CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XV.Cradock Nowell had written from London to the Parsonage once, and once only. He told them how he had changed his name, because his father had cast him off; and (as he bitterly added), according to filial promise, he felt himself bound to be Nowell no longer. But he did not say what name he had taken, neither did he give any address; only he would write again when he had found some good situation. Of course he longed to hear from Amy—his own loving Amy, who begged that poor letter and bore it in her own pure bosom long after the Queenʼs head came off—but his young pride still lay hot upon him, and for Amyʼs sake he nursed it.A young man is never so proud of his honour, so prompt to deny himself anything, so strong in anotherʼs lifehold, and careless about his own living, as when he has won a true loveʼs worth, and sees itabiding for ever. Few are the good who have such luck—for the success is not of merit, any more than it is in other things; more often indeed some fish–tailed coxcomb is a womanʼs Dagon, doubly worshipped for crushing her—but when that luck does fall to the lot of a simple and honest young fellow, he piles his triple mountains up to the everlasting heaven, but makes no Babel of them. A man who chatters about his love soon exhausts himself or his subject.John Rosedew, after receiving that letter, shut every book on his table, chairs, and desk, and chimney–piece. He must think what to do, and how: and he never could think hard on the flints of daily life, while the green pastures of the dead were tempting his wayward steps away. Of course he would go to London at once, by the very next train; but whether or no should he tell his people the reason of his going? He felt so strongly inclined to tell, even at risk of domestic hysterics and parochial convulsions, that he resolved at last not to tell; for he thought of the great philosopherʼs maxim (not perhaps irrefragable), that when the right hangs dubious, we may safely conclude that it rides in the scale swinging opposite to our own wishes. To most of us (not having a quarter of John Rosedewʼs ability, and therefore likely to be a hundred times less hesitant) it seems that the maxim holds good with ourselves, or any other common mortal, but makes Truth actually cut her own throat when applied to a mind like his—amind already too timorously and humorously self–conscious.Let 99,000 angels get on the top of John Rosedewʼs pen—which generally had a great hair in it—and dance afaux pasover that question, if it was laid the wrong way; for we, whose consciences must work in corduroys and highlows, roughly conclude that right and wrong are but as button and button–hole when it comes to a question of hair–splitting. Blest are they whose conscience–edge, like the sword of Thor, can halve every wisp of wool afloat upon the brook of life.After breakfast John mounted Coræbus, leaving a short farewell, and set off hastily with the old–fashioned valise behind the saddle, wherein he was wont to bear wine and confections upon his parochial tours. The high–mettled steed was again amazed at the pace that could be pumped out of him; neither did he long continue ingloriously mute, but woke the echoes of Ytene with many a noble roar and shriek, so that consternation shook the heart of deer and pig and cow. But the parson did not exult as usual in these proofs of velocity, because his soul within him was sad; nevertheless he preserved cohesion, or at least coincidence, in an admirable manner, with his feet thrust strenuously into the stirrups, his bridle–hand thrown in great emergencies upon the peak of the saddle, and whip–hand reposing on the leathern outwork, which guarded and burnished his rear. Anchored thus by both strong arms—for the sakeof his mission and family—he felt capable of jumping a gate, if Coræbus had equal confidence.That evening he entered the Ducksacre shop, and found no one there but the mistress.“Pray excuse me, but I have been told, maʼam,” said John Rosedew, lifting his hat—as he always did to a matron—and bowing his silvery head, “that you have a lodger here who is very ill.”“Yes, sir,” replied Mrs. Ducksacre, fetching her breath very quickly, “and dead, too, for all I know. Oh Lord, I am so put upon!”The soft–hearted parson was shocked at this apparent apathy; and thought her no true woman. Who is not wrong sometimes? It was a very rare thing for John Rosedew to judge man or woman harshly. But only half an hour ago that poor woman had been up–stairs, neglecting till, present and future, estranging some excellent customers, leaving a wanton shop–boy to play marbles with Spanish chestnuts, while she did her most misguided best to administer to sick Cradock soup wildly beyond her own economy, and furiously beyond his powers of deglutition.John Rosedew, with his stout legs shaking, and his stockings expressing excitement, went up three pairs (ill–assorted) of stairs into Cradockʼs sick room. Then he started back from the Aristophanic climax—even the rags of Telephus; though after all, Polly Ducksacre had done her best to make the room comely. Why, there were three potato–sacks on the bed, with the names ofFulham growers done in red letters upon them, and giving the room quite a bright appearance, as if newly–marked sheep were in it. Nay, and I could almost swear there were two bast mats from Covent Garden, gloriously fixed as bed curtains, mats from that noble market where a rat prays heaven vainly to grant him the coat of a water–rat.There, by Cradock Nowellʼs bed, sat the faithful untiring nurse, the woman who had absorbed such a quantity of strap, and had so kindly assimilated it. Meek–spirited Rachel Jupp waited and watched by the bed of him through whom she had been enfranchised. Since Issachar Jupp became a Christian she had not tasted the buckle–end once, and scarcely twice the tongue–end.She had been employed some years ago as a nurse in the Middlesex Hospital; so she knew her duties thoroughly. But here she had exceeding small chance of practising that knowledge; because scarcely anything which she wanted, and would have rung for, if there had been any bell, was ever to be found in the house. Even hot water, which the doctor had ordered, was cold again ere it came to her, and had taken an hour before it started; for there was no fireplace in the little room, nor even on the floor below it.Uncle John could scarcely keep from crying, as he looked at poor Craddy propped up in the bed there, with his lips so pale and bloodless, cheeks sunken in and shining like dry oyster–shells, butwith a round red spot in the centre, large eyes glaringly bright and starting, and red hot temples and shorn head swathed with dripping bandages; while now and then he raised his weak hands towards the surging tumult, and dropped them helpless on the sun–blind, tucked round him as part of his counterpane.“Ah, thatʼs the way, sir,” said Rachel, after she had risen and curtseyed, “thatʼs the way he go on now, all the day and all the night; and he have left off talking now altogether, only to moan and to wamble. He used to jump up in the bed at first, and shut his left eye, and put his arms like this, as if he was shooting at something; and it pleased him so when I give him the hair–broom. He would put the flat of it to his shoulder, and smile as if he see some game, and shoot at the door fifty times a day; and then scream and fall back and cover his eyes up. But he havenʼt done that these three days now; too weak, Iʼm afeard, too weak for it.”John Rosedew sighed heavily for the bright young mind, so tried above what it was able to bear; then, as he kissed the flaming forehead—sometimes flaming and sometimes icy—he thought that it might be the Fatherʼs mercy to obliterate sense of the evil. For the mind of the insane, or at least its precious part, is with Him, who showers afar both pain and pleasure, but keeps at home the happiness.“Can you send for the doctor at once, maʼam, or tell me where to find him?” The parson still keptto the ancient fashion, and addressed every woman past thirty as “maʼam,” whatever her rank or condition. As he spoke, a heavy man entered on tiptoe, and quietly moved them aside. A raw–boned, hulking fellow he was, with a slouch and a squint, made more impressive by a black eye in the third and most picturesque stage, when mauve, and lilac, and orange intone and soften sweetly off from the purple nucleus outward; as a boyʼs taw is, or used to be, shaded, with keen artistic feeling, in many a ring concentric, from the equator to the poles. Mr. Juppʼs face was a villainous one; as even the softest philanthropist would have been forced to acknowledge. The enormous jaws, the narrow forehead, the grisly, porkish eyebrows, the high cheek–bones, and the cunning skance gleam from the black, deep–ambushed squinters—all these were enough to warn any man who wished to get good out of Zakey Jupp that he must try to put it there first, and give it time to go to the devil and back, as we say that parsley–seed does.Mr. Jupp was a man of remarkable strength,—not active elastic Achillean vigour, nor even stalwart Ajacian bulk, but the sort of strength which sometimes vanquishes both of those, by outlasting,—a slouching, slow–to–come, long–to–go heft, that had scarcely found its proper wind when better–built men were exhausted.Men of this stamp are usually long–armed, big in the lungs and shoulders, small in the loins, knock–kneed, and splay–footed; in a word, shapedlike a John Dory, or a millerʼs thumb, or a banjo. They are not very “strong on their pins,” nor active; they generally get thrown in the first bout of wrestling before ever their muscles get warm; they cannot even run fast, and in jumping they spring from the heel; nevertheless, unless they are stricken quite senseless at the outset—and their heads for the most part are a deal too thick for that—the chances are that they make an example of the antagonist ere he is done with. And so, in Mr. Juppʼs recent duello with an Irish bully, who scoffed at Cradock, and said something low of his illness, the Englishman got the worst of it in the first round, the second, the third, and the fourth; but, just as Dan Sullivanʼs pals and backers were wild with delight and screeching, the brave bargee settled down on his marrow, and the real business began. After twenty–five rounds, the Tipperary Slasher had three men to carry him home, and looked fit for an inquest to sit upon, without making him any flatter.Now, Issachar being a very slow man, there was no chance that he would hurry over his present inspection of Cradock. For a very long time he looked at him from various points of view; then, at last, he shook his head, and poked his long black chin out.“Now this here wunna do, ye know. Iʼll fetch the doctor to ye, master, as ye seem to care for the pore young charp.”And Zakey Jupp, requiring no answer, wentslowly down the stairs, with a great hand on either wall to save noise; then at a long trot, rolling over all who came in his way, and rounding the corners, like a ship whose rudder–bands are broken, he followed the doctor from street to street, keeping up the same pace till he found him. Dr. Tink was coming out of a court not far from Marylebone–lane, where the small–pox always lay festering.“Yeʼll just corm street ‘long wi’ me to the poor charp as saved our Looey,” said Mr. Jupp, coolly getting into the brougham, and sitting in the place of honour, while he dragged Dr. Tink in by the collar, and set him upon the front seat. “Fire awa’ now for Martimer–straat,” he yelled to the wondering coachman, “and if ye dunna laither the narg, mind, Iʼll laither ye when we gits there.”The nag was leathered to Mr. Juppʼs satisfaction, and far beyond his own, and they arrived at the coal and cabbage shop before John Rosedew had finished reading a paper which Mrs. Jupp had shown him, thinking that it was a prescription.“He wrote it in his sleep, sir, without knowing a thing about it; in his sleep, or in his brain–wandering; I came in and found him at it, in the middle of the night; and my, how cold his fingers was, and his head so hot! We took it to three great chemists’ shops, but they could not make it up. They hadnʼt got all the drugs, they said, and they couldnʼt make out the quantities.”“Neither can I,” said John; “but it rings well,considering that the poor boy wrote it when his brain was weak with fever. The dialects are somewhat muddled, moreover; but we must not be hypercritical.”“No, sir, to be sure not. I am sure I meant no hypocrisy. Only you see it ainʼt Christian writing; and Mr. Clinkers shake his head at it, and say it come straight from the devil, and his hoof in every line of it.”“Mrs. Jupp, the Greek characters are beautiful, though some of the lines are not up to the mark. But, for my part, I wonder how any man can write mixed Greek in London. Nevertheless, I shall have great pleasure in talking it over with him, please God that he ever gets well. To think that his poor weary brain should still be hankering after his classics!”It was the dirge in Cymbeline put into Greek choral metre, and John Rosedewʼs tears flowed over the words, as Polydoreʼs had done, and Cadwalʼs.Unhappy Cradock! His misty brain had vapoured off in that sweet wild dirge, which hovers above, as if the freed soul lingered, for the clogged one to shake its wings to it.The parson was pondering and closing his wet eyes to recover his faith in God—whom best we see with the eyes shut, except when His stars are shining—while Issachar Jupp came up the stairs, poking Dr. Tink before him, because he stillthought it likely that the son of medicine would evaporate. The doctor, who knew his tricks and put up with them, lest anything worse might come of it, solaced his sense of dignity, when he got to the top, by a grand bow to Mr. Rosedew. John gave him the change in a kind one; then offered his hand, as he always did, being a man of the ancient fashion.While they were both looking sadly at Cradock, he sat up suddenly in the bed, and stretching forth his naked arms (wherein was little nourishment), laughed as an aged man does, and then nodded at them solemnly. His glazed eyes were so prominent, that their whites reflected the tint of the rings around them.“Ladies and gentlemen, stop him if you please, and give him a pen and ink, and my best hat to write on. Oh, donʼt let him go by.”“Stop whom, my dear sir?” asked the doctor, putting out his arms as if to do it. “Now Iʼve stopped him. Whatʼs his name?”“The golden lad. Oh, donʼt you know? You canʼt have got him, if you donʼt. The golden lad that came from heaven to tell me I did not do it, that I didnʼt do it, do it, sir—all a mistake altogether. It makes me laugh, I declare it does; it makes me laugh for an hour, every time he comes, because they were all so wise. All but my Amy, my Amy; she was such a foolish little thing, she never would hear a word of it. And now I callyou all to witness, obtestor, antestor, one, two, three, four, five; let him put it down on a sheet of foolscap, with room enough for the names below it; all the ladies and gentlemen put their names in double column, and get Mr. Clinkers, if you can, and Jenny, to go at the bottom; only be particular about the double column, ladies one side, gentlemen the other, like a country dance, you know, or the ‘carmen sæculare,’ and at the bottom, right across, Miss Amy Rosedewʼs name.”The contemplation of that last beatitude was too much for the poor fellow; he fell back, faint on the pillow, and the shop–blind, untucked by his blissful emotions, rattled its rings on the floor.“Blow me if I can stand it,” cried Issachar Jupp, going down three stairs at a step; and when he came back his face looked clearer, and he said something about a noggin. Mrs. Ducksacre bolted after him, for business must be attended to.“Will he ever be right again, poor fellow? Dr. Tink, I implore you to tell me your opinion sincerely.”“Then I cannot say thatI thinkhe will. Still, I have some hopes of it. Much will depend upon the original strength of the cerebellum, and the regularity of his previous habits. If he has led a wild, loose life, he has no chance whatever of sanity.”“No, he has led a most healthy life—temperate, gentle, and equable. His brain has always beenclear and vigorous, without being too creative. He was one of the soundest scholars for his age I have ever met with.”“But he had some terrible blow, eh?”“Oh yes, a most terrible blow.”John thought what a terrible blow it would be to his own lifeʼs life, if the issue went against him, and for tears he could ask no more.CHAPTER XVI.The good people assembled in Nowelhurst church were agreeably surprised, on the following Sunday, by the announcement from Mr. Pell—in that loud sonorous voice of his, which had frightened spinsters out of their wits, lest he were forbidding, instead of asking their banns of matrimony—that there would be no sermon that morning, inasmuch as he, the Rev. Octavius, was forced to hurry away, at full speed, to assuage the rampant desire of Rushford for the performance of divine service.Mrs. Nowell Corklemore, who had the great curtained pew of the Hall entirely to herself and child—for Eoa never would go to church, because they defy the devil there—Georgie, who appeased her active mind by counting the brass–headed nails, and then multiplying them into each other, and subtracting the ones that were broken, liftedher indescribable eyes, and said, “Thank God,” almost audibly.Octavius Pell, hurrying out of the porch, ascended Coræbus, as had been arranged; but he did it so rapidly, and with such an air of decision, that Amy, standing at the churchyard gate, full of beautiful misgivings, could not help exclaiming,“Oh please, Mr. Pell, whatever you do, leave your stick here till Monday. We will take such care of it.”“Indeed, I fear I must not, Miss Rosedew,” Octavius answered, gravely, looking first at his stick, and then at the flanks of Ræby, who was full of interesting tricks; “I have so far to go, you know, and I must try to keep time with them.—Whoa, you little villain!”“Oh dear, I am so sorry. At any rate please not to strike him, onlystrokehim with it. He is soveryhigh–spirited. And he has never had a weal upon him, at least since he came to papa. And I could not bear to see it. And I know you wonʼt, Mr. Pell.”Octavius looked at the soft–hearted girl, blushing so in her new drawn bonnet—mauve with black, for the sake of poor Clayton. He looked at her out of his knowing dry eyes in that sort of response–to–the–Litany style which a curate adopts to his rectorʼs daughter.“Can you suppose, Miss Rosedew, that I would have the heart to beat him now?—Ah, you will, will you then?” Ræbus thought better of it.“No, I hope you would not,” said Amy, in pure good faith, with a glance, however, at the thick bamboo, “because it would beso cruel. It is hollow, I hope; but it has such knots, and it looks so very hard!”“Hollow, and thin as a piece of pie–crust; and you know how this wood splits.”“Oh, I am so glad, because you canʼt hurt him so very much. Please not to go, if you can hold him, more than three miles and a half an hour. Papa says that is the pace that always suits his health best. And please to take the saddle off, and keep it at your house, that the Rushford boy may not ride him back. And please to choose a steady boy from the head–class in your Sunday school, and, if possible, a communicant. But Iʼm sadly afraid thereʼs no trusting the boys.”“Indeed, I fear not,” said Octavius, gravely; and adding to himself, “at any rate when you are concerned, you darling. What a love you are! But thereʼs no chance for me, I know; and itʼs a good job for me that I knew it. Oh you little angel, I wonder who the lucky fellow is!” Aunt Eudoxia had dropped him a hint, quite in a casual way, when she saw that the stout young bachelor was going in, over head and ears.Sweet Amy watched Mr. Pell, or rather his steed, with fond interest, until they turned the corner; and certainly the pace, so far, was very sedate indeed. Octavius was an upright man—you could see that by his seat in the saddle—aswell as a kind and good–natured one; and on no account would he have vexed that gentle and beautiful girl. Nevertheless he grew impatient, as Coræbus pricked his ears pretentiously, and snorted so as to defy the winds, and was fain to travel sidewise, as if the distance was not enough for him; and all the time he was swallowing the earth at the rate of no more than four miles an hour. Then the young parson pulled out his watch, and saw that it wanted but half an hour of the time himself had fixed for the morning service at Rushford. And he could not bear the thought of keeping the poor folk waiting about the cross, as they always did and would wait, till the parson appeared among them. As Mr. Wise has well observed, “the peasant of the New Forest is too full of veneration.”And here let me acknowledge, as behoveth a man to do, not in a scambling preface, which nobody ever would read, but in the body of my work, great and loving obligation to the labours of Mr. John R. Wise. His book is perfectly beautiful, written in admirable English, full of observation, taste, and gentle learning; and the descriptions of scenery are such that they make the heart yearn to verify them. I know the New Forest pretty well, from my own perambulations and perequitations—one barbarism is no worse than the other—but I never should have loved it as I do but for his loving guidance.The Rev. Mr. Pell, as some people put when theywrite to a parson,—hoping still to keep faith with Amy, because her eyes were so lovely,—pulled the snaffle, and turned Coræbus into a short cut, through beeches and hazels. Then compromise came soon to an end, and the big bamboo was compelled to fall upon the fat flank of Coræbus, because he would not go without it. He showed sense of that first attention only by a little buck–jump, and a sprightly wag of his tail; then, hoping that the situation need not be looked in the face, shambled along at five miles an hour, with a mild responsibility.“Five miles more,” said Octave Pell, “and only twenty minutes to do it in! Itʼs an unlucky thing for you, Coræbus, that your mistress is engaged.” Whack, came the yellow bamboo again, and this time in solid earnest; Ræbus went off as if he meant to go mad. He had never known such a blow since the age wherein he belonged to the innkeeper. Oh, could a horse with four feeds a day be expected to put up with tyranny?But, to the naggyʼs great amazement, Octave Pell did not tumble off; more than that, he seemed to stick closer, with a most unpleasant embrace, and a pressure that told upon the wind—not of heaven but of horse—till the following symptoms appeared:—First a wheeze, and creak internal, a slow creak, like leather chafing, or a pair of bellows out of order; then a louder remonstrance, like the ironwork of a roller, or the gudgeons of a wheelbarrow; then, faster and faster, a suckingnoise, like the bucket of an old pump, when the gardener works by the job; finally, puff, and roar, and shriek, with notes of passing sadness, like the neap–tide wailing up a cavern, or the lament of the Berkshire Blowing Stone.In forest glades, where hollow hoofs fell on the sod quite mutely, that roar was enough to try masculine courage, though never unnerved by a heart–shock. How then could poor Pearl Garnet, sitting all alone, in a lonely spot, wherein she had pledged herself to her dead love, sitting there to indulge her tears, the only luxury left her—how could she help being frightened to death as the unearthly sound approached her?The terror was mutual. Coræbus, turning the corner sharply, stopped short, in a mode that must have sent his true master over his withers, to explore the nature of the evil. Then he shook all through, and would have bolted, if the bamboo had not fallen heavily.In the niche of a hollow oak was crouching, falling backward with terror, and clutching at the brave old bark, yet trying to hide behind it—only the snowy arms would come outwards—a beautiful girl, clad in summer white on that foggy day of December. The brown cloak, which had protected her from sylvan curiosity, lay on the ground, a few yards away, on the spot so sad and sacred. Pearl Garnetʼs grief, if we knew the whole of it, or perhaps because we cannot, was greater than any girl could bear. A lovely, young, and lovingmaid, with stores of imagination, yet a practical power of stowing it; of building castles, yet keeping them all within compass of the kitchen–range; quite different from our Amy, yet a better wife forsomemen—according to what the trumps are, and Amy must have hearts, or she dies;—that very nice girl, we have let her go weep, and never once cared to follow her. There is never any justice in this world; therefore who cares to apologise? It would take up all our business–time, if we did it properly.Now, as she stretched her white arms forth, and her delicate form shrunk back into the black embrace of the oak–tree; while her rich hair was streaming all down her breast, and her dark eyes still full of tear–drops; the rider no less than the horse was amazed, and seemed to behold a vision. Then as she shrunk away into the tree–bole, with a shriek of deadly terror—for what love casteth out fear?—and she saw not through the ivy–screen, and Coræbus groaned sepulchrally, Pell came down with a dash on one foot, and went, quick jump, to help her.In a fainting fit,—for the heart so firm and defiant in days of happiness was fluxed now and frail with misery—she was cowering away in the dark tree–nook, like the pearls of mistletoe fallen, with her head thrown back (such an elegant head, a womanʼs greatest beauty), and the round arms hanging helpless.Hereupon Mr. Pell was abroad. He had neverexperienced any sisters, nor much mother consciously—being the eighth son, as of course we know, of a jolly Yorkshire baronet; at any rate he had lost his mother at the birth of Nonus Pell; and I am sorry there are not ninety of them, if of equal merit.So Octavius stood like a fish out of water, with both hands in his pocket, as it is so generally the habit of fishes to stand.Then, meaning no especial harm, nor perhaps great good, for that matter, he said to himself—“Confound it all. What the deuce am I to do?”His sermon upon the Third Commandment, about to be preached at Rushford, where the fishermen swore like St. Peter,—that sermon went crack in his pocket at such a shocking ejaculation. Never heeding that, he went on to do what a stout fellow and a gentleman must have done in this emergency. He lifted the drooping figure forth into the open air, touching it only with his hands, timidly and reverently, as if every fair curve were sacred. Then he fetched water in his best Sunday hat—the only chimney–pot he possessed—from the stream trickling through the spire–bed; and he sprinkled it on the broad, white forehead, as if he were christening a baby.The moment he saw that her life was returning, and her deep grey eyes, quiet havens of sorrow, opened and asked where their owner was, and her breast rose like a billow in a place where two tidesmeet, that moment Octave laid her back against the rugged trunk, in the thick brown cloak which he had fetched when he went for the water; and wrapped it around her, delicately, as if she were taking a nap there.Oh, man of short pipes and hard, bachelor fare, for this thou deservest as good a wife as ever basted a leg of mutton!At last the young lady looked up at him with a deep–drawn sigh, and said—“I am afraid I have been very silly.”“No, indeed, you have not. But I am very sorry for you, because I am dreadfully clumsy.”She glanced at his snowy choker—which he never wore but on Sundays—and, being a very quick–witted young woman, she guessed at once who he was.“Oh, please to tell me—I hope the service is not over at Nowelhurst church.”“The service has been over for a quarter of an hour; because there was no sermon.”“Oh, what shall I do, then? What can I do? I had better never go home again.”This was said to herself in anguish, and Pell saw that he was not meant to hear it.“Can I go, please, to the Rectory? Mr. Rosedew is from home; but Iʼm sure they will give me shelter until my—until I am sent for. I have lost my way in the wood here.”This statement was none of the truest.