CHAPTER XLIX.
PROMETHEUS VINCTUS
"I will not die like this! It is unseemly to die like this!" the Rev. Thomas Hardenow was exclaiming at this very time, but a few miles off. "I hope I am not a coward altogether; but the ignominy is unbearable. In this den of Eumæus, this sty of Sycorax, entangled in the meshes of a foul hog-net, and with hogs' grunt, grunt, for the chorus of my woes! My Prometheus class is just waiting for me at the present moment, so far as I can reckon here the climbing of the day; and I had rendered into English verses that delicious bit of chorus – 'With thy woes of mighty groaning, mortals feel a fellow-moaning, And of Colchic land indwellers, maids who never quail in fight;' and so on – how small-minded of me to forget it now! – down to, 'And springs of holy-watered rivers wail thy pitiable woe.' But instead of nymphs of ocean, here comes that old pig again! If he could only grout up that board – which he must do sooner or later – what part of me will he begin upon? Probably this little finger – it is so white and helpless! If I could only, only move! – to be eaten alive by pigs! Well, well – there is not so very much left for them. Infinitely better men have had a lower end than that. Only I would bend my knees – if bend them I could – to the Giver of all good, that I may be insensible before the pigs begin."
His plight was a very unfortunate one; but still in the blackest veil of woe there is sure to be some little threadbare place – from so many people having worn that veil – and even poor Hardenow had one good "look-out." To wit, although he had been without food for six-and-twenty hours now (having been caught in the treacherous toils soon after he set his toes towards his dinner), he was not by any means in the same state in which a Low-Church clergyman must have been. His system was so attuned to fasting, and all his parts so disciplined, that "cupboard" was only whispered among them in a submissive manner; and even his stomach concluded sorrowfully that it must be Friday.
Beyond this considerable advantage – which could not last much longer – there was really little to console him. His cowardly captors, not content with the rabbit-net twined round him, had swathed him also in the stronger meshes of a corded gig-net. And even after that, Black George, having had the handling of his legs, and discovered the vigour of their boniness, was so impressed that he called out – "I never did heckle such a wiry chap. Fetch a pair of they tough thongs, Tickuss, same as thou makest use of for ringing of the pigs, my lad."
"Whish! – can't 'ee whish, with my name so pat?" Leviticus whispered sulkily; but he brought the unyielding thongs, wherewith the fellow and tutor of Brasenose very soon had his wrists and ankles strapped. And in spite of all struggles through the livelong night, as firmly as a trussed hare was he fixed.
Nevertheless, he could roll a little, though not very fast, because his elbows stopped him; for being of the sharpest they stuck into the ground, which was of a loamy nature. He fought with this difficulty, as with every other; for a braver heart never dwelled in any body, whether fat or lean; and he plucked up his angles from their bed of earth, whenever the limits of cord would yield. He knew all about the manufacture of twine – so far as one not in the trade could know it – because he had got up the subject for the sake of a whipcord of a puzzle in Theocritus; but this only served to make his case the worse; for at that time honest string was made. The dressing, and the facing, and the thousand other rogueries, make it quite impossible to tie a good knot now; and even if a strap has any leather in it, its first operation is a compromise.
But at that stouter period, bind made bound. Mr. Hardenow could roll a little; but that was as much as he could do. And rolling did him very little good, except by way of exercise; because he was pulled up short so suddenly by feather-edged boarding, with a coat of tar. The place in which he was penned was most unworthy of such an occupant. It was not even the principal meal-house, or the best treasury of "wash." It was not the kitchen of the tasteful pigs, or even their back-kitchen, but something combining the qualities of their scullery and dust-bin. But the floor was clean, and a man lying lowly, so far as smell was concerned, had certainly the best of the situation; inasmuch as all odours must ascend to the pure ether of the exalted. Hardenow knew that it was vain to roll, because the door was padlocked, and the lower end, to which he chiefly tended, had a loose board, lifted every now and then by the unringed snout of a very good old sow. Pure curiosity was her motive, and no evil appetite, as her eyes might tell. She had never seen a fellow and a tutor of a college rolling, as she herself loved to do; and yet in a comparatively clumsy way. She grunted deep disapproval of his movements, and was vexed that her instructions were entirely thrown away.
