Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 3 of 3

CHAPTER X

“Not another minute to lose, and the sale again deferred! All the lots marked, and the handbills out, and the particulars and conditions ready; and then some paltry pettifogging, and another fortnight will be required to do ‘justice to my interests.’ Justice to my interests! How they do love round–mouthed rubbish! The only justice to me is, from a legal point of view, to string me up, and then quick–lime me; and the only justice to my interests is to rob my children, because I have robbed them already. Robbed them of their birth and name, their power to look men in the face, their chance of being allowed to do what God seems chiefly to want us for – to marry and have children, who may be worse than we are; though, thank Him, mine are not. Robbed them even of their chance to be met as Christians (though I have increased their right to it), in this wretched, money–seeking, servile, and contemptuous age. But who am I to find fault with any, after all my wasted life? A life which might, in its little way, have told upon the people round me, and moved, if not improved them. Which might, at least, have set them thinking, doubting, and believing. Oh the loss of energy, the loss of self–reliance, and the awful load of fear and anguish – I who might have been so different! Pearl is at the window there. I know quite well who loves her – an honest, upright, hearty man, with a true respect for women. But will he look at her when he knows – Oh God, my God, forsake me, but not my children! – Bob, what are you at with those cabbages?”

“Why, they are clubbed, donʼt you see, father, beautifully clubbed already, and the leaves flag directly the sun shines. And I want to know whether it is the larva of a curculio, or anthomyia brassicæ; and I canʼt tell without pulling the plants up, and they canʼt come to any good, you know, with all this ambury in them.”

“I know nothing of the sort, Bob. I know nothing at all about it. Go into the house to your sister. I canʼt bear the sight of you now.”

Bob, without a single word, did as he was told. He knew that his father loved him, though he could not guess the depth of that love, being himself so different. And so he never took offence at his fatherʼs odd ways to him, but thought, “Better luck next time; the governor has got red spider this morning, and he wonʼt be right till dinner–time.”

Bull Garnet smiled at his sonʼs obedience, with a mighty fount of pride in him; and then he sighed, because Bob was gone – and he never could have enough of him, for the little time remaining. He loved his son with a love surpassing that of woman, or that of man for woman. Men would call him a fool for it. But God knows how He has made us.

Thinking none of this, but fretting over fierce heart–troubles, which now began to be too many even for his power of life – as a hundred wolves kill a lion – he turned again down the espalier–walk, where the apple–trees were in blossom. Pinky shells spread to the sun, with the little close tuft in the middle; some striped, some patched, some pinched with white, some streaking as the fruit would be, and glancing every gloss of blush – no two of them were quite alike, any more than two of us are. Yet the bees knew every one among the countless multitude, and never took the wrong one; even as the angels know which of us belongs to them, and who wants visitation.

Bull Garnet, casting to and fro, and taking heed of nothing, not even of the weeds which once could not have lived before his eyes, began again in a vague loose manner (the weakness of which would have angered him, if he had been introspective) to drone about the lawʼs delays, and the folly of institution. He stood at last by his wicket gate, where the hedge of Irish yew was, and there carried on his grumbling.

“Lawyers indeed! And cannot manage a simple thing of that sort! Thank God, I know nothing of law.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Garnet. It is possible that you may want to know something of law, shortly.”

“By what right, sir, dare you break in upon my privacy like this?”

Pale as he was, and scorning himself for the way in which his blood shrunk back, Bull Garnet was far too strong and quick ever to be dumb–foundered. Chope looked at him, with some admiration breaking through the triumph of his small comprehensive eyes.

“Excuse me, Mr. Garnet. I forgot that a public man like you must have his private moments, even at his own gate. I am sorry to see you so hot, my dear sir; though I have heard that it is your character. That sort of thing leads to evil results, and many deplorable consequences. But I did not mean to be rude to you, or to disturb you so strangely.”

“You have not disturbed me at all, sir.”

“I am truly happy to hear it. All I meant, as to knowledge of law, was to give you notice that there is some heavy trouble brewing, and that you must be prepared to meet some horrible accusations.”

“May I trespass further upon your kindness, to ask what their subject is?”

“Oh, nothing more than a very rash and unfounded charge of murder.”

