“Well, we have got enough fellows to part them if they do.”
“Dear Reginald, you have been so good to me, and you are so clever; speak to some of the men, and let there be no more quarreling between papa and that man.”
“All right,” said the boy.
“On second thoughts take me to papa; I'll be by his side, and then they cannot.”
“You want to walk through the wood? that is a good joke. Why, it is like walking through a river, and the young wood slapping your eyes, for you can't see every twig by this light, and the leaves sponging your face and shoulders: and the briers would soon strip your gown into ribbons, and make your little ankles bleed. No, you are a lady; you stay where you are, and let us men work it. We shan't find him yet awhile. I must get near the governor. When we find my lord, I'll give a whistle you could hear a mile off.”
“Oh, Reginald, are you sure he is in the wood?”
“I'd bet my head to a chany orange. You might as well ask me, when I track a badger to his hole, and no signs of his going out again, whether old long-claws is there. I wish I was as sure of never going back to school as I am of finding that little lot. The only thing I don't like is, the young muff's not giving us a halloo back. But, any way, I'll find 'em,alive or dead.”
And, with this pleasing assurance, the little imp scudded off, leaving the mother glued to the spot with terror.
For full an hour more the torches gleamed, though fainter and fainter; and so full was the wood of echoes, that the voices, though distant, seemed to halloo all round the agonized mother.
But presently there was a continuous yell, quite different from the isolated shouts, a distant but unmistakable howl of victory that made a bolt of ice shoot down her back, and then her heart to glow like fire.
It was followed by a keen whistle.
She fell on her knees and thanked God for her boy.
In the middle of this wood was a shallow excavation, an old chalk-pit, unused for many years. It was never deep, and had been half filled up with dead leaves; these, once blown into the hollow, or dropped from the trees, had accumulated.
The very middle of the line struck on this place, and Moss, the old keeper, who was near the center, had no sooner cast his eyes into it than he halted, and uttered a stentorian halloo well known to sportsmen—“SEE HO!”
A dead halt, a low murmur, and in a very few seconds the line was a circle, and all the torches that had not expired held high in a flaming ring over the prettiest little sight that wood had ever presented.
The old keeper had not given tongue on conjecture, like some youthful hound. In a little hollow of leaves, which the boy had scraped out, lay Master Compton and Miss Ruperta, on their little backs, each with an arm round the other's neck, enjoying the sweet sound sleep of infancy, which neither the horror of their situation—babes in the wood—nor the shouts of fifty people had in the smallest degree disturbed; to be sure, they had undergone great fatigue.
Young master wore a coronet of bluebells on his golden bead, young miss a wreath of cowslips on her ebon locks. The pair were flowers, cherubs, children—everything that stands for young, tender, and lovely.
The honest villagers gaped, and roared in chorus, and held high their torches, and gazed with reverential delight. Not for them was it to finger the little gentlefolks, but only to devour them with admiring eyes.
Indeed, the picture was carried home to many a humble hearth, and is spoken of to this day in Huntercombe village.
But the pale and anxious fathers were in no state to see pictures—they only saw their children Sir Charles and Richard Bassett came round with the general rush, saw, and dashed into the pit.
Strange to say, neither knew the other was there. Each seized his child, and tore it away from the contact of the other child, as if from a viper; in which natural but harsh act they saw each other for the first time, and their eyes gleamed in a moment with hate and defiance over their loving children.
Here was a picture of a different kind, and if the melancholy Jaques, or any other gentleman with a foible for thinking in a wood; had been there, methinks he had moralized very prettily on the hideousness of hate and the beauty of the sentiment it had interrupted so fiercely. But it escaped this sort of comment for about eight years. Well, all this woke the bairns; the lights dazzled them, the people scared them. Each hid a little face on the paternal shoulder.
The fathers, like wild beasts, each carrying off a lamb, withdrew, glaring at each other; but the very next moment the stronger and better sentiment prevailed, and they kissed and blessed their restored treasures, and forgot their enemies for a time.
Sir Charles's party followed him, and supped at Huntercombe, every man Jack of them.
Reginald, who had delivered a terrific cat-call, now ran off to Lady Bassett. There she was, still on her knees.
“Found! found!” he shouted.
She clasped him in her arms and wept for joy.
“My eyes!” said he, “what a one you are to cry! You come home; you'll catch your death o' cold.”
“No, no; take me to my child at once.”
“Can't be done; the governor has carried him off through the wood; and I ain't a going to let you travel the wood. You come with me; we'll go the short cut, and be home as soon as them.”
She complied, though trembling all over.
On the way he told her where the children had been discovered, and in what attitude.
“Little darlings!” said she. “But he has frightened his poor mother, and nearly broken her heart. Oh!”
“If you cry any more, mamma—Shut up, I tell you!”
“MustI? Oh!”
“Yes, or you'll catch pepper.”
Then he pulled her along, gabbling all the time. “Those two swells didn't quarrel after all, you see.”
“Thank Heaven!”
“But they looked at each other like hobelixes, and pulled the kids away like pison. Ha! ha! I say, the young 'uns ain't of the same mind as the old 'uns. I say, though, our Compton is not a bad sort; I'm blowed if he hadn't taken off his tippet to put round his gal. I say, don't you think that little chap has begun rather early? Why,Ididn't trouble my head about the gals till I was eleven years old.”
Lady Bassett was too much agitated to discuss these delicate little questions just then.
She replied as irrelevantly as ever a lady did. “Oh, you good, brave, clever boy!” said she.
Then she stopped a moment to kiss him heartily. “I shall never forget this night, dear. I shall always make excuses for you. Oh, shall we never get home?”
“We shall be home as soon as they will,” said Reginald. “Come on.”
He gabbled to her the whole way; but the reader has probably had enough of his millclack.
Lady Bassett reached home, and had just ordered a large fire in Compton's bedroom, when Sir Charles came in, bringing the boy.
The lady ran out screaming, and went down on her knees, with her arms out, as only a mother can stretch them to her child.