"Ah, Linus, Linus be the cry; and let the good be conqueror!" Mr. Hardenow quoted, as his legs began to ache; "henceforth, if I have any henceforth, how palpably shall I realise the difference between the alindethra and the circular conistra! In this limited place I combine the two; but without the advantages of either. I take it that, whether of horse, or hen, or human being, the essential condition of revolutionary enjoyment is – that the limbs be free. In my case, they are not free. The exhilaration which would ensue, and of which, if I remember rightly, Pliny speaks – or is it Ælian? – my memory seems to be rolling too; but be the authority what it will, in my case that exhilaration is (at least for the moment) not forthcoming. But I ought to condemn myself far rather than writers who treat of a subject with the gravity of authority; that is to say, if they ever tried it. 'Experimentum in corpore vili,' is what all writers have preferred. If their own bodies were not too noble, what powerful impress they might have left!"
After such a cynical delivery as this, it served him particularly right to hit, in the course of revolution, upon a bit of bone even harder than his own; a staunch piece of noble old ossification (whether of herbivorous, carnivorous, or omnivorous dragon), such as would have brought Professor Buckland from Christ Church headlong, or even Professor Owen, from the British Museum, the Melampus of all good dragons. Hardenow knew nothing about it; except that it ran into him, and jerked him in such a way over the ground, that he got into the highest corner, and gladly would have rubbed himself, if good hemp had yielded room for it.
But this sad blow, which seemed at first the buffet of the third and crowning billow of his woe, proved to be a blessing in disguise; inasmuch as the reaction impelled him to a spot where he descried some encouragement to work. And a little encouragement was enough for him. By virtue of inborn calmness, long classical training and memories, and pure Anglo-Catholic discipline, the young man was still "as fresh as paint," in a trouble which would have exhausted the vigour of a far more powerful and fiery man. Russel Overshute, for instance, even in his best health would have worn his wits out long ago, by futile wrath, and raving hunger.
Mr. Hardenow could not even guess how there came to be quite a thick cluster of pretty little holes, of about the size of a swan's quill, drilled completely through the board against which his mishap had driven him. The board was a stoutish slab of larch, cut "feather-edged;" and the saw having struck upon most of these holes obliquely, their form was elliptic instead of round, and their axes not being at right angles to the board, they attracted no attention by admitting light, since the light of course entered obliquely. In some parts as close as the holes of a colander, in other places scattered more widely, they jotted the plank for nearly a yard of its length, and afforded a fine specimen of the penetrative powers of a colony of Sirex gigas, so often mistaken for the hornet.
But though as to their efficient cause he could form no opinion, Hardenow hoped that their final cause might be to save his life; which he quietly believed to be in great peril. For he knew that he lay in the remote obscurity of a sad and savage wood, unvisited by justice, trade, or benefit of clergy. Here, if no good spirit came, or unseen genius, to release him, die he must at his own leisure, which would be a long one. And he could discover no moral to be read from his pre-historic skeleton; unless it were that very low one – "stick to thy own business."
A man of ordinary mind would not have troubled his head about this. "Post me, diluvium," is the strengthening sentiment of this age; no fulcrum whatever for any good work; and the death of all immortality. Hardenow would have none of that; he had no idea of leaving ashes fit to nourish nothing. Collecting his energies for a noble protest against having lived altogether in vain, he brought his fettered heels, like a double-headed hammer, as hard as his probolistic swing could whirl, against the very thickest-crowded cells of bygone domicile. The wooden shed rang, and the uprights shook, and the nose of the sow at the lower end was jarred, and her feelings hurt; for, truly speaking, her motives had been misunderstood. And if Hardenow had but kept pigs of his own, he would have gone to work down there, to help her, and so perhaps have got her to release him from his toils. Everybody, however, must be allowed to go to work in his own way: and to find fault with him, when he tries to do his best, is (as all kind critics own) alike ungraceful and ungracious. Mr. Hardenow worked right hard, as he always did at everything, and his heels had their sparables as good as new, and capable of calcitration, though he wore nothing stronger than Oxford shoes with a bow of silk ribbon on the instep. The ribbon held fast, and he kicked or rather swung his feet by a process of revolution, as bravely as if he had Hessian boots on. At the very first stroke he had fetched out a splinter as big as the scoop of a marrow-spoon; and delivering his coupled heels precisely where little tunnels afforded target, in a quarter of an hour he had worked a good hole, and was able to refresh himself with the largeness of the outer world.