Mr. Chope pronounced that last awful word in a deeply sepulchral manner, and riveted his little eyes into Bull Garnetʼs great ones. Mr. Garnet met his gaze as calmly as he would meet the sad clouded aspect of a dead rabbit, or hare, in a shop where he asked the price of them, and regarded their eyes as the test of their freshness. Chope could not tell what to make of it. The thing was beyond his experience.

But all this time Bull Garnet felt that every minute was costing him a year of his natural life, even if he ever got any chance of living it out.

“How does this concern me? Is it any one on our estates?”

“Yes, and the heir to ‘your estates.’ Young Mr. Cradock Nowell.”

Bull Garnet sighed very heavily; then he strode away, and came back again, with indignation swelling out the volume of his breast, and filling the deep dark channels of brow, and the turgid veins of his eyeballs.

“Whoever has done this thing is a fool; or a rogue – which means the same.”

“It may be so. It may be otherwise. We always hope for the best. Very likely he is innocent. Perhaps they are shooting at the pigeon in order to hit the crow.”

“Perhaps you know best what their motives are. I see no use in canvassing them. You have heard, I suppose, the rumour that Mr. Cradock Nowell has left England?”

“I know very little about it. I have nothing to do with the case; or it might have been managed differently. But I heard that the civil authorities, being called upon to act, discovered, without much trouble, that he had sailed, under a false name, in a ship called the Taprobane, bound direct for Ceylon. And that, of course, told against him rather heavily.”

“Ah, he sailed for Ceylon, did he? A wonderful place for insects. I had an uncle who died there.”

“Yes, Ceylon, where the flying foxes are. Not so cunning, perhaps, as our foxes of the Forest. And yet the fox is a passionate animal. Violent, hot, and hasty. Were you aware of that fact?”

“Excuse me; my time is valuable. I will send for the gamekeeper, if you wish to have light thrown upon that question; or my son will be only too glad – ”

“Ah, your son! Poor fellow!”

Those few short words, pronounced in a tone of real feeling, with no attempt at inquiry, quite overcame Bull Garnet. First extrinsic proof of that which he had so long foreseen with horror – the degradation of his son. He dropped his eyes, which had borne, till now, and returned the lawyerʼs gaze; and the sense of his own peril failed to keep the tears from moving. Up to this time Mr. Chope had doubted, and was even beginning to reject his shrewd and well–founded conclusion. Now he saw and knew everything. And even he was overcome. Passion is infectious; and lawyers are like the rest of us. Mr. Chope had loved his mother.

Bull Garnet gave one quick strange glance at the eyes of Simon Chope, which now were turned away from him, and then he looked at the ground, and said,

“Yes; I have wronged him bitterly.”

Simon Chope drew back from him mechanically, instinctively, as our skin starts from cold iron in the arctic regions. He could not think, much less could he speak, though his mind had been prepared for it. To human nature it is so abhorrent to take the life of another: to usurp the rights of God. To stand in the presence of one who has done it, touches our pulse with death. We feel that he might have done it to us, or that we might have done it to him; and our love of ourselves is at once accelerated and staggered. And then we feel that “life for life” is such low revenge; the vendetta of a drunkard. Very slowly we are beginning to see the baseness of it.

Bull Garnet was the first to speak, and now he spoke quite calmly.

“You came with several purposes. One of them was, that I should break to Sir Cradock Nowell these tidings of new trouble; the news of the warrant which you and others have issued against his luckless son. I will see to it to–day, and I will try to tell him. Good God, he does not deserve it – I have watched him – he is no father. Oh, I wish you had a son, Chope; then you could feel for me.”

Mr. Chope had two sons, not to be freely discoursed of; whom he meant to take into the office, pseudonymously, some day; and he was rather inclined to like the poor little nullius filii. First, because they were his own; secondly, because they had big heads; thirdly, because they had cheated all the other boys. Nevertheless, he was in no hurry to be confidential about them. Yet without his knowing it, or at least with only despising it, this little matter shaped its measure upon his present action. The lawyer lifted his hat to Bull Garnet in a very peculiar manner, conveying to the quick apprehension, what it would not have been safe to pronounce – to wit, that Mr. Chope quite understood all that had occurred; that he would not act upon his discovery until he had well considered the matter, for, after all, he had no evidence; lastly, that he was very sorry for Mr. Garnetʼs position, but would rather not shake hands with him.

