oh dear no! not there," cried her charge in a hurry; "here, it is all
in this direction."
"I thought that I saw a spotted dog," the lady answered, still gazing
steadily down the side of the forest by which the youth had made his
exit; "a spotted dog, Grace, I am almost sure."
"Yes, I dare say. I believe that there is a dog with some spots in the
neighbourhood."
CHAPTER XVI.
A GRAND SMOCK-FROCK.
Upon the Saturday after this, being market-day at Oxford, Zacchary
Cripps was in and out with the places and the people, as busy as the
best of them. The number of things that he had to do used to set his
poor brain buzzing; until he went into the Bar--not the grand one, but
the Hostler's Bar, at the Golden Cross--and left dry froth at the
bottom of a pewter quart measure of find old ale. At this flitting
trace of exhaustion he always gazed for a moment as if he longed to
behold just such another, and then, with a sigh of self-dedication to
all the great duties before him, out he pulled his leather bag, and
counted fourpence four times over (without any multiplication thereof,
but a desire to have less subtraction), and then he generally shook
his head, in penitence at his own love of good ale, and the fugitive
fate of the passion. The last step was to deposit his fourpence firmly
upon the metal counter, challenging all the bad pence and half-pence
pilloried there as a warning; and then with a glance at the barmaid
Sally, to encourage her still to hope for him, away went Cripps to the
duties of the day.
These always took him to the market first, a crowded and very narrow
quarter then, where he always had a great host of commissions, at very
small figures, to execute. His honesty was so broadly known that it
was become quite an onerous gift, as happens in much higher grades of
life. Folk, all along both his roads of travel, naturally took great
advantage of it; being certain that he would spend their money quite
as gingerly as his own, and charge them no more than he was compelled
by honesty towards himself to charge.
Farmers, butchers, poulterers, hucksters, chandlers, and
grocers--black, yellow, and green--all knew Zacchary Cripps, and paid
him the compliment of asking fifty per cent. above what they meant, or
even hoped to take. Of this the Carrier was well aware, and upon the
whole it pleased him. The triumph each time of rubbing down, by
friction of tongue and chafe of spirit, eighteen-pence into a
shilling, although it might be but a matter of course, never lost any
of its charms for him. His brisk eyes sparkled as he pulled off his
hat, and made the most learned annotations there--if learning is (as
generally happens) the knowledge of what nobody else can read.
But now, before he had filled the great leathern apron of his
capacities--which being full, his hat had no room for any further
entries--a thing came to pass which startled him; so far at least as
the road and the world had left him the power of starting. He saw his
own brother, Leviticus, standing in friendly talk with a rabbit-man; a
man whose reputation was not at a hopeless distance beyond reproach; a
man who had been three times in prison--whether he ought or ought not
to have been, this is a difficult point to debate. His friends
contended that he ought not--if so, he of course was wrong to go
there. His enemies vowed that he ought to be there--if so, he could
rightly be nowhere else. The man got the benefit of both opinions, in
a powerfully negative condition of confidence on the part of the human
brotherhood. But for all that, there were bigger rogues to be found in
Oxford.
Cripps, however, as the head of the family, having seigneurial rights
by birth--as well as, in his own opinion, force of superior
intellect--saw, and at once discharged, his duty. No taint of poached
rabbits must lie, for a moment, on the straightforward path of the
Crippses. Zacchary, therefore, held up one hand, as a warning to
Tickuss to say no more, until he could get at him--for just at this
moment a dead lock arose, through a fight of four women about a rotten
egg--but when that had lapsed into hysterics, the Carrier struggled to
his brother's elbow.
Leviticus Cripps was a large, ruddy man, half a head taller than the
heir of the house, but not so well built for carrying boxes. His frame
was at the broadest and thickest of itself at that very important part
of the human system which has to do with aliment. But inasmuch as all
parts do that, more or less directly, accuracy would specify (if
allowable) his stomach. Here he was well developed; but narrowed or
sloped towards less essential points; whereas the Carrier was at his
greatest across and around the shoulders. A keen physiologist would
refer this palpable distinction to their respective occupations. The
one fed pigs and fed upon them, and therefore required this local
enlargement for sympathy, and for assimilation. The other bore the
burden of good things for the benefit of others; which is anything but
fattening.
Be that as it will, they differed thus; and they differed still more
in countenance. Zacchary had a bright open face, with a short nose of
brave and comely cock, a mouth large, pleasant, and mild as a cow's, a
strong square forehead, and blue eyes of great vivacity, and some
humour. He had true Cripps' hair, like a horn-beam hedge in the month
of January; and a thick curly beard of good hay colour, shaven into
three scollops like a clover leaf. His manner of standing, and
speaking, and looking was sturdy, and plain, and resolute; and he
stuck out his elbows, and set his knuckles on his hips, whenever both
hands were empty.
