The quiet little town of Tarningham was more quiet than ever about the hour of twelve each day; for, according to good old primeval habits, noon was the period for feeding. Men ate, beasts ate, and birds ate, and we all know that eating is a silent process. It is the greatest mistake in the world for doctors to tell you to talk while you are eating, or else it is the bitterest sarcasm. They must either mean that your digestion should be spoiled, or else that you are in the habit of talking without thinking. But we, will make a sort of corollary of it. "Man should not think when he is eating, man should not talk without thinking;ergo, man should not talk at his dinner." Therefore the people of Tarningham were wise; for never was there such a silent town at the hour of twelve o'clock, when they were eating. Doctor Miles could hear his own footfall with the most perfect distinctness, as he walked along the High-street; and a good broad foot it was, with a square-toed shoe and a buckle in it.
But Doctor Miles did not attend to the sound of his footfall; he was, indeed, busily thinking of something else, with his eyes bent down--but not his head--he rarely bent his head--holding it upright and straight, and a little stiff, by the natural effect of mind on body. His meditations were very deep, so much so, that it required an extraordinary apparition to rouse him from his reverie. The sight, however, of a human being in the streets of Tarningham a little after twelve, was quite enough to produce that effect; and at the distance of about two hundred yards from the door of the White Hart, he was startled by beholding the diminutive form and somewhat contorted person, of the poor little pot-boy, Billy Lamb, coming towards him with an empty jug in his hand. Nobody attended to Billy's meals. He got them how he could, where he could, and when he could. When all the rest were eating, he was sent with a jug of beer here, or a pint of gin there, and came back to feed upon the cold remnants of what the rest had eaten warm, if, indeed, they left him anything; but yet the fat landlord, ostlers, stable-boys, and barmaids, all thought that Billy was very well off. The landlord thought so, because he declared he had taken the boy in from charity; and the ostlers, and the post-boys, and the barmaids believed it. O, charity! charity! thou perverted and misused term. Since the first words that were uttered by Adam in his garden, down to the moment when one of the world's great men declared that language was intended to conceal men's thoughts, no word in the whole dictionary has ever been applied to cover so many sins as thou hast. Thou art the robe of vanity every day; tricking it out in subscription lists, almshouses, hospitals; thou art the cloak of pride and haughtiness, the pretext of every petty tyrant who seeks a slave, the excuse of avarice, and greed, and narrow-mindedness--ever, ever coupled with a lie! In what human heart art thou ever found pure and unadulterated? The foul-mouthed slanderer of a neighbour's fame, who gives a sixpence to a beggar or a pound to an infirmary, is a charitable person. The scoffing sneerer at virtue he cannot imitate, who flings away money profusely for the sole gratification of a loose habit, is called charitable. The hard-hearted man who denies others their rights, or he who cheats his followers of their due reward, or he who grinds the faces of his workmen with excessive toil, or he who is harsh and stern in his own household, fierce and censorious to others, a despot with his wife, a tyrant with his children, dies, and, in a pompous will, bequeaths a portion of his ill-gotten wealth to build an asylum, and perpetuate his name, and is praised and honoured as a charitable man.
That boy, forced to labour day and night, without consideration, without comfort, without a kind word, fed upon refuse, palleted on straw, yet doing more than the whole household altogether, was taken in from charity! Believe it, reader, if you can. For my part, I don't believe a word of it. I am quite sure that worthy Mr. Groomber wanted somebody particularly, of an active and willing disposition, to carry out the beer, and to attend to all those little matters which Mr. Groomber could not do himself, and which his servants did not choose to do, and that in taking in Billy Lamb for his own convenience, he persuaded himself, and tried to persuade the public too, that he was doing an act of charity. It is an extraordinary thing to consider how often in the great tragic farce of the world we are our own spectators; or, in other words, how continually, when we act a part, we consider ourselves one of the audience, and strive to deceive that individual the very first.
However that might be, there was Billy Lamb, the pot-boy, just before Doctor Miles, with an empty tankard in his hand; and the good doctor no sooner beheld him, than he stopped, and, in a kindly tone, asked him how the world went with him. Now Doctor Miles was a great man in the neighbourhood; he had property of his own of not very great extent, but which rendered the living that he held but an accessory to his principal means of subsistence. He did not live by the altar, but for the altar; and there are no such keen drawers of distinctions as the lower classes. Of this thing all clergymen may be sure, that he who makes a trade of his profession, who exacts the uttermost penny which he has a right to, and something more, who increases burial fees, and makes broad the borders of all his dues, will always be held in contempt. Of the butcher, the baker, and the grocer, the lower orders expect such things. The exaction of a farthing on half-a-pound, more than is really just, they know is a part of the privileges of the knife, the oven, and the scales and weights. But with the ministers of a pure and holy religion, whose grand and fundamental principle is charity and abnegation of self, they expect a higher and a wider sense of benevolence, a more large and disinterested view of the relations of a pastor and flock. Thick must be the veil that covers from the eyes of the humble and the needy that greedy and grasping spirit which too frequently, like the ghoul of Eastern fable, preys among the sepulchres of the dead, and takes advantage of the moment of overwhelming distress and agony of mind, to urge the coarse claims of priestly avarice; claims, but too frequently, untenable in law and always barbarous, even when not illegal--dues which should be swept away for ever, which should no longer exist as a constant source of heart-burning and complaint between pastor and people, making the one derive a portion of his living by laying a tax most onerous and hard to be borne, either upon the joys or the sorrows of his parishioners, and the others to look upon their teacher as one who sets at defiance the first principles of the Gospel that he preaches, following "avarice which is idolatry," and forgetting charity, "which covers a multitude of sins."
