CHAPTER LV.
SMITH TO THE RESCUE
Now, in the whole of Beckley village, scarcely a soul under eighty years of age (unless it were of some child under eight, tucked up in rosy slumber) failed to discuss within half an hour the "miracle" about Grace Oglander. That word was first set afoot in the parish by a man of settled habits, and therefore of sure authority. For Thomas Kale had been put upon a horse, when the Carrier's leg would not go up, and ordered to ride for his life to tell Squire Overshute all that was come to pass.
This Kale was a man of large wondering power, gifted moreover with a faith in ghosts, which often detracted from his comfort. He had seen his young mistress in a half-light only, when the household was called to look at her; and now he was ordered to a house where a lady had died not more than a few weeks back. Between Beckley Barton and Shotover Grange, there are two places known to be haunted. The necessity for priming Thomas, before he started, had occurred unluckily to himself alone. Already, as he rode out of the yard, a gatepost and a tree shone spectrally. He felt the necessity for priming himself; and, prudent man as he was, he saw no mischief in affording it. Squire Overshute could not give him less than a guinea for his tidings. Therefore (though pledged to the utmost not to speak) he took the very turn which the prudent Cripps had shunned; and pulling up at the window of the Dusty Anvil, gave a shout for hot gin-and-water.
The Anvil was ringing with hilarity that night, and its dust, if heavy sprinkling could ally it, was subsiding. For Beckley having played a cricket-match with Islip, and beaten the dalesmen by ten wickets – as needs must be with five Crippses holding willow – an equally invincible resolve arose to out-eat the losers at the supper. Islip, defeated but not disgraced, was well represented both in flesh and cash; and as Mr. Kale called for his modest glass, a generous feeling awoke in the breasts of several young men to pay for it. For the wickets had been pitched in a meadow of the Squire's, where Kale had plied scythe and roller.
Thomas Kale saw that it would be a most uncandid and illiberal act to open his mouth for a negative only. He firmly restricted good feeling, however, to three good bumpers, and a bottomer; pledging himself, on compulsion, to call on his way back and manage the duplicate. But his heart was so good, that before he rode off, with a flout at all ghosts and goblins, he took an old crony by the name upon his smock, and told him where to go for a "miracle."
Now, who should this be but old Daddy Wakeling, that ancient and valued friend of Cripps, and one of the best men in Elsfield parish? Daddy was forced to spend much of his time outside his own parish, for the best of reasons – and a melancholy one – there was no public-house inside of it. Here he was now, with his fine white locks and patriarchal countenance, propounding a test to our finest qualities, a touchstone of one's lofty confidence or low cynicism – whether the subject should now be pronounced more venerable, or more tipsy.
But old Daddy Wakeling would be the very last (when getting near the middle of his third gallon) to conceal from his friends any gratifying news; and ere ever Kale's horse's heels turned the corner, Daddy's wise old lips were wagging into the ear of a crony. In less than two minutes, Phil Hiss had got the news; a council was held in the long-room of the inn; and a march upon the Squire's house, and a serenade by every one who could scrape, blow, twang, or halloa, was the resolution of a moment.
In the thick of the rout, as with good intent they approached the old-fashioned coach-doors (which led to the front where they meant to be musical), a short square fellow slipped out of the crowd, and without observation went his way. His way was to a little hut of a stable, fastened only with a prong outside, but holding a nice young horse, who had finished his supper, but was not sleepy. He neighed as John Smith came in, for he felt quite inclined for a little exercise, and he knew the value of the saying he had heard – "After supper, trot a mile." Numbers Cripps was his owner, in that shameful age of ownership – which soon will be abolished, now that its prime key is gone, the key of holy wedlock – and the butcher had offered Mr. Smith a ride, whenever he should happen to want one.
The night was well up in the sky, and the track of summer daylight star-swept; the dim remembrance of a brighter hour (that hangs round a tree, like a halo) was gone; and only little twinkles shone through bays of leafage against the tidal power of the moon; and the long immeasurable stretch of silence spread faint avenues of fear.
Mr. John Smith was a very brave man. Imagination never stirred the corpulence of his comfort. What he either saw or sifted out by his own process, that he believed; and very little else. And so he rode, through light and shade, and the grain of the air which is neither; while the forest grew deeper with phantasm, and the depth of night made way for him.
