“Egress and ingress?”
“Egress and ingress.”
“Is that foreign for cowslips, mamma—and oxlips?”
“Ha! ha! the child's head is full of cowslips. There is the dictionary; look out Egress, and afterward look out Ingress.”
When he had added these two words to his little vocabulary, his mother asked him if he would be good enough to tell her why he did not care much about all the beautiful flowers in the garden, and was so excited about cowslips, which appeared to her a flower of no great beauty, and the smell rather sickly, begging his pardon.
This question posed him dreadfully: he looked at her in a sort of comic distress, and then sat gravely down all in a heap, about a yard off, to think.
Finally he turned to her with a wry face, and said, “WhydoI, mamma?”
She smiled deliciously. “No, no, sir,” said she. “How can I get inside your little head and tell what is there? There must be a reason, I suppose; and you know you and I are never satisfied till we get at the reason of a thing. But there is no hurry, dear. I give you a week to find it out. Now, run and open the gate—stay, are there any cows in that field?”
“Sometimes, mamma; but they have no horns, you know.”
“Upon your word?”
“Upon my honor. I am not fond of them with horns, myself.”
“Then run away, darling. But you must come and hunt me up, and tell me how you enjoyed yourself, because that makes me happy, you know.”
This is mawkish; but it will serve to show on what terms the woman and boy were.
On second thoughts, I recall that apology, and defy creation. “THE MAWKISH” is a branch of literature, a great and popular one, and I have neglected it savagely.
Master Compton opened the iron gate, and the world was all before him where to choose.
He chose one of those yellow stripes that had so attracted him. Horror! it was all buttercups and deil a cowslip.
Nevertheless, pursuing his researches, he found plenty of that delightful flower scattered about the meadow in thinner patches; and he gathered a double handful and dirtied his knees.
Returning, thus laden, from his first excursion, he was accosted by a fluty voice.
“Little boy!”
He looked up, and saw a girl standing on the lower bar of a little wooden gate painted white, looking over.
“Pleasebring me my ball,” said she, pathetically.
Compton looked about; and saw a soft ball of many colors lying near.
He put down his cowslips gravely, and, brought her the ball. He gave it her with a blush, because she was a strange girl; and she blushed a little, because he did.
He returned to his cowslips.
“Little boy!” said the voice, “please bring me my ball again.”
He brought it her, with undisturbed politeness. She was giggling; he laughed too, at that.
“You did it on purpose that time,” said he, solemnly.
“La! you don't think I'd be so wicked,” said she.
Compton shook his head doubtfully, and, considering the interview at an end turned to go, when instantly the ball knocked his hat off, and nothing of the malefactress was visible but a black eye sparkling with fun and mischief, and a bit of forehead wedged against the angle of the wall.
This being a challenge, Compton said, “Now you come out after that, and stand a shot, like a man.”
The invitation to be masculine did not tempt her a bit; the only thing she put out was her hand, and that she drew in, with a laugh, the moment he threw at it.
At this juncture a voice cried, “Ruperta! what are you doing there?”
Ruperta made a rapid signal with her hand to Compton, implying that he was to run away; and she herself walked demurely toward the person who had called her.
It was three days before Compton saw her again, and then she beckoned him royally to her.
“Little boy,” said she, “talk to me.”
Compton looked at her a little confounded, and did not reply.
“Stand on this gate, like me, and talk,” said she.
He obeyed the first part of this mandate, and stood on the lower bar of the little gate; so their two figures made a V, when they hung back, and a tenpenny nail when they came forward and met, and this motion they continued through the dialogue; and it was a pity the little wretches could not keep still, and send for my friend the English Titian: for, when their heads were in position, it was indeed a pretty picture of childish and flower-like beauty and contrast; the boy fair, blue-eyed, and with exquisite golden hair; the girl black-eyed, black-browed, and with eyelashes of incredible length and beauty, and a cheek brownish, but tinted, and so glowing with health and vigor that, pricked with a needle, it seemed ready to squirt carnation right into your eye.
She dazzled Master Compton so that he could do nothing but look at her.
“Well?” said she, smiling.
“Well,” replied he, pretending her “well” was not an interrogatory, but a concise statement, and that he had discharged the whole duty of man by according a prompt and cheerful consent.
“You begin,” said the lady.
“No, you.”
“What for?”
“Because—I think—you are the cleverest.”
“Good little boy! Well, then, I will. Who are you?”