Luckily, both by position and inclination, Doctor Miles was exempt from all such reproaches. His necessities did not force him into meannesses, and his natural disposition would never have suffered him to fall into them, whatever his circumstances might have been. One heard nothing in his parish of enormous charges for a brick grave, swollen surplice-fees, that would make a cholera, a plague, or a pestilence so rich a harvest, that the minister who would pray in his desk against plague, pestilence, and famine, would be the grossest of hypocrites. He did not look upon his churchyard as the most valuable and productive part of his glebe, to be manured by the corpses of his parishioners, and bear a cent-per-cent crop in monuments and grave-stones. The consecration of the bishop he did not look upon as fertilising the land for his own enrichment, but contented himself with the bare amount of the moderate fee awarded by the law, and neither asked nor received a penny more. Many of the neighbouring clergy called him a weak and prejudiced man, and exclaimed loudly against him for neglecting the interests, or, as they called them, "the rights of the church." But, somehow, his parishioners loved him, though he was rather an austere man, too, and never spared invective or exhortation in case of error and misconduct. The secret, perhaps, was, that they were convinced of his disinterestedness. He took from no man more than was his due; he required of no man more than he had the warrant of Scripture for requiring. His private fortune gave him the means of charity, and to that object all his private fortune was devoted. Every one in the neighbourhood knew that Doctor Miles could have a finer house, could keep a better table, could maintain a smarter equipage; but, at the same time, they were aware of two things, first, that his income was not as large as it might have been had he chosen to exact the uttermost farthing; and, secondly, that it was not for the purpose of hoarding his money that he did not spend it upon himself.
Thus Doctor Miles, as well may be conceived, was very much reverenced in the neighbourhood; his rebukes were listened to, and sometimes taken to heart; his advice was sought, and sometimes followed; his opinions were always respected, if his injunctions were not always obeyed; and his severity of manner was very well understood not to imply any real harshness of heart.
The cap was off Billy Lamb's head in a moment, when he approached Dr. Miles; but he did not venture to speak to him till the doctor, after gazing at him for a moment in a fit of absence, exclaimed, "Ah, William, how goes it with you? and how is your poor mother?"
"Oh, quite well," replied the youth, in his peculiarly sweet, low voice; "mother's better than she was, though she has never been so well since poor Mary's death."
"How should she? how should she?" exclaimed Doctor Miles; "these things, my man, affect young people but little, old people but little; for young people are full of their own life, and with them that consideration supersedes all thoughts connected with death; and old people are so full of the conviction of life's brevity, that the matter of a few years more or less is to them insignificant. It is to the middle-aged that the death of the young is terrible; it clouds the past with regrets, and the future with apprehensions. But I want to speak to your mother, Bill; she must forgive Stephen Gimlet, and try and help him, and be a comfort to him."
"I wish she would," said the boy, looking down; "I am sure Stephen is not so bad as people call him, and never would have taken poor Mary away, if mother had not been so strict."
"I must talk to her," answered Doctor Miles; "but you may tell her, if you see her before I do, that Stephen is a changed man, and Sir John Slingsby has taken him for a gamekeeper.--Tell her, will you," he continued, after a moment's thought, "that the cottage on the moor has been burned down, and the poor little boy, Charley, would have been burnt in it, because there was no mother, nor other relation of any kind to help him, had it not been for a gentleman who is staying up at the hall coming by at the time and rescuing the boy from the flames."
"Ah, I am sure that was the gentleman that was down here," exclaimed the pot-boy; "Captain Hayward they called him; for he was a kind, good gentleman as ever lived, and gave me enough for mother to put something by against the winter."
"That is no reason why he should be walking on the moor," said Doctor Miles, quickly. "However, I must talk to her, for the boy must not be left alone any more; and we must see what can be done. But now tell me, Bill, what wages do you get?"
"A shilling a week and my victuals," replied the boy, in an unrepining tone; "it is very kind of Mr. Groomber, I am sure; and I do what I can but that's not much."
"Humph!" said Doctor Miles, with not the most affirmative tone in the world; "well, I'll come by and by, and see your mother; can you go down and tell her that I am coming?"
"Oh yes, Sir," replied the boy; "they give me a quarter of an hour to eat my dinner, so I can go very well; but I must go first to Mr. Slattery's, the doctor; for Mrs. Billiter told me to bid him come up quietly to Mr. Wittingham, as if just for a call; for the old gentleman came home ill last night, and has taken to his bed."
"Mr. Slattery is out," replied Doctor Miles. "I met him on the road; but leave the message, Bill, leave the message, and I will go up and see Mr. Wittingham myself."
Thus saying, he bade the boy adieu, and walked on to the smart white gates of Mr. Wittingham's highly-cultivated place, and, passing through the garden, rang the bell at the door, which was opened to him by a servant in a straight-cut blue coat, black and yellow striped waistcoat, and black plush breeches, with drab gaiters.
In answer to Doctor Miles's inquiry, the servant informed him that Mr. Wittingham was in bed, and could see no one; but the worthy clergyman pressed for admission, saying that his business was of importance. A consultation then took place between the man-servant and the housekeeper, and, after some hesitation, Mrs. Billiter went up to her master to inform him of Doctor Miles's visit, with a particular injunction to impress upon the mind of the sick man that the clergyman's business was of moment. She came down the next minute and begged the visitor to walk up, with as low a curtsey as her long stiff stays would permit her to make; and, she leading the way, Doctor Miles followed with a slow and meditative step.
