CHAPTER XXVIII.
BOOTS ON
When a very active man is suddenly "laid by the heels;" sad as the dispensation is, there are sure to be some who rejoice in it. Even if it be only a zealous clerk, sausage-maker, or grave-digger, thus upset in his activities; there are one or two compeers who rejoice in the heart, while they deeply lament with the lip. Not that they have the very smallest atom of ill-will about them. They are thoroughly good-hearted fellows, as are nine men out of every ten; and within, as well as without, they would grieve to hear that their valued friend was dead.
Still, for the moment, and while we believe, as everybody does about everybody else, that he is sure as a top to come round again, it is a relief to have this busy fellow just out of the way a bit; and there is an inward hugging of the lazier spirit at the thought that the restless one will have received a lesson, and be pulled back to a milder state. Be this view of the matter either true or false, in a general way, at least in this particular instance (the illness of Russel Overshute), some of it seemed to apply right well.
There was no one who wished him positive death, not even of those whom he had most justly visited with the treadmill; but there were several who were not sorry to hear of this check to his energies; and foremost among them might be counted Mr. Luke Sharp and the great John Smith.
Mr. John Smith had surprised his friends, and disappointed the entire public, by finding out nothing at all about anything after his one great discovery, made with the help of the British army. For some cause or other, best known to himself, he had dropped his indefatigability and taken to very grave shakes of his head instead of nimble footings. He feigned to be very busy still with this leading case of the neighbourhood; but though his superiors might believe it, his underlings were not to be misled. All of these knew whether Mr. John was launching thunderbolts or throwing dust, and were well aware that he had quite taken up with the latter process in the Beckley case.
Why, or even exactly when, this change had occurred, they did not know, only they were sure that the reason lay deep in the pocket of Mr. Smith; which conclusion, as we shall see, did no more honour to their heads than to their hearts.
But still, whatever his feelings were, or his desires in the matter, the resolute face and active step of this intelligent officer were often to be seen and heard at Beckley; and to several persons in the village they were becoming welcome. Numbers Cripps, the butcher, was moved with gentle goodwill towards him, having heard what a fine knife and fork he played, and finding it true in the Squire's bill. Also Phil Hiss of the Dusty Anvil found the fame of this gentleman telling on his average receipts; and several old women, who had some time back made up their accounts for a better world, and were taking the interest in scandal, hailed with delight this unexpected bonus and true premium. To mention young spinsters would be immoral, for none of them had any certainty whether there was, or was not, any Mrs. John Smith. Rustic modesty forbade that the Carrier should be asked to settle this great point directly. Still there were methods of letting him know how desirable any information was.
At all these symptoms of renown, when brought to his knowledge, Mr. Smith only smiled and shook his head. He had several good reasons of his own for haunting the village as he did; one of them being that he thus obeyed the general orders he had received. Also he really liked the Squire, his victuals, and his domestics. Among these latter he had quite outlived any little prejudice created by his early manner; and even Mary Hookham was now inclined to use him as an irritant, or stimulant, for the lukewarm Cripps. But being a sharp and quick young woman, Mary took care not to go too far.
"How is the fine old gentleman now? Mary, my love, how is he?" Mr. Smith asked, as he pulled off his cloak in the lobby, just after church-time, and just before early dinner-time, on the morrow of that Saturday night when Esther set off for Shotover. Although it was spring, she had not gone alone, but had taken a son of the butcher with her; the effect of that quarry-scene on her nerves would last as long as she did.
Mary was bound not to answer Mr. Smith whenever he spoke in that festive way. That much had been settled betwixt her and her mother, remembering what a place Beckley was. But she did all her duty, as a good maid should, in the way of receiving a visitor. She took his cloak from him, and she hung it on a hook – most men wore a cloak just then for walking, whether it were wet or dry, and part of the coming "Tractarian movement" was to cast away that cloak – and then Mary saw on the feathery collar a leaf-bud that threatened to become a moth, according to her entomology. This she picked out, with a "shoo" and a "shish" as she trod it underfoot; and Mr. John Smith, having terror of insects, and being a very clean man, recoiled, just when he was thinking of stealing a kiss. This little piece of business placed them on their proper terms again.
"How is your master, Miss Hookham? I hope you find him getting better. Everything now is looking up again!"