Suddenly even he was startled. In a dark narrow place, where he kept the track, and stuck his heels under his horse's belly (for fear of being taken sideways), something dashed by him, with a pant and roar, and fire flying out of it. Mr. Smith blessed his stars that he was not rolled over, as he very well might have been; for that which flew by him, like a streak of meteor, was a strong horse frantic.
Smith turned round in his saddle, and stared; but the runaway sped the faster, as if he were rushing away from the forest, with a pack of wolves behind him. The stirrups of his empty saddle struck fire, clashing under him, and his swift flight scarcely left a sound of breath or hoof to follow him.
"The devil is after him!" said John Smith; "I never saw a horse in such a state of mind. I may as well mark the spot where he came out. He has left, as sure as I sit here, a tale to be told, in the background."
Without dismounting, he broke off a branch of young white poplar, and cast it so that by daylight he could find it; and then, with a very uneasy mind, he rode on, to trace the rest of it. He was not by any means in Luke Sharp's pay (as one or two persons had suspected), neither was he even of his privy council; and yet he was bound hand and foot to him; partly by fealty of a conquered mind, and partly by sense of his brother Joe's complicity and subservience. John Smith, in his own way, was an honourable man; and money was no bribe to him.
With quickened alarm, he rode on at all speed towards the cottage of the swineherd. Never in any way had he dealt with the sylvan schemes of Mr. Sharp, or even from a distance watched them. It was long ere he had any clear suspicions – for his tall brother kept miles away from him – and in seeking the remains of Grace under the snowdrift, he wrought out his duty with blind honesty.
John Smith's nerves were of iron, and even the riderless horse had not scattered them; but though he rode on bravely still, a cloud of gloom fell over him. It would make a sad difference to his life if anything had happened to Mr. Sharp (for Smith had invested a little money under the lawyer's guidance), and knowing Luke Sharp as he did, he feared that evil had befallen him.
Hence, with dark misgiving, and the set resolve to face it, he lashed his horse on at a perilous rate, through the wattled ways of moonlight. The glance and the glimpse of light and shade flew past him, like a cataract, till suddenly even he was scared by the sound of his name in a sad clear voice. He pulled up his horse, and laid his hand on the butt of a pistol beneath his cape, till a woman came forth into the light, and said —
"I was sure you would come; but too late – it is too late!"
"Cinnaminta, show me," he answered very softly, knowing by her gesture that the mischief was at hand. As soon as he was off his horse, and had made him fast by the bridle, she led him round some shadowy corners into a little dingle. This had no great trees to crowd it; and though it lay below the level of the wood around, the moon was high enough now to throw a broad gangway of light along it. The sides were fringed or jagged with darkness, cumbrous tree or mantled ivy jutting forth black elbows; but in the middle lay and spread fair sward of dewy emblements, swept with brightness, and garnished for a Whitsun dance of fairies.
But now, instead of skip and music, sigh and sob and wailing noises of the human heart were heard. A fine young form, of the Oxford build, lay heavily girt with molehills, enfolded vainly in a velvet cloak, and vainly on every side adjured to open its eyes and come back again. Kit was not at all the fellow thus to be addressed in vain – if he only could have heard the living voices challenge him. His love of sport had been love of pluck, as it generally is with Englishmen; and all his dogs, of different sizes, must have taught him something. His mother now was pulling at him, in a storm of fear and hope. She felt that he could not be dead, because it would be so outrageous; and yet her feeble heart was fearful that such things had been before. Happily for herself, she knew not what had happened to him; but took it for an accident of the woods; for the gipsy-woman, who alone had seen it, had been too kind to tell the truth.
"Oh, Kit, Kit! now only look!" the poor fond mother was going on; "only lift one eyelid, darling; only move one little hand" – his hands were of very considerable size – "or do anything, anything you like, dear, just to show that you are coming back, back to your own mother! Kit – oh, my Kit, my own and ever only Kit – or Christopher, if you like it better, darling – here have I been for whole hours and hours, and not one word will you say to me! If ever I laughed at you, Kit, in my life, you must have felt how proud I was. There is not anything in all the world, or anybody to come near you, Kit. Only come – only be near me, instead of breaking all my heart like this!"
Worn out with misery, she fell back; and Cinnaminta, with a short quick sigh, knelt down on the turf, and supported her.