Not that he could, however skilled now in rolling, roll himself out of his black jail yet – for the piece punched out was only four inches wide – but that he got a very decent width (in proportion at least to man's average view) for clear consideration of the world outside. And what he saw now was a pretty little sight, or peep at country scenery. For the wood, just here, was not so thick that a man could not see it by reason of the trees – as the Irishman forcibly observed – but a dotted slope of bush and timber widening and opening sunny reaches out of the narrow forest track. There was no house to be seen, nor cottage, nor even barn or stable, nor any moving creature, except a pig or two grouting in the tufted grass, and gray-headed daws at leisure perking and prying, for the good of their home-circle.
But presently the prisoner espied a wicket-gate, nearly at the bottom of the sylvan slope, with a little space roughly stoned before it – almost a sure sign, in a neighbourhood like that, of a human dwelling-place inside. And when Hardenow's eyes, recovering tone, assured him of the existence of some moss-grown steps, for the climbing of a horse upon either side, he felt a sudden (though it may not have been a strictly logical) happiness, from the warm idea that there must be some of the human race not far from him. He placed his lips close to the hole which he had made, and shouted his very loudest, and then stopped a little while, to watch what might come of it, and then sent forth another shout. But nothing came of it, except that the pigs pricked up their ears and looked around and grunted; and the jackdaws gave a little jerk or two, and flapped their wings, but did not fly; and a soft woody echo, of a fibrous texture, answered as weakly as a boy who does not know.
This was pretty much what Hardenow expected. He saw that the wicket-gate was a long way off, three or four hundred yards perhaps; but he did not know that his jailer, Tickuss Cripps, was the man who lived inside of it. Otherwise his sagacious mind would have yielded quiet mercy to his lungs. For Leviticus was such a cruel and cowardly blunderer, that, in mere terror, he probably would have dashed grand brains out. But luckily he was far away now, and so were all other spies and villains; and only a little child – boy or girl, at that distance nobody could say which – toddled out to the wicket-gate, and laid fat arms against it, and laboured, with impatient grunts, to push it open. Having seen no one for a long time now, Hardenow took an extraordinary interest in the efforts of this child. The success or the failure of this little atom could not in any way matter to him; yet he threw his whole power of sight into the strain of the distant conflict. He made up his mind that if the child got out, he should be able to do the like.
Then having most accurate "introspection" (so far as humanity has such gift) he feared that his mind must be a little on the wane, ere ever such weakness entered it. To any other mind the wonder would have been that his should continue to be so tough; but he hated shortcomings, and began to feel them. Laying this nice question by, until there should be no child left to look at, he gazed with his whole might at this little peg of a body, in the distance, toppling forward, and throwing out behind the weight of its great efforts. He wondered at his own interest – as we all ought to wonder, if we took the trouble. This little peg, now in battle with the gate, was a solid Peg in earnest; a fine little Cripps, about five years old, as firm as if just turned out of a churn. She was backward in speech, as all the Crippses are; and she rather stared forth her ideas than spoke them. But still, let her once get a settlement concerning a thing that must be done to carry out her own ideas; and in her face might be seen, once for all, that stop she never would till her own self had done it. Hardenow could not see any face, but he felt quite a surety of sturdiness, from the solid mould of attitude.