“I am Compton. Who are you, please?”
“I am Ruperta.”
“I never heard that name before.”
“No more did I. I think they measured me for it: you live in the great house there, don't you?”
“Yes, Ruperta.”
“Well, then, I live in the little house. It is not very little either. It's Highmore. I saw you in church one day; is that lady with the hair your mamma?”
“Yes, Ruperta.”
“She is beautiful.”
“Isn't she?”
“But mine is so good.”
“Mine is very good, too, Ruperta. Wonderfully good.”
“I like you, Compton—a little.”
“I like you a good deal, Ruperta.”
“La, do you? I wonder at that: you are like a cherub, and I am such a black thing.”
“But that is why I like you. Reginald is darker than you, and oh, so beautiful!”
“Hum!—he is a very bad boy.”
“No, he is not.”
“Don't tell stories, child; he is. I know all about him. A wicked, vulgar, bad boy.”
“He is not,” cried Compton, almost sniveling; but he altered his mind, and fired up. “You are a naughty, story-telling girl, to say that.”
“Blessme!”said Ruperta, coloring high, and tossing her head haughtily.
“I don't like younow,Ruperta,” said Compton, with all the decent calmness of a settled conviction.
“You don't!” screamed Ruperta. “Then go about your business directly, and don't never come here again! Scoldingme!How dare you?—oh! oh! oh!” and the little lady went off slowly, with her finger in her eye; and Master Compton looked rather rueful, as we all do when this charming sex has recourse to what may be called “liquid reasoning.” I have known the most solid reasons unable to resist it.
However, “mens conscia recti,” and, above all, the cowslips, enabled Compton to resist, and he troubled his head no more about her that day.
But he looked out for her the next day, and she did not come; and that rather disappointed him.
The next day was wet, and he did not go into the meadow, being on honor not to do so.
The fourth day was lovely, and he spent a long time in the meadow, in hopes: he saw her for a moment at the gate; but she speedily retired.
He was disappointed.
However, he collected a good store of cowslips, and then came home.
As he passed the door out popped Ruperta from some secret ambush, and said, “Well?”
“Are you better, dear?”
“I'm very well, thank you,” said the boy.
“In your mind, I mean. You were cross last time, you know.”
Compton remembered his mother's lessons about manly behavior, and said, in a jaunty way, “Well, I s'pose I was a little cross.”
Now the other cunning little thing had come to apologize, if there was no other way to recover her admirer. But, on this confession, she said, “Oh, if you are sorry for it, I forgive you. You may come and talk.”
Then Compton came and stood on the gate, and they held a long conversation; and, having quarreled last time, parted now with rather violent expressions of attachment.
After that they made friends and laid their little hearts bare to each other; and it soon appeared that Compton had learned more, but Ruperta had thought more for herself, and was sorely puzzled about many things, and of a vastly inquisitive mind. “Why,” said she, “is good thing's so hard, and had things so nice and easy? It would be much better if good things were nice and bad ones nasty. That is the way I'd have it, if I could make things.”
Mr. Compton shook his head and said many things were very hard to understand, and even his mamma sometimes could not make out all the things.
“Nor mine neither; I puzzle her dreadful. I can't help that; things shouldn't come and puzzle me, and then I shouldn't puzzle her. Shall I tell you my puzzles? and perhaps you can answer them because you are a boy. I can't think why it is wicked for me to dig in my little garden on a Sunday, and it isn't wicked for Jessie to cook and Sarah to make the beds. Can't think why mamma told papa not to be cross, and, when I told her not to be cross, she put me in a dark cupboard all among the dreadful mice, till I screamed so she took me out and kissed me and gave me pie. Can't think why papa called Sally 'Something' for spilling the ink over his papers, and when I called the gardener the very same for robbing my flowers, all their hands and eyes went up, and they said I was a shocking girl. Can't think why papa giggled the next moment, if I was a shocking girl: it is all puzzle—puzzle—puzzle.”
One day she said, “Can you tell me where all the bad people are buried? for that puzzles me dreadful.”
Compton was posed at first, but said at last he thought they were buried in the churchyard, along with the good ones.
“Oh, indeed!” said she, with an air of pity. “Pray, have you ever been in the churchyard, and read the writings on the stones?”
“No.”