“To be sure,” said the hasty parson, forgettingabout the Rushford bells, the rheumatic clerk, and the quid–chewing pilots—let them turn their quids a bit longer—“to be sure, I will take you there at once. Allow me to introduce myself. How very stupid of me! Octavius Pell, Mr. Rosedewʼs curate at Rushford.”Hereupon “Pello, pepuli, pulsum” (as his friends loved to call him from his driving powers at cricket, and to show that they knew some Latin) executed a noble salaam—quite of the modern school, however, and without the old reduplication (like the load on the back of Christian)—till the duckweed came out of his hat in a body, and fell into the flounce tucket of the beautiful Pearlʼs white skirt.She never looked, though she knew it was there—that girl understood her business—but curtseyed to him prettily, having recovered strength by this time; and there was something in his dry, manly tone, curt modesty, and breeding, without any flourish about it, which led the young maid to trust him, as if she had known him since tops and bottoms.“I am Pearl Garnet,” said she, imitating his style unconsciously, “the daughter—I mean I live at Nowelhurst Dell Cottage.”Coræbus had cut off for stable long ago, with three long weals from bamboo upon him, which he vowed he would show to Amy.“Please to take my arm, Miss Garnet. You are not very strong yet. I know your brotherwell; and a braver or more straightforward young gentleman never thought small things of himself after doing great ones.”Pearl was delighted to hear Bobʼs praises; and Mr. Pell treated that subject so cleverly, from every possible point of view, that she was quite astonished when she saw the Rectory side–gate, and Octavius, in the most light–hearted manner, made a sudden and warm farewell, and darted away for Rushford. How good it is for a sad, heavy heart to exchange with a gay and light one!“Hang it! after that let me have a burster!” was his clerical ejaculation, “or else it is all up with me. I hope we havenʼt spilt the sermon, though, or got any duckweed down it. Duckweed, indeed; what a duck she is! And oh, what splendid eyes!”He ran all the way to Rushford, at a pace unknown to Coræbus; and his governor–coat flew away behind him, with the sermon banging about, and the text peeping out under the pocket–lap. “Swear not at all,” were the words, I believe; and a rare good sermon it must have been, if it stuck to the text under the circumstances.The jolly old tars, after waiting an hour, orally refreshing their grandmothers’ epitaphs, and close–hauling on many a tight yarn, were just setting up stunʼsails to take grog on board at the “Luggerʼs Locker,” hard by, as the banyan time was over. Let them ship their grog, and their old women might keep gravy hot, and be blessed tothem. They had come there for sarvice, and shiver their timbers if theyʼd make sail till the chaplain came. Good faith, and they got their service at last, but an uncommonly short–winded one, a sermon, moreover, which each man felt coming admirably home—to his shipmate.Meanwhile, Mr. Pell had left behind no small excitement at Nowelhurst. For a rumour took wing after morning service—when the wings of fame are briskest in all country parishes—that parson John was gone to London to complain to the Queen that Sir Cradock Nowell never came to church now, nor even sent his agent thither, to manage matters for him. For Mr. Garnet still retained his stewardship among them, though longing to be quit of it, and discharging his duties silently, and not with his old pronouncement, because his health was weaker. The vivid power of vital force seemed to be failing the man who had stamped his character upon all people around him; because he never said a thing which he did not think, and scarcely ever thought a thing with any fear of saying it.Hitherto we have had of Bull Garnet by far the worse side uppermost. I will offer no excuses now for his too ready indulgence of his far too savage temper. In sooth, we meet with scarce any case in which excuses are undiscoverable. God and the angels find them always; our best earthly friends can see them, when properly pointed out;our enemies, when they want to make accusation of them.All I will say for Bull Garnet is (to invert the historianʼs sentence) “Hæc tanta viri vitia ingentes virtutes exæquabant”—“These blemishes, however dark, had grand qualities to redress them.” Strong affection, great scorn of falsehood, tenderness almost too womanly, liberality both of mind and heart, a real depth of sympathy—would all these co–exist with, or be lost in, one great vice? It appears to me that we are so toothed in, spliced and mortised, dovetailed, double–budded, and inarched, both of good and evil, that the wrong, instead of poisoning the right, often serves as guano to it. Nevertheless we had better be perfect—when we have found the way out.CHAPTER XVII.It must not be forgotten that Rufus Hutton all this time was very hard at work, and so was Mrs. Corklemore. Between that lady and Eoa pleasant little passes gave a zest to daily intercourse, Georgieʼs boundless sympathies being circumscribed only by terror. Nevertheless, although Sir Cradock laughed (when his spirits were good, and his mind was clear) at their fundamental difference, Georgie began to gain upon him, and Eoa to lose ground. How could it be otherwise, even if their skill had been equal—and Eoa not only had no skill, but scorned sweet Georgie for having any—how could Mrs. Corklemore fail of doing her blessed duty, when she was in the house all day, and Eoa out, jumping the river, or looking about for Bob Garnet? Whatever the weather was, out went Eoa, peering around for the tracks of Bob, which, like those of a mole, were self–evident; and then hiding behind a great tree when she found him; and hoping, with flutter of heart aboutit, that Bob had not happened to see her. Yet, if he happened not to see, she would go up and be cross with him, and ask whether Amy Rosedew had turned to the right or left there, or had stopped in a hollow tree. And did Bob think she looked well that morning? Then he had no right to think so. And perhaps her own new hat, with black ostrich, was a hideously ugly thing. Oh, she only wished there were tigers!Leave the little dear to do exactly as she likes—for nothing else she will do; and now, in looking through the forest, grey and white with winter, scorn we not the grand old trunk, in our gay love of the mistletoe.There is a very ancient tree, an oak well known and good of fame, even at the first perambulation of our legislator king. It stands upon the bend and brow under which two valleys meet, where a horse–shoe of the wood has chanced, and water takes advantage. In the scoop below the tree, two covered brooks fetch round high places into one another, prattle satisfaction, and steal away for their honeymoon, without a breeze upon them. This “mark–oak,” last of seven stout brothers, dwells upon a surge of upland, and commands three valleys, two of which unite below it, and the other leads them off, welcoming their waters. The grand tree lifts its proven column, channeled, ramped, and crocketed, flaked with brown on lines of grey, and bulked with cloudlike ganglions. Then from the maintop, where isroom for fifty archers to draw the bow, limbs of rugged might arise, spread flat, or straggle downwards. But the two great limbs of all, the power and main glory, the arms that reared their pride to heaven, are stricken, riven, and blasted. Gaping with great holes and rotten, heavily twisted in and out, and ending in four long scraggy horns, ghastly white in the winter sun; where the squirrel durst not build, nor the honey–buzzard watch for prey; this shattered hope of a noble life records the wrath of Heaven.The legend is that a turf–cutter having murdered a waylost pedlar, for the sake of his pack, buried the corpse in this hollow tree, and sat down on the grave to count his booty. Here, while he was bending over the gewgaws and the trinkets, which he had taken for gold upon the poor hucksterʼs word, and which gleamed and flashed in the August twilight, the vengeance of God fell upon him. In bodily form Godʼs lightning crashed through the dome of oak above him, leaped on the murdererʼs head, and drove him through the cloven earth, breast to breast on his victimʼs corpse. You may be sure that the sons of Ytene, a timid and superstitious race, find small attractions in that tree, when the shades of night are around it.John Rosedew did not return on the Monday, nor yet on the Tuesday, &c. Not even until the last down–train roared through the Forest on Saturday. Then, as it rushed through the darknight of winter, throwing its white breath (more strong than our own, and very little more fleeting) in bracelets on the brown–armed trees, and in chains on the shoulders of heather, the parson leaned back on the filthy panels of a second–class carriage, and thought of the scene he had left.He had written from London to Miss Rosedew, insisting, so far as he ever cared to insist on a little matter, that none at home should stay up for him, that no one should come to the station to meet him, and that Pell should be begged to hold himself ready for the Sundayʼs duty, because Mr. Rosedew would not go home, if any change should that day befall unlucky Cradock Nowell. Lucky Cradock, one ought to say, inasmuch as for a fortnight now he had lost all sense of trouble.Finding from Dr. Tink that no rapid change was impending, John Rosedew determined to see his home, and allay his childʼs anxiety. Moreover, he felt that his “cure of souls” must need their Sunday salting. Now walking away from the wooded station that cloudy Christmas Eve—for Christmas that year fell on Sunday—how grand he found the difference from the dirty coop of London.The new moon was set, but the clouds began to lift above the tree–tops, and a faint Aurora flushed and flickered in the far north–west. Then out came several stars rejoicing, singing in twinkles their Makerʼs praise; and some of the sounds thatbreathe through a forest, even in the hush of a winterʼs night, began to whisper peace and death.John, who feared not his Masterʼs works, and was happiest often in solitude, trudged along with the leathern valise, and three paper parcels strapped comfortably upon his ample back. Presently he began to think of home and his parish cares, and the breadth of God spread around him; and then from thinking rose unawares into higher communion, for surely it is a grander thing to feel than to think of greatness.And in this humour quietly he plodded his proper course for the first four miles or so, until he had passed the Dame Slough, near the Blackwater stream, and was over against Vinney Ridge. But here he must needs try a short cut, through the Government Woods, to Nowelhurst, though even in the broad daylight he could scarcely have found his way there. He thought that, in spite of his orders, Amy would be sure to stay up for him, and so he must hurry homeward.At a fine brisk pace, for a man of his years, he plunged into the deep wood, and in five minutesʼ time he had very little hope of getting out before daylight. Have you ever been lost in a great wood at night, alone, and laden, and weary, where the frithings have not been cut for ten years, when there is no moon or wind to guide a man, and the stars glimpse so deceitfully? How the stubs, even if you are so quick–footed as not to be doubled back by them, or thrown down with nostrils patulous—howthey catch you at the knee with three prongs apiece, and make you think of white swelling! Then the slip, where the wet has dribbled from some officious branch, or sow, or cow, summer–pasturing, has kept her volutabre. Down you plump, and your heels alone have chance of going to heaven, because (unless you are a wonder) you employ such powerful language.Rising with some difficulty, after doubting if it be worth the while, and rubbing spitefully ever so long at “the case of the part affected,” you have nothing for it but to start again, and fall into worse disasters. Going very carefully then you jump from the goading repulse of a holly into the heart of a hazel–bush—one which has numberless clefts and tongs, and is hospitable to a bramble. Tumbling out of it, full of thorns, recalling your Farnaby epigram, and wishing they had pelted the hazel harder, away you go, quite desperate now, knowing well that the wood is full of swamps, some of which will petrify you, under sun–dew and blue campanula, when the summer comes again.Through all these pleasing incidents and animating encounters John Rosedew went ahead, and, too often, a “header,” until he was desperately tired, and sat down to think about it. Then he heard two tawny owls hooting to one another, across at least a mile of trees; and every forest sound grew clearer in the stillness of the night; the sharp, sad cry of the marten–cat, the bark of the fox so impatient, the rustle of the dry leaves asa weasel or rat skirred over them, the wing–flap of some sliding bird roused from his roost by danger, the scratching of claws upon trunks now and then, and the rubbing of horns against underwood: these and other stranger noises, stirring the “down of darkness,” moving the sense of lonesome mystery and of fear indefinite, were abroad on the air (in spite of Shakespeare) on that Christmas Eve.John Rosedew laid his burden by, and began to think, or wonder, what was best to do. Long as he had lived amid the woods, he knew much more of classic sylvulæ and poetical arundines, than of the natural greenwood, and the tasseling of morasses.Bob Garnet would have found his way there, or in any other English forest, with little hesitation. From his knowledge of all the epiphytes and their different aspects, the bent of the winter grasses, the sense which even a bramble has of sun and wind and rain, he would soon have established his compass, with allowance for slope and exposure.The parson sat upon an ants’ nest, which had done its work, and feeling discharged, collapsed with him—a big nest of the largest British ant, which is mostly found near fir–trees. That nest alone would have told poor Bob something of his whereabouts; for there are not many firs in that part of the forest, and only one clump, high up on a hill, in the wood where John Rosedew had lost himself. But the man of great learning was none the wiser, only he felt that his smallclothes were done for,and Mr. Channingʼs fashionable cut gone almost as prematurely as the critic who had condemned it.“Let me now consider,” said Mr. Rosedew to himself, for about the fiftieth time; “it strikes me at the first sight—though I declare I canʼt see anything—would that I could not feel! for I confess that these legs are grievous; but putting aside that view or purview of the question, it strikes me that, having no Antigone to lead me from this, which certainly is the grove of the Eumenides—there is another ant gone up my leg—ʼingentis formica laboris.’ I wish he wouldnʼt work so hard, though, and I always have had the impression that they stayed in–doors in the winter. Mem. To consult Theophrastus, and compare him, as usual, with Pliny. Also look at the Geoponika, full of valuable hints—why there he is again, biting very hard or stinging. What says Aristophanes about the music of the gnats? Indelicate, I fear, as he too often is. Nay, nay, good ant, if indeed thou art an ant—— Why, what is that over yonder?”It was a dim light in the great hollow oak, “the Murdererʼs Tree,” as they called it, not a hundred yards from John Rosedew.The parson approached it cautiously, for he knew that desperate men, and criminals under a ban, still harboured sometimes in the Forest. As he drew nearer, the feeble light, glimmering through the entrance, showed him at once what tree it was, because the rays glanced through twodark holes under the bulging and beetling brow, which peasants call “the eyes of God.”John Rosedew was as brave a man as ever wept for anotherʼs grief, or with the word of God assuaged it. No man could have less superstition, unless (as some would have us believe) all religion is that. Upon this point we will not be persuaded, until we have seen them live the better, and die the more calmly for holding it. Yet John Rosedew, so firmly set, so full of faith in his Maker, so far above childish fears (which spring from the absence of our Father),—he, who having injured none had no dread of any, yet drew back and trembled greatly at the sight before him.A small reflector–lamp, with the wick overhung with fungus, stood upon a knotted niche in the hollow of the tree. By it, and with his face and eyes set towards the earth, a tall and powerful man, stripped to the waist, was leaning, with one great arm beneath his forehead, and bloody stripes across his back. The drooping of his figure, the woe in every vein of it, the deep and everlasting despair in every bone—it was an extremity of our human nature, which neither chisel nor pen may approach, nor even the mind of man conceive, until it has been through it.Presently the man upraised his massive head, and scorned himself for being so effeminate. He had nearly fainted with the pain; what right hadhe to feel it? Why should his paltry body quail at a flea–bite lash or so, when body and soul were damned for ever?But if his form had told of sorrow, great God, what did his face tell? He never sighed, nor groaned, nor moaned; his woe was beyond such trumpery; he simply took the heavy scourge from the murdererʼs grave, upon which it had dropped when the swoon came over him, and, standing well forth in the black hollowʼs centre, to gain full swing for his scorpion thongs, he lashed himself over back and round breast, with the utmost strength of his mighty arms, with every corded muscle leaping, but not a sign of pain on his face, nor a nerve of his body flinching. Then, at last, he fell away, and allowed himself to moan a little.John Rosedew would have leaped forward at once, in his horror at such self–cruelty, but that he saw who it was, and knew how his meddling would be taken. He knew that Bull Garnetʼs religious views were very strange and peculiar, and never must be meddled with, except at his own request, and at seasonable moments. Yet he had never dreamed that self–chastisement was part of them.“Garnet a wild flagellant!” said the parson to himself; “well, I knew that he was an enthusiast, but never dreamed that he was a fanatic. And how shockingly hard he hits himself! Strong as Dr. Mastix at Sherborne; but the doctor tookgood care never to hit himself. Upon my word, I must run away. It is too sad to laugh at. What resolution that man must have! He scarcely feels the blows in the agony of his mind. I must reason with him about it, if I ever can find occasion. With such violation of His image, God cannot be well pleased.”Meditating deeply upon this strange affair, the parson plodded homewards, for now he knew his way, with the Murdererʼs Oak for his landmark. At last he saw his quiet home, and gave a very gentle knock, because it was so late.The door was opened by Amy herself, pale, excited, and jumping.“Oh, daddy, daddy!” Chock—chock—chock—such a lot of kisses, and both arms round his neck.“Corculum, voluptas, glycymelon, anima mea——”“Oh, papa, say ‘Amy dear,’ and then I shall know it is you.”Then she laughed, and then she cried, and presently fell to at kissing again. I am afraid she proved herself a fool; but allowance must be made for her, because she had never learned before how to get on without her father.“Oh, you beautiful love of a daddy! I was quite sure you would come, you know; that you could not leave me any longer; so I would not listen to a single word any one of them said. And I kept the kitchen fire up, and a good firein your pet room, dear; and I have got such a supper for you! Now, off with your coat in a minute, darling. Oh, how poorly you look, my own father! But we will soon put you to rights again. Aunt Doxy is gone to bed, hurrah! and so are Jemima and Jenny. And she wonʼt have the impudence to come down, with all her hair in the jelly–bags, so I shall have you all to myself, dada; and if any one can deserve you, I do.”“My own pet child, my warm–hearted dear,” said John, with the tears in his eyes; “I had not the least idea that your mind was so ill–regulated. We must have a course of choriambics together, or the heavy trimacrine dimeter, as I have ventured to name it, about which——”“About which not another short syllable, till you have had a light tri–mackerel supper, and not a quasi–cæsura left even.”“Why, Amy, you are getting quite witty!” And John, with one arm still in his overcoat, looked at her bright eyes wonderingly.“Of course I am, dad, when you come home. My learning sparkles at sight of you. Come, quick now, for fear of my eating you before you begin your supper. Youʼll have it in the kitchen, you know, dear, because it will be so much nicer; and then a pipe by the book–room fire, and a chat with your good little daughter. O father, father, mind you never go away from me such a long, long time again.”John thought to himself that, ere many years,he must go away from his Amy for much more than a fortnight; but of course he would not damp her young joy with any such troubles now.“If you please, my meritorious father, you will come to the door, and just smell them; and then you will have five minutes allowed you to put on your dear old dressing–gown, and the slippers worked by the Vestal virgins; five minutes by the kitchen clock, and not a book to be touched, mind. Now, donʼt they smell lovely? I put them on when I knew your knock. The first mackerel of the season, only caught this afternoon. I sent word to Mr. Pell for them. He can do what he likes with the fishermen. And you know as well as I do, papa, you can never resist a mackerel.”When John came down, half the table was covered with some of his favourite authors—not that she meant to let him read, but only because he would miss his books a great deal more than the salt–cellar—and the other half she was bleaching, and smoothing, and stroking with a snowy cloth, soft and sleek as her own bare arms, setting all things in lovely order, and looking at her father every moment, with the skirt of her frock pinned up, and her glossy hair dancing jigs on the velvet slope of her shoulders. And she made him hungrier every moment by savoury word and choice innuendo.“Worcester sauce, pa, darling, and a little of the very best butter, not mixed up with flour, youknow, but melting on them, like their native element. Just see how they are browning, and not a bit of the skin come off. What is it about the rhombus, pa, and when am I to read Juvenal?”“Never, my child.”“Very well, pa, dear, you know best, of course; but I thought it was very nice about weighing Hannibal, in the Excerpta. Father, put that book down; I canʼt allow any reading. And after supper I shall expect you to spin me such a yarn, dear, to wind up the thread of your adventures.”“Τολυπεύειν,” said John, calmly, although he was so hungry; “the very word poor Cradock used in his rendering of that dirge—“‘Μόχθον οὕνεκα τὸν κατʼ ἦμαρἘκτολυπέσας οἴκαδε,Μισθὸν φερων, ἤνυσας.’Oh, I forgot; ah yes, to be sure. A word, I mean, which expresses in a figurative and yet homely manner——”“Cradock, papa! Oh, father, have you been with him in London? Oh, how Aunt Doxy has cheated me! You know very well, my own father, that you cannot tell me a story. Did you go to London because poor Cradock was very, very ill?”“Yes,” said her father, those soft bright eyes beamed into his so appealingly; “my own child, your Cradock is very ill indeed.”“Not dead, father? Oh, not dead?”“No, my child; nor in any great danger, I sincerely believe, just at present.”“Then eat your supper, pa, while it is hot. I am so glad you have seen him. I am quite content with that.”She believed, or she would not have said it. And yet how far from the truth it was!“You shall tell me all after supper, my father. Thank God for His mercies to me. I am never in a hurry, dear.”Yet Amy, in dishing up the mackerel, had the greatest difficulty (for her breath came short, and her breast heaved fast) in holding back the tide of hysterics, which would have spoiled her fatherʼs supper.“My amulet, I cannot eat a morsel while I see your hand shake. Darling, I must tell you all; I cannot bear your anxiety.”The second mackerel, a fish of no manners, instead of curling his tail at the frying, had glued it to the pan, until a tear of Amyʼs fried, and then he let go in a moment. John Rosedew caught his darling child, and drew her to his knees, with the frying–pan in her hand; and then he made her look at him, and she tried to have her eyes dry. Do what she might she could not speak, only to let her neck rise, and her drooping eyelids tremble.“My own lifeʼs love, I have told you the worst. God is very good to us. Cradock has been at the point of death, but now he is better a little. Only his mind is in danger. And it must come home very slowly, if it comes at all. Now, darling, you know everything.”She took his magnificent silvery head between her little white hands, and kissed him twice on either brow, but not a word she said.“My own sweet child,” cried her father, slowly passing one arm around her, and swindling his heart of a smile; “I am apt to make the worst of things. Let us try to be braver, or at least to have more faith.”She leaped up at that very word, with the dawn of a glorious smile in her eyes, and she took the frying–pan once again, and eased out, with a white–handled knife, mackerel No. 3. But, upon second thoughts, she let him slide into the frizzle again, to keep him warm and comfortable. Her heart was down very deep just now, but for all that, her father must have and must enjoy his supper.“Father, I am all right now. Only eat your supper, dear. What a selfish thing I am!”“Have a bit, my darling heart.”“Yes, I will have a bit of tail, pa, just to test my cookery. Thatʼs what I call frying! Look at the blue upon him, and the crisp brown shooting over it! Come, daddy, no nonsense, if you please. I could have eaten all three of them if I had only been out on the warren. And you to come starving from London! Now No. 3, papa, if you please.” But she kept her face away from him, and bent her neck peculiarly.“How beautifully fresh this ale is! Oh, the stuff they sell in London! I am almost inclinedto consider the result of taking another half glass.”Her quick feet went pat on the cellar–steps, while her father was yet perpending; and she came back not a whit out of breath, but sweetly fresh and excited.“Such a race, pa; because I know of one family of cockroaches, and half suspect another. They are so very imprudent. Robert Garnet says that they stay at home, and keep their Christmas domestically, and I need not run for fear of them, at least till the end of April. And perhaps he is right, because he knows and studies everything nasty. Only I canʼt believe what he says about ants, because it contradicts Solomon, who was so very much older. Now, you paternal darling, let me froth it up for you.”“Thank the Lord for as good a meal as ever one of His children was blessed with.”The parson stood up as he said these words, and put his thick but not large hands together, among the crumbs on the tablecloth.“Now, if you please, the leastest—double superlative, pa, you know, likeπρώτιστος, and something else—oh, they will pluck me at Oxford!—the very leastest little drop of the old French cognac we bought for parochial rheumatism, with one thin slice of lemon, an ebullition of water, and half a knob of sugar.”Before John could remonstrate, there it was, allwinking at him, and begging to be sniffed before sipping.“My pet, you are so premature. How can I trust your future? You never give me time to consider a subject, even in the first of its bearings.”“To be sure not, father. You know quite well you would take at least eight different views of the matter, and multiply them into eight others of people I never heard of. Now the pipe, dear. You shall have it here, because it is so much warmer. You know you canʼt fill it properly.”So the parson, happy in having a child who could fill a pipe better than he could, leaned back in his favourite chair, which Amy had wheeled in for him, and held his long clay in his left hand, while his right played with her hair, as she sat at his feet, and coaxed him.“Sermon all ready, dear?”“Well, you know best about that, Amy; I always trust you to arrange them.”“Never fear, papa; leave it to me. What would you do without me? I have put you out such a beauty, because it is Christmas Day: one that always makes me cry, because I have heard it so often. But you must have confidence in me.”“Implicit confidence, my pet. Still I like to run my eyes over them, for I cannot see as I did. My eyes are getting so old.”“Iʼll kiss them till you canʼt see one bit, if you dare to say that again, papa. Old, indeed! Theyare better than mine. And I can see the pattern of a lady–bird, all across the room. There was a lady–bird on the window to–day. At this time of year, only think! That was good luck, wasnʼt it? And a dear little robin flew in, and perched upon the hat–pegs; and then Iknewthat you must come home.”“Oh, you superstitious pet! I must reason with you to–morrow.”END OF VOL. II.LONDON:PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.