The steward watched him walking softly among the glad young leaves, and down the dell where the sunlight flashed on the merry leaps of the water. Long after the lawyer was out of sight, Bull Garnet stood there watching, as if the forest glades would show him the approaching destiny. Strong and firm as his nature was, he had suffered now such wearing, wearying agonies, that he almost wished the weak manʼs wish – to have the mastery taken from him, to have the issue settled without his own decision.

“Poor Cradock sailed in the Taprobane! What an odd name,” he continued, with that childishness to which sometimes the overtaxed brain reverts, “tap, tap–root, tap–robin! Tush, what a fool I am! Oh God, that I could think! Oh God, that I could only learn whether my first duty is to you, or to my children. I will go in and pray.”

In the passage he met his son, and kissed his forehead gently, as if to atone for the harshness with which he had sent him away.

“Father,” said Bob, “shall you want me to–day? Or may I be from home till dark? I have so many things, most important things, to see to.”

“Birds’ nests, I suppose, and grubs, field–mice, and tadpoles. Yes, my son, you are wise. Enjoy them while you can. And take your sister also for a good run, if you can. You may carry your dinner with you: I shall do well enough.”

“Oh, itʼs no use asking Pearl; she never will come with me. And I am sure I donʼt want her. She does much more harm than good; she canʼt kill anything properly, nor even blow an egg. But Iʼll ask her, as you wish it, sir; because I know that she wonʼt come.”

Mr. Garnet had not the heart to laugh at his childrenʼs fine sense of duty towards him; but he saw Bob start with all his tackle, in great hopes, and high spirits. The father looked sadly after him, wondering at his enjoyment, yet loving him the more, perhaps, for being so unlike himself. And as he gazed, he could not help saying to himself, “Very likely I shall never see him thus again – only look at him when he will not care to look on me. Yet he must know, in the end, and she, the poor thing, she must know how all my soul was on them. Now God in heaven, lead me aright. Half an hour shall settle it.”

CHAPTER XI

Meanwhile, supposing the warrant to issue, let us see what chance there is of its ever being served. And it may be a pleasant change awhile to flit to southern latitudes from the troubles and the drizzle, and the weeping summer of England.

Poor Cradock, as we saw him last, backed up by the ebony–tree, and with Wena crouching close to him, knew nothing of his lonely plight and miserable abandonment; until the sheets of plashing rain, and long howls of his little dog, awoke him to great wonderment. Then he arose, and rubbed his eyes, and thought that his sight was gone, and felt a heavy weight upon him, and a destiny to grope about, and a vain desire to scream, such as we have in nightmare. Meanwhile, he felt something pulling at him, always in the same direction, and he did not like to put his hand down, for he had some idea that it was Beelzebub. Suddenly a great flash of lightning, triple thrice repeated, lit up the whole of the wood, like day; and he saw black Wena tugging at him, to draw him into good shelter. He saw the shelter also, ere the gush of light was gone, an enormous and hollow mowana–tree, a little higher up the hill. Then all was blackest night again; and even Wena was swallowed up in it. But with both hands stretched out, to fend the blows of hanging branch or creeper, he committed himself to the little dogʼs care, and she took him to the mowana–tree. Then another great flash lit up all the hollow; and Wena was frightened and dropped her tail, but still held on to her master.

Cradock neither knew, nor cared, what the name of the tree was, nor whether it possessed, as some trees do, especial attractions for lightning. “Any harbour in a storm,” was all he thought, if he thought at all; and he lay down very snugly, and felt for Amyʼs present to him, and then, in spite of the crashing thunder and the roaring wind, snugly he went off to sleep; and at his feet lay Wena.