"No, Mr. Smith; he is very sadly. Thanking you, sir, for inquiring of him. He do seem a little better one day, and we all begins to hope and hope, and then there come something all over him again, the same as might be this here cloak, sir, thrown on the head of that there stick. But come in and see him, Mr. Smith, if you please. I thought it was the rector when you rang. But master will be glad to see you every bit the same as if you was, no doubt."
John Smith, who was never to be put down by any small comparisons, followed quick Mary with a stedfast march over the quiet matting. Potters, with their broken shards, had not yet made it a trial to walk, and a still greater trial to look downward, on the road to dinner. In the long, old-fashioned dining-room sat the Squire at the head of his table. For many years it had been his wont to have an early dinner on Sunday, with a knife and fork always ready for the clergyman, who was a bachelor of middle age. The clergyman came, or did not come, according to his own convenience, without ceremony or apology.
"I beg you to excuse," said the Squire rising, as Smith was shown into the room, "my absence from church this morning, Mr. Warbelow. I had quite made up my mind to go, and everything was quite ready, when I did not feel quite so well as usual, and was ordered to stay at home."
Squire Oglander made his fine old-fashioned bow when he had spoken, and held out his hand for the parson to take it, as the parson always did, with eyes that gave a look of grief and then fell, and kind lips that murmured that all things were ordered for the best. But instead of the parson's gentle clasp, the Squire, whose sight was beginning to fail together with his other faculties, was saluted with a strong rough grasp, and a gaze from entirely unclerical eyes.
"How is your Worship? Well, nicely, I hope. Charming you look, sir, as ever I see."
"Sir, I thank you. I am in good health. But I have not the honour of remembering your name."
"Smith, your Worship – John Smith, at your service; as he was the day before yesterday. 'Out of sight out of mind,' the old saying is. I suppose you find it so, sir!"
With this home-thrust, delivered quite unwittingly, Mr. Smith sat down; his opinion was that Her Majesty's service levelled all distinctions. Mr. Oglander gave him one glance, like the keen look of his better days, and then turned away and gazed round the room for something out of sight, but never likely to be out of mind. The old man was weak, and knew his weakness. In the presence of a gentleman he might have broken down and wept, and been much better for it; but before a man of this sort, not a sign would he let out of the sorrow that was killing him.
It had been settled by all doctors, when the Squire was in his first illness, that nothing should be said by Smith, or any one else (without great cause), about the trouble which was ever in the heart of all the house. Nothing, at least to the Squire himself, for fear of exciting him fatally. Little rumours might be filtered through the servants towards him; especially through Mother Hookham, who put hopeful grains of Paradise into the heavy beer of fact. Such things did the old man good. His faith in the Lord, when beginning to flag, was renewed by fibs of this good old woman; and each confirmed the other.
In former days he would have resented and nipped in the bud – kind-hearted as he was – John Smith's familiarity. But now he had no heart to care about any of such trifles. He begged Mr. Smith to take a chair, quite as if he were waiting to be invited; then, weak as he was, he tottered to the bell-pull, rather than ask his guest to ring. John Smith jumped up to help, but felt uncertain what good manners were.
"Mary," said the Squire, when Mary came; "you always look out of the window, I think, to see the people come out of church."
"Never, sir, never! Except whenever I feels wicked not to a' been there myself. Such time it seemeth to do me good; like smelling of the good words over there."
"Yes, that is very right. All I want to know is whether Mr. Warbelow is coming up here."
"No, sir; not this time, I believe. He seemed to have got a young lady with un, as wore a blue cloak with three slashes to the sleeve, and a bonnet with yellow French roses in it, and a striped skirt, made of the very same stuff as I seed in to Cavell's – no, not Cavell's – t'other shop over the way, round the corner; likewise her had – "
"Then, Mary, bring in the dinner, if you please. This gentleman will dine with me, instead of Mr. Warbelow."
"Well now, if I ever did!" Miss Hookham exclaimed to herself in the passage. "Why, a must be a sort of a gentleman! Master wouldn't dine along of Master Cripps; but to my mind Zak be the gentleman afore he!"