On the contrary, Tickuss, his brother, looked at every one, and at all
times, rather as if he were being suspected. Wrongly suspected, of
course, and puzzled to tell at all why it should be so; and as a
general rule, a little surly at such injustice. The expression of his
face was heavy, slow-witted, and shyly inquisitive; his hair was
black, and his eyes of a muddy brown with small slippery pupils; and
he kept his legs in a fidgety state, as if prone to be wanted for
running away. In stature, however, and weight this man was certainly
above the average; and he would rather do a good than a bad thing,
whenever the motives were equivalent.
But if his soul could not always walk in spotless raiment, his body at
least was clad in the garb of innocence. No man in Oxford market wore
a smock that could be compared with his. For on such great occasions
Leviticus came in a noble shepherd's smock, long and flowing around
him well, a triumph of mind in design and construction, and a marvel
of hand in fine stitching and plaiting, goffering, crimping, and
ironing. The broad turned-over collar was like a snow-drift tattooed
by fairies, the sleeves were gathered in as religiously as a bishop's
gossamer; and the front was four-square with cunning work; a span was
the length, and a span the breadth, like the breastplate over the
ephod. As for Tickuss himself, he cared no more than the wool of a pig
for such trifles; beyond this, that he liked to have his neighbours
looking up to, and the women looking after, him. Even in the new
unsullied sanctity of this chasuble, he would grasp by the tail an
Irish pig, if sore occasion befell them both. It was Mrs. Leviticus
who adorned him (after a sea of soap-suds and many irons tested
ejectively) with this magnificent vesture, suggested to feminine
capacity, perhaps, in the days of the Tabernacle.
"Leviticus," said Zacchary sternly, leading him down a wet red alley,
peopled only with cooped chicks, and paved with unsaleable giblets;
"Leviticus, what be thou doing, this day? Many queer things have I
seed of thee--but to beat this here--never nothing!"
"I dunno what dost mean," Tickuss answered unsteadily.
"Now, I call that a lie," said the Carrier firmly but mildly, as if
well used thereto; as a dog is to fleas in the summer time.
"A might be; and yet again a might not," Tickuss replied, with keen
sense of logic, but none of impeached ethics.
"Do 'ee know, or do 'ee not?"--the ruthless Carrier pressed him--"that
there hosebird have a been in jail?"
"Now, I do believe; let me call to mind"--said Tickuss, with his
duller eyes at bay--"that I did hear summat as come nigh that. But,
Lord bless you, the best of men goes to jail sometimes! Do you call to
mind old Squire Dempster----"
"Naught to do wi' it! naught to do wi' it?" Zacchary cried, with a
crack of his thumb. "That were an old gentleman's misfortune; the same
as Saint Paul and Saint Peter did once. But that hosebird I see you
talking along of, have been in jail three times--three times I tell
'ee--and no miracle. And if ever I sees you dealing with him----" he
closed his sentence emphatically, by shaking his fist in the immediate
neighbourhood of his brother's retiring nose.
"Well, well! no need to take on so, Zak," cried the bigger man at safe
distance; "you might bear in mind that I has my troubles, and no
covered cart at the tail of me. And a family, Zak, as wears out more
boots than a tanyard a week could make good to 'em. But there, I never
finds anybody gifted with no consideration. Why, if I was to talk till
to-morrow night----"
"If you was to talk to next Leap-year's day, you could not fetch right
out of wrong, Tickuss. And you know pretty well what I be. Now, what
was you doing of with that black George? Mind, no lies won't go down
with me."
"Best way go and get him to tell 'ee," the younger brother answered
sulkily. "It will do 'ee good like, to get it out of he."
"No harm to try," answered Cripps with alacrity; "no fear for me to be
seen along of un; only for the likes of you, Tickuss."
The Carrier set off, to stake his higher repute against lowest
communications; but his brother, with no "heed of smock or of crock,"
took three long strides and stopped him.
"Hearken me, hearken me, Zak!" he cried, with a start at a cock that
crowed at him, and his face like the wattles of chanticleer--"Zak, for
the sake of the Lord in heaven, and of my seven little ones,--stop a
bit!"
"I bain't in no hurry that I know on," replied the Cripps of pure
conscience; "you told me to ask of him, and I were a-goin' on the wag
to do so."
"Come out into the Turl, Zak; come out into the Turl a minute; there
is nobody there now. They young College-boys be all at their lessons,
or hunting. There is no place to come near the Turl for a talk, when
they noisy College chaps are gone."
By a narrow back lane they got into the Turl, at that time of day
little harassed by any, unless it were the children of the porter of
Lincoln or Exeter. "Now, what is it thou hast got to say?" asked
Zacchary. But this was the very thing the younger brother was vainly
seeking for.
"Nort, nort, Zak; nort of any 'count," he stammered, after casting in
his slow imagination for a good, fat, well-seasoned lie.
"Now spake out the truth, man, whatever it be," said the Carrier,
trying to encourage him; "Tickuss, thou art always getting into
scrapes by manes of crooked dealing. But I'll not turn my back on
thee, if for once canst spake the truth like a man, brother."
Leviticus struggled with his nature, while his little eyes rolled
slowly, and his plaited breastplate rose and fell. He stole some
irresolute glances at his brother's clear, straight-forward face; and
he might have saved himself by doing what he was half-inclined to do.