The room-door was gently unclosed, and the clergyman, entering, fixed his eyes upon the figure of Mr. Wittingham as he lay in the bed, and a sad sight it was. Terrible was the effect that one night of sickness had wrought upon him. The long, thin, bony limbs were plainly visible through the bed-clothes, and so far, Mr. Wittingham well, or Mr. Wittingham ill, showed no difference; but there was the face upon the pillow, and there were to be seen traces enough, more of suffering than sickness. The features had suddenly grown sharp, and the cheeks hollow; the eye was bright and wandering, the brow furrowed, and the hue of the complexion, partly from the light-brown moreen curtain of the bed--the most detestable curtains in the world--partly from a sleepless, anxious, suffering night, had grown yellow, if not cadaverous. Patches of short-cut gray hair, usually concealed by the wig, were now suffered, by the nightcap, to show themselves upon the temples. The large front teeth, the high nose and the protuberant chin, were all more prominent than usual; and certainly Mr. Wittingham, in cotton nightcap and clean linen sheets, was not the most prepossessing person that ever the eye rested upon.
Doctor Miles, however, advanced quietly to his bedside, and, sitting down in a chair, opened the conversation in a kindly tone.
"I am sorry to find you ill, my good friend," he said; "you seemed well enough last night."
"Ay, ay, that's another thing, doctor," replied the invalid; "but I got a terrible fright after that, and that has given me quite a turn."
"As to the way you will direct that turn," answered the clergyman, "you will need some good advice, Mr. Wittingham."
"Ay, ay," said the magistrate, somewhat impatiently. "Billiter there has been boring me for an hour to send for that fellow Slattery; but I don't think he could do me any good. He is a humbug, as well as the most of those doctors."
"But not more than most," answered Doctor Miles, "which is a great thing in this part of the country. You may go, Mrs. Billiter; I wish to be alone with Mr. Wittingham."
Mrs. Billiter, who had remained upon the best, the oldest, and most invariable excuse, that of putting the room in order, for the purpose of gaining an insight into all that took place, dropped a curtsey, and withdrew unwillingly.
Mr. Wittingham eyed Doctor Miles with a shrewd, inquiring, but timid glance. It was evident that he would have dispensed, with the doctor's coming, that he did not half like it, that he wished to know what he could want, why he came, what was his business, what could be his object, and why his manner was so grave and cautious. Heaven knows that Mr. Wittingham was not an imaginative man; that he was not subject to the sports of fancy, and seldom or ever presented to his mind any image of things, past or future, unless it were in a large parchment-covered volume, in which was inscribed in large letters, upon the last page: "Balance, in favour of Mr. Wittingham, sixty-nine thousand odd hundred pounds." Nevertheless, on this occasion the worthy gentleman's imagination ran restive; for, as a weedy old horse, when people endeavour to whip it into any thing; more than its ordinary pace, turns up its heels, and flings them, into the face of its driver; so did Mr. Wittingham's fancy at once assert its predominance over reason, by presenting to him for his choice every possible sort of business upon which Doctor Miles might, could, would, should, or ought, have come to Tarningham Lodge. He, therefore, sat in his bed with his nightcap on his head, grinning at him, like Yorick's skull, with a ghastly smile. Courtesy has its agonies, as well as other things; and the politeness of Mr. Wittingham was agonising. Speak he could not, that was out of the question; but, with a grim contortion of countenance, he motioned the worthy doctor to a chair, and the other took it with provoking deliberation, concealing, under an air of imperturbable coolness, a certain degree of embarrassment, and a considerable degree of feeling.
To tell the truth, he much desired that Mr. Wittingham would begin first; but he soon saw that there was no hope of such being the case, and his profession had accustomed him to the initiative. Wherefore, after three preliminary hums, he went on to say, "My dear Sir, I thought it better to come down to you to-day, to speak to you on a somewhat painful subject, but one which had better be grappled with at once; and that rather in conversation with me, a minister of peace and goodwill towards men, than with others, who, though equally bound by the injunctions of the religion which I unworthily teach and they believe, have what they consider duties apart, which might interfere with an unlimited exercise of Christian charity."
Excellent, Doctor Miles; you are keeping the poor man in a state of torture. Why will you preach, when you are not in the pulpit. But Doctor Miles was not a prosy man by nature; he was short, brief, and terse in his general conversation, and only preached when he was in embarrassment. That such was evidently the case at present greatly increased the evils of Mr. Wittingham's position; and when the doctor was talking of Christian charity, the sick magistrate was mentally sending him to a place where very little charity of any kind is supposed to be practised--not that we know any thing of the matter; for even in the present day, with steamboats, railroads, and all the appliances of human ingenuity to boot, tourists and travellers have not pushed their researches quite as far as the place alluded to; or, at all events, have not favoured the world with an account of their discoveries.
After the above proem, Dr. Miles stumbled for a moment or two, and then recovering himself, continued thus:
"The unfortunate affair which took place last night must doubtless give rise to legal inquiries, which will, depend upon it, be pursued with great energy and determination; for Captain Hayward, I find, followed the unhappy young man at once; and, if I judge rightly, he is not one to abandon his object when it is but half-attained."
"Oh, that Captain Hayward, that Captain Hayward!" cried Wittingham, angrily, "he is always meddling with other people's affairs."