CHAPTER XV.Cradock Nowell had written from London to the Parsonage once, and once only. He told them how he had changed his name, because his father had cast him off; and (as he bitterly added), according to filial promise, he felt himself bound to be Nowell no longer. But he did not say what name he had taken, neither did he give any address; only he would write again when he had found some good situation. Of course he longed to hear from Amy—his own loving Amy, who begged that poor letter and bore it in her own pure bosom long after the Queenʼs head came off—but his young pride still lay hot upon him, and for Amyʼs sake he nursed it.A young man is never so proud of his honour, so prompt to deny himself anything, so strong in anotherʼs lifehold, and careless about his own living, as when he has won a true loveʼs worth, and sees itabiding for ever. Few are the good who have such luck—for the success is not of merit, any more than it is in other things; more often indeed some fish–tailed coxcomb is a womanʼs Dagon, doubly worshipped for crushing her—but when that luck does fall to the lot of a simple and honest young fellow, he piles his triple mountains up to the everlasting heaven, but makes no Babel of them. A man who chatters about his love soon exhausts himself or his subject.John Rosedew, after receiving that letter, shut every book on his table, chairs, and desk, and chimney–piece. He must think what to do, and how: and he never could think hard on the flints of daily life, while the green pastures of the dead were tempting his wayward steps away. Of course he would go to London at once, by the very next train; but whether or no should he tell his people the reason of his going? He felt so strongly inclined to tell, even at risk of domestic hysterics and parochial convulsions, that he resolved at last not to tell; for he thought of the great philosopherʼs maxim (not perhaps irrefragable), that when the right hangs dubious, we may safely conclude that it rides in the scale swinging opposite to our own wishes. To most of us (not having a quarter of John Rosedewʼs ability, and therefore likely to be a hundred times less hesitant) it seems that the maxim holds good with ourselves, or any other common mortal, but makes Truth actually cut her own throat when applied to a mind like his—amind already too timorously and humorously self–conscious.Let 99,000 angels get on the top of John Rosedewʼs pen—which generally had a great hair in it—and dance afaux pasover that question, if it was laid the wrong way; for we, whose consciences must work in corduroys and highlows, roughly conclude that right and wrong are but as button and button–hole when it comes to a question of hair–splitting. Blest are they whose conscience–edge, like the sword of Thor, can halve every wisp of wool afloat upon the brook of life.After breakfast John mounted Coræbus, leaving a short farewell, and set off hastily with the old–fashioned valise behind the saddle, wherein he was wont to bear wine and confections upon his parochial tours. The high–mettled steed was again amazed at the pace that could be pumped out of him; neither did he long continue ingloriously mute, but woke the echoes of Ytene with many a noble roar and shriek, so that consternation shook the heart of deer and pig and cow. But the parson did not exult as usual in these proofs of velocity, because his soul within him was sad; nevertheless he preserved cohesion, or at least coincidence, in an admirable manner, with his feet thrust strenuously into the stirrups, his bridle–hand thrown in great emergencies upon the peak of the saddle, and whip–hand reposing on the leathern outwork, which guarded and burnished his rear. Anchored thus by both strong arms—for the sakeof his mission and family—he felt capable of jumping a gate, if Coræbus had equal confidence.That evening he entered the Ducksacre shop, and found no one there but the mistress.“Pray excuse me, but I have been told, maʼam,” said John Rosedew, lifting his hat—as he always did to a matron—and bowing his silvery head, “that you have a lodger here who is very ill.”“Yes, sir,” replied Mrs. Ducksacre, fetching her breath very quickly, “and dead, too, for all I know. Oh Lord, I am so put upon!”The soft–hearted parson was shocked at this apparent apathy; and thought her no true woman. Who is not wrong sometimes? It was a very rare thing for John Rosedew to judge man or woman harshly. But only half an hour ago that poor woman had been up–stairs, neglecting till, present and future, estranging some excellent customers, leaving a wanton shop–boy to play marbles with Spanish chestnuts, while she did her most misguided best to administer to sick Cradock soup wildly beyond her own economy, and furiously beyond his powers of deglutition.John Rosedew, with his stout legs shaking, and his stockings expressing excitement, went up three pairs (ill–assorted) of stairs into Cradockʼs sick room. Then he started back from the Aristophanic climax—even the rags of Telephus; though after all, Polly Ducksacre had done her best to make the room comely. Why, there were three potato–sacks on the bed, with the names ofFulham growers done in red letters upon them, and giving the room quite a bright appearance, as if newly–marked sheep were in it. Nay, and I could almost swear there were two bast mats from Covent Garden, gloriously fixed as bed curtains, mats from that noble market where a rat prays heaven vainly to grant him the coat of a water–rat.There, by Cradock Nowellʼs bed, sat the faithful untiring nurse, the woman who had absorbed such a quantity of strap, and had so kindly assimilated it. Meek–spirited Rachel Jupp waited and watched by the bed of him through whom she had been enfranchised. Since Issachar Jupp became a Christian she had not tasted the buckle–end once, and scarcely twice the tongue–end.She had been employed some years ago as a nurse in the Middlesex Hospital; so she knew her duties thoroughly. But here she had exceeding small chance of practising that knowledge; because scarcely anything which she wanted, and would have rung for, if there had been any bell, was ever to be found in the house. Even hot water, which the doctor had ordered, was cold again ere it came to her, and had taken an hour before it started; for there was no fireplace in the little room, nor even on the floor below it.Uncle John could scarcely keep from crying, as he looked at poor Craddy propped up in the bed there, with his lips so pale and bloodless, cheeks sunken in and shining like dry oyster–shells, butwith a round red spot in the centre, large eyes glaringly bright and starting, and red hot temples and shorn head swathed with dripping bandages; while now and then he raised his weak hands towards the surging tumult, and dropped them helpless on the sun–blind, tucked round him as part of his counterpane.“Ah, thatʼs the way, sir,” said Rachel, after she had risen and curtseyed, “thatʼs the way he go on now, all the day and all the night; and he have left off talking now altogether, only to moan and to wamble. He used to jump up in the bed at first, and shut his left eye, and put his arms like this, as if he was shooting at something; and it pleased him so when I give him the hair–broom. He would put the flat of it to his shoulder, and smile as if he see some game, and shoot at the door fifty times a day; and then scream and fall back and cover his eyes up. But he havenʼt done that these three days now; too weak, Iʼm afeard, too weak for it.”John Rosedew sighed heavily for the bright young mind, so tried above what it was able to bear; then, as he kissed the flaming forehead—sometimes flaming and sometimes icy—he thought that it might be the Fatherʼs mercy to obliterate sense of the evil. For the mind of the insane, or at least its precious part, is with Him, who showers afar both pain and pleasure, but keeps at home the happiness.“Can you send for the doctor at once, maʼam, or tell me where to find him?” The parson still keptto the ancient fashion, and addressed every woman past thirty as “maʼam,” whatever her rank or condition. As he spoke, a heavy man entered on tiptoe, and quietly moved them aside. A raw–boned, hulking fellow he was, with a slouch and a squint, made more impressive by a black eye in the third and most picturesque stage, when mauve, and lilac, and orange intone and soften sweetly off from the purple nucleus outward; as a boyʼs taw is, or used to be, shaded, with keen artistic feeling, in many a ring concentric, from the equator to the poles. Mr. Juppʼs face was a villainous one; as even the softest philanthropist would have been forced to acknowledge. The enormous jaws, the narrow forehead, the grisly, porkish eyebrows, the high cheek–bones, and the cunning skance gleam from the black, deep–ambushed squinters—all these were enough to warn any man who wished to get good out of Zakey Jupp that he must try to put it there first, and give it time to go to the devil and back, as we say that parsley–seed does.Mr. Jupp was a man of remarkable strength,—not active elastic Achillean vigour, nor even stalwart Ajacian bulk, but the sort of strength which sometimes vanquishes both of those, by outlasting,—a slouching, slow–to–come, long–to–go heft, that had scarcely found its proper wind when better–built men were exhausted.Men of this stamp are usually long–armed, big in the lungs and shoulders, small in the loins, knock–kneed, and splay–footed; in a word, shapedlike a John Dory, or a millerʼs thumb, or a banjo. They are not very “strong on their pins,” nor active; they generally get thrown in the first bout of wrestling before ever their muscles get warm; they cannot even run fast, and in jumping they spring from the heel; nevertheless, unless they are stricken quite senseless at the outset—and their heads for the most part are a deal too thick for that—the chances are that they make an example of the antagonist ere he is done with. And so, in Mr. Juppʼs recent duello with an Irish bully, who scoffed at Cradock, and said something low of his illness, the Englishman got the worst of it in the first round, the second, the third, and the fourth; but, just as Dan Sullivanʼs pals and backers were wild with delight and screeching, the brave bargee settled down on his marrow, and the real business began. After twenty–five rounds, the Tipperary Slasher had three men to carry him home, and looked fit for an inquest to sit upon, without making him any flatter.Now, Issachar being a very slow man, there was no chance that he would hurry over his present inspection of Cradock. For a very long time he looked at him from various points of view; then, at last, he shook his head, and poked his long black chin out.“Now this here wunna do, ye know. Iʼll fetch the doctor to ye, master, as ye seem to care for the pore young charp.”And Zakey Jupp, requiring no answer, wentslowly down the stairs, with a great hand on either wall to save noise; then at a long trot, rolling over all who came in his way, and rounding the corners, like a ship whose rudder–bands are broken, he followed the doctor from street to street, keeping up the same pace till he found him. Dr. Tink was coming out of a court not far from Marylebone–lane, where the small–pox always lay festering.“Yeʼll just corm street ‘long wi’ me to the poor charp as saved our Looey,” said Mr. Jupp, coolly getting into the brougham, and sitting in the place of honour, while he dragged Dr. Tink in by the collar, and set him upon the front seat. “Fire awa’ now for Martimer–straat,” he yelled to the wondering coachman, “and if ye dunna laither the narg, mind, Iʼll laither ye when we gits there.”The nag was leathered to Mr. Juppʼs satisfaction, and far beyond his own, and they arrived at the coal and cabbage shop before John Rosedew had finished reading a paper which Mrs. Jupp had shown him, thinking that it was a prescription.“He wrote it in his sleep, sir, without knowing a thing about it; in his sleep, or in his brain–wandering; I came in and found him at it, in the middle of the night; and my, how cold his fingers was, and his head so hot! We took it to three great chemists’ shops, but they could not make it up. They hadnʼt got all the drugs, they said, and they couldnʼt make out the quantities.”“Neither can I,” said John; “but it rings well,considering that the poor boy wrote it when his brain was weak with fever. The dialects are somewhat muddled, moreover; but we must not be hypercritical.”“No, sir, to be sure not. I am sure I meant no hypocrisy. Only you see it ainʼt Christian writing; and Mr. Clinkers shake his head at it, and say it come straight from the devil, and his hoof in every line of it.”“Mrs. Jupp, the Greek characters are beautiful, though some of the lines are not up to the mark. But, for my part, I wonder how any man can write mixed Greek in London. Nevertheless, I shall have great pleasure in talking it over with him, please God that he ever gets well. To think that his poor weary brain should still be hankering after his classics!”It was the dirge in Cymbeline put into Greek choral metre, and John Rosedewʼs tears flowed over the words, as Polydoreʼs had done, and Cadwalʼs.Unhappy Cradock! His misty brain had vapoured off in that sweet wild dirge, which hovers above, as if the freed soul lingered, for the clogged one to shake its wings to it.The parson was pondering and closing his wet eyes to recover his faith in God—whom best we see with the eyes shut, except when His stars are shining—while Issachar Jupp came up the stairs, poking Dr. Tink before him, because he stillthought it likely that the son of medicine would evaporate. The doctor, who knew his tricks and put up with them, lest anything worse might come of it, solaced his sense of dignity, when he got to the top, by a grand bow to Mr. Rosedew. John gave him the change in a kind one; then offered his hand, as he always did, being a man of the ancient fashion.While they were both looking sadly at Cradock, he sat up suddenly in the bed, and stretching forth his naked arms (wherein was little nourishment), laughed as an aged man does, and then nodded at them solemnly. His glazed eyes were so prominent, that their whites reflected the tint of the rings around them.“Ladies and gentlemen, stop him if you please, and give him a pen and ink, and my best hat to write on. Oh, donʼt let him go by.”“Stop whom, my dear sir?” asked the doctor, putting out his arms as if to do it. “Now Iʼve stopped him. Whatʼs his name?”“The golden lad. Oh, donʼt you know? You canʼt have got him, if you donʼt. The golden lad that came from heaven to tell me I did not do it, that I didnʼt do it, do it, sir—all a mistake altogether. It makes me laugh, I declare it does; it makes me laugh for an hour, every time he comes, because they were all so wise. All but my Amy, my Amy; she was such a foolish little thing, she never would hear a word of it. And now I callyou all to witness, obtestor, antestor, one, two, three, four, five; let him put it down on a sheet of foolscap, with room enough for the names below it; all the ladies and gentlemen put their names in double column, and get Mr. Clinkers, if you can, and Jenny, to go at the bottom; only be particular about the double column, ladies one side, gentlemen the other, like a country dance, you know, or the ‘carmen sæculare,’ and at the bottom, right across, Miss Amy Rosedewʼs name.”The contemplation of that last beatitude was too much for the poor fellow; he fell back, faint on the pillow, and the shop–blind, untucked by his blissful emotions, rattled its rings on the floor.“Blow me if I can stand it,” cried Issachar Jupp, going down three stairs at a step; and when he came back his face looked clearer, and he said something about a noggin. Mrs. Ducksacre bolted after him, for business must be attended to.“Will he ever be right again, poor fellow? Dr. Tink, I implore you to tell me your opinion sincerely.”“Then I cannot say thatI thinkhe will. Still, I have some hopes of it. Much will depend upon the original strength of the cerebellum, and the regularity of his previous habits. If he has led a wild, loose life, he has no chance whatever of sanity.”“No, he has led a most healthy life—temperate, gentle, and equable. His brain has always beenclear and vigorous, without being too creative. He was one of the soundest scholars for his age I have ever met with.”“But he had some terrible blow, eh?”“Oh yes, a most terrible blow.”John thought what a terrible blow it would be to his own lifeʼs life, if the issue went against him, and for tears he could ask no more.