But circumstances aided nature to defeat his better star. The wife of
the porter of Lincoln College had sent forth one of her little girls
to buy a bunch of turnips. She knew that turnips would be very scarce
after so much hard weather; but her stew would be no good without
them; and among many other fine emotions, anxiety was now foremost. So
she thrust forth her head from the venerable porch, and at the top of
her voice exclaimed--"Turmots, turmots, turmots!"
At that loud cry, Leviticus Cripps turned pale--for his conscience
smote him. "She meaneth me, she meaneth me, she meaneth my
turmot-field;" he whispered, with his long legs bent for departure;
"'tis a thousand pound they have offered, Zak. Come away, come away,
down Ship Street; there is a pump, and I want some water."
"But tell me what thou wast agoing to say," cried his brother, laying
hold of him.
"Dash it! I will tell thee the truth, then, Zak. I just went and cut
up a maisly sow--as fine a bit of pork as you ever clapped eyes on,
but for they little beauty spots. And the clerk of the market bought
some for his dinner; and he have got a bad cook, a cantankerous woman,
and now I be in a pretty mess!"
"Not a word of all that do I believe," said Cripps.
CHAPTER XVII.
INSTALLED AT BRASENOSE.
Master Cripps was accustomed mainly to daylight roads and open ways.
It was true that he had a good many corners to turn between Beckley
and Oxford, whether his course were through Elsfield and Marston, or
the broader track from Headington. But for all sharp turns he had two
great maxims--keep on the proper side, and go slowly. By virtue of
these, he had never been damaged himself, or forced to pay damages;
and when he was in a pleasant vein, at the Dusty Anvil, or anywhere
else, it was useless to tell him that any mischance need happen to a
man who heeded this--that is to say, if he drove a good horse, and saw
to the shoeing of the nag himself. Of course there was also the will
of the Lord. But that was quite sure to go right, if you watched it.
If he has any good substance in him, a man who spends most of his
daylight time in the company of an honest horse, is sure to improve so
much that none of his bad companions know him--supposing that he ever
had any. The simplicity and the good will of the horse, his faith in
mankind, and his earnest desire to earn his oats, and have plenty of
them; also the knowledge that his time is short, and his longest worn
shoes will outlast him; and that when he is dead, quite another must
be bought, who will cost twice as much as he did--these things (if any
sense can be made of them) operate on the human mind, in a measure,
for the most part, favourable.
Allowance, therefore, must be made for Master Leviticus Cripps and his
character, as often as it is borne in mind that he, from society of
good horses, was (by mere mischance of birth) fetched down to
communion with low hogs. Not that hogs are in any way low, from a
properly elevated gazing-point; and taking, perhaps, the loftiest of
human considerations, they are, as yet, fondly believed to be much
better on a dish than horses.
But that--as Cripps would plainly put it--is neither here nor there
just now; and it is ever so much better to let a man make his own
excuses, which he can generally do pretty well.
"Cripps, well met!" cried Russel Overshute, seizing him by the apron,
as Zacchary stood at the corner of Ship Street, to shake his head
after his brother, who had made off down the Corn Market; "you are the
very man I want to see!"
"Lor' a mercy now, be I, your Worship? Well, there are not many
gentlemen as it does me more good to look at."
Without any flattery he might say that. It was good, after dealing
with a crooked man, to set eyes upon young Overshute. In his face
there was no possibility of lie, hidden thought, or subterfuge.
Whatever he meant was there expressed, in quick bold features, and
frank bright eyes. His tall straight figure, firm neck, and broad
shoulders helped to make people respect what he meant; moreover, he
walked as if he had always something in view before him. He never
turned round to look after a pretty girl, as weak young fellows do. He
admired a pretty girl very much; but had too much respect for her to
show it. He had made his choice, once for all in life; and his choice
was sweet Grace Oglander.
"I made sure of meeting you, Master Cripps; if not in the market, at
any rate where you put up your fine old horse. I like a man who likes
his horse. I want to speak to you quietly, Cripps."
"I am your man, sir. Goo where you plaiseth. Without no beckoning, I
be after you."
"There is nothing to make any fuss about, Cripps. And the whole world
is welcome to what I say, whenever there is no one else concerned. At
present, there are other people concerned;--and get out of the way,
you jackanapes!"
In symmetry with his advanced ideas, he should not have spoken
thus--but he spake it; and the eavesdropper touched his hat, and made
off very hastily.
Russel was not at all certain of having quite acted up to his better
lights, and longed to square up all the wrong with a shilling; but,
with higher philosophy, suppressed that foolish yearning. "Now,
Cripps, just follow me," he said.
The Carrier grumbled to himself a little, because of all his parcels,
and the change he was to call for somewhere, and a woman who could not
make up her mind about a bullock's liver--not to think of more
important things in every other direction. No one thought nothing of
the value of his time; every bit the same as if he was a lean old
horse turned out to grass! In spite of all that, Master Cripps did his
best to keep time with the long legs before him. Thus was he led
through well-known ways to the modest gate of Brasenose, which being
passed, he went up a staircase near the unpretentious hall of that
very good society. "Why am I here?" thought Cripps, but, with his
usual resignation, added, "I have aseed finer places nor this." This,
in the range of his great experience, doubtless was an established
truth. But even his view of the breadth of the world received a little
twist of wonder, when over a narrow dark doorway, which Mr. Overshute
passed in silence, he read--for read he could--these words, "Rev.