That heavy gate, standing stiffly on its heels, groaned obstreperously, and gibed at the unripe passion of this little maid. It banged her chubby knees, and it bruised her warted hand, and it even bestowed a low cowardly buffet upon her expressive and determined cheek. And while she lamented this wrong, and allowed want of judgment to kick out at it, unjust it may have been, but true it is, that she received a still worse visitation. The forefoot of the gate, which was quite shaky and rattlesome in its joints, came down like a skittle-pin upon her little toes, which were only protected on a Sunday. "Ototoi, Ototoi!" cried Mr. Hardenow, with a thrilling gush of woe, as if his own toes were undergoing it. Bitter, yet truly just, lamentation awoke all the echoes of the woods and hills, and Hardenow thought that it was all up now – that this small atom of the wooded world would accept her sad fate, and run in to tell her mother.
But no; this child was the Carrier's niece; and a man's niece – under some law of the Lord, untraced by acephalous progeny – takes after him oftentimes a great deal closer than his own beloved daughter does. Whether or no, here was this little animal, as obstinate as the very Carrier. Taught by adversity she did thus: – Against the gate-post she settled her most substantial availability, and exerted it, and spared it not. Therewith she raised one solid leg, and spread the naked foot thereof, while her lips were as firm as any toe of all the lot, against the vile thing that had knocked her about, and the power that was contradicting her. Nothing could withstand this fixed resolution of one of the far more resolute moiety of humanity. With a creak of surrender, the gate gave back; and out came little Peggy Cripps, with a broad face glowing with triumph, which suddenly fell into a length of terror, as the vindictive gate closed behind her. To get out had been a great labour, but to get back was an impossibility; and Hardenow, even so far away, could interpret the gesture of despair and horror. "Poor little thing! How I wish that I could help her!" he said to himself, and very soon began to think that mutual aid might with proper skill be compassed.
With this good idea, he renewed his shouts, but offered them in a more insinuating form; and being now assured that the child was female, his capacious mind framed a brief appeal to the very first instinct of all female life. Possibly therefore the fairer half of pig and daw creation appropriated with pleasure his address. At any rate, although the child began to look around, she had no idea whence came the words, "Pretty little dear! little beauty!" etc., with which the learned prisoner was endeavouring to allure her.
But at last, by a very great effort and with pain, Hardenow managed to extract from the nets his white cravat, or rather his cravat which had been white, when it first hung down his back from the taloned clasp of the hollies. By much contrivance and ingenious rollings, he brought out a pretty good wisp of white, and hoisted it bravely betwixt gyved feet, and at the little breach displayed it. And the soft breath of May, which was wandering about, came and uncrinkled, and in little tatters waved the universal symbol of Succession Apostolical, as well as dinner-parties.
Little Peggy happened at this moment to be staring, with a loose uncertain glimpse of thought that somebody somewhere was calling her. By the flutter of the white cravat, her wandering eyes were caught at last, and fixed for a minute of deliberate growth of wonder. Not a step towards that dreadful white ghost would she budge; but a steadfast idea was implanted in her mind, and was likely to come up very slowly.
"It is waste of time; I have lost half an hour. The poor little thing – I have only scared her. Now let me think what I ought to do next."
But even while he addressed himself to that very difficult problem, Hardenow began to feel that he could not grapple with it. His mind was as clear as ever, but his bodily strength was failing. He had often fasted for a longer time, but never with his body invested thus, and all his members straitened. The little girl sank from his weary eyes, though he longed to know what would become of her; and he scarcely had any perception at all of pigs that were going on after their manner, and rabbits quite ready for their early dinner, the moment the sun began to slope, and a fine cock partridge, who in his way was proud because his wife had now laid a baker's dozen of eggs, and but for his dissuasion would begin to sit to-morrow; and after that a round-nosed hare, with a philoprogenitive forehead, but no clear idea yet of leverets; and after that, as the shadows grew long, a cart, drawn by a horse, as carts seem always to demand that they shall be – the horse of a strong and incisive stamp (to use the two pet words of the day), the cart not so very far behind him there, as they gave word to stop at the gate to one another – and in the cart, and above the cart, and driving both it and the horse thereof, as Abraham drove on the plain of Mamre, Zacchary Cripps; and sitting at his side, the far-travelled and accomplished Esther.