Cradock Nowell had written from London to the Parsonage once, and once only. He told them how he had changed his name, because his father had cast him off; and (as he bitterly added), according to filial promise, he felt himself bound to be Nowell no longer. But he did not say what name he had taken, neither did he give any address; only he would write again when he had found some good situation. Of course he longed to hear from Amy—his own loving Amy, who begged that poor letter and bore it in her own pure bosom long after the Queenʼs head came off—but his young pride still lay hot upon him, and for Amyʼs sake he nursed it.

A young man is never so proud of his honour, so prompt to deny himself anything, so strong in anotherʼs lifehold, and careless about his own living, as when he has won a true loveʼs worth, and sees itabiding for ever. Few are the good who have such luck—for the success is not of merit, any more than it is in other things; more often indeed some fish–tailed coxcomb is a womanʼs Dagon, doubly worshipped for crushing her—but when that luck does fall to the lot of a simple and honest young fellow, he piles his triple mountains up to the everlasting heaven, but makes no Babel of them. A man who chatters about his love soon exhausts himself or his subject.

John Rosedew, after receiving that letter, shut every book on his table, chairs, and desk, and chimney–piece. He must think what to do, and how: and he never could think hard on the flints of daily life, while the green pastures of the dead were tempting his wayward steps away. Of course he would go to London at once, by the very next train; but whether or no should he tell his people the reason of his going? He felt so strongly inclined to tell, even at risk of domestic hysterics and parochial convulsions, that he resolved at last not to tell; for he thought of the great philosopherʼs maxim (not perhaps irrefragable), that when the right hangs dubious, we may safely conclude that it rides in the scale swinging opposite to our own wishes. To most of us (not having a quarter of John Rosedewʼs ability, and therefore likely to be a hundred times less hesitant) it seems that the maxim holds good with ourselves, or any other common mortal, but makes Truth actually cut her own throat when applied to a mind like his—amind already too timorously and humorously self–conscious.

Let 99,000 angels get on the top of John Rosedewʼs pen—which generally had a great hair in it—and dance afaux pasover that question, if it was laid the wrong way; for we, whose consciences must work in corduroys and highlows, roughly conclude that right and wrong are but as button and button–hole when it comes to a question of hair–splitting. Blest are they whose conscience–edge, like the sword of Thor, can halve every wisp of wool afloat upon the brook of life.

After breakfast John mounted Coræbus, leaving a short farewell, and set off hastily with the old–fashioned valise behind the saddle, wherein he was wont to bear wine and confections upon his parochial tours. The high–mettled steed was again amazed at the pace that could be pumped out of him; neither did he long continue ingloriously mute, but woke the echoes of Ytene with many a noble roar and shriek, so that consternation shook the heart of deer and pig and cow. But the parson did not exult as usual in these proofs of velocity, because his soul within him was sad; nevertheless he preserved cohesion, or at least coincidence, in an admirable manner, with his feet thrust strenuously into the stirrups, his bridle–hand thrown in great emergencies upon the peak of the saddle, and whip–hand reposing on the leathern outwork, which guarded and burnished his rear. Anchored thus by both strong arms—for the sakeof his mission and family—he felt capable of jumping a gate, if Coræbus had equal confidence.

That evening he entered the Ducksacre shop, and found no one there but the mistress.

“Pray excuse me, but I have been told, maʼam,” said John Rosedew, lifting his hat—as he always did to a matron—and bowing his silvery head, “that you have a lodger here who is very ill.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mrs. Ducksacre, fetching her breath very quickly, “and dead, too, for all I know. Oh Lord, I am so put upon!”

The soft–hearted parson was shocked at this apparent apathy; and thought her no true woman. Who is not wrong sometimes? It was a very rare thing for John Rosedew to judge man or woman harshly. But only half an hour ago that poor woman had been up–stairs, neglecting till, present and future, estranging some excellent customers, leaving a wanton shop–boy to play marbles with Spanish chestnuts, while she did her most misguided best to administer to sick Cradock soup wildly beyond her own economy, and furiously beyond his powers of deglutition.

John Rosedew, with his stout legs shaking, and his stockings expressing excitement, went up three pairs (ill–assorted) of stairs into Cradockʼs sick room. Then he started back from the Aristophanic climax—even the rags of Telephus; though after all, Polly Ducksacre had done her best to make the room comely. Why, there were three potato–sacks on the bed, with the names ofFulham growers done in red letters upon them, and giving the room quite a bright appearance, as if newly–marked sheep were in it. Nay, and I could almost swear there were two bast mats from Covent Garden, gloriously fixed as bed curtains, mats from that noble market where a rat prays heaven vainly to grant him the coat of a water–rat.

There, by Cradock Nowellʼs bed, sat the faithful untiring nurse, the woman who had absorbed such a quantity of strap, and had so kindly assimilated it. Meek–spirited Rachel Jupp waited and watched by the bed of him through whom she had been enfranchised. Since Issachar Jupp became a Christian she had not tasted the buckle–end once, and scarcely twice the tongue–end.

She had been employed some years ago as a nurse in the Middlesex Hospital; so she knew her duties thoroughly. But here she had exceeding small chance of practising that knowledge; because scarcely anything which she wanted, and would have rung for, if there had been any bell, was ever to be found in the house. Even hot water, which the doctor had ordered, was cold again ere it came to her, and had taken an hour before it started; for there was no fireplace in the little room, nor even on the floor below it.

Uncle John could scarcely keep from crying, as he looked at poor Craddy propped up in the bed there, with his lips so pale and bloodless, cheeks sunken in and shining like dry oyster–shells, butwith a round red spot in the centre, large eyes glaringly bright and starting, and red hot temples and shorn head swathed with dripping bandages; while now and then he raised his weak hands towards the surging tumult, and dropped them helpless on the sun–blind, tucked round him as part of his counterpane.

“Ah, thatʼs the way, sir,” said Rachel, after she had risen and curtseyed, “thatʼs the way he go on now, all the day and all the night; and he have left off talking now altogether, only to moan and to wamble. He used to jump up in the bed at first, and shut his left eye, and put his arms like this, as if he was shooting at something; and it pleased him so when I give him the hair–broom. He would put the flat of it to his shoulder, and smile as if he see some game, and shoot at the door fifty times a day; and then scream and fall back and cover his eyes up. But he havenʼt done that these three days now; too weak, Iʼm afeard, too weak for it.”

John Rosedew sighed heavily for the bright young mind, so tried above what it was able to bear; then, as he kissed the flaming forehead—sometimes flaming and sometimes icy—he thought that it might be the Fatherʼs mercy to obliterate sense of the evil. For the mind of the insane, or at least its precious part, is with Him, who showers afar both pain and pleasure, but keeps at home the happiness.

“Can you send for the doctor at once, maʼam, or tell me where to find him?” The parson still keptto the ancient fashion, and addressed every woman past thirty as “maʼam,” whatever her rank or condition. As he spoke, a heavy man entered on tiptoe, and quietly moved them aside. A raw–boned, hulking fellow he was, with a slouch and a squint, made more impressive by a black eye in the third and most picturesque stage, when mauve, and lilac, and orange intone and soften sweetly off from the purple nucleus outward; as a boyʼs taw is, or used to be, shaded, with keen artistic feeling, in many a ring concentric, from the equator to the poles. Mr. Juppʼs face was a villainous one; as even the softest philanthropist would have been forced to acknowledge. The enormous jaws, the narrow forehead, the grisly, porkish eyebrows, the high cheek–bones, and the cunning skance gleam from the black, deep–ambushed squinters—all these were enough to warn any man who wished to get good out of Zakey Jupp that he must try to put it there first, and give it time to go to the devil and back, as we say that parsley–seed does.

Mr. Jupp was a man of remarkable strength,—not active elastic Achillean vigour, nor even stalwart Ajacian bulk, but the sort of strength which sometimes vanquishes both of those, by outlasting,—a slouching, slow–to–come, long–to–go heft, that had scarcely found its proper wind when better–built men were exhausted.

Men of this stamp are usually long–armed, big in the lungs and shoulders, small in the loins, knock–kneed, and splay–footed; in a word, shapedlike a John Dory, or a millerʼs thumb, or a banjo. They are not very “strong on their pins,” nor active; they generally get thrown in the first bout of wrestling before ever their muscles get warm; they cannot even run fast, and in jumping they spring from the heel; nevertheless, unless they are stricken quite senseless at the outset—and their heads for the most part are a deal too thick for that—the chances are that they make an example of the antagonist ere he is done with. And so, in Mr. Juppʼs recent duello with an Irish bully, who scoffed at Cradock, and said something low of his illness, the Englishman got the worst of it in the first round, the second, the third, and the fourth; but, just as Dan Sullivanʼs pals and backers were wild with delight and screeching, the brave bargee settled down on his marrow, and the real business began. After twenty–five rounds, the Tipperary Slasher had three men to carry him home, and looked fit for an inquest to sit upon, without making him any flatter.

Now, Issachar being a very slow man, there was no chance that he would hurry over his present inspection of Cradock. For a very long time he looked at him from various points of view; then, at last, he shook his head, and poked his long black chin out.

“Now this here wunna do, ye know. Iʼll fetch the doctor to ye, master, as ye seem to care for the pore young charp.”

And Zakey Jupp, requiring no answer, wentslowly down the stairs, with a great hand on either wall to save noise; then at a long trot, rolling over all who came in his way, and rounding the corners, like a ship whose rudder–bands are broken, he followed the doctor from street to street, keeping up the same pace till he found him. Dr. Tink was coming out of a court not far from Marylebone–lane, where the small–pox always lay festering.

“Yeʼll just corm street ‘long wi’ me to the poor charp as saved our Looey,” said Mr. Jupp, coolly getting into the brougham, and sitting in the place of honour, while he dragged Dr. Tink in by the collar, and set him upon the front seat. “Fire awa’ now for Martimer–straat,” he yelled to the wondering coachman, “and if ye dunna laither the narg, mind, Iʼll laither ye when we gits there.”

The nag was leathered to Mr. Juppʼs satisfaction, and far beyond his own, and they arrived at the coal and cabbage shop before John Rosedew had finished reading a paper which Mrs. Jupp had shown him, thinking that it was a prescription.

“He wrote it in his sleep, sir, without knowing a thing about it; in his sleep, or in his brain–wandering; I came in and found him at it, in the middle of the night; and my, how cold his fingers was, and his head so hot! We took it to three great chemists’ shops, but they could not make it up. They hadnʼt got all the drugs, they said, and they couldnʼt make out the quantities.”