"Nay, my dear Sir," answered Dr. Miles; "this was his affair, and the affair of every body in the room. The ball passed within an inch of his friend Mr. Beauchamp's head, and might have been intended for him--at least, so Captain Hayward might have supposed, had not your own exclamation at the moment--"
"My exclamation!" cried Mr. Wittingham, with a look of horror, "what did I exclaim?"
Doctor Miles did not answer him directly at first, replying merely, "you said enough, Mr. Wittingham, to show who it was, in your opinion, that had fired the shot."
Mr. Wittingham clasped his hands together in an agony of despair and sunk with his head upon the pillow, as if he would fain have hid his face in the bed-clothes, but Dr. Miles went on kindly to say,
"Moreover, my dear Sir, your exclamation was sufficient to make me feel for you deeply--to feel for you with sincere compassion, and to desire anxiously to serve and assist you."
Now Mr. Wittingham was not accustomed to be compassionated; he did not like the thing and he did not like the word; he was a vain man and a proud man, and compassion was a humiliation which he did not like to undergo; but still anxiety and trouble were the strongest, and he repeated two or three times in a quick, sharp voice,
"What did I say? What did I say?"
"You said that it was your son," answered the clergyman, "and various corroborative circumstances have transpired which--"
But by this time Mr. Wittingham was in such a state of agitation that it was evident he would hear nothing further that was said to him at the moment, and therefore the good doctor stopped short. The magistrate covered his eyes; he wrung his hands hard together; he gazed forth at the sky; he even wept.
"Then it is all over, all over," he cried, at length, "it is all over," by which he meant that all his dreams of importance, his plans of rural grandeur and justice-of-the-peaceism, his "reverence" on the bench and at the quarter-sessions, his elevation as a country gentleman, and his oblivion as a small trader, were all frustrated, gone, lost, smothered and destroyed by his son's violent conduct and his own indiscreet babbling in the moment of fear and grief.
"Ah, Doctor Miles," he said, "it's a sad business, a sad business. As you know it all, there is no use of my holding my tongue. Harry did do it; and, indeed, he told me before that he would do it, or something like it; for he came here--here, down into Tarningham, and told me on the very bench, that if I pushed that business about Mrs. Clifford's carriage any further it should go worse with me. It was a threat, my dear doctor, and I was not to be deterred from doing my duty by a threat, and so I told him, and immediately took up the man they call Wolf, on suspicion--for Sir John had been down here, swearing at my door, and what could I do, you know."
Now Doctor Miles had seen a great deal of the world, and, though a good and benevolent man, and one not at all inclined to think the worst of one of his fellow-creatures, yet he could not help seeing that there was a great deal of weakness and eagerness to shuffle any burden from himself in Mr. Wittingham's reply. There are certain sorts of knowledge which force themselves upon our understanding, whether we will or not, and amongst these is discrimination of human character. People, long accustomed to the world, find great difficulty even in believing a practised liar, however much they may wish to do so on certain points. They see through, in spite of themselves, all the little petty artifices with which self hides itself from self, and still more clearly through the mean policy by which the mean man strives to conceal his meanness from the eyes of his fellow-creatures. Whether it be the pitiful man, in any of the common walks of life, exacting more than his due, and striving to hide his greed under the veil of liberality and disinterestedness, whether it be the candidate, on the canvass or on the hustings, escaping from the explanation of his intentions upon the plea of independence and free judgment, or whether it be the minister of the crown evading the fulfilment of obligations, or shrinking from the recognition of support by all the thousand subterfuges in the vast dictionary of political dishonesty, the man learned in the world's ways, however willing to be duped, cannot believe and confide, cannot admire and respect. The case with Mr. Wittingham was a very simple one. Doctor Miles saw and understood the whole process of his mind in a moment; but he was sorry for the man; he felt what agony it must be to have such a son, and he hastened as far as possible to relieve him.
"I think, my dear Sir," he said, "that you have made some mistakes in this matter; I do not presume to interfere with any man's domestic arrangements, but I will candidly acknowledge that I have thought, in watching the progress of your son's education, that it was not likely to result in good to his character--nay, hear me out, for I am only making this observation as a sort of excuse, not so much for him, as for the advice I am going to give you, which can only be justified by a belief that the young man is not so depraved by nature as by circumstances."
They were hard words, very hard words, that Doctor Miles uttered, but there was a stern impressiveness in his manner which overawed Mr. Wittingham, kept down his vanity from revolting against the implied accusation, and prevented him from even writhing openly at the plain terms in which his son's conduct was stigmatised.
"Under these circumstances," continued Doctor Miles, "I think it much better that you send your son out of the country as fast as possible, afford him such means as will enable him to live in respectability, without indulging in vice; warn him seriously of the end to which his present courses will lead him, and give him to understand that if he abandons them, and shows an inclination to become a good and useful member of society, the faults of his youth may be forgotten, and their punishment be remitted. On the latter point, I think I may say that, should he at once quit the country, no further steps against him will be taken. You know very well that Sir John Slingsby, though hot and irascible, is a kind and good-natured man at heart."