The Squire's oblique little sarcasm – if sarcasm at all it were – failed to hit Mr. Smith altogether; he cordially accepted plate and spoon, and fell to at the soup, which was excellent. The soup was followed by a fine sirloin; whereupon Mr. Oglander, through some association of ideas, could not suppress a little sigh.
"Never sigh at your meat, sir," cried Mr. Smith; "give me the carving-knife, sir, if you are unequal to the situation. To sigh at such a sirloin – oh fie, oh fie!"
"I was thinking of some one who always used to like the brown," the old man said, in the simplest manner, as if an apology were needed.
"Well, sir, I like the brown very much! I will put it by for myself, sir, and help you to an inner slice. Here, Mary, a plate for your master! Quick! Everything will be cold, my goodness! And who sliced this horse-radish, pray? for slicing it is, not scraping."
Mary was obliged to bite her tongue to keep it in any way mannersome; when the door was thrown open, and in came her mother, with her face quite white, and both hands stretched on high.
"Oh my! oh my! a sin I call it – a wicked, cruel, sinful sin!" Widow Hookham exclaimed as soon as she could speak. "All over the village, all over the parish, in two days' time at the latest it will be. Oh, how could your Worship allow of it?"
"Give your mamma a glass of wine, my dear," said Mr. John Smith, as the widow fell back, with violent menace of fainting, or worse; while the poor Squire, expecting some new blow, folded his tremulous hands to receive it. "Take a good drink, ma'am, and then relieve your system."
"That Cripps! oh, that Cripps!" exclaimed Mrs. Hookham, as soon as the wine, which first "went the wrong way," had taken the right direction; "if ever a darter of mine hath Cripps, in spite of two stockings of money, they say – "
"What is it about Cripps?" asked the Squire, in a voice that required an immediate answer. The first news of his trouble had come through Cripps; and now, in his helpless condition, he always connected the name of the Carrier with the solution, if one there should be.
"He hath done a thing he ought to be ashamed on!" screamed Mrs. Hookham, with such excitement, that they were forced to give her another glass of wine; "he hath brought into this parish, and the buzzum of his family, pestilence and death, he hath! And who be he to do such a thing, a road-faring, twopenny carrier?"
"Cripps charges a good deal more than twopence," said Mr. Oglander quietly; for his hopes and fears were once more postponed.
"He hath brought the worst load ever were brought!" cried the widow, growing eloquent. "Black death, and the plague, and the murrain of Egypt hath come in through Cripps the Carrier! How much will he charge Beckley, your Worship? How much shall Beckley pay him, when she mourneth for her children? when she spreadeth forth her hands and seeketh north and south, and cannot find them, because they are not?"
"What is it, good woman?" cried Smith, impatiently, "what is all this uproar? do tell us, and have done with it?"
"Good man," replied Widow Hookham tartly, "my words are addressed to your betters, sir. Your Worship knoweth well that Master Kale hath leave and license for his Sunday dinner; ever since his poor wife died, he sitteth with a knife and fork to the right side of our cook-maid. He were that genteel, I do assure you, although his appearance bespeaketh it not, and city gents may look down on him; he had such a sense of propriety, not a word did he say all the time of dinner to raise an objection to the weakest stomach. But as soon as he see that all were done, and the parlour dinner forward, he layeth his finger on his lips, and looketh to me as the prime authority; and when I ask him to speak out, no secrets being among good friends, what he said were a deal too much for me, or any other Christian person."
"Well, well, ma'am, if your own dinner was respected, you might have showed some respect for ours," Mr. Smith exclaimed very sadly, beholding the gravy in the channelled dish margined with grease, and the noble sirloin weeping with lost opportunity. But Mr. Oglander took no notice. To such things he was indifferent now.
"To keep the mind dwelling upon earthly victuals," the widow replied severely, "on the Lord's Day, and with the Day of the Lord a-hanging special over us – such things is beyond me to deal with, and calls for Mr. Warbelow. Carrier Cripps hath sent his sister over to nurse Squire Overshute!"
John Smith pretended to be busy with his beef, but Mary, who made a point of watching whatever he did (without well knowing why), startled as she was by her mother's words, this girl had her quick eyes upon his face, and was sure that it lost colour, as the carved sirloin of beef had done from the trickling of the gravy.