“Neither can I,” said John; “but it rings well,considering that the poor boy wrote it when his brain was weak with fever. The dialects are somewhat muddled, moreover; but we must not be hypercritical.”

“No, sir, to be sure not. I am sure I meant no hypocrisy. Only you see it ainʼt Christian writing; and Mr. Clinkers shake his head at it, and say it come straight from the devil, and his hoof in every line of it.”

“Mrs. Jupp, the Greek characters are beautiful, though some of the lines are not up to the mark. But, for my part, I wonder how any man can write mixed Greek in London. Nevertheless, I shall have great pleasure in talking it over with him, please God that he ever gets well. To think that his poor weary brain should still be hankering after his classics!”

It was the dirge in Cymbeline put into Greek choral metre, and John Rosedewʼs tears flowed over the words, as Polydoreʼs had done, and Cadwalʼs.

Unhappy Cradock! His misty brain had vapoured off in that sweet wild dirge, which hovers above, as if the freed soul lingered, for the clogged one to shake its wings to it.

The parson was pondering and closing his wet eyes to recover his faith in God—whom best we see with the eyes shut, except when His stars are shining—while Issachar Jupp came up the stairs, poking Dr. Tink before him, because he stillthought it likely that the son of medicine would evaporate. The doctor, who knew his tricks and put up with them, lest anything worse might come of it, solaced his sense of dignity, when he got to the top, by a grand bow to Mr. Rosedew. John gave him the change in a kind one; then offered his hand, as he always did, being a man of the ancient fashion.

While they were both looking sadly at Cradock, he sat up suddenly in the bed, and stretching forth his naked arms (wherein was little nourishment), laughed as an aged man does, and then nodded at them solemnly. His glazed eyes were so prominent, that their whites reflected the tint of the rings around them.

“Ladies and gentlemen, stop him if you please, and give him a pen and ink, and my best hat to write on. Oh, donʼt let him go by.”

“Stop whom, my dear sir?” asked the doctor, putting out his arms as if to do it. “Now Iʼve stopped him. Whatʼs his name?”

“The golden lad. Oh, donʼt you know? You canʼt have got him, if you donʼt. The golden lad that came from heaven to tell me I did not do it, that I didnʼt do it, do it, sir—all a mistake altogether. It makes me laugh, I declare it does; it makes me laugh for an hour, every time he comes, because they were all so wise. All but my Amy, my Amy; she was such a foolish little thing, she never would hear a word of it. And now I callyou all to witness, obtestor, antestor, one, two, three, four, five; let him put it down on a sheet of foolscap, with room enough for the names below it; all the ladies and gentlemen put their names in double column, and get Mr. Clinkers, if you can, and Jenny, to go at the bottom; only be particular about the double column, ladies one side, gentlemen the other, like a country dance, you know, or the ‘carmen sæculare,’ and at the bottom, right across, Miss Amy Rosedewʼs name.”

The contemplation of that last beatitude was too much for the poor fellow; he fell back, faint on the pillow, and the shop–blind, untucked by his blissful emotions, rattled its rings on the floor.

“Blow me if I can stand it,” cried Issachar Jupp, going down three stairs at a step; and when he came back his face looked clearer, and he said something about a noggin. Mrs. Ducksacre bolted after him, for business must be attended to.

“Will he ever be right again, poor fellow? Dr. Tink, I implore you to tell me your opinion sincerely.”

“Then I cannot say thatI thinkhe will. Still, I have some hopes of it. Much will depend upon the original strength of the cerebellum, and the regularity of his previous habits. If he has led a wild, loose life, he has no chance whatever of sanity.”

“No, he has led a most healthy life—temperate, gentle, and equable. His brain has always beenclear and vigorous, without being too creative. He was one of the soundest scholars for his age I have ever met with.”

“But he had some terrible blow, eh?”

“Oh yes, a most terrible blow.”

John thought what a terrible blow it would be to his own lifeʼs life, if the issue went against him, and for tears he could ask no more.

CHAPTER XVI.The good people assembled in Nowelhurst church were agreeably surprised, on the following Sunday, by the announcement from Mr. Pell—in that loud sonorous voice of his, which had frightened spinsters out of their wits, lest he were forbidding, instead of asking their banns of matrimony—that there would be no sermon that morning, inasmuch as he, the Rev. Octavius, was forced to hurry away, at full speed, to assuage the rampant desire of Rushford for the performance of divine service.Mrs. Nowell Corklemore, who had the great curtained pew of the Hall entirely to herself and child—for Eoa never would go to church, because they defy the devil there—Georgie, who appeased her active mind by counting the brass–headed nails, and then multiplying them into each other, and subtracting the ones that were broken, liftedher indescribable eyes, and said, “Thank God,” almost audibly.Octavius Pell, hurrying out of the porch, ascended Coræbus, as had been arranged; but he did it so rapidly, and with such an air of decision, that Amy, standing at the churchyard gate, full of beautiful misgivings, could not help exclaiming,“Oh please, Mr. Pell, whatever you do, leave your stick here till Monday. We will take such care of it.”“Indeed, I fear I must not, Miss Rosedew,” Octavius answered, gravely, looking first at his stick, and then at the flanks of Ræby, who was full of interesting tricks; “I have so far to go, you know, and I must try to keep time with them.—Whoa, you little villain!”“Oh dear, I am so sorry. At any rate please not to strike him, onlystrokehim with it. He is soveryhigh–spirited. And he has never had a weal upon him, at least since he came to papa. And I could not bear to see it. And I know you wonʼt, Mr. Pell.”Octavius looked at the soft–hearted girl, blushing so in her new drawn bonnet—mauve with black, for the sake of poor Clayton. He looked at her out of his knowing dry eyes in that sort of response–to–the–Litany style which a curate adopts to his rectorʼs daughter.“Can you suppose, Miss Rosedew, that I would have the heart to beat him now?—Ah, you will, will you then?” Ræbus thought better of it.“No, I hope you would not,” said Amy, in pure good faith, with a glance, however, at the thick bamboo, “because it would beso cruel. It is hollow, I hope; but it has such knots, and it looks so very hard!”“Hollow, and thin as a piece of pie–crust; and you know how this wood splits.”“Oh, I am so glad, because you canʼt hurt him so very much. Please not to go, if you can hold him, more than three miles and a half an hour. Papa says that is the pace that always suits his health best. And please to take the saddle off, and keep it at your house, that the Rushford boy may not ride him back. And please to choose a steady boy from the head–class in your Sunday school, and, if possible, a communicant. But Iʼm sadly afraid thereʼs no trusting the boys.”“Indeed, I fear not,” said Octavius, gravely; and adding to himself, “at any rate when you are concerned, you darling. What a love you are! But thereʼs no chance for me, I know; and itʼs a good job for me that I knew it. Oh you little angel, I wonder who the lucky fellow is!” Aunt Eudoxia had dropped him a hint, quite in a casual way, when she saw that the stout young bachelor was going in, over head and ears.Sweet Amy watched Mr. Pell, or rather his steed, with fond interest, until they turned the corner; and certainly the pace, so far, was very sedate indeed. Octavius was an upright man—you could see that by his seat in the saddle—aswell as a kind and good–natured one; and on no account would he have vexed that gentle and beautiful girl. Nevertheless he grew impatient, as Coræbus pricked his ears pretentiously, and snorted so as to defy the winds, and was fain to travel sidewise, as if the distance was not enough for him; and all the time he was swallowing the earth at the rate of no more than four miles an hour. Then the young parson pulled out his watch, and saw that it wanted but half an hour of the time himself had fixed for the morning service at Rushford. And he could not bear the thought of keeping the poor folk waiting about the cross, as they always did and would wait, till the parson appeared among them. As Mr. Wise has well observed, “the peasant of the New Forest is too full of veneration.”And here let me acknowledge, as behoveth a man to do, not in a scambling preface, which nobody ever would read, but in the body of my work, great and loving obligation to the labours of Mr. John R. Wise. His book is perfectly beautiful, written in admirable English, full of observation, taste, and gentle learning; and the descriptions of scenery are such that they make the heart yearn to verify them. I know the New Forest pretty well, from my own perambulations and perequitations—one barbarism is no worse than the other—but I never should have loved it as I do but for his loving guidance.The Rev. Mr. Pell, as some people put when theywrite to a parson,—hoping still to keep faith with Amy, because her eyes were so lovely,—pulled the snaffle, and turned Coræbus into a short cut, through beeches and hazels. Then compromise came soon to an end, and the big bamboo was compelled to fall upon the fat flank of Coræbus, because he would not go without it. He showed sense of that first attention only by a little buck–jump, and a sprightly wag of his tail; then, hoping that the situation need not be looked in the face, shambled along at five miles an hour, with a mild responsibility.“Five miles more,” said Octave Pell, “and only twenty minutes to do it in! Itʼs an unlucky thing for you, Coræbus, that your mistress is engaged.” Whack, came the yellow bamboo again, and this time in solid earnest; Ræbus went off as if he meant to go mad. He had never known such a blow since the age wherein he belonged to the innkeeper. Oh, could a horse with four feeds a day be expected to put up with tyranny?But, to the naggyʼs great amazement, Octave Pell did not tumble off; more than that, he seemed to stick closer, with a most unpleasant embrace, and a pressure that told upon the wind—not of heaven but of horse—till the following symptoms appeared:—First a wheeze, and creak internal, a slow creak, like leather chafing, or a pair of bellows out of order; then a louder remonstrance, like the ironwork of a roller, or the gudgeons of a wheelbarrow; then, faster and faster, a suckingnoise, like the bucket of an old pump, when the gardener works by the job; finally, puff, and roar, and shriek, with notes of passing sadness, like the neap–tide wailing up a cavern, or the lament of the Berkshire Blowing Stone.In forest glades, where hollow hoofs fell on the sod quite mutely, that roar was enough to try masculine courage, though never unnerved by a heart–shock. How then could poor Pearl Garnet, sitting all alone, in a lonely spot, wherein she had pledged herself to her dead love, sitting there to indulge her tears, the only luxury left her—how could she help being frightened to death as the unearthly sound approached her?The terror was mutual. Coræbus, turning the corner sharply, stopped short, in a mode that must have sent his true master over his withers, to explore the nature of the evil. Then he shook all through, and would have bolted, if the bamboo had not fallen heavily.In the niche of a hollow oak was crouching, falling backward with terror, and clutching at the brave old bark, yet trying to hide behind it—only the snowy arms would come outwards—a beautiful girl, clad in summer white on that foggy day of December. The brown cloak, which had protected her from sylvan curiosity, lay on the ground, a few yards away, on the spot so sad and sacred. Pearl Garnetʼs grief, if we knew the whole of it, or perhaps because we cannot, was greater than any girl could bear. A lovely, young, and lovingmaid, with stores of imagination, yet a practical power of stowing it; of building castles, yet keeping them all within compass of the kitchen–range; quite different from our Amy, yet a better wife forsomemen—according to what the trumps are, and Amy must have hearts, or she dies;—that very nice girl, we have let her go weep, and never once cared to follow her. There is never any justice in this world; therefore who cares to apologise? It would take up all our business–time, if we did it properly.Now, as she stretched her white arms forth, and her delicate form shrunk back into the black embrace of the oak–tree; while her rich hair was streaming all down her breast, and her dark eyes still full of tear–drops; the rider no less than the horse was amazed, and seemed to behold a vision. Then as she shrunk away into the tree–bole, with a shriek of deadly terror—for what love casteth out fear?—and she saw not through the ivy–screen, and Coræbus groaned sepulchrally, Pell came down with a dash on one foot, and went, quick jump, to help her.In a fainting fit,—for the heart so firm and defiant in days of happiness was fluxed now and frail with misery—she was cowering away in the dark tree–nook, like the pearls of mistletoe fallen, with her head thrown back (such an elegant head, a womanʼs greatest beauty), and the round arms hanging helpless.Hereupon Mr. Pell was abroad. He had neverexperienced any sisters, nor much mother consciously—being the eighth son, as of course we know, of a jolly Yorkshire baronet; at any rate he had lost his mother at the birth of Nonus Pell; and I am sorry there are not ninety of them, if of equal merit.So Octavius stood like a fish out of water, with both hands in his pocket, as it is so generally the habit of fishes to stand.Then, meaning no especial harm, nor perhaps great good, for that matter, he said to himself—“Confound it all. What the deuce am I to do?”His sermon upon the Third Commandment, about to be preached at Rushford, where the fishermen swore like St. Peter,—that sermon went crack in his pocket at such a shocking ejaculation. Never heeding that, he went on to do what a stout fellow and a gentleman must have done in this emergency. He lifted the drooping figure forth into the open air, touching it only with his hands, timidly and reverently, as if every fair curve were sacred. Then he fetched water in his best Sunday hat—the only chimney–pot he possessed—from the stream trickling through the spire–bed; and he sprinkled it on the broad, white forehead, as if he were christening a baby.The moment he saw that her life was returning, and her deep grey eyes, quiet havens of sorrow, opened and asked where their owner was, and her breast rose like a billow in a place where two tidesmeet, that moment Octave laid her back against the rugged trunk, in the thick brown cloak which he had fetched when he went for the water; and wrapped it around her, delicately, as if she were taking a nap there.Oh, man of short pipes and hard, bachelor fare, for this thou deservest as good a wife as ever basted a leg of mutton!At last the young lady looked up at him with a deep–drawn sigh, and said—“I am afraid I have been very silly.”“No, indeed, you have not. But I am very sorry for you, because I am dreadfully clumsy.”She glanced at his snowy choker—which he never wore but on Sundays—and, being a very quick–witted young woman, she guessed at once who he was.“Oh, please to tell me—I hope the service is not over at Nowelhurst church.”“The service has been over for a quarter of an hour; because there was no sermon.”“Oh, what shall I do, then? What can I do? I had better never go home again.”This was said to herself in anguish, and Pell saw that he was not meant to hear it.“Can I go, please, to the Rectory? Mr. Rosedew is from home; but Iʼm sure they will give me shelter until my—until I am sent for. I have lost my way in the wood here.”This statement was none of the truest.“To be sure,” said the hasty parson, forgettingabout the Rushford bells, the rheumatic clerk, and the quid–chewing pilots—let them turn their quids a bit longer—“to be sure, I will take you there at once. Allow me to introduce myself. How very stupid of me! Octavius Pell, Mr. Rosedewʼs curate at Rushford.”Hereupon “Pello, pepuli, pulsum” (as his friends loved to call him from his driving powers at cricket, and to show that they knew some Latin) executed a noble salaam—quite of the modern school, however, and without the old reduplication (like the load on the back of Christian)—till the duckweed came out of his hat in a body, and fell into the flounce tucket of the beautiful Pearlʼs white skirt.She never looked, though she knew it was there—that girl understood her business—but curtseyed to him prettily, having recovered strength by this time; and there was something in his dry, manly tone, curt modesty, and breeding, without any flourish about it, which led the young maid to trust him, as if she had known him since tops and bottoms.“I am Pearl Garnet,” said she, imitating his style unconsciously, “the daughter—I mean I live at Nowelhurst Dell Cottage.”Coræbus had cut off for stable long ago, with three long weals from bamboo upon him, which he vowed he would show to Amy.“Please to take my arm, Miss Garnet. You are not very strong yet. I know your brotherwell; and a braver or more straightforward young gentleman never thought small things of himself after doing great ones.”Pearl was delighted to hear Bobʼs praises; and Mr. Pell treated that subject so cleverly, from every possible point of view, that she was quite astonished when she saw the Rectory side–gate, and Octavius, in the most light–hearted manner, made a sudden and warm farewell, and darted away for Rushford. How good it is for a sad, heavy heart to exchange with a gay and light one!“Hang it! after that let me have a burster!” was his clerical ejaculation, “or else it is all up with me. I hope we havenʼt spilt the sermon, though, or got any duckweed down it. Duckweed, indeed; what a duck she is! And oh, what splendid eyes!”He ran all the way to Rushford, at a pace unknown to Coræbus; and his governor–coat flew away behind him, with the sermon banging about, and the text peeping out under the pocket–lap. “Swear not at all,” were the words, I believe; and a rare good sermon it must have been, if it stuck to the text under the circumstances.The jolly old tars, after waiting an hour, orally refreshing their grandmothers’ epitaphs, and close–hauling on many a tight yarn, were just setting up stunʼsails to take grog on board at the “Luggerʼs Locker,” hard by, as the banyan time was over. Let them ship their grog, and their old women might keep gravy hot, and be blessed tothem. They had come there for sarvice, and shiver their timbers if theyʼd make sail till the chaplain came. Good faith, and they got their service at last, but an uncommonly short–winded one, a sermon, moreover, which each man felt coming admirably home—to his shipmate.Meanwhile, Mr. Pell had left behind no small excitement at Nowelhurst. For a rumour took wing after morning service—when the wings of fame are briskest in all country parishes—that parson John was gone to London to complain to the Queen that Sir Cradock Nowell never came to church now, nor even sent his agent thither, to manage matters for him. For Mr. Garnet still retained his stewardship among them, though longing to be quit of it, and discharging his duties silently, and not with his old pronouncement, because his health was weaker. The vivid power of vital force seemed to be failing the man who had stamped his character upon all people around him; because he never said a thing which he did not think, and scarcely ever thought a thing with any fear of saying it.Hitherto we have had of Bull Garnet by far the worse side uppermost. I will offer no excuses now for his too ready indulgence of his far too savage temper. In sooth, we meet with scarce any case in which excuses are undiscoverable. God and the angels find them always; our best earthly friends can see them, when properly pointed out;our enemies, when they want to make accusation of them.All I will say for Bull Garnet is (to invert the historianʼs sentence) “Hæc tanta viri vitia ingentes virtutes exæquabant”—“These blemishes, however dark, had grand qualities to redress them.” Strong affection, great scorn of falsehood, tenderness almost too womanly, liberality both of mind and heart, a real depth of sympathy—would all these co–exist with, or be lost in, one great vice? It appears to me that we are so toothed in, spliced and mortised, dovetailed, double–budded, and inarched, both of good and evil, that the wrong, instead of poisoning the right, often serves as guano to it. Nevertheless we had better be perfect—when we have found the way out.

The good people assembled in Nowelhurst church were agreeably surprised, on the following Sunday, by the announcement from Mr. Pell—in that loud sonorous voice of his, which had frightened spinsters out of their wits, lest he were forbidding, instead of asking their banns of matrimony—that there would be no sermon that morning, inasmuch as he, the Rev. Octavius, was forced to hurry away, at full speed, to assuage the rampant desire of Rushford for the performance of divine service.