"Four times have I had to bear it, and every time worse than the time before," she said in her soft clear tone to herself; but only to remind herself of the tenderness she was sure to show. "And this was her only one, and grown up!"
Her face (still beautiful and lovely with the sad love in her eyes, the memory of the time when still there was somebody to live for) shone in the gentle light, now poured abundantly on all of them. Of all who had lived, and loved, and suffered, and now made shadows in the moonshine, not one had been down to the holy depths of sorrow as this woman had.
"Catch un up now," cried John Smith, who never knew how his ideas were timed; "catch un up by the heels, one of 'ee, while I take un by the head. This here baistly hole be enow to fetch the ghost of his life out. He hath got life in him. Don't tell me! His ears be like a shell; and no dead man's is. Rap on the nob! Lor' bless my heart, I'd sooner have fifty, than one on the basket. What, all on you afeard to heckle him?"
"Oh no, sir, oh no, sir," cried poor Mrs. Sharp, as Tickuss, and another man, fell away; "I am not very strong, but I can help my child."
"Ma'am, you are a lady!" said John Smith, that being his very highest crown of praise; "but as for you – a d – d set of cowards – go to the devil, all of you! Now, ma'am, I will not trouble you, except to follow after us. Cinny will clear the way in front; it cometh more natural to her. And you, ma'am, shall follow me as you please; and sorry I am not to help you. A little shaking will do him a world of good."
He was taking up Kit, with a well-adjusted balance, while he spoke to her; and he wasted his breath in nothing, except in telling her to follow him. As the hind comes after the poor slain fawn, or the cow runs after the netted cart, where the white face of her calf weeps out, even so Mrs. Sharp of her dress thought nothing – though cut up, like a carrot, in the latest London style, and trimmed with almost every flower nature never saw – anyhow, after Kit she went, and knew not light from darkness.
Mr. Smith sturdily managed to get on; he was thickly built, and had well-set reins; and though poor Kit was no feather-weight, his bearer did not flag with him. Then setting the body of the lad on a mound, where the moon shone clearly upon his face, and the night air fanned him quietly, John Smith very calmly pulled out a bright weapon, and flourished it, and felt the edge.
"Oh no, sir! Oh pray, sir!" cried Mrs. Sharp, falling on her knees, and enclasping her poor boy.
"Cinny, just lead her behind that bush. 'Tis either death, or blood, with him."
"Oh no, I never could bear to be out of sight. If it really must be done, I will not shriek. I will not even sigh. Only let me stay by his side!"
John Smith signed to his sister-in-law, who took the mother's trembling hands, and turned her away for a moment.
"Now fetch cold water. That vein must not be allowed to bleed too long, ma'am. 'Tis a ticklish one to manage for a surgeon even; and at present it is sulky. But it only wants a little air, and just the least little touch again. If you could just manage to go and say your prayers, ma'am, we could get on a long sight better."
"Oh, I never thought of that. How sinful of me! Oh, kind good man, I implore of you – "
"Not of me, ma'am. Pray to God in heaven, unless you wish to see me run away. And if I do, he slips right off the hooks."
She turned away, with her weak hands clasped; but whether she prayed or not, never could she tell. But one thing she bore in mind, as long as soul abode with it, and that was the leap of her heart when Smith shouted in a good loud voice, "All right!"
CHAPTER LVI.
FATAL ACCIDENT TO THE CARRIER
Now, that little maid who with such strength, alike of mind and body, had opened the paternal gate, and then bewailed her prowess, happened to be the especial favourite of her good Aunt Esther. Therefore no sooner had the Carrier begun his eventful homeward course, as heretofore related, than Etty, who loved a forest walk and felt rather dull without Zacchary, took Peggy's fat red hand, and, after a good tea with Susannah, set forth for an evening stroll, to gather flowers and hear the birds sing.
Almost before they had got well into the wooded places, Peggy shrank away from a black timber shed, partly overhung by trees.
"Peggy not go there, Aunt Etty," she said; "goose in there, a great white goose!"
"A ghost, you little goose?" answered Esther, laughing, for still there was good sunset. "Come and show me; I want to see a ghost."
"No, no, no!" cried the child, pulling backward, and struggling as hard as she had struggled with the gate; "Peggy see a white goose in a black hole there, all day."