"Sir John Slingsby! Sir John Slingsby!" exclaimed Mr. Wittingham, bustling up with an air of relief, as if something had suddenly turned a screw or opened a safety-valve, and delivered him from the high pressure of Doctor Miles's grave and weighty manner, "Sir John Slingsby, Sir, dare do nothing against me or mine; for there is a balance against him. He may talk, and he may bully and crack his jokes.--I have submitted to all that a great deal too long, without requiring a settlement of the account; and there's five thousand pounds against him I can tell you, which he will find it a difficult matter to pay, I have a notion--ah, ah, Doctor Miles, I know what I am about. Five thousand pounds are five thousand pounds, Doctor Miles, and I know all the situation of Sir John's affairs, too; so he had better not meddle with me, he had better not enrage me; for he will risk less in letting all this foolish business pass off quietly without inquiry, than producing inquiry into his own affairs in the county. A good jolly gentleman I don't mean to say he is not; but I can tell you he is tottering on the verge of ruin, and I don't want to force him over unless he drives me: and so he had better not, that's all."
Doctor Miles had gazed at him as he spoke with a keen, subacid look, and in some degree even of amusement, and this calm, supercilious look greatly annoyed and embarrassed Mr. Wittingham towards the end of his tirade. It was evident that Doctor Miles was not in the least taken unprepared, that the intimation of Sir John Slingsby's position in worldly affairs neither surprised nor disappointed him in the least; and when Mr. Wittingham at length stopped in some embarrassment, his reply tended still further to puzzle and confound the worthy magistrate for he merely said,
"Perhaps so, Mr. Wittingham, but I do not think Sir John Slingsby's pecuniary circumstances will at all prevent him from performing his public duties. If he has reason to believe that your son is in the road to amendment, he is very likely to look over his present offences, as they are, in some degree, personal to himself and his family. If he imagines that he will go on from one crime to another, depend upon it he will think it only right to cut his career short at once. The only fear is, that if this debt which you speak of ever crosses his mind, it will only serve as a bar to his lenity; for no man is so likely to be seized with a sudden determination to punish with the utmost rigour, if he were to suspect for one moment that his debt to you, whatever might be the amount, might be assigned as the motive by any one for his forbearance. I would not advise you to urge such a plea, Mr. Wittingham; but, depend upon it, if this debt is considered at all, it will be considered to your disadvantage. Besides all this, you must recollect that other persons were present; therefore Sir John has not the whole matter in his own hands. However, I have given you the best advice in my power; you can take it, if you like; if not, the consequences be upon your own head; and you must not blame any one for any thing that may occur in the due course of law."
And rising from the bedside, he was about to depart, when Mr. Wittingham stopped him.
"Stay, stay, my dear Sir," said the magistrate, eagerly; "let us discuss this question a little further; I wish no harm to Sir John Slingsby, and I trust he wishes none to me. But are you sure there were other persons who heard the words I spoke? Very unfortunate, very unfortunate, indeed."
Now the truth was, that Mr. Wittingham was in a state of high irritation. The comments which Doctor Miles had made, or rather the hints which he had thrown out in regard to the education of his son, had greatly exasperated him. He never liked it to be even hinted that he was wrong; it was a sort of accusation which he never could bear; and the worthy doctor would have been permitted in patience to proceed with any other of Mr. Wittingham's friends or enemies without the least interruption; but it was natural that he should take fire in regard to his son. Why natural? it may be asked. For this reason, that the education of his son was associated intimately with Mr. Wittingham's own vanity; and the idea of his faults being owing to education, was a direct reflection upon Mr. Wittingham himself.
Doctor Miles, however, regarded none of these things; and though the worthy magistrate desired him to stay, he declared he had no time, saying,
"Further discussion is out of the question. I have given you advice that I know to be kind, that I believe to be good. Take it, if you judge so; leave it, if you judge otherwise. Pursue what course you think best in regard to Sir John Slingsby; but, at all events, do not attempt to influence him, by pecuniary considerations; for be assured that, although he may, by imprudence, have embarrassed his property, he has not arrived at that pitch of degradation which is only brought on step by step from the pressure of narrow circumstances, and which induces men to forget, great principles in order to escape from small difficulties. Good morning, Mr. Wittingham;" and, without further pause, Doctor Miles quitted the room, and walked down stairs. In the hall he met Mr. Wharton, the attorney, going up, with a somewhat sour and discontented face; but all that passed between the two gentlemen was a cold bow, and the clergyman left the house in possession of the lawyer.
It is a very unpleasant position indeed to be above your neck in the water, with another man holding fast by your collar, especially if it be by both hands. It may be a friend who has so got you, it may be an enemy; but the operation comes to pretty nearly the same thing in both cases; and that the result is not at all an agreeable one, I say it boldly and without fear of contradiction; for, although drowning is said to be accompanied by no real pain, and I have heard many half-drowned persons declare that it is rather pleasant than otherwise, yet that is only a part of the process, not the result; then again Sir Peter Laurie can witness, that there are multitudes of persons, who, after having taken one suffocating dip in Mother Thames, repeat the attempt perseveringly, as if they found it very delightful indeed; but still I contend that they have not come to the end of the thing, and, therefore, can give no real opinion. "To lie in cold obstruction and to rot," to become the prey of the lean, abhorred monster death, to separate from the warm tenement in which our abode on earth has been made, to part with the companionship of all the senses and sensations, the thrills and feelings, which have been our friends, our guides, our monitors, our servants, our officers in the course of mortal existence--this is the result of that tight pressure upon the cravat or coat-collar which we shrink from, when, with our head under the water, we feel the fingers of friend or enemy approaching too near the organs of respiration. If the gentleman grasps our legs we can kick him off; if he seizes our hands we can often shake him away; but the deadly pressure upon the chest and neck; the clinging, grasping energy of those small digits on the throat, when we find that, half a second more and life is gone, is perhaps as unpleasant a thing as often falls to the lot of mortal man to feel.