CHAPTER L.
FEMININE ERROR
Meanwhile, at Cross Duck House, ever since that interview of the morning, things were becoming, from hour to hour, more critical and threatening. If Mr. Sharp could only have believed that his son was now a man, or at least should be treated as though he were; and if after that the too active lawyer could only have conceived it possible that some things might go on all the better without him; it is likely enough that his righteous and gallant devices would have sped more easily.
But Luke Sharp had governed his own little world so long that he scarcely could imagine serious rebellion. And he cared not to hide his large contempt for the intellect of Christopher, or the grievance which he had always felt – at being the father of a donkey. And so, without further probation or pledge, he went forth to make his own arrangements, leaving young Kit to his mother's charge, like a dummy, to be stroked down and dressed.
If he had left Kit but an hour before for his mother to tell him everything, and round the corners, and smooth the levels, and wrap it all up in delicious romance, as women do so easily, with their power of believing whatever they wish, the boy might have jumped at the soft sweet bait; for he verily loved his sylvan maid. But now all his virtue and courage, and even temper, were on the outlook; and only one thing more was needed to drive him to a desperate resolve.
And that one thing was supplied, in the purest innocence, by Mrs. Sharp; though the question would never have arisen if her son had been left to her sole handling.
"Then, mother, I suppose," said Kit as simply as if he smelled no rat whatever, thoroughly as he understood that race, "if I should be fortunate enough to marry beautiful Miss Oglander, we shall have to live on bread and cheese, until it shall please the senior people to be reconciled, and help us?"
"No, Kit! What are you talking of, child? The lady has £20,000 of her own! And £150,000 to follow, which nobody can take from her!"
With a very heavy heart he turned away. Nothing more was required to settle him. He saw the whole business of the plotting now; and the young romance was out of it. He went to the bow-window looking on the lane, and felt himself akin to a little ragamuffin, who was cheating all the other boys at marbles. Hard bitterness and keen misery were battling in his mind which should be the first to have its way and speak.
"This comes of being a lawyer's son!" he cried, turning round for one bad glance at his mother. "She said that she disliked the law. I don't dislike, I abhor it."
"So you may, my dear boy, and welcome now. This will lift you altogether beyond it. Your dear father may consider it his duty to continue the office, and so on; but you will be a country gentleman, Kit, with horses, and dogs, and Manton guns, and a pack of hounds, and a long barouche, and hot-house grapes. And I will come and live with you, my darling; or at least make our country house of it, and show you how to manage things. For the whole world will be trying to cheat you, Kit; you are too good-natured, and grand in your ways! You must try to be a little sharper, darling, with that mint of money."
"Must I? But suppose that I won't have it."
"Sometimes I believe that you think it manly to provoke your mother. The money ought to have been ours, Kit; mine by heritage and justice; at least a year and a half ago. A moderate provision should have been made for a woman, who may have her good points – though everybody has failed to discover them – and who married with a view to jointure. Ten thousand pounds would have been very handsome – far handsomer than she ever was, poor thing! – and then by every law, human and divine, all the rest must have come to you and me, my dear. Now, I hope that you see things in their proper light."
"Well, I dare say I do," he answered, with a little turn of sulkiness, such as he often got when people could not understand him. "Mother, you will allow me to have my own opinion; as you have yours."
"Certainly, Kit! Of course, my dear. You know that you always have been allowed extraordinary liberty in that way. No boy in any school could have more; even where all the noblemen's sons are allowed to make apple-pie beds for the masters. Every night, my dear boy, when your father was away, it has rested with you, and you cannot deny it, to settle to a nicety what there must be for supper."
"Such trumpery stuff is not worth a thought. I am now like a fellow divided in two. You might guess what I am about, a little. It is high time for me to come forward. You cannot see things, perhaps, as I do. How often must I tell you? I give you my word as a gentleman – all this is exceedingly trying."