There was not a word of scolding that night. He had made her suffer; but what of that? She had no egotism; she was a true mother. Her boy had been lost, and was found; and she was the happiest soul in creation.
But the fathers of these babes in the wood were both intensely mortified, and took measures to keep those little lovers apart in future. Richard Bassett locked up his gate: Sir Charles padlocked his; and they both told their wives they really must be more vigilant. The poor children, being in disgrace, did not venture to remonstrate! But they used often to think of each other, and took a liking to the British Sunday; for then they saw each other in church.
By-and-by even that consolation ceased. Ruperta was sent to school, and passed her holidays at the sea-side.
To return to Reginald, he was compelled to change his clothes that evening, but was allowed to sit up, and, when the heads of the house were a little calmer, became the hero of the night.
Sir Charles, gazing on him with parental pride, said, “Reginald, you have begun a new life to-day, and begun it well. Let us forget the past, and start fresh to-day, with the love and gratitude of both your parents.”
The boy hung his head and said nothing in reply.
Lady Bassett came to his assistance. “He will; he will. Don't say a word about the past. He is a good, brave, beautiful boy, and I adore him.”
“And I like you, mamma,” said Reginald graciously.
From that day the boy had a champion in Lady Bassett; and Heaven knows, she had no sinecure; poor Reginald's virtues were too eccentric to balance his faults for long together. His parents could not have a child lost in a wood every day; but good taste and propriety can be offended every hour when one is so young, active, and savage as Master Reginald.
He was up at five, and doing wrong all day.
Hours in the stables, learning to talk horsey, and smell dunghilly.
Hours in the village, gossiping and romping.
In good company, an owl.
In bad, or low company, a cricket, a nightingale, a magpie.
He was seen at a neighboring fair, playing the fiddle in a booth to dancing yokels, and receiving their pence.
He was caught by Moss wiring hairs in Bassett's wood, within twenty yards of the place where he had found the babes in the wood so nobly.
Remonstrated with tenderly and solemnly, he informed Sir Charles that poaching was a thing he could not live without, and he modestly asked to have Bassett's wood given him to poach in, offering, as a consideration, to keep all other poachers out: as a greater inducement, he represented that he should not require a house, but only a coarse sheet to stretch across an old saw-pit, and a pair of blankets for winter use—one under, one over.
Sir Charles was often sad, sometimes indignant.
Lady Bassett excused each enormity with pathetic ingenuity; excused, but suffered, and indeed pined visibly, for all this time he was tormenting her as few women in her position have been tormented. Her life was a struggle of contesting emotions; she was wounded, harassed, perplexed, and so miserable, she would have welcomed death, that her husband might read that Manuscript and cease to suffer, and she escape the shame of confessing, and of living after it.
In one word, she was expiating.
Neither the excuses she made nor the misery she suffered escaped Sir Charles.
He said to her at last, “My own Bella, this unhappy boy is killing you. Dear as he is to me, you are dearer. I must send him away again.”
“He saved our darling,” said she, faintly, but she could say no more. He had exhausted excuse.
Sir Charles made inquiries everywhere, and at last his attention was drawn to the following advertisement in theTimes:
UNMANAGEABLE, Backward, or other BOYS, carefully TRAINED, and EDUCATED, by a married rector. Home comforts. Moderate terms. Address Dr. Beecher, Fennymore, Cambridgeshire.
He wrote to this gentleman, and the correspondence was encouraging. “These scapegraces,” said the artist in tuition, “are like crab-trees; abominable till you graft them, and then they bear the best fruit.”
While the letters were passing, came a climax. Reckless Reginald could keep no bounds intact: his inward definition of a boundary was “a thing you should go a good way out of your way rather than not overleap.”
Accordingly, he was often on Highmore farm at night, and even in Highmore garden; the boundary wall tempted him so.
One light but windy night, when everybody that could put his head under cover, and keep it there, did, reckless Reginald was out enjoying the fresh breezes; he mounted the boundary wall of Highmore like a cat, to see what amusement might offer. Thus perched, he speedily discovered a bright light in Highmore dining-room.
He dropped from the wall directly, and stole softly over the grass and peered in at the window.
He saw a table with a powerful lamp on it; on that table, and gleaming in that light, were several silver vessels of rare size and workmanship, and Mr. Bassett, with his coat off, and a green baize apron on, was cleaning one of these with brush and leather. He had already cleaned the others, for they glittered prodigiously.
Reginald's black eye gloated and glittered at this unexpected display of wealth in so dazzling a form.
But this was nothing to the revelation in store. When Mr. Bassett had done with that piece of plate he went to the paneled wall, and opened a door so nicely adapted to the panels, that a stranger would hardly have discovered it. Yet it was an enormous door, and, being opened, revealed a still larger closet, lined with green velvet and fitted with shelves from floor to ceiling.
Here shone, in all their glory, the old plate of two good families: that is to say, half the old plate of the Bassetts, and all the old plate of the Goodwyns, from whom came Highmore to Richard Bassett through his mother Ruperta Goodwyn, so named after her grandmother; so named after her aunt; so named after her godmother; so named after her father, Prince Rupert, cavalier, chemist, glass-blower, etc., etc.
The wall seemed ablaze with suns and moons, for many of the chased goblets, plates, and dishes were silver-gilt: none of your filmy electro-plate, but gold laid on thick, by the old mercurial process, in days when they that wrought in precious metals were honest—for want of knowing how to cheat.
Glued to the pane, gloating on this constellation of gold suns and silver moons, and trembling with Bohemian excitement, reckless Reginald heard not a stealthy step upon the grass behind him.
He had trusted to a fact in optics, forgetting the doctrine of shadows.
The Scotch servant saw from a pantry window the shadow of a cap projected on the grass, with a face, and part of a body. She stepped out, and got upon the grass.
Finding it was only a boy, she was brave as well as cunning; and, owing to the wind and his absorption, stole on him unheard, and pinned him with her strong hands by both his shoulders.