Now Ned Hayward, I have endeavoured to impress upon the reader's mind, was a brave, bold, determined fellow as ever lived. There was no danger he would not have fronted, no fate he would not have risked for a good and worthy object. He was a good swimmer, too; but when after a headlong plunge into the water he felt himself undermost in the fall, out of his depth, his feet entangled in a weed, and the fingers and thumbs of Captain Moreton tight upon his throat, he was seized with an irresistible propensity to knock him off by any means, even at the risk of losing his prisoner. The first method that suggested itself was a straightforward blow at his adversary, and that taking effect upon his chest was successful with a man half-drowned himself. His antagonist let go his hold, rose as fast as he could, dashed at the other bank, gained the ground and was off. Poor Ned Hayward, however, soon found that if he had freed himself from one enemy, he was still in the power of another. It is a terrible thing that a strong, powerful man, instinct with every energy and quality of high animal life, and, moreover, having an immortal soul, to be kept or parted with, should every now and then be completely at the mercy of a thin, pitiful, pulpy weed, which, to all appearances, might be broken or smashed in a moment. But moments are very important things, and thevis inertiæa tremendous power. The weed made no attempt to hold the young gentleman, it neither grasped his legs, nor clasped his knees, but it was carried by the current around the ankles of Ned Hayward, and there, somehow or other, it stuck fast, preventing him from moving; in fact, it was like many a great politician (in the world's opinion), who operate many great changes upon their neighbours by merevis inertiæ, waiting till the tide of circumstances brings them to action, and then holding fast to a particular point till all opposition is drowned.
Such had well-nigh been the case with Ned Hayward; for what little strength he had left was nearly expended in the blow he gave to Captain Moreton; and when he found that his feet were entangled in the weed which would not have snapped a single gut-line with a May-fly at the end of it, his powers did not suffice to tear himself away. This history, as far as he was concerned, seemed likely to come to a hasty conclusion, when suddenly he found a strong hand grasp his arm just below the shoulder, and give his whole frame a vehement impulse towards the surface of the water. The next instant he saw, heard, breathed, once more; and before he had time to do either of these things above a second, he found his right elbow leaning on the bank, and Mr. Beauchamp, who was not very well aware whether he was dead, alive, or half-drowned, endeavouring to draw him up on the bank. To use the words of the poet, in a very indecent episode of a very chaste and beautiful poem--
One stupid moment motionless he stood;
but the next puff of the right element which went into his lungs recalled all his activity, and up he jumped on the bank with a spring which astonished Beauchamp, made Isabella Slingsby draw back, and brought a faint colour into Mary Clifford's cheek. The glow was accompanied by a smile, however, which showed that this proof of Ned Hayward's still active powers was not unpleasant to her.
The first thing the young officer did, however, was to shake Mr. Beauchamp warmly by the hand, exclaiming,
"Upon my life you were just in time--it was nearly over with me--I could not have stood it half a minute longer. Every thing was turning green, and I know that's a bad sign."
The next thing was to pick up his fishing-rod and tackle, crying, as he raised them from the ground,
"He has frightened away that big old trout; I should have had him in another second; I may have to walk half an hour more before I find such another; I could see him eyeing the fly all ready for a rise."
"But who was the gentleman?"
"What was the quarrel about?"
"Why did you seize him?" demanded Isabella, Mary, and Beauchamp, all together.
Let the reader remark, that each framed his question differently.
"That is the man who fired the shot into the window last night," replied Ned Hayward, looking curiously at the fly upon his hook; and two of his companions instantly turned their eyes in the direction which Captain Moreton had taken, with a look of alarm, as if they feared he would fire another shot from the bushes amongst which he had disappeared. Beauchamp, for his part, cast down his eyes and said nothing--not a word! Nay more; he shut his teeth close and drew his lips over them, as if he were afraid he should say something; and then, after a moment's pause, he turned to Ned Hayward, saying,
"Had you not better give up this fishing, come up to the house and change your clothes?"
"Oh dear no," cried Ned Hayward, "on no account whatever; I'll catch my fish before twelve o'clock yet; and very likely have the very fellow that our plunge scared away from here. Do you know, Beauchamp, it is sometimes not a bad plan to frighten a cunning old speckled gentleman like this, if you find that he is suspicious and won't bite. I have tried it often, and found it succeed very well. He gets into a fuss, dashes up or down, does not know well where to stop, and then, out of mere irritation, bites at the first thing that is thrown in his way. Come along and we shall see. He went down, I think, for I had an eye upon him till he darted off."
"But you are very wet, too, Mr. Beauchamp," said Isabella. "If Captain Hayward is too much of an old campaigner to change his clothes, I do not see why you should neglect to do so."
"For the best reason in the world, my dear Miss Slingsby," replied Beauchamp, "because I have no clothes here with which to change these I have on."
"But there are plenty at the house," replied Isabella, eagerly.
"But I am afraid, they would not fit," replied Beauchamp, laughing; "I am in no fear, however; for I am as old a campaigner as Captain Hayward."