In the bright morning, the youth arose, and shook himself, and looked round, and felt rather jolly than otherwise. Travellers say that the baobab, or mowana–tree, is the hardest of all things to kill, and will grow along the ground, when uprooted, and not allowed to grow upright. Frenchmen have proved, to their own satisfaction, that some baobabs, now living, grew under the deluge of Noah, and not improbably had the great ark floating over their heads. Be that as it may, and though it is a Cadmeian job to cut down the baobab, for every root thereupon claims, and takes, a distinct existence; we can all of us tell the travellers of a thing yet harder to kill – the hope in the heart of a man. And, the better man he is, the more of hopeʼs spores are in him; and the quicker they grow again, after they have all been stamped upon. A mushroom in the egg likes well to have the ground beaten overhead with a paviourʼs rammer, and comes up all the bigger for it, and lifts a pave–stone of two hundred–weight. Shall then the pluck of an honest man fail, while his true conscience stirs in him, though the result be like a fleeting fungus, supposed to be born in an hour by those who know nothing about it, and who make it the type of an upstart – shall not his courage work and spread, although it be underground, as he grows less and less defiant; and rear, perhaps in the autumn of life, a genuine crop, and a good one?

Cradock Nowell found his island not at all a bad one. There was plenty to eat at any rate, which is half the battle of life. Plenty to drink is the other half, in the judgment of many philosophers. But I think that plenty to look at it ought to be at least a third of it. The pride of the eyes, if not exercised on that vanishing point, oneself, is a pride legitimate, and condemned by no apostle. And here there was noble food for it; and it is a pride which, when duly fed, slumbers off into humility.

Oh the glory of everything, the promise, and the brightness; the large leading views of sky and sea, and the crystal avenues onward. The manner in which a fellow expands, when he looks at such things – if he be capable of expanding, which surely all of us are – the way in which he wonders, and never dreams about wondering, and the feeling of grandeur growing within him, and how it repents him of littleness, and all his foes are forgiven; and then he sees that he has something himself to do with all the beauty of it – upon my word, I am a great fool, to attempt to tell of it.

Cradock saw his lovely island, and was well content with it. It was not more than four miles long, and perhaps three miles across; but it was gifted with three grand things – beauty, health, and nourishment. It might have been ages, for all he saw then, since man had sworn or forsworn in it; perhaps none since the voyagers of Necho, whose grand truth was so incredible. There were no high hills, and no very deep holes; but a pleasant undulating place, ever full of leaves and breezes. And as for wild beasts, he had no fear; he knew that they would require more square miles than he owned. As for snakes, he was not so sure; and indeed there were some nasty ones, as we shall see by–and–by.

Then he went to the shore, and looked far away, even after the Taprobane. The sea was yet heaving heavily, and tumbling back into itself with a roar, and some fishing eagles were very busy, stooping along the foam of it; but no ship was to be seen anywhere, and far away in the south and south–east the selvage of black clouds, lopping over the mist of the horizon, showed that still the typhoon was there, and no one could tell how bad it was.

Cradock found a turtle, at which Wena looked first in mute wonder, with her eyes taking jumps from their orbits, and then, like all females, she found tongue, and ran away, and barked furiously. Presently she came back, sniffing along, and drawing her nose on the sand, yet determined to stick by her master, even if the turtle should eat him. But, to her immense satisfaction, the result was quite the converse: she and her master ate the turtle; beginning, ab ovo, that morning.

For, although Crad could not quite eat the eggs raw (by–the–by, they are not so bad that way), and although he could not quite strike a light by twirling one stick in the back of another, he had long ago found reason for, and he rapidly found that excellent goddess in, the roasting of eggs. And for that, he had to thank Amy. Only see how thoughtful women are! – yes, a mark of astonishment.

But the astonishment will subside, perhaps, when we come to know all about it; for then all the misogynes may declare that the thought was born of vanity. Let them do so. Facts are facts, I say.

Amy had sent him a photograph of her faithful self, beautifully done by Mr. Silvy, of Bayswater, and framed in a patent loverʼs box, I forget the proper name for it – something French, of course – so ingeniously contrived, that when a spring at the back was pressed, a little wax match would present itself, from a lining of asbestos, together with a groove to draw it in. Thus by night, as well as by day, the smile of the loved one might illumine the lonely heart of the lover.

Now this device stood him in good stead – as doubtless it was intended to do by the practical mind of the giver – for it served to light the fire wherewith man roasteth roast, and is satisfied. And a fire once lit in the hollow heart of that vast mowana–tree (where twenty men might sit and smoke, when the rainy season came), if you only supplied some fuel daily, and cleared away the ashes weekly, there need be no fear of philanthropy making a trespasser of Prometheus. Cradock soon resolved to keep his head–quarters there, for the tree stood upon a little hill, overlooking land and sea, for many a league of solitude. And it was not long before he found that the soft bark of the baobab might easily be cut so as to make a winding staircase up it; and the work would be an amusement to him, as well as a great advantage.