Young Hopeful uttered a screech of dismay, and administered a back kick that made Jessie limp for two days, and scream very lustily for the present.
Mr. Bassett, at this dialogue of yells, dropped a coffee-pot with a crash and a tinkle, and ran out directly, and secured young Hopeful, who thereupon began to quake and remonstrate.
“I was only taking a look,” said he. “Where's the harm of that?”
“You were trespassing, sir,” said Richard Bassett.
“What is the harm of that, governor? You can come over all our place, for what I care.”
“Thank you. I prefer to keep to my own place.”
“Well, I don't. I say, old chap, don't hit me. 'Twas I put 'em all on the scent of your kid, you know.”
“So I have heard. Well, then, this makes us quits.”
“Don't it? You ain't such a bad sort, after all.”
“Only mind, Mr. Bassett, if I catch you prying here again, that will be a fresh account, and I shall open it with a horsewhip.”
He then gave him a little push, and the boy fled like the wind. When he was gone, Richard Bassett became rather uneasy. He had hitherto concealed, even from his own family, the great wealth his humble home contained. His secret was now public. Reginald had no end of low companions. If burglars got scent of this, it might be very awkward. At last he hit upon a defense. He got one of those hooks ending in a screw which are used for pictures, and screwed it into the inside of the cupboard door near the top. To this he fastened a long piece of catgut, and carried it through the floor. His bed was just above the cupboard door, and he attached the gut to a bell by his bedside. By this means nobody could open that cupboard without ringing in his ears.
Jessie told Tom, Tom told Maria and Harriet; Harriet and Maria told everybody; somebody told Sir Charles. He was deeply mortified.
“You young idiot!” said he, “would nothing less than this serve your turn? must you go and lower me and yourself by giving just offense to my one enemy?—the man I hate and despise, and who is always on the watch to injure or affront me. Oh, who would be a father! There, pack up your things; you will go to school next morning at eight o'clock.”
Mr. Reginald packed accordingly, but that did not occupy long; so he sallied forth, and, taking for granted that it was Richard Bassett who had been so mean as to tell, he purchased some paint and brushes and a rope, and languished until midnight.
But when that magic hour came he was brisk as a bee, let himself down from his veranda, and stole to Richard Bassett's front door, and inscribed thereon, in large and glaring letters,
“JERRY SNEAK, ESQ., Tell-Tale Tit.”
He then returned home much calmed and comforted, climbed up his rope and into his room, and there slept sweetly, as one who had discharged his duty to his neighbor and society in general.
In the morning, however, he was very active, hurried the grooms, and was off before the appointed time.
Sir Charles came down to breakfast, and lo! young Hopeful gone, without the awkward ceremony of leave-taking.
Sir Charles found, as usual, many delicacies on his table, and among them one rarer to him than ortolan, pin-tail, or wild turkey (in which last my soul delights); for he found a letter from Richard Bassett, Esq.
“SIR—Some nights since we caught your successor that is to be, at my dining-room window, prying into my private affairs. Having the honor of our family at heart, I was about to administer a little wholesome correction, when he reminded me he had been instrumental in tracking Miss Bassett, and thereby rescuing her: upon this I was, naturally, mollified, and sent him about his business, hoping to have seen the last of him at Highmore.
“This morning my door is covered with opprobrious epithets, and as Mr. Bassett bought paint and brushes at the shop yesterday afternoon, it is doubtless to him I am indebted for them.
“I make no comments; I simply record the facts, and put them down to your credit, and your son's.
“Your obedient servant,
“RICHARD BASSETT.”
Lady Bassett did not come down to breakfast that morning; so Sir Charles digested this dish in solitude.
He was furious with Reginald; but as Richard Bassett's remonstrance was intended to insult him, he wrote back as follows:
“SIR—I am deeply grieved that a son of mine should descend to look in at your windows, or to write anything whatever upon your door; and I will take care it shall never recur.
“Yours obediently,
“CHARLES DYKE BASSETT.”
This little correspondence was salutary; it fanned the coals of hatred between the cousins.
Reckless Reginald soon found he had caught a Tartar in his new master.
That gentleman punished him severely for every breach of discipline. The study was a cool dark room, with one window looking north, and that window barred. Here he locked up the erratic youth for hours at a time, upon the slightest escapade.
Reginald wrote a honeyed letter to Sir Charles, bewailing his lot, and praying to be removed.
Sir Charles replied sternly, and sent him a copy of Mr. Richard Bassett's letter. He wrote to Mr. Beecher at the same time, expressing his full approval.
Thus disciplined, the boy began to change; he became moody, sullen, silent, and even sleepy. This was the less wonderful, that he generally escaped at night to a gypsy camp, and courted a gypsy girl, who was nearly as handsome as himself, besides being older, and far more knowing.
His tongue went like a mill, and the whole tribe soon knew all about him and his parents.
One morning the servants got up supernaturally early, to wash. Mr. Reginald was detected stealing back to his roost, and reported to the master.
Mr. Beecher had him up directly, locked him into the study alone, put the other students into the drawing-room, and erected bars to his bedroom window.
A few days of this, and he pined like a bird in a cage.
A few more, and his gypsy girl came fortune-telling to the servants, and wormed out the truth.
Then she came at night under his window, and made him a signal. He told her his hard case, and told her also a resolution he had come to. She informed the tribe. The tribe consulted. A keen saw was flung up to him; in two nights he was through the bars; the third he was free, and joined his sable friends.
They struck their tents, and decamped with horses, asses, tents, and baggage, and were many miles away by daybreak, without troubling turnpikes.
The boy left not a line behind him, and Mr. Beecher half hoped he might come back; still he sent to the nearest station, and telegraphed to Huntercombe.
Sir Charles mounted a fleet horse, and rode off at once into Cambridgeshire. He set inquiries on foot, and learned that the boy had been seen consorting with a tribe of gypsies. He heard, also, that these were rather high gypsies, many of them foreigners; and that they dealt in horses, and had a farrier; and that one or two of the girls were handsome, and also singers.