"Let us move about, at all events," said Mary Clifford; and following Ned Hayward down the stream, they watched his progress, as he, intent apparently upon nothing but his sport, went flogging the water, to see what he could obtain. Three or four very large trout, skilfully hooked, artistically played, and successfully landed, soon repaid his labour; but Ned Hayward was not yet satisfied, but, at length, he paused abruptly, and held up his finger to the others as a sign not to approach too near. He was within about twenty yards of a spot where the stream, taking a slight bend, entered into sort of pass between two low copses, one on either hand, composed of thin and feathery trees, the leaves of which, slightly agitated by the wind, cast a varying and uncertain light and shade upon the water. The river, where he stood, was quite smooth; but ten steps further it fell over two or three small plates of rock, which scattered and disturbed it, as it ran, leaving a bubbling rapid beyond, and then a deep, but rippling pool, with two or three sharp whirls in it, just where the shadows of the leaves were dancing on the waters. Ned Hayward deliberately took the fly off the line and put on another, fixing his eye, from time to time, on a particular spot in the pool beyond. He then threw his line on the side of the rapid next to him, let the fly float down with a tremulous motion, kept it playing up and down on the surface of the foam, with a smile upon his lips, then suffered it to be carried rapidly on into the bubbling pool, as if carried away by the force of the water, and held it for a moment quivering there; the next moment he drew it sharply towards him, but not far. There was an instant rush in the stream, and a sharp snap, which you might almost hear. The slightest possible stroke of the rod was given, and then the wheel ran rapidly off, while the patriarch of the stream dashed away with the hook in his jaws. The instant he paused, he was wound up and drawn gently along, and then he dashed away again, floundered and splashed, and struck the shallow waters with his tail, till, at length, exhausted and half-drowned, he was drawn gradually up to the rocks; and Ned Hayward, wading in, landed him safely on the shore.
"This is the game of life, Miss Clifford," he said, as he put the trout of more than three pounds' weight into the basket. "Rendered cautious and prudent by some sad experiences, we shrink from every thing that seems too easy of attainment, then, when we find something that Fate's cunning hand plays before our eyes as if to be withdrawn in a moment, we watch it with suspicious but greedy eagerness, till we think a moment more will lose it for ever, then dart at it blindly, and feel the hook in our jaws."
Mary Clifford smiled, and then looked grave; and Isabella laughed, exclaiming,
"The moral of fly-fishing! And a good lesson, I suppose, you mean for all over-cautious mammas--or did you mean it was a part of your own history? Captain Hayward, retrospective and prophetic, or was it a general disquisition upon man?"
"I am afraid man is the trout," said Beauchamp; "and not in one particular pursuit, but all: love, interest, ambition, every one alike. His course and end are generally the same."
"That speech of yours, fair lady, was so like a woman," said Ned Hayward, turning to Miss Slingsby; "if it were not that my hands were wet, I would presume upon knowing you as a child, and give you a good shake. I thought you had been brought up enough with men, to know that they are not always thinking of love and matrimony. You women have but one paramount idea, as to this life's concerns I mean, and you never hear any thing without referring it to that. However, after all, perhaps, it is natural:
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart.'Tis woman's whole existence."
"Too sad a truth," replied Mary Clifford, thoughtfully; "perhaps it is of too little importance in man's eyes; of too much in woman's."
"And yet how terribly she sometimes trifles with it," said Beauchamp, in a still gloomier tone.
"Perhaps, you think, she trifles with every thing, Mr. Beauchamp," rejoined Isabella; "but men know so little of women, and see so little of women as they really are, that they judge the many from the few: and we must forgive them; nevertheless, even if it be true that they do trifle with it, it is not the least proof that they do not feel it. All beings are fond of sporting with what is bright and dangerous: the moth round the candle, the child with the penknife, and man with ambition."
"All mankind," said Ned Hayward, "men and women alike, get merrily familiar with that which is frequently presented to their thoughts. Look at the undertaker, or the sexton, how he jests with his fat corpse, and only screws his face into a grim look when he has the world's eye upon him; then jumps upon the hearse and canters back, to get drunk and joyous at the next public-house."
"Hush! hush! Captain Hayward," cried Isabella, "I declare your figures of speech are too horrible; we will have no more of such sad conversation; can we not talk of something more pleasant as we go back?"
"I don't know," said Ned Hayward, "I am in a moralising mood this morning."
And as Isabella and Mr. Beauchamp walked on a little in advance to pass the narrow path, which only admitted two abreast, he continued in a somewhat lower tone, saying to Mary Clifford,
"I cannot get my spirits up this morning. The dangerous circumstances of my good old friend, Sir John, vex me much. Have you spoken to your cousin about them? She seems wonderfully gay."
"I have," answered Miss Clifford; "but it would need a heavy weight, Captain Hayward, to sink her light heart. She promised to mention the matter to Mr. Beauchamp, too; but I rather imagine from what has occurred, that she had not done it."
"Oh, she has done it, depend upon it," replied the young officer; "and that is what makes her so gay. But I must speak with Beauchamp myself, and make the matter sure."
In the meantime, Beauchamp had walked on with Isabella; and there could be little or no doubt, in the minds of any one who came behind them, that he was making love. Not that they heard a word that was said, no, not a single syllable, but there is a peculiar gesture associated with the making of love, by a gentleman at least, which distinguishes it from every other process. Beauchamp, as we have described him, was above the middle height; but Isabella was not below it; and there was not the slightest occasion for him to bend down his head, in order that she might hear him distinctly, unless he had something to say which he did not wish others to hear likewise. He did bend down his head, however, and said what he had to say in a very low tone; and, although he did not stare her rudely in the face, yet from time to time he looked into her eyes, as if he thought them the crystal windows of the heart. Isabella, on her side, did not bend her head; she held it a little on one side, indeed, so as in the least perceptible degree to turn the fine small ear to the words that were poured into it; generally, however, she looked down, with the long fringes veiling the violet of her eyes, though from time to time she raised them at something that he said; and when her look met his, they fell again. They had to cross over a little brook, and Beauchamp took her hand to help her over. He drew it through his arm when he had done, and there it rested for the remainder of the walk.