Thomas Hardenow." "May I be danged," said Cripps, "if I ever come
across such a queer thing as this here be!"
However, he quelled his emotions and followed the lengthy-striding
Overshute into a long low room containing uncommonly little furniture.
There was no one there, except Overshute, and a scout, who flitted
away in ripe haste, with an order upon the buttery.
"Now, Cripps, didst thou ever taste college ale?" Mr. Overshute asked,
as he took a chair like the dead bones of Ezekiel. "Master Carrier,
here thou hast the tokens of a new and important movement. In my time,
chairs were comfortable. But they make them now, only to mortify the
flesh."
"Did your Worship mean me to sit down?" asked Cripps, touching the
forelock which he kept combed for that purpose.
"Certainly, Cripps. Be not critical; but sit."
"I thank your Worship kindly," he answered with little cause for
gratitude. "I have a-druv many thousand mile on a seat no worse nor
this, perhaps."
"Your reservation is wise, my friend. Your driving-board must have
been velvet to this. But the new lights are not in our Brewery yet. If
they get there, they will have the worst of it. Here comes the
tankard! Well done, old Hooper. Score a gallon to me for my family."
"With pleasure, sir," answered Hooper, truly, while he set on the
table a tray filled with solid luncheon. "Ah, I see you remember the
good old times, when there was those in this college, sir, that never
thought twice about keeping down the flesh; and better flesh, sir,
they had ever so much than these as are always a-doctoring of it. Ah,
when I comes to recall to my mind what my father said to me, when fust
he led me in under King Solomon's nose--'Bob, my boy,' he says to
me----"
"Now, Hooper, I know that his advice was good. The fruit thereof is in
yourself. You shall tell me all about it the very next time I come to
see you."
"Ah, they never cares now to hearken," said Hooper to himself, as,
with the resignation of an ancient scout, he coughed, and bowed, and
stroked the cloth, and contemplated Cripps with mild surprise, and
then made a quiet exit. As for listening at the door, a good scout
scorns such benefit. He likes to help himself to something more solid
than the words behind him.
"If I may make so bold," said the Carrier, after waiting as long as he
could, with Overshute clearly forgetting him; "what was it your
Worship was going to tell me? Time is going by, sir, and our horse
will miss his feeding."
"Attend to your own, Cripps, attend to your own. I beg your pardon for
not helping you. But that you can do for yourself, I dare say. I am
trying to think out something. I used to be quick; I am very slow
now."
Cripps made a little face at this, to show that the ways of his
betters had good right to be beyond him; and then he stood upon his
sturdy bowed legs, and turned a quick corner of eye at the door, in
fear of any fasting influence, and seeing nothing of the kind, with
pleasure laid hold of a large knife and fork.
"Lay about you, Cripps, my friend; lay about you to your utmost." So
said Mr. Overshute, himself refusing everything.
"Railly now, I dunno, your Worship, how to get on, all a-ating by
myself. Some folk can, and some breaks down at it. I must have
somebody to ate with me--so be it was only now a babby, or a dog."
"I thank you for the frank comparison, Cripps. Well, help me, if you
must--ah, I see you can carve."
"I am better at the raw mate, sir; but I can make shift when roasted.
Butcher Numbers my brother, your Worship--but perhaps you never heered
on him?"
"Oh yes, I know, Cripps. A highly respectable thriving man he is too.
All your family thrive, and everybody speaks so well of them. Why,
look at Leviticus! They tell me he has three hundred pigs!"
Like most men who have the great gift of gaining good will and
popularity, Russel Overshute loved a bit of gossip about his
neighbours.
"Your Worship," said Cripps, disappointing him of any new information,
"pigs is out of my way altogether. When I was a young man of tender
years, counteracted I was for to carry a pig. Three pounds twelve
shillings and four pence he cost me, in less than three-quarters of a
mile of road; and squeak, squeak, all the way, as if I was a-killing
of him, and not he me. Seemeth he smelled some apples somewhere, and
he went through a chaney clock, and a violin, and a set of first-born
babby-linen for Squire Corser's daughter; grown up now she is, your
Worship must a met her riding. And that was not the worst of it
nother----"
"Well, Cripps, you must tell me another time. It was terribly hard
upon you. But, my friend, the gentleman who lives here will be back
for his hat, when the clock strikes two. Cap and gown off, when the
clock strikes two. From two until five he walks fifteen miles,
whatever the state of the weather is."
"Lord bless me, your Worship, I could not travel that, with an empty
cart, and all downhill!"
"Never mind, Cripps. Will you try to listen, and offer no
observation?"
"To say nort,--does your Worship mean? Well, all our family be
esteemed for that."
"Then prove the justice of that esteem; for I have a long story to
tell you, Cripps, and no long time to do it in."
CHAPTER XVIII.
A FLASH OF LIGHT.
