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."