"Then, Peggy, stop here while I go and look. You won't be afraid to do that, will you?"
Running bravely up to the hole in the boards, Esther saw, to her great amazement, the form, perhaps the corpse, of a man, stretched at length on the ground inside. It lay too much in the dark for the face to be seen, and the dress was so swaddled with netting, and earthy, that little could be made of it. A torn strip of cambric, that once had been white, lay partly on the body and partly on the board. Esther caught it up; she remembered having ironed something of this shape for somebody once, who was going to be examined. She knew where to look for the mark, and there she saw in small letters – "T. Hardenow."
Surprised as she was, she did not lose her wits or courage, as she used to do. She ran to the door of the shed, tried the padlock, and finding it fastened (as she had feared), made haste to the grain-house, and seized a bunch of keys. Not one of them truly was born with the lock, but one was soon found to serve the turn; then Esther pushed back the creaking door, and timidly gazed round the shadowy shed. She was quite alone now, for her little niece, with short sobs of terror, had set off for home.
In the light admitted by the open door, young Esther descried a poor miserable thing, helpless, still as a log, and senseless, yet to her faithful heart the idol of all adoration. Gently, step by step, she stole to the prostrate form, and knelt down softly, and reverently touched it. She feared to seem to take advantage of a helpless moment; and yet a keen joy, mixed with terror, shone in the eagerness of her eyes. "He is alive, I am sure of that," she said to herself, as she pulled forth a pair of strong scissors which she always carried; "he is alive, but very, very nearly dead. What wretches can have treated him like this?"
In two minutes, Hardenow was free from every cord and throng of bondage; his lax arms fell at his sides; his legs (that had saved his life by kicking) slowly sank back to their native angles, like a lobster's claw untied, and his small and dismally empty stomach quivered almost invisibly.
"Oh, he is starving, or downright starved!" cried Esther, watching his white lips, which trembled with some glad memory of suction, and then stiffened again to some Anglican dream. "After all, I have blamed other folk quite amiss. He hath corded himself away from his victuals to give way to his noble principles. But how could he lock himself in? The Lord must have sent a bad angel to tempt him, and then to turn the key on him."
Before she had finished this reasoning process, the girl was half-way towards the cot of Tickuss, her heart outweighing her mind, according to all true feminine proportions. She ran in swiftly upon Susannah, sitting in the dusky kitchen and pondering over a very slow fire the cookery of the children's supper. These good young children never failed to go to see the pigs fed, and down at the styes they all were at this moment, with no victuals come, and the pigs all squeaking, because the pig-master was not at home.
This was most sad, and the children felt it; nevertheless they bore it, knowing that their own pot was warming. But they too might have squeaked, if they had known that out of their own pot Aunt Etty was stealing half the meat and all the little cobs of jelly. It was as fine a pot of stuff as ever Susannah Cripps had made, for she did not hold at all with fattening the pigs, and starving her own children; and she argued most justly, while Esther all the while was ladling all the virtue out.
Etty had never been known to do anything violent or high-handed; yet now, without entering into even the very shortest train of reasoning, away she went swifter than any train, bearing in her right hand the best dresser-jug (filled with the children's tidbits of nurture), and in her left hand flourishing Susannah's own darling silver wedding-spoon. Mrs. Leviticus longed to rush in chase of her; but ere her slowly startled nerves could send the necessary tingle to her ruminating knees, the girl was out of sight, and for her vestige lingered naught but a very provoking smell of soup.
Now, in so advanced a stage of the world's existence (and of this narrative) is it needful, judicious, or even becoming to describe, spoonful by spoonful, however grateful, delicious, and absorbing, the process of administering and receiving soup? To "give and take" is said, by people of large experience in life, to be about the latest and most consummate lesson of humanity; coming even after that extreme of wisdom which teaches us to "grin and bear it." But in the present trifling instance, two young people very soon began to be comparatively at home with the subject. The opening of the eyes, in all countries and creatures, is done a good deal later than the opening of the mouth; the latter being the essential, the former quite a fortuitous proceeding.