"Overshute! nurse Mr. Overshute?" cried the Squire with great astonishment. "Why, what ails Mr. Overshute? It is a long time since I have seen him, and I thought that he had perhaps forgotten me. He used to come very often, when – but who am I to tempt him? When my darling was here, in the time of my darling, everybody came to visit me; now nobody comes, and of course it is right. There is nobody for them to look at now, and no one to make them laugh a little. Ah, she used to make them laugh, till I was quite jealous, I do believe; not of myself, bless your heart! but of her, because I never liked her to have too much to say to anybody, unless it was one who could understand her. And nobody ever turned up that was able, in any way, to understand her, except her poor old father, sir."
The Squire, at the end of this long speech (which had been a great deal too much for him) stood up, and flourished his fork, which should have been better employed in feeding him, and looked from face to face, in fear that he had made himself ridiculous. Nobody laughed at him, or even smiled; and he was pleased with this, and resolved never to give such occasion again; because it would have shamed him so. And after all it was his own business. None of these people could have any idea, and he hoped they never might have. By this time his mind was dropping softly into some confusion, and feeling it so, he sat down again, and drank the glass of wine which Mary Hookham kindly held for him.
For a few minutes Mr. John Smith had his flourish (to let both the women be sure who he was) all about the Queen, and the law of the land, and the jurisdiction of the Bench, and he threatened the absent Cripps with three months' imprisonment, and perhaps the treadmill. He knew that he was talking unswept rubbish, but his audience was female. They listened to him without leaving off their work; and their courage increased as his did.
But presently Mr. Oglander, who had seemed to be taking a nap, arose, and said, as clearly as ever he had said anything in his clearest days —
"Mary, go and tell Charles to put the saddle on the mare at once."
"Oh Lor', sir! whatever are you thinking of? Lor' a massy, sir, I couldn't do it, I couldn't! You ain't abeen a-horseback for nigh four months, and your orders is to keep quiet in your chair, and not even look out o' winder, sir. Do 'ee plaize to go into your slippers, sir?"
"I will not go into my slippers, Mary. I will go into my boots. I hear that Mr. Overshute is ill, and I gather from what you have all been saying that his illness is of such a kind that nobody will go near him. I have wronged the young gentleman bitterly, and I will do my best to right myself. If I never do another thing, I will ride to Shotover this day. Order the mare, as I tell you, and the air will do me good, please God!"
CHAPTER XXIX.
A SPIDER'S DINNER-PARTY
Now was the happy time when Oxford, ever old, yet ever fresh with the gay triennial crown of youth, was preparing itself for that sweet leisure for which it is seldom ill prepared. Being the paramount castle and strongest feudal hold of stout "idlesse," this fair city has not much to do to get itself into prime condition for the noblest efforts and most arduous feats of invincible laziness. The first and most essential step is to summon all her students, and send them to chapel to pay their vows. After this there need be no misgiving or fear of industry. With one accord they issue forth, all pledged to do nothing for the day, week, or month; each intellectual brow is stamped with the strongest resolve not to open a book; and
"Games are the spur which the clear spirit doth raise,
To scorn the Dons, and live luxurious days."
This being so, whether winter shatters the Isid wave against Folly bridge, or spring's arrival rustles in the wavering leaves of Magdalen, or autumn strews the chastened fragrance of many brewers on ripe air – how much more when beauteous summer fosters the coy down on the lip of the junior sophist like thistle-seed, and casts the freshman's shadow hotly on the flags of High Street – now or never is the proper period not to overwork one's self, and the hour for taking it easy.
But against each sacred rite and hallowed custom of the place, against each good old-fashioned smoothness, and fine-fed sequacity, a rapid stir was now arising, and a strong desire to give a shove. There were some few people who really thought that the little world in which they lay was one they ought to move in; that perfect life was not to be had without some attempt at breathing; and that a fire (though beautifully laid) gives little warmth till kindled.
However, these were young fellows mostly, clever in their way, but not quite sound; and the heads of houses, generally speaking, abode on the house-top, and did not come down. Still they kept their sagacious eyes on the movement gathering down below, and made up their minds to crush it as soon as they could be quite certain of being too late. But these things ride not upon the cart of Cripps – though Cripps is a theologian, when you beat his charges down.