Master and dog having made a most admirable breakfast upon turtles’ eggs, “roasted very knowingly” – as Homer well expresses it – with a large pineapple to follow, started, before the heat of the day, in search of water, the indispensable. Shaddocks, and limes, and mangosteens, bananas – with their long leaves quilling – pineapples, mawas, and mamoshoes, cocoa–nuts, plantains, mangoes, palms, and palmyras, custard–apples, and gourds without end – besides fifty other ground–fruits, ay, and tree–fruits for that matter, quite unknown to Cradock, there was no fear of dying from drought; and yet the first thing to seek was pure water. If Cradock had thought much about the thing, very likely it would have struck him that some of the fruits which he saw are proof not so much of human cultivation, as of human presence, at some time.

But he never thought about that; and indeed his mind was too full for thinking. So he cut himself a most tremendous bludgeon of camelthorn, as heavy and almost as hard as iron, and off he went whistling, with Wena wondering whether the stick would beat her.

He certainly took things easily; more so than is quite in accord with human nature and reason. But the state of his mind was to blame for it; and the freshness of the island air, after the storm of the night.

Even a rejected lover, or a disconsolate husband, gives a jerk to his knee–joints, and carries his elbows more briskly, when the bright spring morning shortens his shadow at every step. Cradock, moreover, felt quite sure that he would not be left too long there; that his friends on board the Taprobane would come aside from their track to find him, on their return–voyage from Ceylon; and so no doubt they would have done, if it had been in their power. But the Taprobane, as we shall see, never made her escape, in spite of weatherly helm and good seamanship, from the power of that typhoon. She was lost on the shoals of Benguela Bay, thirty miles south of Quicombo; and not a man ever reached the shore to tell the name of the ship. But a Portuguese half–caste, trading there, found the name on a piece of the taffrail, and a boat which was driven ashore.

After all, we see then that Cradock was wonderfully lucky – at least, if it be luck to live – in having been left behind, that evening, on an uninhabited island. “Desolate” nobody could call it, for the gifts of life lay around in abundance, and he soon had proof that the feet of men, ay, of white men, trod it sometimes. Following the shore, a little further than the sailors had gone, he came on a pure narrow thread of crystal, a current of bright water dimpling and twinkling down the sand. Wena at once lay down and rolled, and wetted every bit of herself; and then began to lap the water wherein her own very active and industrious friends were drowning. That Wena was such a ladylike dog; she washed herself before drinking, and she never would wash in salt water. It made her hair so unbecoming.

Cradock followed up that stream, and found quite a tidy little brook, when he got above the sand–ridge, full of fish, and fringed with trees, and edged with many a quaint bright bird, scissor–bills and avosets, demoiselles and flamingoes. Wena plunged in and went hunting blue–rats, and birds, and fishes, while her master stooped down, and drank, and thanked God for this discovery.

A little way up the brook he found a rude shanty, a sort of wigwam, thatched with leaves and waterproof, backed by a low rock, but quite open in front and at both ends. Under the shelter were blocks of ebony, billets of bar–wood piled up to the roof, a dozen tusks of ivory, bales of dried bark, and piles of rough cylinders full of caoutchouc, and many other things which Cradock could not wait to examine. But he felt quite certain that this must be some traderʼs depôt for shipping: the only thing that surprised him was that the goods were left unprotected. For he knew that the West Africans are the biggest thieves in the world, while he did not understand the virtue of the hideous great Fetich, hanging there.

It was made of a long dried codfish, with glass eyes, ground in the iris, and polished again in the pupil, and a glaring stripe of red over them, and the neck of a bottle fixed as for a tongue, and the body skewered open and painted bright blue, ribbed with white, like a skeleton, and the tail prolonged with two spinal columns, which rattled as it went round. The effect of the whole was greatly increased by the tattered cage of crinoline in which it was suspended, and which went creaking round, now and then, in the opposite direction.

No nigger would dare to steal anything from such a noble idol. At least so thought the Yankee trader who knew a thing or two about them. He had left his things here in perfect faith, while he was travelling towards the Gaboon, to complete his cargo.