Involuntarily, and almost unconsciously as they marked this, Mary Clifford and Captain Hayward turned to each other with a smile. The impulse with each was to see if the other had remarked it--a very simple impulse--but when their looks met, it made a more compound phrase; and the anagram of the heart might read thus:
"May we not as well make love too?"
It was a sore temptation; but the next instant Ned Hayward's countenance became exceedingly grave, and the warm healthy glow in his cheek grew a shade paler.
If there was a struggle in his breast, it was brought to an end in about five minutes; for, just as they were climbing the side of the hill again, they were met by joyous old Sir John Slingsby, whose whole face and air generally bore with it an emanation of cheerful content, which is usually supposed, but, alas! mistakenly to be the peculiar portion of the good and wise. Thoughtlessness, temperament, habit, often possess that which is the coveted possession of wisdom and virtue; and often in this world the sunshine of the heart spreads over the pathway of him who neither sees his own misfortunes lying before him, nor thinks of the sorrows of others scattered around.
"Ah, boys and girls, boys and girls!" cried the baronet, laughing, "whither have you wandered so long? I have done a world of business since you have been gone, thank Heaven; and, thank Heaven, have left a world undone; so I shall never, like Alexander, that maudling, drunken, rattle-pate of antiquity, have to weep for new worlds to conquer. Ned Hayward, Ned Hayward, I have a quarrel with you. Absent from evening drill and morning parade without leave! We will have you tried by a court-martial, boy; but what news have you brought? did you overtake the enemy? or was he too much for you? whither is he retreated? and last, though not least, who and what is he?"
"On my life, Sir John, I do not know who he is," answered Ned Hayward. "We have had two engagements, in which, I am fain to confess, he has had the advantage, and has retreated in good order both times. I shall catch him yet, however; but at present I have not time to give full information; for--"
"Not time, not time!" cried the baronet; "what the devil have you done with all your time, not to have half an hour to spare to your old colonel?"
"In the first place, my dear Sir, I am wet," replied the young officer, "for I have been in the water, and must change my clothes; but I have won my bet, however; I promised to catch the best trout in the river before noon; and there he is; match him if you can."
"Before noon," exclaimed Sir John Slingsby, taking out his watch; "twenty minutes past twelve, by Jove!"
"Ay, but he has been caught twenty minutes," said Ned Hayward, "I will appeal to all persons present."
"Well, granted, granted," exclaimed the baronet, "the bet's won, the bet's won. You shall change your clothes, make yourself look like a gentleman, and then tell the reverend company your story."
"Impossible," answered Ned Hayward, shaking his head; "I have forty things to do."
"Forty things!" cried Sir John; "why I have finished two hundred and fifty, upon a moderate computation, within an hour and ten minutes."
"Ah, my dear Sir," said the young gentleman, "but I have got to change my clothes, write a letter, speak two words to Beauchamp, talk for a quarter of an hour to Ste. Gimlet about his boy's education, pack up some clothes, and be down at Tarningham in time for the coach to London, as well as to induce your butler to give me some luncheon and a glass of the best old sherry in your cellar."
"Pack up some clothes!--coach to London!" cried Sir John Slingsby, in a more serious tone than he had yet used; "the boy is mad; his head is turned! Ned Hayward, Ned Hayward, what the devil do you mean, Ned Hayward?"
"Simply, my dear Sir John, that some business of importance calls me to London immediately," rejoined his young friend; "but I shall be down again to-morrow, or the next day at the furthest; and, in the meantime, I leave you horse and gun, fishing-tackle and appurtenances, which I give you free leave and licence to confiscate if I do not keep my word."
"Well, well!" exclaimed the baronet, "go along, change your clothes, and come and get some luncheon. I always thought you a great donkey, Ned, and now I think so more than ever, when I see you quit comfortable quarters for a dull stagecoach. Go along, I say, go along; there's the door, which is always better said on the outside of a house than in the in."
"Thank you, Sir John; but I must just speak a word with Beauchamp first," replied Captain Hayward; and taking his new friend's arm, he drew him a little on one side, while the baronet and the two ladies entered the house.
"I have got a favour to ask you, Beauchamp," said Captain Hayward: "matters have got into a complication between myself and this young Wittingham, which may require a pistol-shot to unravel it. The fellow, who fired through the window last night, certainly rode his horse; I walked straight into his room, thinking I might find the man there. I told him the occasion of my coming; he was insolent; and I informed him civilly what I thought of him; he demanded satisfaction; and I replied, that if there was a gentleman in the county that could be found to act as his friend, I would do him the honour of meeting him. Business, which one of the two ladies will give you a hint of, if they have not done so already, calls me immediately to London. I have written to tell him so, but that I shall be down the day after to-morrow. In the meantime, I shall tell the people at the White Hart, if any one comes from him, to refer them to you. Arrange the affair, therefore, for me, should such be the case, and, remember, the earliest possible time and the quietest possible manner--I'll bring my pistols--but we must break off, here comes Sir John Slingsby again; not a word to him on any account, there's a good fellow; and now let us talk of something else."