“Then I have. I have read every single word; and there are none but good people buriedthere,not one.” She added, rather pathetically, “You should not answer me without thinking, as if things were easy, instead of so hard. Well, one comfort, there are not many wicked people hereabouts; they live in towns; so I suppose they are buried in the garden, poor things, or put in the water with a stone.”
Compton had no more plausible theory ready, and declined to commit himself to Ruperta's; so that topic fell to the ground.
One day he found her perched as usual, but with her bright little face overclouded.
By this time the intelligent boy was fond enough of her to notice her face. “What's the matter, Perta?”
“Ruperta. The matter? Puzzled again! It is very serious this time.”
“Tell me, Ruperta.”
“No, dear.”
“Please.”
The young lady fixed her eyes on him, and said, with a pretty solemnity, “Let us play at catechism.”
“I don't know that game.”
“The governess asks questions, and the good little boy answers. That's catechism. I'm the governess.”
“Then I'm the good little boy.”
“Yes, dear; and so now look me full in the face.”
“There—you're very pretty, Ruperta.”
“Don't be giddy; I'm hideous; so behave, and answer all my questions. Oh, I'm so unhappy. Answer me, is young people, or old people, goodest?”
“You should say best, dear. Good, better, best. Why, old people, to be sure—much.”
“So I thought; and that is why I am so puzzled. Then your papa and mine are much betterer—will that do?—than we are?”
“Of course they are.”
“There he goes! Such a child for answering slap bang I never.”
“I'm not a child. I'm older than you are, Ruperta.”
“That's a story.”
“Well, then, I'm as old; for Mary says we were born the same day—the same hour—the same minute.”
“La! we are twins.”
She paused, however, on this discovery, and soon found reason to doubt her hasty conclusion. “No such thing,” said she: “they tell me the bells were ringing for you being found, and then I was found—to catechism you.”
“There! then you see Iamolder than you, Ruperta.”
“Yes, dear,” said Ruperta, very gravely; “I'm younger in my body, but older in my head.”
This matter being settled so that neither party could complain, since antiquity was evenly distributed, the catechizing recommenced.
“Do you believe in 'Let dogs delight?'”
“I don't know.”
“What!” screamed Ruperta. “Oh, you wicked boy! Why, it comes next after the Bible.”
“Then I do believe it,” said Compton, who, to tell the truth, had been merely puzzled by the verb, and was not afflicted with any doubt that the composition referred to was a divine oracle.
“Good boy!” said Ruperta, patronizingly. “Well, then, this is what puzzles me; your papa and mine don't believe in 'Dogs delight.' They have been quarreling this twelve years and more, and mean to go on, in spite of mamma. Sheisgood. Didn't you know that your papa and mine are great enemies?”
“No, Ruperta. Oh, what a pity!”
“Don't, Compton, don't: there, you have made me cry.”
He set himself to console her.
She consented to be consoled.
But she said, with a sigh, “What becomes of old people being better than young ones, now? Are you and I bears and lions? Do we scratch out each other's eyes? It is all puzzle, puzzle, puzzle. I wish I was dead! Nurse says, when I'm dead I shall understand it all. But I don't know; I saw a dead cat once, and she didn't seem to know as much as before; puzzle, puzzle. Compton, do you think they are puzzled in heaven?”
“No.”
“Then the sooner we both go there, the better.”
“Yes, but not just now.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the cowslips.”
“Here's a boy! What, would you rather be among the cowslips than the angels? and think of the diamonds and pearls that heaven is paved with.”
“Butyoumightn't be there.”
“What! Am I a wicked girl, then—wickeder than you, that is a boy?”
“Oh no, no, no; but see how big it is up there;” they cast their eyes up, and, taking the blue vault for creation, were impressed with its immensity. “I know where to find you here, but up there you might be ever so far off me.”
“La! so I might. Well, then, we had better keep quiet. I suppose we shall get wiser as we get older. But Compton, I'm so sorry your papa and mine are bears and lions. Why doesn't the clergyman scold them?”
“Nobody dare scold my papa,” said Compton, proudly. Then, after reflection, “Perhaps, when we are older, we may persuade them to make friends. I think it is very stupid to quarrel; don't you?”
“As stupid as an owl.”
“You and I had a quarrel once, Ruperta.”
“Yes, you misbehaved.”
“No, no; you were cross.”
“Story! Well, never mind: wedidquarrel. And you were miserable directly.”
“Not so very,” said Compton, tossing his head.
“Iwas,then,” said Ruperta, with unguarded candor.