After six spoonfuls, as counted by Esther, Hardenow opened both his eyes; after two or three more, he knew where he was; and when he had swallowed a dozen and a bonus, scarcely any of his wits were wanting. Still Esther, for fear of a relapse, went on; though her hand trembled dreadfully when he sat up, with his poor bones creaking sadly, and tried to be steady upon her arm, but was overbalanced by his weight of brain. Instead of shrieking, or screaming, she took advantage of this opportunity, and his bony chin dropping afforded the finest opening towards his interior.
To put it briefly, he quite came round, and after twenty spoonfuls vowed – with the conscience rushing for the moment into the arms of common sense – that never would he fast again. And after thirty were absorbed and beginning to assimilate, he gazed at Esther's smiling eyes, and saw the clearest and truest solution of his "postulates on celibacy." Esther dropped her eyes in terror, and made him drink the dregs and bottom, with a convert's zealous gulp. And as it happened, this was wise.
If any malignant persons charge him with having sold, for a mess of pottage, man's noblest birthright, celibacy, let every such person be corded up, at the longest possible date after breakfast, and the shortest before dinner – or rather, alas! before dinner-time – let him stay corded, and rolling about in a hog-house (as long as roll he can, which never would approach Mr. Hardenow's cycle); let him, throughout this whole period, instead of eating, expect to be eaten; then with a wolf in his stomach (if he has one) let him lose his wits (if he has any), and then let a lovely girl come and free him, and feed him, and cry over him, and regard him – with his clothes at their very worst, and cakes of dirt in his eyes and mouth – as the imperial Jove in some Dictæan cavern dormant; and then, as the light and the life flow back, and the power of his heart awakes, let there manifestly accrue thereto a better, gentler, and sweeter heart, timid even of its own pulse, and ashamed of its own veracity – and then if he takes all this unmoved, why, let him be corded up again, and nobody come to deliver him.
Esther only smiled and wept at her patient's ardent words and impassioned gratitude. She knew that between them was a great gulf fixed, and that the leap across it seldom has a happy landing; and when poor Hardenow fell back, in the weak reaction of a heart more fit for pain than passion, she knelt at his side, and nursed and cheered him, less with the air of a courted maiden than of a careful handmaid. In the end, however, this feeling (like most of those which are adverse to our wishes) was prevailed upon to subside, and Esther, although of the least revolutionary and longest-established stock in England – that of the genuine Crippses, whose name, originally no doubt "Chrysippus," indicates the possession of a golden horse – Etty Cripps, finding that the heart of her adored one had, in Splinters' opinion, a perilous fissure, requiring change of climate, consented at last (having no house of her own) to come down from the tilt, and go to Africa.
For Hardenow, as he grew older and able to regard mankind more largely, came out from many of the narrow ways, which (like the lanes of Beckley) satisfy their final cause by leading into one another. With the growth of his learning, his candour grew; and he strove to bind others by his own strap and buckle, as little as he offered to be bound by theirs. Therefore when two of his very best friends made a bonâ fide job of it, and being unable to think their thoughts out got it done by deputy, and sank to infallible happiness, Thomas Hardenow pulled up, and set his heels into the ground of common sense, like a horse at the brink of a quarry-pit; and the field of reason, rich and gracious, opened its gates again to him.
Herein he cut no capers, as so many of the wilder spirits did, but made himself ready for some true work and solid advantage to his race. And so, before any University Mission, or plough-and-Bible enterprise, Hardenow set forth to open a track for commerce and civilization, and to fight the devil and slavery in the rich rude heart of Africa. Besides his extraordinary gift of tongues, he had many other qualifications – the wiriness of his legs and stomach, his quiet style of listening (so that even a "nigger" need not be snubbed), his magnificent freedom from humour (an element fatal to stern convictions), and last not least, as he said to Etty, for a clinching argument, his wife's acquaintance with the carrying trade.
Happy exile, how much better than home misery it is! But the House of Cripps sent forth another member into banishment, with little choice or chance of much felicity on his part. As there are woes more strong than tears, so are there crimes beyond the lash. When the doings of Leviticus were brought to light, and shown to be unsuccessful, a council of Crippses was held in his hog-house, and a stern decree passed to expatriate him. Tickuss was offered his fair say, and did his very best to defend himself; but the case from the first was hopeless. If he had wronged any other parish than Beckley, or even any other as well, there might have been some escape for him. Cruelty, cowardice, treason high and low, perjury to his own elder brother, and eternal disgrace to his birthplace – there was not a word in the mouth of any one half bad enough to use to him. The Carrier rose, and said all he could say, for the sake of the many children; but weighty with piety as he was, he could not stem the many-fountained torrent of the Crippsic wrath. The pigs of Leviticus were divided among all the nephews and nieces, and cousins (ere ever a creditor got a hock-rope or a flick-whip ready), and Tickuss himself, unhoused, unstyed, unlarded, and unsmocked, wandered forth with his business gone, like a Gadarene swine-herd void of swine.