Sir Charles telegraphed for detectives from London; wrote to the mayors of towns; advertised, with full description and large reward, and brought such pressure to bear upon the Egyptians, that the band begin to fear: they consulted, and took measures for their own security; none too soon, for, they being encamped on Grey's Common in Oxfordshire, Sir Charles and the rural police rode into the camp and demanded young Hopeful.
They were equal to the occasion; at first they knew nothing of the matter, and, with injured innocence, invited a full inspection.
The invitation was accepted.
Then, all of a sudden, one of the women affected to be struck with an idea. “It is the young gentleman who wanted to join us in Cambridgeshire.”
Then all their throats opened at once. “Yes, gentleman, there was a lovely young gentleman wanted to come with us; but we wouldn't have him. What could we do with him?”
Sir Charles left them under surveillance, and continued his researches, telegraphing Lady Bassett twice every day.
A dark stranger came into Huntercombe village, no longer young, but still a striking figure: had once, no doubt, been superlatively handsome. Even now, his long hair was black and his eye could glitter: but his life had impregnated his noble features with hardness and meanness; his large black eye was restless, keen, and servile: an excellent figure for a painter, though; born in Spain, he was not afraid of color, had a red cap on his snaky black hair, and a striped waistcoat.
He inquired for Mr. Meyrick's farm.
He soon found his way thither, and asked for Mrs. Meyrick.
The female servant who opened the door ran her eye up and down him, and said, bruskly, “What do you want with her, my man? because she is busy.”
“Oh, she will see me, miss.”
Softened by the “miss,” the girl laughed, and said, “What makes you think that, my man?”
“Give her this, miss,” said the gypsy, “and she will come to me.”
He held her out a dirty crumpled piece of paper.
Sally, whose hands were wet from the tub, whipped her hand under the corner of her checkered apron, and so took the note with a finger and thumb operating through the linen. By this means she avoided two evils—her fingers did not wet the letter, and the letter did not dirty her fingers.
She took it into the kitchen to her mistress, whose arms were deep in a wash-tub.
Mrs. Meyrick had played the fine lady at first starting, and for six months would not put her hand to anything. But those twin cajolers of the female heart, Dignity and Laziness, made her so utterly wretched, that she returned to her old habits of work, only she combined with it the sweets of domination.
Sally came in and said, “It's an old gypsy, which he have brought you this.”
Mrs. Meyrick instantly wiped the soapsuds from her brown but shapely arms, and, whipping a wet hand under her apron, took the note just as Sally had. It contained these words only:
“NURSE—The old Romance will tell you all about me.
“REGINALD.”
She had no sooner read it than she took her sleeves down, and whipped her shawl off a peg and put it on, and took off her apron—and all for an old gypsy. No stranger must take her for anything but a lady.
Thus embellished in a turn of the hand, she went hastily to the door.
She and the gypsy both started at sight of each other, and Mrs. Meyrick screamed.
“Why, what brings you here, old man?” said she, panting. The gypsy answered with oily sweetness, “The little gentleman sent me, my dear. Why, you look like a queen.”
“Hush!” said Mrs. Meyrick.—“Come in here.”
She made the old gypsy sit down, and she sat close to him.
“Speak low, daddy,” said she, “and tell me all about my boy, my beautiful boy.”
The old gypsy told Mrs. Meyrick the wrongs of Reginald that had driven him to this; and she fell to crying and lamenting, and inveighing against all concerned—schoolmaster, Sir Charles, Lady Bassett, and the gypsies. Them the old man defended, and assured her the young gentleman was in good hands, and would be made a little king of, all the more that Keturah had told them there was gypsy blood in him.
Mrs. Meyrick resented this loudly, and then returned to her grief.
When she had indulged that grief for a long time, she felt a natural desire to quarrel with somebody, and she actually put on her bonnet, and was going to the Hall to give Lady Bassett a bit of her mind, for she said that lady had never shown the feelings of a woman for the lamb.
But she thought better of it, and postponed the visit. “I shall be sure to say something I shall be sorry for after,” said she; so she sat down again, and returned to her grief.
Nor could she ever shake it off as thoroughly as she had done any other trouble in her life.
Months after this, she said to Sally, with a burst of tears, “I never nursed but one, and I shall never nurse another; and now he is across the seas.”
She kept the old gypsy at the farm; or, to speak more correctly, she made the farm his headquarters. She assigned him the only bedroom he would accept, viz., a cattle-shed, open on one side. She used often to have him into her room when she was alone; she gave him some of her husband's clothes, and made him wear a decent hat; by these means she effaced, in some degree, his nationality, and then she compelled her servants to call him “the foreign gent.”
The foreign gent was very apt to disappear in fine weather, but rain soon drove him back to her fireside, and hunger to her flesh-pots.
On the very day the foreign gent came to Meyrick's farm Lady Bassett had a letter by post from Reginald.
“DEAR MAMMA—I am gone with the gypsies across the water. I am sorry to leave you. You are the right sort: but they tormented me so with their books and their dark rooms. It is very unfortunate to be a boy. When I am a man, I shall be too old to be tormented, and then I will come back.
“Your dutiful son,
“REGINALD.”
Lady Bassett telegraphed Sir Charles, and he returned to Huntercombe, looking old, sad, and worn.
Lady Bassett set herself to comfort and cheer him, and this was her gentle office for many a long month.
She was the more fit for it, that her own health and spirits revived the moment Reginald left the country with his friends the gypsies; the color crept back to her cheek, her spirits revived, and she looked as handsome, and almost as young, as when she married. She tasted tranquillity. Year after year went by without any news of Reginald, and the hope grew that he would never cross her threshold again, and Compton be Sir Charles's heir without any more trouble.
OUR story now makes a bold skip. Compton Bassett was fourteen years old, a youth highly cultivated in mind and trained in body, but not very tall, and rather effeminate looking, because he was so fair and his skin so white.