Mrs. Nowell Corklemore, who had the great curtained pew of the Hall entirely to herself and child—for Eoa never would go to church, because they defy the devil there—Georgie, who appeased her active mind by counting the brass–headed nails, and then multiplying them into each other, and subtracting the ones that were broken, liftedher indescribable eyes, and said, “Thank God,” almost audibly.

Octavius Pell, hurrying out of the porch, ascended Coræbus, as had been arranged; but he did it so rapidly, and with such an air of decision, that Amy, standing at the churchyard gate, full of beautiful misgivings, could not help exclaiming,

“Oh please, Mr. Pell, whatever you do, leave your stick here till Monday. We will take such care of it.”

“Indeed, I fear I must not, Miss Rosedew,” Octavius answered, gravely, looking first at his stick, and then at the flanks of Ræby, who was full of interesting tricks; “I have so far to go, you know, and I must try to keep time with them.—Whoa, you little villain!”

“Oh dear, I am so sorry. At any rate please not to strike him, onlystrokehim with it. He is soveryhigh–spirited. And he has never had a weal upon him, at least since he came to papa. And I could not bear to see it. And I know you wonʼt, Mr. Pell.”

Octavius looked at the soft–hearted girl, blushing so in her new drawn bonnet—mauve with black, for the sake of poor Clayton. He looked at her out of his knowing dry eyes in that sort of response–to–the–Litany style which a curate adopts to his rectorʼs daughter.

“Can you suppose, Miss Rosedew, that I would have the heart to beat him now?—Ah, you will, will you then?” Ræbus thought better of it.

“No, I hope you would not,” said Amy, in pure good faith, with a glance, however, at the thick bamboo, “because it would beso cruel. It is hollow, I hope; but it has such knots, and it looks so very hard!”

“Hollow, and thin as a piece of pie–crust; and you know how this wood splits.”

“Oh, I am so glad, because you canʼt hurt him so very much. Please not to go, if you can hold him, more than three miles and a half an hour. Papa says that is the pace that always suits his health best. And please to take the saddle off, and keep it at your house, that the Rushford boy may not ride him back. And please to choose a steady boy from the head–class in your Sunday school, and, if possible, a communicant. But Iʼm sadly afraid thereʼs no trusting the boys.”

“Indeed, I fear not,” said Octavius, gravely; and adding to himself, “at any rate when you are concerned, you darling. What a love you are! But thereʼs no chance for me, I know; and itʼs a good job for me that I knew it. Oh you little angel, I wonder who the lucky fellow is!” Aunt Eudoxia had dropped him a hint, quite in a casual way, when she saw that the stout young bachelor was going in, over head and ears.

Sweet Amy watched Mr. Pell, or rather his steed, with fond interest, until they turned the corner; and certainly the pace, so far, was very sedate indeed. Octavius was an upright man—you could see that by his seat in the saddle—aswell as a kind and good–natured one; and on no account would he have vexed that gentle and beautiful girl. Nevertheless he grew impatient, as Coræbus pricked his ears pretentiously, and snorted so as to defy the winds, and was fain to travel sidewise, as if the distance was not enough for him; and all the time he was swallowing the earth at the rate of no more than four miles an hour. Then the young parson pulled out his watch, and saw that it wanted but half an hour of the time himself had fixed for the morning service at Rushford. And he could not bear the thought of keeping the poor folk waiting about the cross, as they always did and would wait, till the parson appeared among them. As Mr. Wise has well observed, “the peasant of the New Forest is too full of veneration.”

And here let me acknowledge, as behoveth a man to do, not in a scambling preface, which nobody ever would read, but in the body of my work, great and loving obligation to the labours of Mr. John R. Wise. His book is perfectly beautiful, written in admirable English, full of observation, taste, and gentle learning; and the descriptions of scenery are such that they make the heart yearn to verify them. I know the New Forest pretty well, from my own perambulations and perequitations—one barbarism is no worse than the other—but I never should have loved it as I do but for his loving guidance.

The Rev. Mr. Pell, as some people put when theywrite to a parson,—hoping still to keep faith with Amy, because her eyes were so lovely,—pulled the snaffle, and turned Coræbus into a short cut, through beeches and hazels. Then compromise came soon to an end, and the big bamboo was compelled to fall upon the fat flank of Coræbus, because he would not go without it. He showed sense of that first attention only by a little buck–jump, and a sprightly wag of his tail; then, hoping that the situation need not be looked in the face, shambled along at five miles an hour, with a mild responsibility.

“Five miles more,” said Octave Pell, “and only twenty minutes to do it in! Itʼs an unlucky thing for you, Coræbus, that your mistress is engaged.” Whack, came the yellow bamboo again, and this time in solid earnest; Ræbus went off as if he meant to go mad. He had never known such a blow since the age wherein he belonged to the innkeeper. Oh, could a horse with four feeds a day be expected to put up with tyranny?

But, to the naggyʼs great amazement, Octave Pell did not tumble off; more than that, he seemed to stick closer, with a most unpleasant embrace, and a pressure that told upon the wind—not of heaven but of horse—till the following symptoms appeared:—First a wheeze, and creak internal, a slow creak, like leather chafing, or a pair of bellows out of order; then a louder remonstrance, like the ironwork of a roller, or the gudgeons of a wheelbarrow; then, faster and faster, a suckingnoise, like the bucket of an old pump, when the gardener works by the job; finally, puff, and roar, and shriek, with notes of passing sadness, like the neap–tide wailing up a cavern, or the lament of the Berkshire Blowing Stone.

In forest glades, where hollow hoofs fell on the sod quite mutely, that roar was enough to try masculine courage, though never unnerved by a heart–shock. How then could poor Pearl Garnet, sitting all alone, in a lonely spot, wherein she had pledged herself to her dead love, sitting there to indulge her tears, the only luxury left her—how could she help being frightened to death as the unearthly sound approached her?

The terror was mutual. Coræbus, turning the corner sharply, stopped short, in a mode that must have sent his true master over his withers, to explore the nature of the evil. Then he shook all through, and would have bolted, if the bamboo had not fallen heavily.

In the niche of a hollow oak was crouching, falling backward with terror, and clutching at the brave old bark, yet trying to hide behind it—only the snowy arms would come outwards—a beautiful girl, clad in summer white on that foggy day of December. The brown cloak, which had protected her from sylvan curiosity, lay on the ground, a few yards away, on the spot so sad and sacred. Pearl Garnetʼs grief, if we knew the whole of it, or perhaps because we cannot, was greater than any girl could bear. A lovely, young, and lovingmaid, with stores of imagination, yet a practical power of stowing it; of building castles, yet keeping them all within compass of the kitchen–range; quite different from our Amy, yet a better wife forsomemen—according to what the trumps are, and Amy must have hearts, or she dies;—that very nice girl, we have let her go weep, and never once cared to follow her. There is never any justice in this world; therefore who cares to apologise? It would take up all our business–time, if we did it properly.

Now, as she stretched her white arms forth, and her delicate form shrunk back into the black embrace of the oak–tree; while her rich hair was streaming all down her breast, and her dark eyes still full of tear–drops; the rider no less than the horse was amazed, and seemed to behold a vision. Then as she shrunk away into the tree–bole, with a shriek of deadly terror—for what love casteth out fear?—and she saw not through the ivy–screen, and Coræbus groaned sepulchrally, Pell came down with a dash on one foot, and went, quick jump, to help her.

In a fainting fit,—for the heart so firm and defiant in days of happiness was fluxed now and frail with misery—she was cowering away in the dark tree–nook, like the pearls of mistletoe fallen, with her head thrown back (such an elegant head, a womanʼs greatest beauty), and the round arms hanging helpless.

Hereupon Mr. Pell was abroad. He had neverexperienced any sisters, nor much mother consciously—being the eighth son, as of course we know, of a jolly Yorkshire baronet; at any rate he had lost his mother at the birth of Nonus Pell; and I am sorry there are not ninety of them, if of equal merit.

So Octavius stood like a fish out of water, with both hands in his pocket, as it is so generally the habit of fishes to stand.

Then, meaning no especial harm, nor perhaps great good, for that matter, he said to himself—

“Confound it all. What the deuce am I to do?”

His sermon upon the Third Commandment, about to be preached at Rushford, where the fishermen swore like St. Peter,—that sermon went crack in his pocket at such a shocking ejaculation. Never heeding that, he went on to do what a stout fellow and a gentleman must have done in this emergency. He lifted the drooping figure forth into the open air, touching it only with his hands, timidly and reverently, as if every fair curve were sacred. Then he fetched water in his best Sunday hat—the only chimney–pot he possessed—from the stream trickling through the spire–bed; and he sprinkled it on the broad, white forehead, as if he were christening a baby.

The moment he saw that her life was returning, and her deep grey eyes, quiet havens of sorrow, opened and asked where their owner was, and her breast rose like a billow in a place where two tidesmeet, that moment Octave laid her back against the rugged trunk, in the thick brown cloak which he had fetched when he went for the water; and wrapped it around her, delicately, as if she were taking a nap there.

Oh, man of short pipes and hard, bachelor fare, for this thou deservest as good a wife as ever basted a leg of mutton!

At last the young lady looked up at him with a deep–drawn sigh, and said—

“I am afraid I have been very silly.”

“No, indeed, you have not. But I am very sorry for you, because I am dreadfully clumsy.”

She glanced at his snowy choker—which he never wore but on Sundays—and, being a very quick–witted young woman, she guessed at once who he was.

“Oh, please to tell me—I hope the service is not over at Nowelhurst church.”

“The service has been over for a quarter of an hour; because there was no sermon.”

“Oh, what shall I do, then? What can I do? I had better never go home again.”

This was said to herself in anguish, and Pell saw that he was not meant to hear it.

“Can I go, please, to the Rectory? Mr. Rosedew is from home; but Iʼm sure they will give me shelter until my—until I am sent for. I have lost my way in the wood here.”

This statement was none of the truest.

“To be sure,” said the hasty parson, forgettingabout the Rushford bells, the rheumatic clerk, and the quid–chewing pilots—let them turn their quids a bit longer—“to be sure, I will take you there at once. Allow me to introduce myself. How very stupid of me! Octavius Pell, Mr. Rosedewʼs curate at Rushford.”

Hereupon “Pello, pepuli, pulsum” (as his friends loved to call him from his driving powers at cricket, and to show that they knew some Latin) executed a noble salaam—quite of the modern school, however, and without the old reduplication (like the load on the back of Christian)—till the duckweed came out of his hat in a body, and fell into the flounce tucket of the beautiful Pearlʼs white skirt.

She never looked, though she knew it was there—that girl understood her business—but curtseyed to him prettily, having recovered strength by this time; and there was something in his dry, manly tone, curt modesty, and breeding, without any flourish about it, which led the young maid to trust him, as if she had known him since tops and bottoms.

“I am Pearl Garnet,” said she, imitating his style unconsciously, “the daughter—I mean I live at Nowelhurst Dell Cottage.”

Coræbus had cut off for stable long ago, with three long weals from bamboo upon him, which he vowed he would show to Amy.

“Please to take my arm, Miss Garnet. You are not very strong yet. I know your brotherwell; and a braver or more straightforward young gentleman never thought small things of himself after doing great ones.”

Pearl was delighted to hear Bobʼs praises; and Mr. Pell treated that subject so cleverly, from every possible point of view, that she was quite astonished when she saw the Rectory side–gate, and Octavius, in the most light–hearted manner, made a sudden and warm farewell, and darted away for Rushford. How good it is for a sad, heavy heart to exchange with a gay and light one!

“Hang it! after that let me have a burster!” was his clerical ejaculation, “or else it is all up with me. I hope we havenʼt spilt the sermon, though, or got any duckweed down it. Duckweed, indeed; what a duck she is! And oh, what splendid eyes!”

He ran all the way to Rushford, at a pace unknown to Coræbus; and his governor–coat flew away behind him, with the sermon banging about, and the text peeping out under the pocket–lap. “Swear not at all,” were the words, I believe; and a rare good sermon it must have been, if it stuck to the text under the circumstances.

The jolly old tars, after waiting an hour, orally refreshing their grandmothers’ epitaphs, and close–hauling on many a tight yarn, were just setting up stunʼsails to take grog on board at the “Luggerʼs Locker,” hard by, as the banyan time was over. Let them ship their grog, and their old women might keep gravy hot, and be blessed tothem. They had come there for sarvice, and shiver their timbers if theyʼd make sail till the chaplain came. Good faith, and they got their service at last, but an uncommonly short–winded one, a sermon, moreover, which each man felt coming admirably home—to his shipmate.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pell had left behind no small excitement at Nowelhurst. For a rumour took wing after morning service—when the wings of fame are briskest in all country parishes—that parson John was gone to London to complain to the Queen that Sir Cradock Nowell never came to church now, nor even sent his agent thither, to manage matters for him. For Mr. Garnet still retained his stewardship among them, though longing to be quit of it, and discharging his duties silently, and not with his old pronouncement, because his health was weaker. The vivid power of vital force seemed to be failing the man who had stamped his character upon all people around him; because he never said a thing which he did not think, and scarcely ever thought a thing with any fear of saying it.

Hitherto we have had of Bull Garnet by far the worse side uppermost. I will offer no excuses now for his too ready indulgence of his far too savage temper. In sooth, we meet with scarce any case in which excuses are undiscoverable. God and the angels find them always; our best earthly friends can see them, when properly pointed out;our enemies, when they want to make accusation of them.

All I will say for Bull Garnet is (to invert the historianʼs sentence) “Hæc tanta viri vitia ingentes virtutes exæquabant”—“These blemishes, however dark, had grand qualities to redress them.” Strong affection, great scorn of falsehood, tenderness almost too womanly, liberality both of mind and heart, a real depth of sympathy—would all these co–exist with, or be lost in, one great vice? It appears to me that we are so toothed in, spliced and mortised, dovetailed, double–budded, and inarched, both of good and evil, that the wrong, instead of poisoning the right, often serves as guano to it. Nevertheless we had better be perfect—when we have found the way out.