For years and years that fine old hog-farm was the haunt of rats and rabbits; never a grunt or squeak of porker (ringing or rung eloquently) shook the fringe of ivied shade, or jarred the acorn in its cup, until a third son arose and grew up to Zacchary Cripps hereafter. All the neighbourhood lay under a cloud of fear and sadness, because of what Luke Sharp had done, not to others, but himself. Luke Sharp, the greatest of all lawyers – so the affrighted woodman says – may and must, alas, be seen (at certain moments of the forest moon) rising on horseback from the black pool where his black life ended, gaining the shore with a silent bound, and galloping, with his arm held forth as straight as any sign-post, to the nook of dark lane where he smote his son; and then to the ruined hut, wherein he imprisoned the fair lady; and then to the rotting shed, in which he corded and starved the great Oxford scholar.
Whether, for the assertion of the law, Luke Sharp is allowed by some evil power thus to revisit the glimpses of the moon, or whether he lies in silent blackness, ignorant of evil – sure it is that no one cares to stay beyond the fall of dusk in that part of the forest.
But as soon as the lawyer's wife and son, by virtue of the poplar mark, had found and quietly buried his disappointed corpse, they made the very best of a broken business, as cheerfully as could be hoped for. Each of them sighed very heavily at times, especially when they were almost certain of hearing again, round the corner or downstairs, a masterful and very memorable tread. Therefore, with what speed they might, they let their fine old Cross Duck House, and fleeing all low curiosity, unpleasant remark, and significant glance, took refuge under the quiet roof of Kit's aunt Peggy, near High Wycombe, where he had hoped to lodge, and woo his timid forest angel. Here Kit found tardy comfort, and recovered health quite rapidly, by writing his own dirge in many admirable metres, till, being at length made laureate of a strictly local paper – at a salary of nil per annum, and some quarts of ale to stand – he swung his cloak and lit his pipe in the style of better days.
From those whom his father had wronged so deeply he would accept no help whatever, much as they desired to show their sense of his good behaviour. And when the second-best ambition of his life arrived by coach – that notable dog, "Pablo" – if Christopher could have sniffed lightest scent of Beckley, or Shotover, in the black dog-winkles of his nostrils, the odds are ten to one that Oxford never would have sighed (as all through the October term she did) at the loss of her finest badgerer.
In spite of all this obstinacy, three people were resolved to make him come round and be comfortable, settled, and respectable. To this they brought him in the end, and made him give up fugitive pieces, sonnets, stanzas to a left-hand glove, and epitaphs on a cenotaph. The Squire, and Russel, and Grace could not compose their own snug happiness without providing that Kit should be less miserable than his poetry. So they married him to a banker's daughter, and – better still – put him in the bank itself.
The loyalty of Mrs. Fermitage to her distinguished husband's memory was never disturbed by any knowledge of that fatal codicil. Poor Mrs. Sharp, as she slowly recovered from the sad grief wrought by greed, more and more reverently cherished her great husband's high repute. She rejoined him in a better world – or at least she set forth to do so – without any knowledge of the blow he had given to her son's head, and her own heart. Kit, like a man, concealed that outrage, and, like a good son, listened to his departed father's praises. But in her heart the widow felt that some of these might be imperilled, if that codicil turned up. Long time she kept it in reserve, as a thunderbolt for Joan Fermitage; but Pablo's arrival improved her feelings, and so did the banker's daughter; and finally, on Kit's wedding-day, with a sigh and a prayer, she took advantage of a clear fire and a rapid draught – and the codicil flew through the chimney-pot.
As a lawyer's daughter, she revered such things. In the same capacity, she knew that now it could make no great practical difference; for Grace was quite sure of her good aunt's money. And again, as a widow and mother, she felt what a stain must be cast on the name she loved best, if this little document ever came to light – other than good firelight.