For all that, he was one of the bowlers in the Wolcombe Eleven, whose cricket-ground was the very meadow in which he had erst gathered cowslips with Ruperta Bassett; and he had a canoe, which he carried to adjacent streams, however narrow, and paddled it with singular skill and vigor. A neighboring miller, suffering under drought, was heard to say, “There ain't water enough to float a duck; nought can swim but the dab-chicks and Muster Bassett.”
He was also a pedestrian, and got his father to take long walks with him, and leave the horses to eat their oats in peace.
In these walks young master botanized and geologized his own father, and Sir Charles gave him a little politics, history, and English poetry, in return. He had a tutor fresh from Oxford for the classics.
One day, returning with his father from a walk, they met a young lady walking toward them from the village; she was tall, and a superb brunette.
Now it was rather a rare thing to see a lady walking through that village, so both Sir Charles and his son looked keenly at her as she came toward them.
Compton turned crimson, and raised his hat to her rather awkwardly.
Sir Charles, who did not know the lady from Eve, saluted her, nevertheless, and with infinite grace; for Sir Charles, in his youth, had lived with some of the elite of French society, and those gentlemen bow to the person whom their companion bows to. Sir Charles had imported this excellent trait of politeness, and always practiced it, though not the custom in England, the more the pity.
As soon as the young lady had passed and was out of hearing, Sir Charles said to Compton, “Who is that lovely girl? Why, how the boy is blushing!”
“Oh, papa!”
“Well, what is the matter?”
“Don't you see? It is herself come back from school.”
“I have no doubt it is herself, and not her sister, but who is herself?”
“Ruperta Bassett.”
“Richard Bassett's daughter! impossible. That young lady looks seventeen or eighteen years of age.”
“Yes, but it is Ruperta. There's nobody like her. Papa!”
“Well?”
“I suppose I may speak to her now.”
“What for?”
“She is so beautiful.”
“That she really is. And therefore I advise you to have nothing to say to her. You are not children now, you know. Were you to renew that intimacy, you might be tempted to fall in love with her. I don't say you would be so mad, for you are a sensible boy; but still, after that little business in the wood—”
“But suppose I did fall in love with her?”
“Then that would be a great misfortune. Don't you know that her father is my enemy? If you were to make any advances to that young lady, he would seize the opportunity to affront you, and me through you.”
This silenced Compton, for he was an obedient youth.
But in the evening he got to his mother and coaxed her to take his part.
Now Lady Bassett felt the truth of all her husband had said; but she had a positive wish the young people should be on friendly terms, at all events; she wanted the family feud to die with the generation it had afflicted. She promised, therefore, to speak to Sir Charles; and so great was her influence that she actually obtained terms for Compton: he might speak to Miss Bassett, if he would realize the whole situation, and be very discreet, and not revive that absurd familiarity into which, their childhood had been betrayed.
She communicated this to him, and warned him at the same time that even this concession had been granted somewhat reluctantly, and in consideration of his invariable good conduct; it would be immediately withdrawn upon the slightest indiscretion.
“Oh, I will be discretion itself,” said Compton; but the warmth with which he kissed his mother gave her some doubts. However, she was prepared to risk something. She had her own views in this matter.
When he had got this limited permission, Master Compton was not much nearer the mark; for he was not to call on the young lady, and she did not often walk in the village.
But he often thought of her, her loving, sprightly ways seven years ago, and the blaze of beauty with which she had returned.
At last, one Sunday afternoon, she came to church alone. When the congregation dispersed, he followed her, and came up with her, but his heart beat violently.
“Miss Bassett!” said he, timidly.
She stopped, and turned her eyes on him; he blushed up to the temples. She blushed too, but not quite so much.
“I am afraid you don't remember me,” said the boy, sadly.
“Yes, I do, sir,” said Ruperta, shyly.
“How you are grown!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are taller than I am, and more beautiful than ever.”
No answer, but a blush.
“You are not angry with me for speaking to you?”
“No, sir.”
“I wouldn't offend you.”
“I am not offended. Only—”
“Oh, Miss Bassett, of course I know you will never be—we shall never be—like we used.”
A very deep blush, and dead silence.
“You are a grown-up young lady, and I am only a boy still, somehow. But itwouldhave been hard if I might not even speak to you. Would it not?”
“Yes,” said the young lady, but after some hesitation, and only in a whisper.
“I wonder where you walk to. I have never seen you out but once.”
No reply to this little feeler.
Then, at last, Compton was discouraged, partly by her beauty and size, partly by her taciturnity.
He was silent in return, and so, in a state of mutual constraint, they reached the gate of Highmore.
“Good-by,” said Compton reluctantly.
“Good-by.”
“Won't you shake hands?”
She blushed, and put out her hand halfway. He took it and shook it, and so they parted.
Compton said to his mother disconsolately, “Mamma, it is all over. I have seen her, and spoken to her; but she has gone off dreadfully.”
“Why, what is the matter?”
“She is all changed. She is so stupid and dignified got to be. She has not a word to say to a fellow.”
“Perhaps she is more reserved; that is natural. She is a young lady now.”
“Then it is a great pity she did not stay as she was. Oh, the bright little darling! Who'd think she could ever turn into a great, stupid, dignified thing? She is as tall as you, mamma.”
“Indeed! She has made use of her time. Well, dear, don't taketoo muchnotice of her, and then you will find she will not be nearly so shy.”
“Too much notice! I shall never speak to her again—perhaps.”
“I would not be violent, one way or the other. Why not treat her like any other acquaintance?”
Next Sunday afternoon she came to church alone.
In spite of his resolution, Mr. Compton tried her a second time. Horror! she was all monosyllables and blushes again.
Compton began to find it too up-hill. At last, when they reached Highmore gate, he lost his patience, and said, “I see how it is. I have lost my sweet playmate forever. Good-by, Ruperta; I won't trouble you any more.” And he held out his hand to the young lady for a final farewell.