The Carrier, with a decisive gesture, ceased from both solid and
liquid food, and settled his face, and whole body, and members into a
grim and yet flexible aspect, as if he were driving a half-broken
horse, and must be prepared for any sort of start. And yet with all
this he reconciled a duly receptive deference, and a pleasant
readiness, as if he were his own Dobbin, just fresh from stable.
"I need not tell you, Master Cripps," said Russel, "how I have picked
up the many little things, which have been coming to my knowledge
lately. And I will not be too positive about any of them; because I
made such a mistake in the beginning of this inquiry. All my
suspicions at first were set on a man who was purely innocent--a legal
gentleman of fair repute, to whom I have now made all honourable
amends. In the most candid manner he has forgiven me, and desires no
better than to act in the best faith with us."
"Asking your pardon for interrupting--did the gentleman happen to have
a sharp name?"
"Yes, Cripps, he did. But no more of that. I was over sharp myself, no
doubt; he is thoroughly blameless, and more than that, his behaviour
has been most generous, most unwearying, most---- I never can do
justice to him."
"Well, your Worship, no--perhaps not. A would take a rare sharp un to
do so."
"You hold by the vulgar prejudice--well, I should be the last to blame
you. That, however, has nothing to do with what I want to ask you. But
first, I must tell you my reason, Cripps. You know I have no faith
whatever in that man John Smith. At first I thought him a tool of
Mr.--never mind who--since I was so wrong. I am now convinced that
John Smith is 'art and part' in the whole affair himself. He has
thrown dust in our eyes throughout. He has stopped us from taking the
proper track. Do you remember what discredit he threw on your sister's
story?"
"He didn't believe a word of un. Had a good mind, I had, to a' knocked
un down."
"To be sure, Cripps, I wonder that you forbore. Though violent
measures must not be encouraged. And I myself thought that your sister
might have made some mistakes through her scare in the dark. Poor
thing! Her hair can have wanted no bandoline ever since, I should
fancy. What a brave girl too not to shriek or faint!"
"Well, her did goo zummut queer, sir, and lie down in the quarry-pit.
Perhaps 'twas the wisest thing the poor young wench could do."
"No doubt it was--the very wisest. However, before she lost her wits
she noticed, as I understand her to say--or rather she was
particularly struck with the harsh cackling voice of the taller man,
who also had a pointed hat, she thinks. It was not exactly a cackling
voice, nor a clacking voice, nor a guttural voice, but something
compounded of all three. Your sister, of course, could not quite so
describe it; but she imitated it; which was better."
"Her hath had great advantages. Her can imitate a'most anything. Her
waited for months on a College-chap, the very same in whose house we
be sitting now."
"Cripps, that is strange. But to come back again. Your sister, who is
a very nice girl, indeed, and a good member of a good family----"
"Ay, your Worship, that her be. Wish a could come across the man as
would dare to say the contrairy!"
"Now, Cripps, we never shall get on, while you are so horribly
warlike. Are you ready to listen to me, or not?"
"Every blessed word, your Worship, every blessed word goeth down; unto
such time as you begins to spake of things at home to me."
"Such dangerous topics I will avoid. And now for the man with this
villainous voice. You knew, or at any rate now you know, that I never
was satisfied with that wretched affair that was called an 'Inquest.'
Inquest a non inquirendo--but I beg your pardon, my good Cripps.
Enough that the whole was pompous child's play, guided by crafty hands
beneath; as happens with most inquests. I only doubted the more,
friend Cripps; I only doubted the more, from having a wrong way taken
to extinguish doubts."
"To be sure, your Worship; a lie on the back of another lie makes un
go heavier."
"Well, never mind; only this I did. For a few days perhaps I was
overcome; and the illness of my dear old friend, the Squire, and the
trouble of managing so that he should not hear anything to kill him;
and my own slowness at the back of it all; for I never, as you know,
am hasty--these things, one and another, kept me from going on
horseback anywhere."
"To be sure, your Worship, to be sure. You ought to be always
a-horseback. I've a-seed you many times on the Bench; but you looks a
very poor stick there compared to what 'ee be a-horseback."
"Now, Cripps, where is your reverence? You call me 'your Worship,' and
in the same breath contemn my judicial functions. I must commit you
for a week's hard labour at getting in and out of your own cart, if
you will not allow me to speak, Cripps. At last I have frightened you,
have I? Then let me secure the result in silence. Well, after the
weather began to change from that tremendous frost and snow, and the
poor Squire fell into the quiet state that he has been in ever since,
I found that nothing would do for me, my health not being quite as
usual----"
"Oh, your Worship was wonderfully kind; they told me you was as good
as any old woman in the room almost!"
"Except to take long rides, Cripps, nothing at all would do for me.