“So was I.”
“Good boy! Kiss me, dear.”
“There—and there—and there—and—”
“That will do. I want to talk, Compton.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I'm not very sure, but I rather think I'm in love with you—a little, little bit, you know.”
“And I'm sure I'm in love with you, Ruperta.”
“Over head an' ears?”
“Yes.”
“Then I love you to distraction. Bother the gate! If it wasn't for that, I could run in the meadow with you; and marry you perhaps, and so gather cowslips together for ever and ever.”
“Let us open it.”
“You can't.”
“Let us try.”
“I have. It won't be opened.”
“Letmetry. Some gates want to be lifted up a little, and then they will open. There, I told you so.”
The gate came open.
Ruperta uttered an exclamation of delight, and then drew back.
“I'm afraid, Compton,” said she, “papa would be angry.”
She wanted Compton to tempt her; but that young gentleman, having a strong sense of filial duty, omitted so to do.
When she saw he would not persuade her, she dispensed. “Come along,” said she, “if it is only for five minutes.”
She took his hand, and away they scampered. He showed her the cowslips, the violets, and all the treasures of the meadow; but it was all hurry, and skurry, and excitement; no time to look at anything above half a minute, for fear of being found out: and so, at last, back to the gate, beaming with stolen pleasure, glowing and sparkling with heat and excitement.
The cunning thing made him replace the gate, and then, after saying she must go for about an hour, marched demurely back to the house.
After one or two of these hasty trips, impunity gave her a sense of security, and, the weather getting warm, she used to sit in the meadow with her beau and weave wreaths of cowslips, and place them in her black hair, and for Comp-ton she made coronets of bluebells, and adorned his golden head.
And sometimes, for a little while, she would nestle to him, and lean her head, with all the feminine grace of a mature woman, on his shoulder.
Said she, “A boy's shoulder does very nice for a girl to put her nose on.”
One day the aspiring girl asked him what was that forest.
“That is Bassett's wood.”
“I will go there with you some day, when papa is out.”
“I'm afraid that is too far for you,” said Compton.
“Nothing is too far for me,” replied the ardent girl. “Why, how far is it?”
“More than half a mile.”
“Is it very big?”
“Immense.”
“Belong to the queen?”
“No, to papa.”
“Oh!”
And here my reader may well ask what was Lady Bassett about, or did Compton, with all his excellent teaching, conceal all this from his mother and his friend.
On the contrary, he went open-mouthed to her and told her he had seen such a pretty little girl, and gave her a brief account of their conversation.
Lady Bassett was startled at first, and greatly perplexed. She told him he must on no account go to her; if he spoke to her, it must be on papa's ground. She even made him pledge his honor to that.
More than that she did not like to say. She thought it unnecessary and undesirable to transmit to another generation the unhappy feud by which she had suffered so much, and was even then suffering. Moreover, she was as much afraid of Richard Bassett as ever. If he chose to tell his girl not to speak to Compton, he might. She was resolved not to go out of her way to affront him, through his daughter. Besides, that might wound Mrs. Bassett, if it got round to her ears; and, although she had never spoken to Mrs. Bassett, yet their eyes had met in church, and always with a pacific expression. Indeed, Lady Bassett felt sure she had read in that meek woman's face a regret that they were not friends, and could not be friends, because of their husbands. Lady Bassett, then, for these reasons, would not forbid Compton to be kind to Ruperta in moderation.
Whether she would have remained as neutral had she known how far these young things were going, is quite another matter; but Compton's narratives to her were, naturally enough, very tame compared with the reality, and she never dreamed that two seven-year-olds could form an attachment so warm, as these little plagues were doing.
And, to conclude, about the time when Mr. Compton first opened the gate for his inamorata, Lady Bassett's mind was diverted, in some degree, even from her beloved boy Compton, by a new trouble, and a host of passions it excited in her own heart.
A thunder-clap fell on Sir Charles Bassett, in the form of a letter from Reginald's tutor, informing him that Reginald and another lad had been caught wiring hares in a wood at some distance and were now in custody.
Sir Charles mounted his horse and rode to the place, leaving Lady Bassett a prey to great anxiety and bitter remorse.
Sir Charles came back in two days, with the galling news that his son and heir was in prison for a month, all his exertions having only prevailed to get the case summarily dealt with.
Reginald's companion, a young gypsy, aged seventeen, had got three months, it being assumed that he was the tempter: the reverse was the case, though.