Ruperta whipped both her hands behind her back like a school-girl, and then, recovering her dignity, cast one swift glance of gentle reproach, then suddenly assuming vast stateliness, marched into Highmore like the mother of a family. These three changes of manner she effected all in less than two seconds.
Poor Compton went away sorely puzzled by this female kaleidoscope, but not a little alarmed and concerned at having mortally offended so much feminine dignity.
After that he did not venture to accost her for some time, but he cast a few sheep's-eyes at her in church.
Now Ruperta had told her mother all; and her mother had not forbidden her to speak to Compton, but had insisted on reserve and discretion.
She now told her mother she thought he would not speak to her any more, she had snubbed him so.
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Bassett, “why did you do that? Can you not be polite and nothing more?”
“No, mamma.”
“Why not? He is very amiable. Everybody says so.”
“He is. But I keep remembering what a forward girl I was, and I am afraid he has not forgotten it either, and that makes me hate the poor little fellow; no, not hate him; but keep him off. I dare say he thinks me a cross, ill-tempered thing; and Iamvery unkind to him, but I can't help it.”
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Bassett; “that is much better than to be too forward. Papa would never forgive that.”
By-and-by there was a cricket-match in the farmer's meadow, Highcombe and Huntercombe eleven against the town of Staveleigh. All clubs liked to play at Huntercombe, because Sir Charles found the tents and the dinner, and the young farmers drank his champagne to their hearts' content.
Ruperta took her maid and went to see the match. They found it going against Huntercombe. The score as follows—
Staveleigh. First innings, a hundred and forty-eight runs.
Huntercombe eighty-eight.
Staveleigh. Second innings, sixty runs, and only one wicket down; and Johnson and Wright, two of their best men, well in, and masters of the bowling.
This being communicated to Ruperta, she became excited, and her soul in the game.
The batters went on knocking the balls about, and scored thirteen more before the young lady's eyes.
“Oh, dear!” said she, “what is that boy about? Why doesn't he bowl? They pretend he is a capital bowler.”
At this time Compton was standing long-field on, only farther from the wicket than usual.
Johnson, at the wicket bowled to, being a hard but not very scientific hitter, lifted a half volley ball right over the bowler's head, a hit for four, but a skyscraper. Compton started the moment he hit, and, running with prodigious velocity, caught the ball descending, within a few yards of Ruperta; but, to get at it, he was obliged to throw himself forward into the air; he rolled upon the grass, but held the ball in sight all the while.
Mr. Johnson was out, and loud acclamations rent the sky.
Compton rose, and saw Ruperta clapping her hands close by.
She left off and blushed, directly he saw her. He blushed too, and touched his cap to her, with an air half manly, half sheepish, but did not speak to her.
This was the last ball of the over, and, as the ball was now to be delivered from the other wicket, Compton took the place of long-leg.
The third ball was overpitched to leg, and Wright, who, like most country players, hit freely to leg, turned half, and caught this ball exactly right, and sent it whizzing for five.
But the very force of the stroke was fatal to him; the ball went at first bound right into Compton's hands, who instantly flung it back, like a catapult, at Wright's wicket.
Wright, having hit for five, and being unable to see what had become of the ball, started to run, as a matter of course.
But the other batsman, seeing the ball go right into long-leg's hands like a bullet, cried, “Back!”
Wright turned, and would have got back to his wicket if the ball had required handling by the wicket-keeper; but, by a mixture of skill with luck, it came right at the wicket. Seeing which, the wicket-keeper very judiciously let it alone, and it carried off the bails just half a second before Mr. Wright grounded his bat.
“How's that, umpire?” cried the wicket-keeper.
“Out!” said the Staveleigh umpire, who judged at that end.
Up went the ball into the air, amid great excitement of the natives.
Ruperta, carried away by the general enthusiasm, nodded all sparkling to Compton, and that made his heart beat and his soul aspire. So next over he claimed his rights, and took the ball. Luck still befriended him: he bowled four wickets in twelve overs; the wicket-keeper stumped a fifth: the rest were “the tail,” and disposed of for a few runs, and the total was no more than Huntercombe's first innings.
Our hero then took the bat, and made forty-seven runs before he was disposed of, five wickets down for a hundred and ten runs. The match was not won yet, nor sure to be; but the situation was reversed.
On going out, he was loudly applauded; and Ruperta naturally felt proud of her admirer.
Being now free, he came to her irresolutely with some iced champagne.
Ruperta declined, with thanks; but he looked so imploringly that she sipped a little, and said, warmly, “I hope we shall win: and, if we do, I know whom we shall have to thank.”
“And so do I: you, Miss Bassett.”
“Me? Why, what haveIdone in the matter?”
“You brought us luck, for one thing. You put us on our mettle. Staveleigh shall never beatme,with you looking on.”
Ruperta blushed a little, for the boy's eyes beamed with fire.
“If I believed that,” said she, “I should hire myself out at the next match, and charge twelve pairs of gloves.”
“You may believe it, then; ask anybody whether our luck did not change the moment you came.”
“Then I am afraid it will go now, for I am going.”
“You will lose us the match if you do,” said Compton.
“I can't help it: now you are out, it is rather insipid. There, you see I can pay compliments as well as you.”
Then she made a graceful inclination and moved away.
Compton felt his heart ache at parting. He took a thought and ran quickly to a certain part of the field.
Ruperta and her attendant walked very slowly homeward.
Compton caught them just at their own gate. “Cousin!” said he, imploringly, and held her out a nosegay of cowslips only.
At that the memories rushed back on her, and the girl seemed literally to melt. She gave him one look full of womanly sensibility and winning tenderness, and said, softly, “Thank you, cousin.”
Compton went away on wings: the ice was broken.
But the next time he met her it had frozen again apparently: to be sure she was alone; and young ladies will be bolder when they have another person of their own sex with them.
Mr. Angelo called on Sir Charles Bassett to complain of a serious grievance.
Mr. Angelo had become zealous and eloquent, but what are eloquence and zeal against sex? A handsome woman had preached for ten minutes upon a little mound outside the village, and had announced she should say a few parting words next Sunday evening at six o'clock.