After the Easter vacation was over, with too few fattening festivals, the most popular tutor in Brasenose (being the only one who ever tried to teach) came back to his rooms and his college work with a very fine appetite for doing good; – according, at least, to his own ideas of good, and duty, and usefulness; all of which were fundamentally wrong in the opinion of the other tutors. But Hardenow, while he avoided carefully all disputes with his colleagues, strictly kept to his own course, and doing more work than the other five (all put together) attempted, was permitted to have his own way, because of the trouble there might be in stopping him.
The college met for the idle term, on Saturday morning, as usual. On Saturday afternoon Hardenow led off his old "squad" with two new recruits, for their fifteen miles of hard walking. Athletics and training were as yet unknown (except with the "eight" for Henley), and this Tractarian movement may have earned its name, ere the birth of No. 90, from the tract of road traversed, in a toe-and-heel track, by the fine young fellows who were up to it. At any rate that was what the country people said, and these are more often right than wrong, and the same opinion still abides with them.
Hardenow only took this long tramp for the sake of collecting his forces. Saturday was not their proper day for this very admirable coat-tail chase. Neither did they swallow hill and plain in this manner on a Sunday. Lectures were needful to fetch them up to the proper pitch for striding so. Wherefore on the morrow Mr. Hardenow was free for a cruise on his own account, after morning sermon at St. Mary's; and not having heard of his old friend Russel for several weeks, he resolved to go and hunt him up in his own home.
It was not a possible thing for this very active and spare-bodied man to lounge upon his road. Whatever it was that he undertook, he carried on the action with such a swing and emphasis, that he seemed to be doing nothing else. He wore a short spencer, and a long-tailed coat, "typical" – to use the pet word of that age – both of his curt brevity and his ankle-reaching gravity. His jacket stuck into him, and his coat struck away with the power of an adverse wind, while the boys turned back and stared at him; but he was so accustomed to that sort of thing that he never thought of looking round. He might have been tail-piped for seven leagues without troubling his head about it.
This was a man of great power of mind, and led up to a lofty standard; pure, unselfish, good, and grand (so far as any grandeur can be in the human compound), watchful over himself at almost every corner of his ways, kind of heart, and fond of children; loving all simplicity, quick to catch and glance the meaning of minds very different from his own; subtle also, and deep to reason, but never much inclined to argue. He had a shy and very peculiar manner of turning his eyes away from even an undergraduate, when his words did not command assent; as sometimes happened with freshmen full of conceit from some great public school.
The manner of his mind was never to assert itself, or enter into controversy. He felt that no arguments would stir himself when he had solidly cast his thoughts; and he had of all courtesies the rarest (at any rate with Englishmen), the courtesy of hoping that another could reason as well as himself.
In this honest and strenuous nature there was one deficiency. The Rev. Thomas Hardenow, copious of mind and active, clear of memory, and keen at every knot of scholarship, patient and candid too, and not at all intolerant, yet never could reach the highest rank, through want of native humour. His view of things was nearly always anxious and earnest. His standing-point was so fixed and stable, that every subject might be said to revolve on its own axis during its revolution round him; and the side that never presented itself was the ludicrous or lightsome one.
As he strode up the hill, with the back of his leg-line concave at the calf, instead of convex (whenever his fluttering skirt allowed a glimpse of what he never thought about), it was brought home suddenly to his ranging mind that he might be within view of Beckley. At a bend of the rising road he turned, and endwise down a plait of hills, and between soft pillowy folds of trees, the simple old church of Beckley stood, for his thoughts to make the most of it. And, to guide them, the chime of the gentle bells, foretelling of the service at three o'clock, came on the tremulous conveyance of the wind, murmuring the burden he knew so well – "old men and ancient dames, married folk and children, bachelors and maidens, all come to church!"