When Sir Charles told Lady Bassett all this, with a face of agony, and a broken voice, her heart almost burst: she threw every other consideration to the winds.
“Charles,” she cried, “I can't bear it: I can't see your heart wrung any more, and your affections blighted. Tear that young viper out of your breast: don't go on wasting your heart's blood on a stranger; HE IS NOT YOUR SON.”
AT this monstrous declaration, from the very lips of the man's wife, there was a dead silence, Sir Charles being struck dumb, and Lady Bassett herself terrified at the sound of the words she had uttered.
After a terrible pause, Sir Charles fixed his eyes on her, with an awful look, and said, very slowly, “Will—you—have—the—goodness— to—say that again? but first think what you are saying.”
This made Lady Bassett shake in every limb; indeed the very flesh of her body quivered. Yet she persisted, but in a tone that of itself showed how fast her courage was oozing. She faltered out, almost inaudibly, “I say you must waste no more love on him—he is not your son.”
Sir Charles looked at her to see if she was in her senses: it was not the first time he had suspected her of being deranged on this one subject. But no: she was pale as death, she was cringing, wincing, quivering, and her eyes roving to and fro; a picture not of frenzy, but of guilt unhardened.
He began to tremble in his turn, and was so horror-stricken and agitated that he could hardly speak. “Am I dreaming?” he gasped.
Lady Bassett saw the storm she had raised, and would have given the world to recall her words.
“Whose is he, then?” asked Sir Charles, in a voice scarcely human.
“I don't know,” said Lady Bassett doggedly.
“Then how dare you say that he isn't mine?”
“Kill me, Charles,” cried she, passionately; “but don't look at me so and speak to me so. Why I say he is not yours, is he like you either in face or mind?”
“And he is like—whom?”
Lady Bassett had lost all her courage by this time: she whimpered out, “Like nobody except the gypsies.”
“Bella, this is a subject which will part you and me for life unless we can agree upon it—”
No reply, in words, from Lady Bassett.
“So please let us understand each other. Your son is not my son. Is that what you look me in the face and tell me?”
“Charles, I never saidthat.How could he be my son, and not be yours?”
And she raised her eyes, and looked him full in the face: nor fear nor cringing now: the woman was majestic.
Sir Charles was a little alarmed in his turn; for his wife's soft eyes flamed battle for the first time in her life.
“Now you talk sense,” said he; “if he is yours, he is mine; and, as he is certainly yours, this is a very foolish conversation, which must not be renewed, otherwise—”
“I shall be insulted by my own husband?”
“I think it very probable. And, as I do not choose you to be insulted, nor to think yourself insulted, I forbid you ever to recur to this subject.”
“I will obey, Charles; but let me say one word first. When I was alone in London, and hardly sensible, might not this child have been imposed upon me and you? I'm sure he was.”
“By whom?”
“How can I tell? I was alone—that woman in the house had a bad face—the gypsies do these things, I've heard.”
“The gypsies! And why not the fairies?” said Sir Charles, contemptuously. “Is that all you have to suggest—before we close the subject forever?”
“Yes,” said Lady Bassett sorrowfully. “I see you take me for a mad-woman; but time will show. Oh that I could persuade you to detach your affections from that boy—he will break your heart else—and rest them on the children that resemble us in mind and features.”
“These partialities are allowed to mothers; but a father must be just. Reginald is my first-born; he came to me from Heaven at a time when I was under a bitter trial, and from the day he was born till this day I have been a happy man. It is not often a father owes so much to a son as I do to my darling boy. He is dear to my heart in spite of his faults; and now I pity him, as well as love him, since it seems he has only one parent, poor little fellow!”
Lady Bassett opened her mouth to reply, but could not. She raised her hands in mute despair, then quietly covered her face with them, and soon the tears trickled through her white fingers.
Sir Charles looked at her, and was touched at her silent grief.
“My darling wife,” said he, “I think this is the only thing you and I cannot agree upon. Why not be wise as well as loving, and avoid it.”
“I will never seek it again,” sobbed Lady Bassett. “But oh,” she cried, with sudden wildness, “something tells me it will meet me, and follow me, and rob me of my husband. Well, when that day comes, I shall know how to die.”
And with this she burst away from him, like some creature who has been stung past endurance.