And, not to speak of myself too much, I believe that saved me from
falling into a weak, and spooney, and godless state. I assure you
there were times--however, never mind that, I am all right now,
and----"
"Thank the Lord! you ought to say, sir; but you great Squires upon the
bench----"
"Thank the Lord! I do say, Cripps; I thank Him every day for it. But
if I may edge in a word, in your unusually eloquent state, I will tell
you just what happened to me. I never believed, and never will, that
poor Miss Oglander is dead. The coroner and the jury believed that
they had her remains before them, although for the Squire's sake they
forbore to identify her in the verdict. Your sister, no doubt,
believed the same; and so did almost every one. I could not go, I
could not go--no doubt I was a fool; but I could not face the chance
of what I might see, after what I had heard of it. Well, I began to
ride about, saying nothing of course to any one. And the more I rode,
the more my spirit and faith in good things came back to me. And I
think I have been rewarded, Cripps; at last I have been rewarded. It
is not very much; but still it is like a flash of light to me. I have
found out the man with the horrible voice."
"Lord have mercy upon me! your Worship--the man as laid hold of the
pick-axe!"
"I have found him, Cripps, I do believe. But rather by pure luck than
skill."
"There be no such thing as luck, your Worship; if you will excoose me.
The Lord in heaven is the master of us!"
"Upon my word, it looks almost like it, though I never took that view
of things. However, this was the way of it. To-day is Saturday. Well,
it was last Wednesday night, I was coming home from a long, and wet,
and muddy ride to Maidenhead. That little town always pleases me; and
I like the landlord and the hostler, and I am sure that my horse is
fed----"
"Your Worship must never think such a thing, without you see it mixed,
and feel it, and watch him a-munching, until he hath done."
"More than that, I have always fancied, ever since that story was
about the bag of potatoes you brought, without knowing any more of
it--ever since I heard of that, it has seemed to me that more
inquiries ought to be made at Maidenhead. I need not say why; but I
know that the Squire's opinion had been the same, as long as--I mean
while--his health permitted. On Wednesday I went to the foreman of the
nursery whence the potatoes came. It was raining hard, and he was in a
shed, with a green baize apron on, seeing to some potting work. I got
him away from the other men, and I found him a very sharp fellow
indeed. He remembered all about those potatoes, especially as Squire
Oglander had ridden from Oxford, in the snowy weather, to ask many
questions about them. But the Squire could not put the questions I
did. The poor old gentleman could not bear, of course, to expose his
trouble. But I threw away all little scruples (as truly I should have
done long ago), and I told the good foreman every word, so far as we
know it yet, at least. He was shocked beyond expression--people take
things in such different ways--not at the poor Squire's loss and
anguish, but that anybody should have dared to meddle with his own pet
'oakleafs,' and, above all, his new pet seal.
"'I sealed them myself,' he said, 'sealed them myself, sir, with the
new coat of arms that we paid for that month, because of the tricks of
the trade, sir! Has anybody dared to imitate----' 'No, Mr. Foreman,' I
said, 'they simply cut away your seal altogether, and tied it again,
without any seal.' 'Oh, then,' he replied, 'that quite alters the
case. If they had only meddled with our new arms, while the money was
hot that we paid for them, what a case we might have had! But to knock
them off--no action lies.'
"Cripps, it took me a very long time to warm him up to the matter
again, after that great disappointment. He was burning for some great
suit at law against some rival nursery, which always pays the upstart
one; but I led him round, and by patient words and simple truth
brought him back to reason. The packing of the bag he remembered well,
and the pouring of a lot of buck-wheat husks around and among the
potato sets, to keep them from bruising, and to keep out frost, which
seemed even then to be in the air. And he sent his best man to the
Oxford coach, the first down coach from London, which passed by their
gate about ten o'clock, and would be in Oxford about two, with the
weather and the roads as usual. In that case, the bag could scarcely
have been at the Black Horse more than half an hour before you came
and laid hold of it; and being put into the bar, as the Squire's
parcels always are, it was very unlikely to be tampered with."
"Lord a' mercy! your Worship, it was witchcraft then! The same as I
said all along; it were witches' craft, and nothing else."
"Stop, Cripps, don't you be in such a hurry. But wait till you hear
what I have next to tell. But oh, here comes my friend Hardenow, as
punctual as the clock strikes two! Well, old fellow, how are you
getting on?"
CHAPTER XIX.
A STORMY NIGHT.
The Rev. Thomas Hardenow, fellow and tutor of Brasenose, strode into
his own room at full speed, and stopped abruptly at sight of the
Carrier. "Of all men, most I have avoided thee," was in his mind; but
he spoke it not, though being a strongly outspoken man. Not that he
ever had done any wrong to make him be shy of the Cripps race; but
that he felt in his heart a desire for commune, which must be
dangerous. He knew that in him lurked a foolish tendency towards
Esther; and (which was worse) he knew that she had done her best to
overcome a still more foolish turn towards him.
Cripps, however (who would have fed the doves of Venus on black peas),
looked upon any little bygone "coorting" as a social and congenial
topic, enabling a quiet man to get on (if he only had a good memory)
with almost any woman. Like a sensible man, he had always acquitted
Hardenow of any blame in the matter, knowing that young girls' fancies
may be caught without any angling. "If her chose to be a fool, how
were he to blame for it?" And the Carrier never forgot the stages of
social distinction. "Servant, sir," he therefore said, with his usual
salaam; "hope I see you well, sir."