"Of course it is, Kit; of course it is. What else could be expected of it? But still, we must all of us go through trials; and then we come out purified."
"Not if we made them for ourselves, mother; and made them particularly dirty ones. But I cannot talk of it; what do I know? A lot of things come tempting me. Everybody laughs at me for wondering what my mind is. And everybody cheats me, as you said. Let the governor carry on his own devices. I have made up my mind to consider a good deal, and behave then according to circumstances."
"You will behave, I trust, exactly as your parents wish. They have seen so much more of the world than you have; they are far better judges of right and wrong; and their only desire is your highest interest. You will break your poor mother's heart, dear Kit, if you do anything foolish now."
The latter argument had much more weight with young Sharp than the former; but pledging himself as yet to nothing, he ran away to his own room to think; while his mother, with serious misgivings, went down to see about the soup, and hurry on the dinner. She knew that in vaunting Miss Oglander's wealth she had done the very thing she was ordered not to do, and she was frightened at the way in which her son had taken it.
Mr. Sharp did not come home to their early dinner at half-past one o'clock; indeed, his wife did not expect him much; and his son was delighted not to see him. Kit sat heavily, but took his food as usual. The condition of his mind might be very sad indeed, but his body was not to be driven thereby to neglect the duties of its own department. He helped his dear mother to some loin of mutton; and when she only played with it, and her knife and fork were trembling, he was angered, and his eyes sought hers; and she tried to look at him and smile, but made a wretched job of it. Christopher reserved his opinion about this; but it did not help in any way to impair his resolution.
For dessert they had a little dish of strawberries from pot-plants in the greenhouse; and as they were the first of the season, the young fellow took to them rather greedily. His mother was charmed with this condescension, and urged him so well that in about three minutes the shining red globes ticked with gold were represented by a small, ignoble pile of frilled stalks blurred with pink. At this moment in walked the master of the house.
He had been as fully occupied as a certain unobtrusive, but never inactive, gentleman, proverbially must be in a gale of wind. The day was unusually warm for the May month, and the streets of Oxford dusty. Mr. Sharp had been working a roundabout course, and working it very rapidly; he had managed to snatch at a sandwich or two – for he could not go long without nourishment – but throughout all his haste he had given himself, with the brightest vision of refreshing joy, just time to catch these strawberries. At least he was sure of it. But now, where were they?
"Ah, I see you know how to snap up a good thing!" cried the lawyer, with a glance of contempt and wrath; "show the same promptitude in what has been arranged for your benefit this afternoon, my boy; and then you will be, in earnest, what you put on your dogs' collars."
This was not the way to treat Kit Sharp; but the lawyer never could resist a sneer, even when his temper was at its best, which it certainly was not just now.
Kit looked a little ashamed for a moment, but made no excuse for his greediness; he was sure that his mother would do that best. By this time he had resolved to avoid, for the present, all further dispute with his father. Whatever was arranged for him he would do his best to accept, with one condition – that he should be allowed to see the young lady first, and test her good-will towards him, before her "removal" (as Mr. Sharp mildly called it) was attempted. His sanguine young heart had long been doing its utmost to convince him that this sweet-tempered and simple maid could never bring herself to the terrible cruelty of rejecting him. He felt how unworthy he was; but still so was everybody else – especially the villain with the four bay horses: from that scoundrel he would save her, even if he had to dissemble more than he ever had done before.
Luke Sharp, with his eyes fixed on his son in lofty contemplation, beheld (as through a grand microscope) these despicable little reasonings. To argue with Kit was more foolish than filing a declaration against a man of straw. To suppose that Kit would ever really rebel was more absurd than to imagine that a case would be decided upon its merits. "So be it," he said; "but of course, even you would never be quite such a fool as to tell her what your father and mother have done for her good."
There still was a little to be done, and some nicety of combination to see to; and after a short consultation with his wife, and particular instructions as to management of Kit, Mr. Sharp rode off on his own stout horse, with a heavily loaded whip and a brace of pistols, because there were some rogues about.