Mr. Angelo complained of this to Lady Bassett.
Lady Bassett referred him to Sir Charles.
Mr. Angelo asked that magistrate to enforce the law against conventicles.
Sir Charles said he thought the Act did not apply.
“Well, but,” said Angelo, “it is on your ground she is going to preach.”
“I am the proprietor, but the tenant is the owner in law. He could warnmeoff his ground. I have no power.”
“I fear you have no inclination,” said Angelo, nettled.
“Not much, to tell the truth,” replied Sir Charles coolly. “Does it matter so very muchwhosows the good seed, or whether it is flung abroad from a pulpit or a grassy knoll?”
“That is begging the question, Sir Charles. Why assume that it is good seed? it is more likely to be tares than wheat in this case.”
“And is not that begging the question? Well, I will make it my business to know: and if she preaches sedition, or heresy, or bad morals, I will strain my power a little to silence her. More than that I really cannot promise you. The day is gone by for intolerance.”
“Intolerance is a bad thing; but the absence of all conviction is worse, and that is what we are coming to.”
“Not quite that: but the nation has tasted liberty; and now every man assumes to do what is right in his own eyes.”
“That mean's what is wrong in his neighbor's.”
Sir Charles thought this neat, and laughed good-humoredly: he asked the rector to dine on Sunday at half-past seven. “I shall know more about it by that time,” said he.
They dined early on Sunday, at Highmore, and Ruperta took her maid for a walk in the afternoon, and came back in time to hear the female preacher.
Half the village was there already, and presently the preacher walked to her station.
To Ruperta's surprise, she was a lady, richly dressed, tall and handsome, but with features rather too commanding. She had a glove on her left hand, and a little Bible in her right hand, which was large, but white, and finely formed.
She delivered a short prayer, and opened her text:
“Walk honestly; not in strife and envying.”
Just as the text was given out, Ruperta's maid pinched her, and the young lady, looking up, saw her father coming to see what was the matter. Maid was for hiding, but Ruperta made a wry face, blushed, and stood her ground. “How can he scold me, when he comes himself?” she whispered.
During the sermon, of which, short as it was, I can only afford to give the outline, in crept Compton Bassett, and got within three or four of Ruperta.
Finally Sir Charles Bassett came up, in accordance with his promise to Angelo.
The perfect preacher deals in generalities, but strikes them home with a few personalities.
Most clerical preachers deal only in generalities, and that is ineffective, especially to uncultivated minds.
Mrs. Marsh, as might be expected from her sex, went a little too much the other way.
After a few sensible words, pointing out the misery in houses, and the harm done to the soul, by a quarrelsome spirit, she lamented there was too much of it in Huntercombe: with this opening she went into personalities: reminded them of the fight between two farm servants last week, one of whom was laid up at that moment in consequence. “And,” said she, “even when it does not come to fighting, it poisons your lives and offends your Redeemer.”
Then she went into the causes, and she said Drunkenness and Detraction were the chief causes of strife and contention.
She dealt briefly but dramatically with Drunkenness, and then lashed Detraction, as follows:
“Every class has its vices, and Detraction is the vice of the poor. You are ever so much vainer than your betters: you are eaten up with vanity, and never give your neighbor a good word. I have been in thirty houses, and in not one of those houses has any poor man or poor woman spoken one honest word in praise of a neighbor. So do not flatter yourselves this is a Christian village, for it is not. The only excuse to be made for you, and I fear it is not one that God will accept on His judgment-day, is that your betters set you a bad example instead of a good one. The two principal people in this village are kinsfolk, yet enemies, and have been enemies for twenty years. That's a nice example for two Christian gentlemen to set to poor people, who, they may be sure, will copy their sins, if they copy nothing else.
“They go to church regularly, and believe in the Bible, and yet they defy both Church and Bible.
“Now I should like to ask those gentlemen a question. How do they mean to manage in Heaven? When the baronet comes to that happy place, where all is love, will the squire walk out? Or do they think to quarrel there, and so get turned out, both of them? I don't wonder at your smiling; but it is a serious consideration, for all that. The soul of man is immortal: and what is the soul? it is not a substantial thing, like the body; it is a bundle of thoughts and feelings: the thoughts we die with in this world, we shall wake up with them in the next. Yet here are two Christians loading their immortal souls with immortal hate. What a waste of feeling, if it must all be flung off together with the body, lest it drag the souls of both down to bottomless perdition.
“And what do they gain in this world?—irritation, ill-health, and misery. It is a fact that no man ever reached a great old age who hated his neighbor; still less agoodold age; for, if men would look honestly into their own hearts, they would own that to hate is to be miserable.
“I believe no men commit a sin for many years without some special warnings; and to neglect these, is one sin more added to their account. Such a warning, or rather, I should say, such a pleading of Divine love, those two gentlemen have had. Do you remember, about eight years ago, two children were lost on one day, out of different houses in this village?” (A murmur from the crowd.)
“Perhaps some of you here present were instrumental, under God, in finding that pretty pair.” (A louder murmur.)
“Oh, don't be afraid to answer me. Preaching is only a way of speaking; and I'm only a woman that is speaking to you for your good. Tell me—we are not in church, tied up by stait-laced rules to keep men and women from getting within arm's-length of one another's souls—tell me, who saw those two lost children?”
“I, I, I, I, I,” roared several voices in reply.
“Is it true, as a good woman tells me, that the innocent darlings had each an arm round the other's neck?”
“Ay.”
“And little coronets of flowers, to match their hair?” (That was the girl's doing.)
“Ay.”
“And the little boy had played the man, and taken off his tippet to put round the little lady?”
“Ay!” with a burst of enthusiasm from the assembled rustics.
“I think I see them myself; and the torches lighting up the dewy leaves overhead, and that Divine picture of innocent love. Well, which was the prettiest sight, and the fittest for heaven—the hatred of the parents, or the affection of the children?