Sir Charles often meditated on this strange scene: turn it how he could he came back to the same conclusion, that she must have an hallucination on this subject. He said to himself, “If Bella really believed the boy was a changeling, she would act upon her conviction, she would urge me to take some steps to recover our true child, whom the gypsies or the fairies have taken, and given us poor dear Reginald instead.”
But still the conversation, and her strange looks of terror, lay dormant in his mind: both were too remarkable to be ever forgotten. Such things lie like certain seeds, awaiting only fresh accidents to spring into life.
The month rolled away, and the day came for Reginald's liberation. A dogcart was sent for him, and the heir of the Bassetts emerged from a county jail, and uttered a whoop of delight; he insisted on driving, and went home at a rattling pace.
He was in high spirits till he got in sight of Huntercombe Hall; and then it suddenly occurred to his mercurial mind that he should probably not be received with an ovation, petty larceny being a novelty in that ancient house whose representative he was.
When he did get there he found the whole family in such a state of commotion that his return was hardly noticed at all.
Master Compton's dinner hour was two P.M., and yet, at three o'clock of this day, he did not come in.
This was reported to Lady Bassett, and it gave her some little anxiety; for she suspected he might possibly be in the company of Ruperta Bassett; and, although she did not herself much object to that, she objected very much to have it talked about and made a fuss. So she went herself to the end of the lawn, and out into the meadow, that a servant might not find the young people together, if her suspicion was correct.
She went into the meadow and called “Compton! Compton!” as loud as she could, but there was no reply.
Then she came in, and began to be alarmed, and sent servants about in all directions.
But two hours elapsed, and there were no tidings. The thing looked serious.
She sent out grooms well mounted to scour the country. One of these fell in with Sir Charles, who thereupon came home and found his wife in a pitiable state. She was sitting in an armchair, trembling and crying hysterically.
She caught his hand directly, and grasped it like a vise.
“It is Richard Bassett!” she cried. “He knows how to wound and kill me. He has stolen our child.”
Sir Charles hurried out, and, soon after that, Reginald arrived, and stood awe-struck at her deplorable condition.
Sir Charles came back heated and anxious, kissed Reginald, told him in three words his brother was missing, and then informed Lady Bassett that he had learned something very extraordinary; Richard Bassett's little girl had also disappeared, and his people were out looking after her.
“Ah, they are together,” cried Lady Bassett.
“Together? a son of mine consorting with that viper's brood!”
“What does that poor child know? Oh, find him for me, if you love that dear child's mother!'”
Sir Charles hurried out directly, but was met at the door by a servant, who blurted out, “The men have dragged the fish-ponds, Sir Charles, and they want to know if they shall drag the brook.”
“Hold your tongue, idiot!” cried Sir Charles, and thrust him out; but the wiseacre had not spoken in vain. Lady Bassett moaned, and went into worse hysterics, with nobody near her but Reginald.
That worthy, never having seen a lady in hysterics, and not being hardened at all points, uttered a sympathetic howl, and flung his arms round her neck. “Oh! oh! oh! Don't cry, mamma.”
Lady Bassett shuddered at his touch, but did not repel him.
“I'll find him for you,” said the boy, “if you will leave off crying.”
She stared in his face a moment, and then went on as before.
“Mamma,” said he, getting impatient, “do listen to me. I'll find him easy enough, if you will only listen.”
“You! you!” and she stared wildly at him.
“Ay, I know a sight more than the fools about here. I'm a poacher. Just you put me on to his track. I'll soon run into him, if he is above ground.”
“A child like you!” cried Lady Bassett; “how can you do that?” and she began to wring her hands again.
“I'll show you,” said the boy, getting very impatient, “if you will just leave off crying like a great baby, and come to any place you like where he has been to-day and left a mark—”
“Ah!” cried Lady Bassett.
“I'm a poacher,” repeated Reginald, quite proudly; “you forget that.”
“Come with me,” cried Lady Bassett, starting up. She whipped on her bonnet, and ran with him down the lawn.
“There, Reginald,” said she, panting, “I think my darling was here this afternoon; yes, yes, he must; for he had a key of the door, and it is open.”
“All right,” said Reginald; “come into the field.”
He ran about like a dog hunting, and soon found marks among the cowslips.
“Somebody has been gathering a nosegay here to-day,” said he; “now, mamma, there's only two ways put of this field—let us go straight to that gate; that is the likeliest.”
Near the gate was some clay, and Reginald showed her several prints of small feet.