CHAPTER XVII.It must not be forgotten that Rufus Hutton all this time was very hard at work, and so was Mrs. Corklemore. Between that lady and Eoa pleasant little passes gave a zest to daily intercourse, Georgieʼs boundless sympathies being circumscribed only by terror. Nevertheless, although Sir Cradock laughed (when his spirits were good, and his mind was clear) at their fundamental difference, Georgie began to gain upon him, and Eoa to lose ground. How could it be otherwise, even if their skill had been equal—and Eoa not only had no skill, but scorned sweet Georgie for having any—how could Mrs. Corklemore fail of doing her blessed duty, when she was in the house all day, and Eoa out, jumping the river, or looking about for Bob Garnet? Whatever the weather was, out went Eoa, peering around for the tracks of Bob, which, like those of a mole, were self–evident; and then hiding behind a great tree when she found him; and hoping, with flutter of heart aboutit, that Bob had not happened to see her. Yet, if he happened not to see, she would go up and be cross with him, and ask whether Amy Rosedew had turned to the right or left there, or had stopped in a hollow tree. And did Bob think she looked well that morning? Then he had no right to think so. And perhaps her own new hat, with black ostrich, was a hideously ugly thing. Oh, she only wished there were tigers!Leave the little dear to do exactly as she likes—for nothing else she will do; and now, in looking through the forest, grey and white with winter, scorn we not the grand old trunk, in our gay love of the mistletoe.There is a very ancient tree, an oak well known and good of fame, even at the first perambulation of our legislator king. It stands upon the bend and brow under which two valleys meet, where a horse–shoe of the wood has chanced, and water takes advantage. In the scoop below the tree, two covered brooks fetch round high places into one another, prattle satisfaction, and steal away for their honeymoon, without a breeze upon them. This “mark–oak,” last of seven stout brothers, dwells upon a surge of upland, and commands three valleys, two of which unite below it, and the other leads them off, welcoming their waters. The grand tree lifts its proven column, channeled, ramped, and crocketed, flaked with brown on lines of grey, and bulked with cloudlike ganglions. Then from the maintop, where isroom for fifty archers to draw the bow, limbs of rugged might arise, spread flat, or straggle downwards. But the two great limbs of all, the power and main glory, the arms that reared their pride to heaven, are stricken, riven, and blasted. Gaping with great holes and rotten, heavily twisted in and out, and ending in four long scraggy horns, ghastly white in the winter sun; where the squirrel durst not build, nor the honey–buzzard watch for prey; this shattered hope of a noble life records the wrath of Heaven.The legend is that a turf–cutter having murdered a waylost pedlar, for the sake of his pack, buried the corpse in this hollow tree, and sat down on the grave to count his booty. Here, while he was bending over the gewgaws and the trinkets, which he had taken for gold upon the poor hucksterʼs word, and which gleamed and flashed in the August twilight, the vengeance of God fell upon him. In bodily form Godʼs lightning crashed through the dome of oak above him, leaped on the murdererʼs head, and drove him through the cloven earth, breast to breast on his victimʼs corpse. You may be sure that the sons of Ytene, a timid and superstitious race, find small attractions in that tree, when the shades of night are around it.John Rosedew did not return on the Monday, nor yet on the Tuesday, &c. Not even until the last down–train roared through the Forest on Saturday. Then, as it rushed through the darknight of winter, throwing its white breath (more strong than our own, and very little more fleeting) in bracelets on the brown–armed trees, and in chains on the shoulders of heather, the parson leaned back on the filthy panels of a second–class carriage, and thought of the scene he had left.He had written from London to Miss Rosedew, insisting, so far as he ever cared to insist on a little matter, that none at home should stay up for him, that no one should come to the station to meet him, and that Pell should be begged to hold himself ready for the Sundayʼs duty, because Mr. Rosedew would not go home, if any change should that day befall unlucky Cradock Nowell. Lucky Cradock, one ought to say, inasmuch as for a fortnight now he had lost all sense of trouble.Finding from Dr. Tink that no rapid change was impending, John Rosedew determined to see his home, and allay his childʼs anxiety. Moreover, he felt that his “cure of souls” must need their Sunday salting. Now walking away from the wooded station that cloudy Christmas Eve—for Christmas that year fell on Sunday—how grand he found the difference from the dirty coop of London.The new moon was set, but the clouds began to lift above the tree–tops, and a faint Aurora flushed and flickered in the far north–west. Then out came several stars rejoicing, singing in twinkles their Makerʼs praise; and some of the sounds thatbreathe through a forest, even in the hush of a winterʼs night, began to whisper peace and death.John, who feared not his Masterʼs works, and was happiest often in solitude, trudged along with the leathern valise, and three paper parcels strapped comfortably upon his ample back. Presently he began to think of home and his parish cares, and the breadth of God spread around him; and then from thinking rose unawares into higher communion, for surely it is a grander thing to feel than to think of greatness.And in this humour quietly he plodded his proper course for the first four miles or so, until he had passed the Dame Slough, near the Blackwater stream, and was over against Vinney Ridge. But here he must needs try a short cut, through the Government Woods, to Nowelhurst, though even in the broad daylight he could scarcely have found his way there. He thought that, in spite of his orders, Amy would be sure to stay up for him, and so he must hurry homeward.At a fine brisk pace, for a man of his years, he plunged into the deep wood, and in five minutesʼ time he had very little hope of getting out before daylight. Have you ever been lost in a great wood at night, alone, and laden, and weary, where the frithings have not been cut for ten years, when there is no moon or wind to guide a man, and the stars glimpse so deceitfully? How the stubs, even if you are so quick–footed as not to be doubled back by them, or thrown down with nostrils patulous—howthey catch you at the knee with three prongs apiece, and make you think of white swelling! Then the slip, where the wet has dribbled from some officious branch, or sow, or cow, summer–pasturing, has kept her volutabre. Down you plump, and your heels alone have chance of going to heaven, because (unless you are a wonder) you employ such powerful language.Rising with some difficulty, after doubting if it be worth the while, and rubbing spitefully ever so long at “the case of the part affected,” you have nothing for it but to start again, and fall into worse disasters. Going very carefully then you jump from the goading repulse of a holly into the heart of a hazel–bush—one which has numberless clefts and tongs, and is hospitable to a bramble. Tumbling out of it, full of thorns, recalling your Farnaby epigram, and wishing they had pelted the hazel harder, away you go, quite desperate now, knowing well that the wood is full of swamps, some of which will petrify you, under sun–dew and blue campanula, when the summer comes again.Through all these pleasing incidents and animating encounters John Rosedew went ahead, and, too often, a “header,” until he was desperately tired, and sat down to think about it. Then he heard two tawny owls hooting to one another, across at least a mile of trees; and every forest sound grew clearer in the stillness of the night; the sharp, sad cry of the marten–cat, the bark of the fox so impatient, the rustle of the dry leaves asa weasel or rat skirred over them, the wing–flap of some sliding bird roused from his roost by danger, the scratching of claws upon trunks now and then, and the rubbing of horns against underwood: these and other stranger noises, stirring the “down of darkness,” moving the sense of lonesome mystery and of fear indefinite, were abroad on the air (in spite of Shakespeare) on that Christmas Eve.John Rosedew laid his burden by, and began to think, or wonder, what was best to do. Long as he had lived amid the woods, he knew much more of classic sylvulæ and poetical arundines, than of the natural greenwood, and the tasseling of morasses.Bob Garnet would have found his way there, or in any other English forest, with little hesitation. From his knowledge of all the epiphytes and their different aspects, the bent of the winter grasses, the sense which even a bramble has of sun and wind and rain, he would soon have established his compass, with allowance for slope and exposure.The parson sat upon an ants’ nest, which had done its work, and feeling discharged, collapsed with him—a big nest of the largest British ant, which is mostly found near fir–trees. That nest alone would have told poor Bob something of his whereabouts; for there are not many firs in that part of the forest, and only one clump, high up on a hill, in the wood where John Rosedew had lost himself. But the man of great learning was none the wiser, only he felt that his smallclothes were done for,and Mr. Channingʼs fashionable cut gone almost as prematurely as the critic who had condemned it.“Let me now consider,” said Mr. Rosedew to himself, for about the fiftieth time; “it strikes me at the first sight—though I declare I canʼt see anything—would that I could not feel! for I confess that these legs are grievous; but putting aside that view or purview of the question, it strikes me that, having no Antigone to lead me from this, which certainly is the grove of the Eumenides—there is another ant gone up my leg—ʼingentis formica laboris.’ I wish he wouldnʼt work so hard, though, and I always have had the impression that they stayed in–doors in the winter. Mem. To consult Theophrastus, and compare him, as usual, with Pliny. Also look at the Geoponika, full of valuable hints—why there he is again, biting very hard or stinging. What says Aristophanes about the music of the gnats? Indelicate, I fear, as he too often is. Nay, nay, good ant, if indeed thou art an ant—— Why, what is that over yonder?”It was a dim light in the great hollow oak, “the Murdererʼs Tree,” as they called it, not a hundred yards from John Rosedew.The parson approached it cautiously, for he knew that desperate men, and criminals under a ban, still harboured sometimes in the Forest. As he drew nearer, the feeble light, glimmering through the entrance, showed him at once what tree it was, because the rays glanced through twodark holes under the bulging and beetling brow, which peasants call “the eyes of God.”John Rosedew was as brave a man as ever wept for anotherʼs grief, or with the word of God assuaged it. No man could have less superstition, unless (as some would have us believe) all religion is that. Upon this point we will not be persuaded, until we have seen them live the better, and die the more calmly for holding it. Yet John Rosedew, so firmly set, so full of faith in his Maker, so far above childish fears (which spring from the absence of our Father),—he, who having injured none had no dread of any, yet drew back and trembled greatly at the sight before him.A small reflector–lamp, with the wick overhung with fungus, stood upon a knotted niche in the hollow of the tree. By it, and with his face and eyes set towards the earth, a tall and powerful man, stripped to the waist, was leaning, with one great arm beneath his forehead, and bloody stripes across his back. The drooping of his figure, the woe in every vein of it, the deep and everlasting despair in every bone—it was an extremity of our human nature, which neither chisel nor pen may approach, nor even the mind of man conceive, until it has been through it.Presently the man upraised his massive head, and scorned himself for being so effeminate. He had nearly fainted with the pain; what right hadhe to feel it? Why should his paltry body quail at a flea–bite lash or so, when body and soul were damned for ever?But if his form had told of sorrow, great God, what did his face tell? He never sighed, nor groaned, nor moaned; his woe was beyond such trumpery; he simply took the heavy scourge from the murdererʼs grave, upon which it had dropped when the swoon came over him, and, standing well forth in the black hollowʼs centre, to gain full swing for his scorpion thongs, he lashed himself over back and round breast, with the utmost strength of his mighty arms, with every corded muscle leaping, but not a sign of pain on his face, nor a nerve of his body flinching. Then, at last, he fell away, and allowed himself to moan a little.John Rosedew would have leaped forward at once, in his horror at such self–cruelty, but that he saw who it was, and knew how his meddling would be taken. He knew that Bull Garnetʼs religious views were very strange and peculiar, and never must be meddled with, except at his own request, and at seasonable moments. Yet he had never dreamed that self–chastisement was part of them.“Garnet a wild flagellant!” said the parson to himself; “well, I knew that he was an enthusiast, but never dreamed that he was a fanatic. And how shockingly hard he hits himself! Strong as Dr. Mastix at Sherborne; but the doctor tookgood care never to hit himself. Upon my word, I must run away. It is too sad to laugh at. What resolution that man must have! He scarcely feels the blows in the agony of his mind. I must reason with him about it, if I ever can find occasion. With such violation of His image, God cannot be well pleased.”Meditating deeply upon this strange affair, the parson plodded homewards, for now he knew his way, with the Murdererʼs Oak for his landmark. At last he saw his quiet home, and gave a very gentle knock, because it was so late.The door was opened by Amy herself, pale, excited, and jumping.“Oh, daddy, daddy!” Chock—chock—chock—such a lot of kisses, and both arms round his neck.“Corculum, voluptas, glycymelon, anima mea——”“Oh, papa, say ‘Amy dear,’ and then I shall know it is you.”Then she laughed, and then she cried, and presently fell to at kissing again. I am afraid she proved herself a fool; but allowance must be made for her, because she had never learned before how to get on without her father.“Oh, you beautiful love of a daddy! I was quite sure you would come, you know; that you could not leave me any longer; so I would not listen to a single word any one of them said. And I kept the kitchen fire up, and a good firein your pet room, dear; and I have got such a supper for you! Now, off with your coat in a minute, darling. Oh, how poorly you look, my own father! But we will soon put you to rights again. Aunt Doxy is gone to bed, hurrah! and so are Jemima and Jenny. And she wonʼt have the impudence to come down, with all her hair in the jelly–bags, so I shall have you all to myself, dada; and if any one can deserve you, I do.”“My own pet child, my warm–hearted dear,” said John, with the tears in his eyes; “I had not the least idea that your mind was so ill–regulated. We must have a course of choriambics together, or the heavy trimacrine dimeter, as I have ventured to name it, about which——”“About which not another short syllable, till you have had a light tri–mackerel supper, and not a quasi–cæsura left even.”“Why, Amy, you are getting quite witty!” And John, with one arm still in his overcoat, looked at her bright eyes wonderingly.“Of course I am, dad, when you come home. My learning sparkles at sight of you. Come, quick now, for fear of my eating you before you begin your supper. Youʼll have it in the kitchen, you know, dear, because it will be so much nicer; and then a pipe by the book–room fire, and a chat with your good little daughter. O father, father, mind you never go away from me such a long, long time again.”John thought to himself that, ere many years,he must go away from his Amy for much more than a fortnight; but of course he would not damp her young joy with any such troubles now.“If you please, my meritorious father, you will come to the door, and just smell them; and then you will have five minutes allowed you to put on your dear old dressing–gown, and the slippers worked by the Vestal virgins; five minutes by the kitchen clock, and not a book to be touched, mind. Now, donʼt they smell lovely? I put them on when I knew your knock. The first mackerel of the season, only caught this afternoon. I sent word to Mr. Pell for them. He can do what he likes with the fishermen. And you know as well as I do, papa, you can never resist a mackerel.”When John came down, half the table was covered with some of his favourite authors—not that she meant to let him read, but only because he would miss his books a great deal more than the salt–cellar—and the other half she was bleaching, and smoothing, and stroking with a snowy cloth, soft and sleek as her own bare arms, setting all things in lovely order, and looking at her father every moment, with the skirt of her frock pinned up, and her glossy hair dancing jigs on the velvet slope of her shoulders. And she made him hungrier every moment by savoury word and choice innuendo.“Worcester sauce, pa, darling, and a little of the very best butter, not mixed up with flour, youknow, but melting on them, like their native element. Just see how they are browning, and not a bit of the skin come off. What is it about the rhombus, pa, and when am I to read Juvenal?”“Never, my child.”“Very well, pa, dear, you know best, of course; but I thought it was very nice about weighing Hannibal, in the Excerpta. Father, put that book down; I canʼt allow any reading. And after supper I shall expect you to spin me such a yarn, dear, to wind up the thread of your adventures.”“Τολυπεύειν,” said John, calmly, although he was so hungry; “the very word poor Cradock used in his rendering of that dirge—“‘Μόχθον οὕνεκα τὸν κατʼ ἦμαρἘκτολυπέσας οἴκαδε,Μισθὸν φερων, ἤνυσας.’Oh, I forgot; ah yes, to be sure. A word, I mean, which expresses in a figurative and yet homely manner——”“Cradock, papa! Oh, father, have you been with him in London? Oh, how Aunt Doxy has cheated me! You know very well, my own father, that you cannot tell me a story. Did you go to London because poor Cradock was very, very ill?”“Yes,” said her father, those soft bright eyes beamed into his so appealingly; “my own child, your Cradock is very ill indeed.”“Not dead, father? Oh, not dead?”“No, my child; nor in any great danger, I sincerely believe, just at present.”“Then eat your supper, pa, while it is hot. I am so glad you have seen him. I am quite content with that.”She believed, or she would not have said it. And yet how far from the truth it was!“You shall tell me all after supper, my father. Thank God for His mercies to me. I am never in a hurry, dear.”Yet Amy, in dishing up the mackerel, had the greatest difficulty (for her breath came short, and her breast heaved fast) in holding back the tide of hysterics, which would have spoiled her fatherʼs supper.“My amulet, I cannot eat a morsel while I see your hand shake. Darling, I must tell you all; I cannot bear your anxiety.”The second mackerel, a fish of no manners, instead of curling his tail at the frying, had glued it to the pan, until a tear of Amyʼs fried, and then he let go in a moment. John Rosedew caught his darling child, and drew her to his knees, with the frying–pan in her hand; and then he made her look at him, and she tried to have her eyes dry. Do what she might she could not speak, only to let her neck rise, and her drooping eyelids tremble.“My own lifeʼs love, I have told you the worst. God is very good to us. Cradock has been at the point of death, but now he is better a little. Only his mind is in danger. And it must come home very slowly, if it comes at all. Now, darling, you know everything.”She took his magnificent silvery head between her little white hands, and kissed him twice on either brow, but not a word she said.“My own sweet child,” cried her father, slowly passing one arm around her, and swindling his heart of a smile; “I am apt to make the worst of things. Let us try to be braver, or at least to have more faith.”She leaped up at that very word, with the dawn of a glorious smile in her eyes, and she took the frying–pan once again, and eased out, with a white–handled knife, mackerel No. 3. But, upon second thoughts, she let him slide into the frizzle again, to keep him warm and comfortable. Her heart was down very deep just now, but for all that, her father must have and must enjoy his supper.“Father, I am all right now. Only eat your supper, dear. What a selfish thing I am!”“Have a bit, my darling heart.”“Yes, I will have a bit of tail, pa, just to test my cookery. Thatʼs what I call frying! Look at the blue upon him, and the crisp brown shooting over it! Come, daddy, no nonsense, if you please. I could have eaten all three of them if I had only been out on the warren. And you to come starving from London! Now No. 3, papa, if you please.” But she kept her face away from him, and bent her neck peculiarly.“How beautifully fresh this ale is! Oh, the stuff they sell in London! I am almost inclinedto consider the result of taking another half glass.”Her quick feet went pat on the cellar–steps, while her father was yet perpending; and she came back not a whit out of breath, but sweetly fresh and excited.“Such a race, pa; because I know of one family of cockroaches, and half suspect another. They are so very imprudent. Robert Garnet says that they stay at home, and keep their Christmas domestically, and I need not run for fear of them, at least till the end of April. And perhaps he is right, because he knows and studies everything nasty. Only I canʼt believe what he says about ants, because it contradicts Solomon, who was so very much older. Now, you paternal darling, let me froth it up for you.”“Thank the Lord for as good a meal as ever one of His children was blessed with.”The parson stood up as he said these words, and put his thick but not large hands together, among the crumbs on the tablecloth.“Now, if you please, the leastest—double superlative, pa, you know, likeπρώτιστος, and something else—oh, they will pluck me at Oxford!—the very leastest little drop of the old French cognac we bought for parochial rheumatism, with one thin slice of lemon, an ebullition of water, and half a knob of sugar.”Before John could remonstrate, there it was, allwinking at him, and begging to be sniffed before sipping.“My pet, you are so premature. How can I trust your future? You never give me time to consider a subject, even in the first of its bearings.”“To be sure not, father. You know quite well you would take at least eight different views of the matter, and multiply them into eight others of people I never heard of. Now the pipe, dear. You shall have it here, because it is so much warmer. You know you canʼt fill it properly.”So the parson, happy in having a child who could fill a pipe better than he could, leaned back in his favourite chair, which Amy had wheeled in for him, and held his long clay in his left hand, while his right played with her hair, as she sat at his feet, and coaxed him.“Sermon all ready, dear?”“Well, you know best about that, Amy; I always trust you to arrange them.”“Never fear, papa; leave it to me. What would you do without me? I have put you out such a beauty, because it is Christmas Day: one that always makes me cry, because I have heard it so often. But you must have confidence in me.”“Implicit confidence, my pet. Still I like to run my eyes over them, for I cannot see as I did. My eyes are getting so old.”“Iʼll kiss them till you canʼt see one bit, if you dare to say that again, papa. Old, indeed! Theyare better than mine. And I can see the pattern of a lady–bird, all across the room. There was a lady–bird on the window to–day. At this time of year, only think! That was good luck, wasnʼt it? And a dear little robin flew in, and perched upon the hat–pegs; and then Iknewthat you must come home.”“Oh, you superstitious pet! I must reason with you to–morrow.”END OF VOL. II.LONDON:PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.

It must not be forgotten that Rufus Hutton all this time was very hard at work, and so was Mrs. Corklemore. Between that lady and Eoa pleasant little passes gave a zest to daily intercourse, Georgieʼs boundless sympathies being circumscribed only by terror. Nevertheless, although Sir Cradock laughed (when his spirits were good, and his mind was clear) at their fundamental difference, Georgie began to gain upon him, and Eoa to lose ground. How could it be otherwise, even if their skill had been equal—and Eoa not only had no skill, but scorned sweet Georgie for having any—how could Mrs. Corklemore fail of doing her blessed duty, when she was in the house all day, and Eoa out, jumping the river, or looking about for Bob Garnet? Whatever the weather was, out went Eoa, peering around for the tracks of Bob, which, like those of a mole, were self–evident; and then hiding behind a great tree when she found him; and hoping, with flutter of heart aboutit, that Bob had not happened to see her. Yet, if he happened not to see, she would go up and be cross with him, and ask whether Amy Rosedew had turned to the right or left there, or had stopped in a hollow tree. And did Bob think she looked well that morning? Then he had no right to think so. And perhaps her own new hat, with black ostrich, was a hideously ugly thing. Oh, she only wished there were tigers!

Leave the little dear to do exactly as she likes—for nothing else she will do; and now, in looking through the forest, grey and white with winter, scorn we not the grand old trunk, in our gay love of the mistletoe.

There is a very ancient tree, an oak well known and good of fame, even at the first perambulation of our legislator king. It stands upon the bend and brow under which two valleys meet, where a horse–shoe of the wood has chanced, and water takes advantage. In the scoop below the tree, two covered brooks fetch round high places into one another, prattle satisfaction, and steal away for their honeymoon, without a breeze upon them. This “mark–oak,” last of seven stout brothers, dwells upon a surge of upland, and commands three valleys, two of which unite below it, and the other leads them off, welcoming their waters. The grand tree lifts its proven column, channeled, ramped, and crocketed, flaked with brown on lines of grey, and bulked with cloudlike ganglions. Then from the maintop, where isroom for fifty archers to draw the bow, limbs of rugged might arise, spread flat, or straggle downwards. But the two great limbs of all, the power and main glory, the arms that reared their pride to heaven, are stricken, riven, and blasted. Gaping with great holes and rotten, heavily twisted in and out, and ending in four long scraggy horns, ghastly white in the winter sun; where the squirrel durst not build, nor the honey–buzzard watch for prey; this shattered hope of a noble life records the wrath of Heaven.