“And now mark what a weapon hatred is, in the Devil's hands. There are only two people in this parish on whom that sight was wasted; and those two being gentlemen, and men of education, would have been more affected by it than humble folk, if Hell had not been in their hearts, for Hate comes from Hell, and takes men down to the place it comes from.
“Do you, then, shun, in that one thing, the example of your betters: and I hope those children will shun it too. A father is to be treated with great veneration, but above all is our Heavenly Father and His law; and that law, what is it?—what has it been this eighteen hundred years and more? Why, Love.
“Would you be happy in this world, and fit your souls to dwell hereafter even in the meanest of the many mansions prepared above, youmust,above all things, be charitable. You must not run your neighbor down behind his back, or God will hate you: you must not wound him to his face, or God will hate you. You must overlook a fault or two, and see a man's bright side, and then God will love you. If you won't do that much for your neighbor, why, in Heaven's name, should God overlook a multitude of sins in you?
“Nothing goes to heaven surer than Charity, and nothing is so fit to sit in heaven. St. Paul had many things to be proud of and to praise in himself—things that the world is more apt to admire than Christian charity, the sweetest, but humblest of all the Christian graces: St. Paul, I say, was a bulwark of learning, an anchor of faith, a rock of constancy, a thunder-bolt of zeal: yet see how he bestows the palm.
“'Knowledge puffeth up: but charity edifieth. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth; but prophecies—they shall fail; tongues—they shall cease; knowledge—it shall vanish away. And now abideth Faith, Hope, Charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.'”
The fair orator delivered these words with such fire, such feeling, such trumpet tones and heartfelt eloquence, that for the first time those immortal words sounded in these village ears true oracles of God.
Then, without pause, she went on. “So let us lift our hearts in earnest prayer to God that, in this world of thorns, and tempers, and trials, and troubles, and cares, He will give us the best cure for all—the great sweetener of this mortal life—the sure forerunner of Heaven—His most excellent gift of charity.” Then, in one generous burst, she prayed for love divine, and there was many a sigh and many a tear, and at the close an “Amen!” such as, alas! we shall never, I fear, hear burst from a hundred bosoms where men repeat beautiful but stale words and call it prayer.
The preacher retired, but the people still lingered spell-bound, and then arose that buzz which shows that the words have gone home.
As for Richard Bassett, he had turned on his heel, indignant, as soon as the preacher's admonitions came his way.
Sir Charles Bassett stood his ground rather longer, being steeled by the conviction that the quarrel was none of his seeking. Moreover, he was not aware what a good friend this woman had been to him, nor what a good wife she had been to Marsh this seventeen years. His mind, therefore, made a clear leap from Rhoda Somerset, the vixen of Hyde Park and Mayfair, to this preacher, and he could not help smiling; than which a worse frame for receiving unpalatable truths can hardly be conceived. And so the elders were obdurate. But Compton and Ruperta had no armor of old age, egotism, or prejudice to turn the darts of honest eloquence. They listened, as to the voice of an angel; they gazed, as on the face of an angel; and when those silvery accents ceased, they turned toward each other and came toward each other, with the sweet enthusiasm that became their years. “Oh, Cousin Ruperta!” quavered Compton. '“Oh, Cousin Compton!” cried Ruperta, the tears trickling down her lovely cheeks.
They could not say any more for ever so long.
Ruperta spoke first. She gave a final gulp, and said, “I will go and speak to her, and thank her.”
“Oh, Miss Ruperta, we shall be too late for tea,” suggested the maid.
“Tea!” said Ruperta. “Our souls are before our tea! I must speak to her, or else my heart will choke me and kill me. I will go—and so will Compton.”
“Oh, yes!” said Compton.
And they hurried after the preacher.
They came up with her flushed and panting; and now it was Compton's turn to be shy—the lady was so tall and stately too.
But Ruperta was not much afraid of anything in petticoats. “Oh, madam,” said she, “if you please, may we speak to you?”
Mrs. Marsh turned round, and her somewhat aquiline features softened instantly at the two specimens of beauty and innocence that had run after her.
“Certainly, my young friends;” and she smiled maternally on them. She had children of her own.
“Who do you think we are? We are the two naughty children you preached about so beautifully.”
“What!youthe babes in the wood?”
“Yes, madam. It was a long, long while ago, and we are fifteen now—are we not, Cousin Compton?”
“Yes, madam.”
“And we are both so unhappy at our parents' quarreling. At least I am.”
“And so am I.”
“And we came to thank you. Didn't we, Compton?”
“Yes, Ruperta.”
“And to ask your advice. How are we to make our parents be friends? Old people will not be advised by young ones. They look down on us so; it is dreadful.”
“My dear young lady,” said Mrs. Marsh, “I will try and answer you: but let me sit down a minute; for, after preaching, I am apt to feel a little exhausted. Now, sit beside me, and give me each a hand, if you please.
“Well, my dears, I have been teaching you a lesson; and now you teach me one, and that is, how much easier it is to preach reconciliation and charity than it is to practice it under certain circumstances. However, my advice to you is first to pray to God for wisdom in this thing, and then to watch every opportunity. Dissuade your parents from every unkind act: don't be afraid to speak—with the word of God at your back. I know that you have no easy task before you. Sir Charles Bassett and Mr. Bassett were both among my hearers, and both turned their backs on me, and went away unsoftened; they would not give me a chance; would not hear me to an end, and I am not a wordy preacher neither.”
Here an interruption occurred. Ruperta, so shy and cold with Compton, flung her arms round Mrs. Marsh's neck, with the tears in her eyes, and kissed her eagerly.
“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Marsh, after kissing her in turn, “Iwasa little mortified. But that was very weak and foolish. I am sorry, for their own sakes, they would not stay; it was the word of God: but they saw only the unworthy instrument. Well, then, my dears, youhavea hard task; but you must work upon your mothers, and win them to charity.”
“Ah! that will be easy enough. My mother has never approved this unhappy quarrel.”
“No more has mine.”