Cradock was greatly astounded. He thought that it must be a white manʼs work; and soon he became quite certain, for he saw near a cask the clear mark of a boot, of civilized make, unquestionably. Then he prized out the head of the cask, after a deal of trouble, and found a store of ship–biscuit, a little the worse for weevil, but in very fair condition. He gave Wena one, but she would not touch it, for she set much store by her teeth, and had eaten a noble breakfast.

Having made a rough examination of the deserted shed, and found no sort of clothing – which did not vex him much, except that he wanted shoes – he resolved to continue the circuit of his new dominions, and look out perhaps for another hut. He might meet a man at any time; so he carried his big stick ready, though none but cannibals could have any good reason to hurt him. As he went on, and struck inland to cut off the northern promontory, the lie of the land and the look of the woods brought to his mind more clearly and brightly his own beloved New Forest. He saw no quadruped larger than a beautiful little deer, lighter than a gazelle, and of a species quite unknown to him. They stood and looked at him prettily, without either fear or defiance, and Wena wanted to hunt them. But he did not allow her to indulge that evil inclination. He had made up his mind to destroy nothing, even for his own subsistence, except the cold–blooded creatures which seem to feel less of the death–pang. But he saw a foul snake, with a flat heavy head, which hissed at and frightened the doggie, and he felt sure that it was venomous: monkeys also of three varieties met him in his pilgrimage, and seemed disposed to be sociable; while birds of every tint and plumage fluttered, and flashed, and flitted. Then Wena ran up to him howling, and limping, and begging for help; and he found her clutched by the seed–vessels of the terrible uncaria. He could scarcely manage to get them off, for they seemed to be crawling upon her.

When he had made nearly half his circuit, without any other discovery – except that the grapes were worthless – the heat of the noonday sun grew so strong, although it was autumn there – so far as they have any autumn – that Cradock lay down in the shade of a plantain; and, in a few seconds afterwards, was fast asleep and dreaming. Wena sat up on guard and snapped at the nasty poisonous flies, which came to annoy her master.

How heavenly tropical life would be, in a beautiful country like that, but for those infernal insects! The mosquito, for instance, – and he is an angel, compared to some of those Beelzebubs, – must have made Adam swear at Eve, even before the fall. And then those awful spiders, whose hair tickles a man to madness, even if he survives the horror of seeing such devils. And then the tampan – but let us drop the subject, please, for fear of not sleeping to–night. Cradock awoke in furious pain, and spasms most unphilosophical. He had dreamed that he was playing football upon Cowley Green, and had kicked out nobly with his right foot into a marching line of red ants. Immediately they swarmed upon him, up him, over him, into him, biting with wild virulence, and twisting their heads and nippers round in every wound to exasperate it. Wena was rolling and yelling, for they attacked her too. Cradock thought they would kill him; although he did not know that even the python succumbs to them. He was as red all over, inside his clothes and outside, as if you had winnowed over him a bushel of fine rouge. Dancing, and stamping, and recalling, with heartfelt satisfaction, some strong words learned at Oxford, he caught up Wena, and away they went, two solid lumps of ants, headlong into the sea. Luckily he had not far to go; he lay down and rolled himself, clothes and all, and rolled poor Wena too in the waves, until he had the intense delight of knowing that he had drowned a million of them. Ah! and just now he had made up his mind to respect every form of life so.

Oh, but I defy any fellow, even the sage Archbishop who reads novels to stop other people, to have lectured us under the circumstances, or to have kept his oaths in, with those twenty thousand holes in him. The salt water went into Cradockʼs holes, and made him feel like a Cayenne peppercastor; and the little dog sat in the froth of the sea, and thought that even dogs are allowed a hell.

After that there was nothing to do, except to go home mournfully – if a tree may be called a home, as no doubt it deserves to be – and then to dry the clothes, and wish that the wearer knew something of botany. Cradock had no doubt at all that around him grew whole stacks of leaves which would salve and soothe his desperate pain; but he had not the least idea which were balm and which were poison. How he wished that, instead of reading so hard for the scholarship of Dean Ireland, he had kept his eyes open in the New Forest, and learned just Natureʼs rudiments! Of course he would have other leaves to deal with; but certain main laws and principles hold good all the world over. Bob Garnet would have been quite at home, though he had never seen one of those plants before.