Hardenow thought of the months he had spent, some few years back, in that quiet place; of the long, laborious, lonesome days, the solid hours divided well, the space allotted for each hard drill; then (when the pages grew dim and dark, and the bat flitted over the lattice, or the white owl sailed to the rickyard), the glory of sallying into the air, inhaling grander volumes than ever from mortal breath proceeded, and plunging into leaves that speak of one great Author only. And well he remembered in all that toil the pure delight of the Sunday; the precious balm of kicking out both legs, and turning on the pillow until eight o'clock; the leisurely breakfast with the Saturday papers, instead of Aristotle; the instructive and amusing walk to church, where everybody admired him, and he set the fashion for at least ten years; the dread of the parson that a man who was known as the best of his year at Oxford should pick out the fallacies of his old logic; and then the culminating triumph of Sabbatic jubilee – the dinner, the dinner, wherewith the whole week had been privily gestating; up to that crowning moment when Cripps, in a coat of no mean broadcloth, entered with a dish of Crippsic size, with the "trimmings" coming after him in a tray, and lifting the cover with a pant and flourish, said, "Well, sir, now, what do 'ee plaize to think of that?"
Nor in this pleasant retrospect of kindness and simplicity was the element of rustic grace and beauty wholly absent – the slight young figure that flitted in and out, with quick desire to please him; the soft pretty smile with which his improvements of Beckley dialect were received; and the sweet gray eyes that filled with tears so, the day before his college met. Hardenow had feared, humble-minded as he was, that the young girl might be falling into liking him too well; and he knew that there might be on his own part too much reciprocity. Therefore (much as he loved Cripps, and fully as he allowed for all that was to be said upon every side), he had felt himself bound to take no more than a distant view of Beckley.
Even now, after three years and a half, there was some resolve in him to that effect, or the residue of a resolution. He turned from the gentle invitation of the distant bells, and went on with his face set towards the house of his old friend, Overshute. When he came to the lodge (which was like a great beehive stuck at the end of a row of trees), it caused him a little surprise to find the gate wide open, and nobody there. But he thought that, as it was Sunday, perhaps the lodge-people were gone for a holiday; and so he trudged onward, and met no one to throw any light upon anything.
In this way he came to the door at last, with the fine old porch of Purbeck stone heavily overhanging it, and the long wings of the house stretched out, with empty windows either way. Hardenow rang and knocked, and then set to and knocked and rang again; and then sat down on a stone balustrade; and then jumped up with just vigour renewed, and pushed and pulled, and in every way worked to the utmost degree of capacity everything that had ever been gifted with any power of conducting sound.
Nobody answered. The sound of his energy went into places far away, and echoed there, and then from stony corners came back to him. He traced the whole range of the windows and caught no sign of any life inside them. At last, he pushed the great door, and lo! there was nothing to resist his thrust, except its sullen weight.
When Hardenow stood in the old-fashioned hall, which was not at all "baronial," he found himself getting into such a fright that he had a great mind to go away again. If there had only been anybody with him – however inferior in "mental power" – he might have been able to refresh himself by demonstrating something, and then have marched on to the practical proof. But now he was all by himself, in strange and unaccountable loneliness. The sense of his condition perhaps induced him to set to and shout. The silence was so oppressive, that the sound of his own voice almost alarmed him by its audacity. So, after shouting "Russel!" thrice, he stopped, and listened, and heard nothing except that cold and shuddering ring, as of hardware in frosty weather, which stone and plaster and timber give when deserted by their lords – mankind.
Knowing pretty well all the chief rooms of the house, Hardenow resolved to go and see if they were locked; and grasping his black holly-stick for self-defence, he made for the dining-room. The door was wide open; the cloth on the table, with knives and forks and glasses placed, as if for a small dinner-party; but the only guest visible was a long-legged spider, with a sound and healthy appetite, who had come down to dine from the oak beams overhead, and was sitting in his web between a claret bottle and a cruet-stand, ready to receive with a cordial clasp any eligible visitor.
Hardenow tasted the water in a jug, and found it quite stale and nasty; then he opened a napkin, and the bread inside it was dry and hard as biscuit. Then he saw with still further surprise that the windows were open to their utmost extent, and the basket of plate was on the sideboard.
"My old friend Russel, my dear old fellow!" he cried with his hand on his heart where lurked disease as yet unsuspected, "what strange misfortune has befallen you? No wonder my letter was left unanswered. Perhaps the dear fellow is now being buried, and every one gone to his funeral. But no; if it were so, these things would not be thus. The funeral feast is a grand institution. Everything would be fresh and lively, and five leaves put into the dinner-table." With this true reflection, he left the room to seek the solution elsewhere.