The legend is that a turf–cutter having murdered a waylost pedlar, for the sake of his pack, buried the corpse in this hollow tree, and sat down on the grave to count his booty. Here, while he was bending over the gewgaws and the trinkets, which he had taken for gold upon the poor hucksterʼs word, and which gleamed and flashed in the August twilight, the vengeance of God fell upon him. In bodily form Godʼs lightning crashed through the dome of oak above him, leaped on the murdererʼs head, and drove him through the cloven earth, breast to breast on his victimʼs corpse. You may be sure that the sons of Ytene, a timid and superstitious race, find small attractions in that tree, when the shades of night are around it.

John Rosedew did not return on the Monday, nor yet on the Tuesday, &c. Not even until the last down–train roared through the Forest on Saturday. Then, as it rushed through the darknight of winter, throwing its white breath (more strong than our own, and very little more fleeting) in bracelets on the brown–armed trees, and in chains on the shoulders of heather, the parson leaned back on the filthy panels of a second–class carriage, and thought of the scene he had left.

He had written from London to Miss Rosedew, insisting, so far as he ever cared to insist on a little matter, that none at home should stay up for him, that no one should come to the station to meet him, and that Pell should be begged to hold himself ready for the Sundayʼs duty, because Mr. Rosedew would not go home, if any change should that day befall unlucky Cradock Nowell. Lucky Cradock, one ought to say, inasmuch as for a fortnight now he had lost all sense of trouble.

Finding from Dr. Tink that no rapid change was impending, John Rosedew determined to see his home, and allay his childʼs anxiety. Moreover, he felt that his “cure of souls” must need their Sunday salting. Now walking away from the wooded station that cloudy Christmas Eve—for Christmas that year fell on Sunday—how grand he found the difference from the dirty coop of London.

The new moon was set, but the clouds began to lift above the tree–tops, and a faint Aurora flushed and flickered in the far north–west. Then out came several stars rejoicing, singing in twinkles their Makerʼs praise; and some of the sounds thatbreathe through a forest, even in the hush of a winterʼs night, began to whisper peace and death.

John, who feared not his Masterʼs works, and was happiest often in solitude, trudged along with the leathern valise, and three paper parcels strapped comfortably upon his ample back. Presently he began to think of home and his parish cares, and the breadth of God spread around him; and then from thinking rose unawares into higher communion, for surely it is a grander thing to feel than to think of greatness.

And in this humour quietly he plodded his proper course for the first four miles or so, until he had passed the Dame Slough, near the Blackwater stream, and was over against Vinney Ridge. But here he must needs try a short cut, through the Government Woods, to Nowelhurst, though even in the broad daylight he could scarcely have found his way there. He thought that, in spite of his orders, Amy would be sure to stay up for him, and so he must hurry homeward.

At a fine brisk pace, for a man of his years, he plunged into the deep wood, and in five minutesʼ time he had very little hope of getting out before daylight. Have you ever been lost in a great wood at night, alone, and laden, and weary, where the frithings have not been cut for ten years, when there is no moon or wind to guide a man, and the stars glimpse so deceitfully? How the stubs, even if you are so quick–footed as not to be doubled back by them, or thrown down with nostrils patulous—howthey catch you at the knee with three prongs apiece, and make you think of white swelling! Then the slip, where the wet has dribbled from some officious branch, or sow, or cow, summer–pasturing, has kept her volutabre. Down you plump, and your heels alone have chance of going to heaven, because (unless you are a wonder) you employ such powerful language.

Rising with some difficulty, after doubting if it be worth the while, and rubbing spitefully ever so long at “the case of the part affected,” you have nothing for it but to start again, and fall into worse disasters. Going very carefully then you jump from the goading repulse of a holly into the heart of a hazel–bush—one which has numberless clefts and tongs, and is hospitable to a bramble. Tumbling out of it, full of thorns, recalling your Farnaby epigram, and wishing they had pelted the hazel harder, away you go, quite desperate now, knowing well that the wood is full of swamps, some of which will petrify you, under sun–dew and blue campanula, when the summer comes again.

Through all these pleasing incidents and animating encounters John Rosedew went ahead, and, too often, a “header,” until he was desperately tired, and sat down to think about it. Then he heard two tawny owls hooting to one another, across at least a mile of trees; and every forest sound grew clearer in the stillness of the night; the sharp, sad cry of the marten–cat, the bark of the fox so impatient, the rustle of the dry leaves asa weasel or rat skirred over them, the wing–flap of some sliding bird roused from his roost by danger, the scratching of claws upon trunks now and then, and the rubbing of horns against underwood: these and other stranger noises, stirring the “down of darkness,” moving the sense of lonesome mystery and of fear indefinite, were abroad on the air (in spite of Shakespeare) on that Christmas Eve.

John Rosedew laid his burden by, and began to think, or wonder, what was best to do. Long as he had lived amid the woods, he knew much more of classic sylvulæ and poetical arundines, than of the natural greenwood, and the tasseling of morasses.

Bob Garnet would have found his way there, or in any other English forest, with little hesitation. From his knowledge of all the epiphytes and their different aspects, the bent of the winter grasses, the sense which even a bramble has of sun and wind and rain, he would soon have established his compass, with allowance for slope and exposure.

The parson sat upon an ants’ nest, which had done its work, and feeling discharged, collapsed with him—a big nest of the largest British ant, which is mostly found near fir–trees. That nest alone would have told poor Bob something of his whereabouts; for there are not many firs in that part of the forest, and only one clump, high up on a hill, in the wood where John Rosedew had lost himself. But the man of great learning was none the wiser, only he felt that his smallclothes were done for,and Mr. Channingʼs fashionable cut gone almost as prematurely as the critic who had condemned it.

“Let me now consider,” said Mr. Rosedew to himself, for about the fiftieth time; “it strikes me at the first sight—though I declare I canʼt see anything—would that I could not feel! for I confess that these legs are grievous; but putting aside that view or purview of the question, it strikes me that, having no Antigone to lead me from this, which certainly is the grove of the Eumenides—there is another ant gone up my leg—ʼingentis formica laboris.’ I wish he wouldnʼt work so hard, though, and I always have had the impression that they stayed in–doors in the winter. Mem. To consult Theophrastus, and compare him, as usual, with Pliny. Also look at the Geoponika, full of valuable hints—why there he is again, biting very hard or stinging. What says Aristophanes about the music of the gnats? Indelicate, I fear, as he too often is. Nay, nay, good ant, if indeed thou art an ant—— Why, what is that over yonder?”

It was a dim light in the great hollow oak, “the Murdererʼs Tree,” as they called it, not a hundred yards from John Rosedew.

The parson approached it cautiously, for he knew that desperate men, and criminals under a ban, still harboured sometimes in the Forest. As he drew nearer, the feeble light, glimmering through the entrance, showed him at once what tree it was, because the rays glanced through twodark holes under the bulging and beetling brow, which peasants call “the eyes of God.”

John Rosedew was as brave a man as ever wept for anotherʼs grief, or with the word of God assuaged it. No man could have less superstition, unless (as some would have us believe) all religion is that. Upon this point we will not be persuaded, until we have seen them live the better, and die the more calmly for holding it. Yet John Rosedew, so firmly set, so full of faith in his Maker, so far above childish fears (which spring from the absence of our Father),—he, who having injured none had no dread of any, yet drew back and trembled greatly at the sight before him.

A small reflector–lamp, with the wick overhung with fungus, stood upon a knotted niche in the hollow of the tree. By it, and with his face and eyes set towards the earth, a tall and powerful man, stripped to the waist, was leaning, with one great arm beneath his forehead, and bloody stripes across his back. The drooping of his figure, the woe in every vein of it, the deep and everlasting despair in every bone—it was an extremity of our human nature, which neither chisel nor pen may approach, nor even the mind of man conceive, until it has been through it.

Presently the man upraised his massive head, and scorned himself for being so effeminate. He had nearly fainted with the pain; what right hadhe to feel it? Why should his paltry body quail at a flea–bite lash or so, when body and soul were damned for ever?

But if his form had told of sorrow, great God, what did his face tell? He never sighed, nor groaned, nor moaned; his woe was beyond such trumpery; he simply took the heavy scourge from the murdererʼs grave, upon which it had dropped when the swoon came over him, and, standing well forth in the black hollowʼs centre, to gain full swing for his scorpion thongs, he lashed himself over back and round breast, with the utmost strength of his mighty arms, with every corded muscle leaping, but not a sign of pain on his face, nor a nerve of his body flinching. Then, at last, he fell away, and allowed himself to moan a little.

John Rosedew would have leaped forward at once, in his horror at such self–cruelty, but that he saw who it was, and knew how his meddling would be taken. He knew that Bull Garnetʼs religious views were very strange and peculiar, and never must be meddled with, except at his own request, and at seasonable moments. Yet he had never dreamed that self–chastisement was part of them.

“Garnet a wild flagellant!” said the parson to himself; “well, I knew that he was an enthusiast, but never dreamed that he was a fanatic. And how shockingly hard he hits himself! Strong as Dr. Mastix at Sherborne; but the doctor tookgood care never to hit himself. Upon my word, I must run away. It is too sad to laugh at. What resolution that man must have! He scarcely feels the blows in the agony of his mind. I must reason with him about it, if I ever can find occasion. With such violation of His image, God cannot be well pleased.”

Meditating deeply upon this strange affair, the parson plodded homewards, for now he knew his way, with the Murdererʼs Oak for his landmark. At last he saw his quiet home, and gave a very gentle knock, because it was so late.

The door was opened by Amy herself, pale, excited, and jumping.

“Oh, daddy, daddy!” Chock—chock—chock—such a lot of kisses, and both arms round his neck.

“Corculum, voluptas, glycymelon, anima mea——”

“Oh, papa, say ‘Amy dear,’ and then I shall know it is you.”

Then she laughed, and then she cried, and presently fell to at kissing again. I am afraid she proved herself a fool; but allowance must be made for her, because she had never learned before how to get on without her father.

“Oh, you beautiful love of a daddy! I was quite sure you would come, you know; that you could not leave me any longer; so I would not listen to a single word any one of them said. And I kept the kitchen fire up, and a good firein your pet room, dear; and I have got such a supper for you! Now, off with your coat in a minute, darling. Oh, how poorly you look, my own father! But we will soon put you to rights again. Aunt Doxy is gone to bed, hurrah! and so are Jemima and Jenny. And she wonʼt have the impudence to come down, with all her hair in the jelly–bags, so I shall have you all to myself, dada; and if any one can deserve you, I do.”

“My own pet child, my warm–hearted dear,” said John, with the tears in his eyes; “I had not the least idea that your mind was so ill–regulated. We must have a course of choriambics together, or the heavy trimacrine dimeter, as I have ventured to name it, about which——”

“About which not another short syllable, till you have had a light tri–mackerel supper, and not a quasi–cæsura left even.”

“Why, Amy, you are getting quite witty!” And John, with one arm still in his overcoat, looked at her bright eyes wonderingly.

“Of course I am, dad, when you come home. My learning sparkles at sight of you. Come, quick now, for fear of my eating you before you begin your supper. Youʼll have it in the kitchen, you know, dear, because it will be so much nicer; and then a pipe by the book–room fire, and a chat with your good little daughter. O father, father, mind you never go away from me such a long, long time again.”

John thought to himself that, ere many years,he must go away from his Amy for much more than a fortnight; but of course he would not damp her young joy with any such troubles now.

“If you please, my meritorious father, you will come to the door, and just smell them; and then you will have five minutes allowed you to put on your dear old dressing–gown, and the slippers worked by the Vestal virgins; five minutes by the kitchen clock, and not a book to be touched, mind. Now, donʼt they smell lovely? I put them on when I knew your knock. The first mackerel of the season, only caught this afternoon. I sent word to Mr. Pell for them. He can do what he likes with the fishermen. And you know as well as I do, papa, you can never resist a mackerel.”

When John came down, half the table was covered with some of his favourite authors—not that she meant to let him read, but only because he would miss his books a great deal more than the salt–cellar—and the other half she was bleaching, and smoothing, and stroking with a snowy cloth, soft and sleek as her own bare arms, setting all things in lovely order, and looking at her father every moment, with the skirt of her frock pinned up, and her glossy hair dancing jigs on the velvet slope of her shoulders. And she made him hungrier every moment by savoury word and choice innuendo.

“Worcester sauce, pa, darling, and a little of the very best butter, not mixed up with flour, youknow, but melting on them, like their native element. Just see how they are browning, and not a bit of the skin come off. What is it about the rhombus, pa, and when am I to read Juvenal?”

“Never, my child.”

“Very well, pa, dear, you know best, of course; but I thought it was very nice about weighing Hannibal, in the Excerpta. Father, put that book down; I canʼt allow any reading. And after supper I shall expect you to spin me such a yarn, dear, to wind up the thread of your adventures.”

“Τολυπεύειν,” said John, calmly, although he was so hungry; “the very word poor Cradock used in his rendering of that dirge—

“‘Μόχθον οὕνεκα τὸν κατʼ ἦμαρἘκτολυπέσας οἴκαδε,Μισθὸν φερων, ἤνυσας.’

Oh, I forgot; ah yes, to be sure. A word, I mean, which expresses in a figurative and yet homely manner——”

“Cradock, papa! Oh, father, have you been with him in London? Oh, how Aunt Doxy has cheated me! You know very well, my own father, that you cannot tell me a story. Did you go to London because poor Cradock was very, very ill?”

“Yes,” said her father, those soft bright eyes beamed into his so appealingly; “my own child, your Cradock is very ill indeed.”

“Not dead, father? Oh, not dead?”

“No, my child; nor in any great danger, I sincerely believe, just at present.”

“Then eat your supper, pa, while it is hot. I am so glad you have seen him. I am quite content with that.”

She believed, or she would not have said it. And yet how far from the truth it was!

“You shall tell me all after supper, my father. Thank God for His mercies to me. I am never in a hurry, dear.”

Yet Amy, in dishing up the mackerel, had the greatest difficulty (for her breath came short, and her breast heaved fast) in holding back the tide of hysterics, which would have spoiled her fatherʼs supper.

“My amulet, I cannot eat a morsel while I see your hand shake. Darling, I must tell you all; I cannot bear your anxiety.”

The second mackerel, a fish of no manners, instead of curling his tail at the frying, had glued it to the pan, until a tear of Amyʼs fried, and then he let go in a moment. John Rosedew caught his darling child, and drew her to his knees, with the frying–pan in her hand; and then he made her look at him, and she tried to have her eyes dry. Do what she might she could not speak, only to let her neck rise, and her drooping eyelids tremble.

“My own lifeʼs love, I have told you the worst. God is very good to us. Cradock has been at the point of death, but now he is better a little. Only his mind is in danger. And it must come home very slowly, if it comes at all. Now, darling, you know everything.”

She took his magnificent silvery head between her little white hands, and kissed him twice on either brow, but not a word she said.

“My own sweet child,” cried her father, slowly passing one arm around her, and swindling his heart of a smile; “I am apt to make the worst of things. Let us try to be braver, or at least to have more faith.”

She leaped up at that very word, with the dawn of a glorious smile in her eyes, and she took the frying–pan once again, and eased out, with a white–handled knife, mackerel No. 3. But, upon second thoughts, she let him slide into the frizzle again, to keep him warm and comfortable. Her heart was down very deep just now, but for all that, her father must have and must enjoy his supper.

“Father, I am all right now. Only eat your supper, dear. What a selfish thing I am!”

“Have a bit, my darling heart.”

“Yes, I will have a bit of tail, pa, just to test my cookery. Thatʼs what I call frying! Look at the blue upon him, and the crisp brown shooting over it! Come, daddy, no nonsense, if you please. I could have eaten all three of them if I had only been out on the warren. And you to come starving from London! Now No. 3, papa, if you please.” But she kept her face away from him, and bent her neck peculiarly.

“How beautifully fresh this ale is! Oh, the stuff they sell in London! I am almost inclinedto consider the result of taking another half glass.”

Her quick feet went pat on the cellar–steps, while her father was yet perpending; and she came back not a whit out of breath, but sweetly fresh and excited.

“Such a race, pa; because I know of one family of cockroaches, and half suspect another. They are so very imprudent. Robert Garnet says that they stay at home, and keep their Christmas domestically, and I need not run for fear of them, at least till the end of April. And perhaps he is right, because he knows and studies everything nasty. Only I canʼt believe what he says about ants, because it contradicts Solomon, who was so very much older. Now, you paternal darling, let me froth it up for you.”

“Thank the Lord for as good a meal as ever one of His children was blessed with.”

The parson stood up as he said these words, and put his thick but not large hands together, among the crumbs on the tablecloth.

“Now, if you please, the leastest—double superlative, pa, you know, likeπρώτιστος, and something else—oh, they will pluck me at Oxford!—the very leastest little drop of the old French cognac we bought for parochial rheumatism, with one thin slice of lemon, an ebullition of water, and half a knob of sugar.”

Before John could remonstrate, there it was, allwinking at him, and begging to be sniffed before sipping.

“My pet, you are so premature. How can I trust your future? You never give me time to consider a subject, even in the first of its bearings.”

“To be sure not, father. You know quite well you would take at least eight different views of the matter, and multiply them into eight others of people I never heard of. Now the pipe, dear. You shall have it here, because it is so much warmer. You know you canʼt fill it properly.”

So the parson, happy in having a child who could fill a pipe better than he could, leaned back in his favourite chair, which Amy had wheeled in for him, and held his long clay in his left hand, while his right played with her hair, as she sat at his feet, and coaxed him.

“Sermon all ready, dear?”

“Well, you know best about that, Amy; I always trust you to arrange them.”

“Never fear, papa; leave it to me. What would you do without me? I have put you out such a beauty, because it is Christmas Day: one that always makes me cry, because I have heard it so often. But you must have confidence in me.”

“Implicit confidence, my pet. Still I like to run my eyes over them, for I cannot see as I did. My eyes are getting so old.”

“Iʼll kiss them till you canʼt see one bit, if you dare to say that again, papa. Old, indeed! Theyare better than mine. And I can see the pattern of a lady–bird, all across the room. There was a lady–bird on the window to–day. At this time of year, only think! That was good luck, wasnʼt it? And a dear little robin flew in, and perched upon the hat–pegs; and then Iknewthat you must come home.”

“Oh, you superstitious pet! I must reason with you to–morrow.”

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON:PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.

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