"Thank you, Zacchary," said Mr. Hardenow, taking the Carrier's horny
palm (which always smelled of straps and buckles), and trying to
squeeze it, with a passive result, "I am pretty well, Zacchary, thank
you."
"Then you don't look it, sir, that you doesn't. We heerd you was
getting on wonderful well. But the proof of the puddin' ain't in you,
sir."
"That's right, Cripps," cried Overshute; "give it to him, Cripps! Why,
he starves himself! Ever since he took his first and second, and got
his fellowship and took orders, he hasn't known what a good dinner is.
He keeps all the fasts in the calendar, and the vigils of the
festivals, and he ought to have an appetite for the feasts; but he
overstays his time, and can't keep anything on his stomach!"
"Now, Russel, as usual!" Hardenow answered, with a true and pleasant
smile; "what a fine fellow you would be, if you only had moderation!
But I see that you want to talk to Cripps; and I have several men
waiting in the quad. Where is my beaver? Oh! here, to be sure! Will
you come with us? No, of course you can't. Will you dine in hall with
me?"
"Of course, I won't. But come you and dine with me on Sunday--the only
day you dare eat a bit--and my mother will do her best to strengthen
you, build you up, establish you, for a fortnight of macaroni. Will
you come?"
"Yes, yes, to-morrow--to be sure--I have many things I want to say to
you. Good-bye for the present; good-bye, Master Cripps."
"There goes one of the finest fellows, of all the fine fellows yet
ruined by rubbish!" With these words Russel Overshute ran to the
window and looked out. A dozen or more of young men were waiting, the
best undergraduates of the college, for Mr. Hardenow to lead them for
fifteen miles, without a word.
"Well, every man to his liking," said Russel; "but that would be about
the last of mine. Now, Cripps, most patient of carriers, are you ready
for me to go on or not?"
"I hath a been thinking about my horse. How greedy o' me to be ating
like this"--for the thought of so much fasting had made him set to
again, while he got the chance--"drinking likewise of college
ale--better I have tasted, but not often--and all this time, as you
might say, old Dobbin easing of his dainty foot, with no more nor a
wisp of hay to drag through his water--if he hath any."
"An excruciating picture, Cripps, drawn by too vivid a conscience.
Dobbin is as happy as he can be, with twenty-five horses to talk to
him. At this very moment I behold him munching choicest of white oats
and chaff."
"Your Worship can see through a stone-wall, they say; but they only
keeps black oats at the Cross just now, along of a contract the
landlord have made--and a blind sort of bargain, to my thinking----"
"Never mind that--let him have black oats then, or Irish oats, or no
oats at all. But do you wish to hear my story out, or will you leave
it till next Saturday?"
"Sir, you might a' seen as I was waiting, until such time as you plaze
to go on wi' un."
"Very well, Cripps, that satisfies the most exacting historian. I will
go on where I left off, if that point can be established. Well, I left
the foreman of the nursery telling me about the man he sent with the
bag of potatoes to the Oxford coach. He told me he was one of his
sharpest hands, who had been off work for a week or two then, and had
only returned that morning. 'Joe Smith' was his name; and when they
could get him to work, he would do as much work as any two other men
on the place. He might be trusted with anything, if he only undertook
it; but the worst of him was that he never could be got to stick long
to anything. Here to-day and gone to-morrow had always been his
character; and they thought that he must be of gipsy race, and perhaps
had a wandering family.
"This made me a little curious about the man; and I asked to see him.
But the foreman said that for some days now he had not been near the
nursery, and they thought that he was on the Oxford road, in the
neighbourhood of Nettlebed; and another thing--if I did see him, I
could not make out more than half he said, for the man had such a
defect in his voice, that only those who were used to him could be
certain of his meaning. Suddenly I thought of your sister's tale, and
I said to the foreman, 'Does he speak like this?' imitating as well as
I could your sister's imitation of him. 'You know the man, sir,' the
foreman answered; 'you have got him so exactly, that you must have
heard him many times.' I told him no more, but asked him to describe
Joe Smith's appearance. He answered that he was a tall, dark man,
loosely built, but powerful, with a stoop in his neck, and a long
sharp nose; and he generally wore a brown pointed hat.
"Cripps, you may well suppose that my suspicions were strong by this
time. Here was your sister's description--so far as the poor girl
could see in the dusk and the fright--confirmed to the very letter;
and here was the clear opportunity offered for slipping the wreath of
hair into the bag."
"Your Worship, now, your Worship! you be a bit too sharp! If that
there man were at Headington quarry at nightfall of the Tuesday, how
could he possible a' been to Maidenhead next morning? No, no, your
Worship are too sharp."
"Too thick, you mean, Cripps; and not sharp enough. But listen to me
for a moment. Those long-legged gipsies think very little of going
thirty miles in a night; though they never travel by day so. And then
there is the up mail-coach. Of course he would not pay his fare, but
he might hang on beneath the guard's bugle, with or without his
knowledge, and slip away at the changing-houses. Of that objection I
think nothing. It serves to my mind as a confirmation."
"Very well, sir," said Cripps discreetly; "who be I for to argify?"