“Look,” said he, “here's the track of two—one's a gal; how I know, here's a sole to this shoe no wider nor a knife. Come on.”
In the next field he was baffled for a long time; but at last he found a place in a dead hedge where they had gone through.
“See,” said he, “these twigs are fresh broken, and here's a bit of the gal's frock. Oh! won't she catch it?”:
“Oh, you brave, clever boy!” cried Lady Bassett.
“Come on!” shouted the urchin.
He hunted like a beagle, and saw like a bird, with his savage, glittering eye. He was on fire with the ardor of the chase; and, not to dwell too long on what has been so often and so well written by others, in about an hour and a half he brought the anxious, palpitating, but now hopeful mother, to the neighborhood of Bassett's wood. Here he trusted to his own instinct. “They have gone into the wood,” said he, “and I don't blame 'em. I found my way here long before his age. I say, don't you tell; I've snared plenty of the governor's hares in that wood.”
He got to the edge of the wood and ran down the side. At last he found the marks of small feet on a low bank, and, darting over it, discovered the fainter traces on some decaying leaves inside the wood.
“There,” said he; “now it is just as if you had got them in your pocket, for they'll never find their way out of this wood. Bless your heart, whyIused to get lost in it at first.”
“Lost in the wood!” cried Lady Bassett; “but he will die of fear, or be eaten by wild beasts; and it is getting so dark.”
“What about that? Night or day is all one to me. What will you give me if I find him before midnight?”
“Anything I've got in the world.”
“Give me a sovereign?”
“A thousand!”
“Give me a kiss?”
“A hundred!”
“Then I'll tell you what I'll do—I don't mind a little trouble, to stop your crying, mamma, because you are the right sort. I'll get the village out, and we will tread the wood with torches, an' all for them as can't see by night; I can see all one; and you shall have your kid home to supper. You see, there's a heavy dew, and he is not like me, that would rather sleep in this wood than the best bed in London city; a night in a wood would about settle his hash. So here goes. I can run a mile in six minutes and a half.”
With these words, the strange boy was off like an arrow from a bow.
Lady Bassett, exhausted by anxiety and excitement, was glad to sit down; her trembling heart would not let her leave the place that she now began to hope contained her child. She sat down and waited patiently.
The sun set, the moon rose, the stars glittered; the infinite leaves stood out dark and solid, as if cut out of black marble; all was dismal silence and dread suspense to the solitary watcher.
Yet the lady of Huntercombe Hall sat on, sick at heart, but patient, beneath that solemn sky.
She shuddered a little as the cold dews gathered on her, for she was a woman nursed in luxury's lap; but she never moved.
The silence was dismal. Had that wild boy forgotten his promise, or were there no parents in the village, that their feet lagged so?
It was nearly ten o'clock, when her keen ears, strained to the utmost, discovered a faint buzzing of voices; but where she could not tell.
The sounds increased and increased, and then there was a temporary silence; and after that a faint hallooing in the wood to her right. The wood was five hundred acres, and the bulk of it lay in front and to her left.
The hallooing got louder and louder; the whole wood seemed to echo; her heart beat high; lights glimmered nearer and nearer, hares and rabbits pattered by and startled her, and pheasants thundered off their roosts with an incredible noise, owls flitted, and bats innumerable, disturbed and terrified by the glaring lights and loud resounding halloos.
Nearer, nearer came the sounds, till at last a line of men and boys, full fifty carrying torches and lanterns, came up, and lighted up the dew-spangled leaves, and made the mother's heart leap with joyful hope at succor so powerful.
Oh, she could have kissed the stout village blacksmith, whose deep sonorous lungs rang close to her. Never had any man's voice sounded to her so like a god's as this stout blacksmith's “hilloop! hilloop!” close and loud in her ear, and those at the end of the line hallooed “hillo-op; hillo-op!” like an echo; and so they passed on, through bush and brier, till their voices died away in the distance.
A boy detached himself from the line, and ran to Lady Bassett with a traveling rug. It was Reginald.
“You put on this,” said he. He shook it, and, standing on tiptoe, put it over her shoulders.
“Thank you, dear,” said she. “Where is papa?”
“Oh, he is in the line, and the Highmore swell and all.”
“Mr. Richard Bassett?”
“Air, his kid is out on the loose, as well as ours.”
“Oh, Reginald, if they should quarrel!”
“Why, our governor can lick him, can't he?”