"No, Cripps, of course not. But still I wish to allow you to think of
everything. You may not be right; but still I like you to speak when
you think of anything. That is what I have always said, and contended
for continually--let every man speak--when sensible."
"Your Worship hath hit the mark again. The old Squire saith, 'let no
man speak,' as St. Paul sayeth of the women. But your Worship saith
'let all men speak, all women likewise, as hath a tongue'--and then
you stoppeth us both the more, by restirrecting all on us, women or
men, whichever a may happen, till such time as all turns up sensible.
Now, there never could ever be such a time!"
"Carrier, you are satirical. Keep from the Dusty Anvil, Cripps. Marry
a wife, and you will have a surfeit of argument at home. But still you
have been very good on the whole, and you never will get home
to-night. At any rate, I was so convinced, in spite of all smaller
difficulties, that I bound the foreman to let me know, by a man on
horseback, at any expense, the moment he saw Joe Smith again. And his
parting words to me were these--'Well, sir, don't you think harm of
Joe without sure proof against him. He is a random chap, I know; but I
never saw a better man to earn his wages.'
"Well, I went back to the inn at once, and rode leisurely to Henley.
It was raining hard, and the river in flood with all the melted snow
and so on, when I crossed that pretty bridge. I had been trying in
vain to think what was the best thing I could do; not liking to go
home, and leave my new discovery so vague. But being soaked and chilly
now, I resolved to have a glass of something hot, for fear of taking a
violent cold, and losing perhaps a week by it. So I went into the
entrance of that good inn by the waterside, and called for some brandy
and water hot. The landlord was good enough to come out; and knowing
me from old boating days, he got into a talk with me. I had helped him
at the sessions about a house of his at Dorchester; and nothing could
exceed his good will. Remembering how the gipsies hang about the boats
and the waterside, I asked him (quite as a random shot) whether any of
them happened to be in the neighbourhood just now. He thought perhaps
that I was timid about my dark ride homeward, and he told me all he
knew of them. There was one lot, as usual, in the open ground about
Nuneham, and another large camp near Chalgrove, and another, quite a
small pitch that, on the edge of the firs above Nettlebed.
"This last was the lot for me; and I pressed him so about them, that
he looked at me with a peculiar grin. 'What do you mean by that?' I
asked. 'Now, Squire Overshute, as if you did not know!' he answered.
'Doth your Worship happen to remember Cinnaminta's name?'
"Cripps, I assure you I was astonished. Of course you knew
Cinnaminta--well, I don't want to be interrupted. No one could say any
harm of her; and a lovelier girl was never seen. The landlord had
heard some bygone gossip about Cinnaminta and myself. I did admire
her. I am not ashamed to say that I greatly admired her. And so did
every young fellow here, who had got a bit of pluck in him. I will not
go into that question; but you know what Cinnaminta was."
Cripps nodded, with a thick mixture of feelings. His poetical self had
been smitten more with Cinnaminta than he cared to tell; and his
practical self was getting into a terrible hubbub about his horse. "To
be sure, your Worship," was all he said.
"Very well, now you understand me. To hear of Cinnaminta being in that
camp at Nettlebed made me so determined that I laid hold of the
landlord by the collar without thinking. He begged me not to ride off
with him, or his business would be ruined; and feeling that he weighed
about eighteen stone, I left him on his threshold.
"I could not bear to ask him now another word of anything. Knowing
looks, and winks, and reeking jokes so irritate me, when I know that a
woman is pure and good. You remember how we all lost Cinnaminta. Three
or four score of undergraduates, reckless of parental will, had
offered her matrimony; and three or four newly-elected fellows were
asking whether they would vacate, if they happened to jump the
broomstick."
"All that were too fine to last," muttered Cripps, most sensibly. "But
her ought to a' had a sound man on the road--a man with a horse well
seasoned, and a substantial cart--her ought."
"Oh, then, Cripps, you were smitten too! A nice connection for light
parcels! Well, never mind. The whole thing is over. We all are sadder
and wiser men; but we like to know who the chief sufferer is--what man
has won the beauty. And with this in my mind, I rode up the hill, and
resolved to go through with my seeking.
"When I got to the end of 'the fair-mile,' the night came down in
earnest. You know my young horse 'Cantelupe,' freckled like a melon.
He knows me as well as my old dog; and a child can ride him. But in
the dark he gets often nervous, and jumps across the road, if he sees
what he does not consider sociable. So that one must watch his ears,
whatever the weather may be. And now the weather was as bad as man or
horse could be out in.
"All day, there had been spits of rain, with sudden puffs of wind, and
streaks of green upon the sky, and racing clouds with ragged edges.
You remember the weather of course; Wednesday is one of your Oxford
days. Well, I hope you were home before it began to pelt as it did
that evening. For myself I did not care one fig. I would rather be
drenched than slowly sodden. But I did care for my horse; because he
had whistled a little in the afternoon, and his throat is slightly
delicate. And the whirr of the wind in the hedge, and the way it
struck the naked branches back, like the clashing of clubs against the
sky, were enough to make even a steady o
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